Even parental leave in Europe could be better
slite.com
slite.com
The worst of it is that, in the end, it sometimes feels easier to fit into the mold and be a bystander in your baby first months. But I am fighting hard this tendency.
I think this is a very good system. Me and my wife have been talking about how valuable it has been for us to spend the first couple of months together and bonding with our child, both learning what signals mean hunger, gas or being tired.
I work from home so I'm still able to help my wife with taking care of the baby, for which I'm very thankful. We take a long walk at lunch every day and if I need a break I can be with my family. I feel like I live in the greatest country on earth.
Just say no, live a simpler life if needed...
Parental leave should really be set up as a simple insurance system. Require employers to get insurance on workers that would cover X months of leave at full salary. In the long run it’s just not very much money compared to a person’s total salary over a 40 year working life.
"You're not people-first until your parental leave policy is"
Wow, I had no idea; that's awful. In Germany parents share 14 months at two thirds of their average salary (capped at 1800 EUR each, though). Moms get another 6 weeks before their due date. You're also entitled to more time, unpaid.
Is that a cap per week or per month?
Such a weird way to construe a relatively generous and beloved solution.
When I say it's a very German solution, I mean that there is often something in German laws, regulations, policies, and sometimes norms were a kind of...social? element or awareness seems to be missing or lessened, and there's a stronger emphasis on the rule-in-itself or, in this case, the benefit. Certainly this policy may or may not be exclusive to Germany. But it sets off that feeling.
It's my sense that a more prosocial policy wouldn't put two stressed parents of a newborn in a situation where parents have to debate with each other, or even think about, who gets how much leave, and then know that them taking 8 months is the reason the other parent could take only 6 months.
As for beloved, well, everyone loves benefits they're entitled to, and I support parental leave benefits, but the German birthrate indicates this policy isn't motivating much behavior. "We" should be looking more closely at what we can do to create healthier social environments beyond just offering people money. This has the knock-on effect of making happier, healthier kids.
People usually figure this out months in advance. Nobody I've talked to seemed to find divying parental leave particularly stressful. Maybe your experiences are different.
I still don't see what alternative you're proposing regarding parental leave other than having a fixed allocation.
I'd be open to less flexibility, mostly because it'd get more dads to take more than the current "minimum" of two months (leaving twelve months to the mom). I don't think that's a very popular (and politically viable) position, though.