Odd Man Out
Why isn't anyone else taking paternity leave?
by Matt Pusateri
November 16, 2009
Something strange happens when I wear the baby.
I slip into a black carrier, strap the baby in, make sure she's snug, put a hat over her tiny head, then head out. A woman with a baby on her hip? So common most people wouldn't notice. But a man, by himself, with a baby on his chest, bobbing and bouncing with every step? Before I might have been invisible to the world. Now people look twice. Tough guys on the corner smirk, sometimes laugh. Ladies behind the donut counter wave. Security guards soften their glare and grin. Pretty women stop to talk. Old men smile.
When I wear the baby strangers in markets and bakeries and subway stations stop to ask questions, make weird baby talk, or serenade my daughter. People tell me what I'm doing is "wonderful." Flooded with waves of attention and praise, I might momentarily lose myself and forget that I'm just doing what I'm supposed to: being a father to my child.
But our culture sees it differently: a man, alone with his baby — even in 2009 — is somewhat rare and unexpected. One reason for this: most men have little opportunity to take an extended leave from work shortly after their babies are born. Within days or weeks of a child's birth, most new dads are back at work.
For me, deciding to take paternal leave last September to be with Isabella, my four-month-old daughter, was easy. I knew I wanted to spend time with her once my wife's unpaid four-month maternity leave ended. We didn't want to put her in daycare so early. And my company's paternal leave policy was unusually generous — six weeks paid, plus any available sick time, up to four months. So the question for me wasn't whether to take paternity leave, but how much? That, it turned out, was the tricky part.
Only thirteen percent of U.S. employers offer paid paternal leave to allow men to spend time at home with a new baby.
Few men in the American workplace take paternal leave. In part, this trend reflects America's stingy attitude towards family leave. According to a Harvard University report, of 173 industrialized countries studied, 169 guarantee paid maternal leave for women. The U.S. — along with Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland — is among the four nations that offer nothing. Moreover, 66 of 173 countries guarantee paid paternal leave; the U.S. does not.
In the U.S., family leave benefits remain at the employers' discretion. As a result of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, men and women working for organizations with fifty or more employees are entitled to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave to spend with a newborn child without risk of losing their jobs. Few men, however, can afford to lose two or three months salary. Especially if their wives or partners may also be taking unpaid maternity leave.
Only thirteen percent of U.S. employers offer paid paternal leave to allow men to spend time at home with a new baby, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management. Even when the opportunity exists only fifty-eight percent of men opt to use paid paternal leave available to them.
Armin Brott, author of The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips, and Advice for Dads-to-be and The New Father, suggests that men often struggle with the balance between work and family roles. "Most new fathers," Brott writes, "feel torn between two options that feel mutually exclusive: protecting and providing, and being an involved, nurturing dad."
"There is still a lot of fear among people," Brott says, "that they aren't going to make partner, they aren't going to get a promotion, they won't be taken seriously in their job . . . and to some extent, they're right."
©2009 Matt Pusateri and Babble
About the Author
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Matt Pusateri is a freelance writer and first-time father living in Washington D.C. He is working on a graduate degree in nonfiction writing at Johns Hopkins University. His ideas, writing, and rushed judgments appear at mattpusateri.com.
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