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Comment by rapsey | Hacker News Reader

> Studies have shown that paternity leave can set the tone for fathers’ long-term relationships with their children and families. Children whose fathers took at least two weeks of paternity leave reported feeling closer to their dads even nine years later, according to a joint study of sociology professors at Ball State University and Ohio State University, which also found that paternity leave is linked to lower divorce rates.

Causation/correlation.

Coming from a country where the father can take 30 days. Honestly for the vast majority of births the father is unnecessary to be there after two weeks. The child spends the first month basically eating and sleeping. The father needs to be there to help the mother while she recovers and two weeks is enough.

Of the fathers I know who took the full 30 days, they did so for home improvement projects not because they were actually needed that much.

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> Honestly for the vast majority of births the father is unnecessary to be there after two weeks. The child spends the first month basically eating and sleeping.

I took 3 months off for my first and 4 months for the second. My wife was pretty miserable through the first month. Breastfeeding is exhausting, as well as being woke up at various time of the night. I'm glad I was home so I could take care of the rest.

I agree that afterwards things got easier, and we were able to enjoy some vacations.

But still there is a huge difference between spending a few hours at the beach with the baby and going back to work whole day.

This was our experience as well. There was no way I would have left my wife alone for the first 4-6 weeks. Even though we didn't have any complication and a relatively "easy" birth. First month was just survival mode. I took 5 weeks off (4 weeks paid paternity leave and another of annual leave) . I'm glad I was around. It increased my confidence as a father too.

Frankly that sounds like your partner had problems with depression. Not everyone's experience is the same but requiring 3 months full time care by two adults for a toddler is not the norm.

He never stated that 3 months were necessary. Only the first month was mentioned.

Beside that recovery from birth itself can take quite some time (tearing, C-section etc.).

Beside that I wonder if a post-partum depression might even be considered a normal complication when around 15 out of 100 women get one(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5941764/).

It’s a totally different story with 2 or more children.

Your toddler won’t be quite as accommodating to the schedule of a newborn. Having two parents at home makes it much easier to manage a newborn, erratic sleep schedules, and other children.

That is if the older child is not in kindergarden.

That's 5 or 6 hours a day for 5 days a week. Do you think toddlers just look after themselves for the rest of the time?

I don't know how it works in your country, in mine kids are in kindergarden while the parent(s) is at work. After that it has both parents available.

That kinda depends on your working hours, which pretty everyone who doesn't encounter the problem seems to forget.

Two or three days a week I'm alone with my daughter for most of the afternoon and evening. My wife works retail and isn't home until right around our daughters bedtime.

If I worked in retail, you could easily end in a situation where I'd be home during the first opening hours of the daycare, but not be home for 4 hours in the afternoon and evening where daycare isn't available.

You seem to have been down voted but I don't think you're totally off base.

I'm the father of 4 kids, currently aged 2 months - 5 years, and I took 1-2 weeks off for each one. I think that one week about what is really needed for fathers in baseline cases, although special cases (premature births, post-partum depression, health problems with the mother or child, etc) definitely need more.

The problem is that you can't really "bond" with a baby as a father (in a two-way sense). They don't realize you exist, and they don't really start to get to know you until some time later, maybe after 6 months.

I think longer leave probably makes sense for the first baby, because that is a big life adjustment and it's easier to handle when you don't have to worry about work. But for baby numbers 2+, I just don't see that longer leave is necessary in baseline cases. So I'm not sure it's right for the state to require that employers offer longer paid leave.

That said, generous parental leave policies are still a nice bonus for parents and can be a competitive edge for companies in hiring. My firm has offered 6 months' paid parental leave.

> Honestly for the vast majority of births the father is unnecessary to be there after two weeks. The child spends the first month basically eating and sleeping. The father needs to be there to help the mother while she recovers.

So are you saying the father doesn't need to be there for the child after two weeks? Or are you saying he only needs to be there to help the mother after two weeks?

I've heard of some maternity leave policies that differ based on type of birth (longer time off for caesarean), and it would actually make sense to give fathers the same so that they can help the mother. Of course, you are absolutely right that some fathers take leave but don't spend it caring for wife/child. I'm not sure how to get around this problem, but it seems that we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater, to use a terribl(y appropriate) turn of phrase. We just have to understand that some people will abuse the policy, but that overall there is a net benefit (to fathers, children, and mothers) to offering it.

If the mother is at home with the child and is recovered. My toddlers did not require two full time adults taking care of them.

For the parents I know who did that, they were 100% helicoptering over them.

That's great for you! Many babies cry a lot and make it difficult for one parent to care for them, shop for groceries, prepare food, etc. My friends and I have found that mothers who are nursing at all hours are generally too tired to do everything else around the house, especially if there are other kids.

Glad to hear there are some folks whose kids don't require as much care, but I'd say most moms would say that they are sleep-deprived and not fully functional for months after the baby is born. It might not take another full-time adult, as you say, but it sure is helpful to have the father around to take care of things and give the mother some respite.

If the father is working that does not mean he is absent for the entire day and unavailable to help at all.

> shop for groceries, prepare food

Can be done at any time of the day (you know prepare and reheat later) and by any of the parents. Even if one of them is absent for 8 hours.

This is hilariously out of touch. Shopping for groceries with an infant (or an infant + toddler) is a challenge for a single parent. It is absurd to say that you can shop for groceries at any time of day — you have to go when the kids are not napping (ever have two kids on different nap schedules?) or nursing, and then you have to manage getting them into and out of car seats, shopping carts, etc.

Your comments strike me as so out of touch that I wonder if you are simply trolling.

I think it depends on the kids. I have 4 kids under 6, and I've never had a problem shopping with any combination of them, especially as infants (although the most recent one, at 2 months old, has never been out due to COVID).

But I could definitely see it being a big problem if you happen to have kids who tend to cry in & around a shopping cart. I think it's just the luck of the draw.

I'm also not a single parent, although we always do the shopping trips solo.

Why would you need to shop for groceries any time? If mother stays with a kid father can do all the shopping on the way home from the work. What's som complicated about that? Also, in my country home delivery services are very popular with moms. You can indeed do grocery shopping any time. Now, during pandemic, those services are popular with everyone, of course.

Are you only reading the first few words of my sentences or something.

One parent is with the kids, the other goes shopping. Same for cooking. Both of these activities can be completed once the other parent comes back from work. Just because one person works does not mean they are completely unavailable to help in any way.

No, I've read your comments carefully. I even read them to my wife, who had a good laugh. This latest comment tries to reframe the grocery shopping bit to involve both parents, but this isn't what you originally said. You said a parent can go grocery shopping anytime, but now you're saying they can do it anytime after the other parent is home and watching the kids. That's a pretty big difference.

Also, after dad gets home, then it's time for dinner, bath, and bedtime. Mom could run off to the grocery at dinnertime, but most families try to have meals together so that's not a great option. And mom has to be home at bedtime, at least if she is nursing.

> You said a parent can go grocery shopping anytime

And what I meant was they have the freedom to go anytime. Obviously the most optimal time is when both parents are available and at home.

> Also, after dad gets home, then it's time for dinner, bath, and bedtime

If you have that little time after work, then that is an entirely different issue.

> If you have that little time after work, then that is an entirely different issue.

Little kids eat dinner super early because of bedtime. We eat dinner at 5:30 these days. I don't know anyone who gets home from work much before then.

> And what I meant was they have the freedom to go anytime.

Yeah, if you don't mind waking up your napping baby or toddler, sure you can go anytime.

I try to give comments the benefit of the doubt, but I'm done with these shape-shifting arguments. Have a good one!

I think that depends entirely on you situation. I had two weeks leave, and three weeks of vacation right after, meaning I stayed home with my wife and daughter for the first five weeks.

For us that was barely enough, and based on our experience, fives weeks should be the absolute minimum period for the father to say home after birth.

So what if some father take the time to do projects around the house. At least they're still there to spend time with their child and the mother.

Not sure why you're mixing things up so much. In Sweden both parents get two weeks leave from the birth of the child which is separate from the parental leave. Then usually the father go backs to work and let the mother take the first few months of parental leave, and then the father takes a few months after that.

That actually sounds like a great system. I think it makes more sense for the father to take time off a bit further in.

This is ... based on your own observation and experience?

Two happy kids with a likely third. My experience and observations and discussions with other parents.

Don’t have kids myself but I’ll point out that due to the natural social filtering of those around us whom we spend time with being more similar to ourselves than not, your perspective may be more valuable as a data-point .... though I suppose to settle this we’d need to look at how rigorous the study was, etc.

Thank you for your thoughtful response to my question :).

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