5 ms·

I'm a US male who's 1 month into my 6 months fully-paid paternity leave with our first child. My wife has roughly 4.5 months between banked PTO and FMLA/disabi

I'm a US male who's 1 month into my 6 months fully-paid paternity leave with our first child. My wife has roughly 4.5 months between banked PTO and FMLA/disability leave. I'm sitting at home right now watching/changing/feeding our baby while my wife is out at doctor's appointments taking care of her health. Having the flexibility to practice a modicum of self-care without neglecting the health and happiness of our child has been such a huge boon to our family. If anyone has any questions about the experience, feel free to ask.

0xcafecafe 7y ago
What happens to your responsibilities at work while you are out? And are you totally cut off from work while you are out or are you occasionally responding to mails? Also are you more of an individual contributor or have a leadership role?
- aetimmes 7y ago
  I was/am an IC on a medium-sized team. I had a project I was the primary contributor for within that team that I've handed off to my teammates to continue (after writing up documentation and doing some knowledge transfer). I occasionally log in to read my email to keep up-to-date with happenings among the team, but I haven't needed to respond to anything since I went out. Our team made an effort in the last year to reduce some of the silo-ization of knowledge and increase our 'lottery factor', and I think those efforts have helped make sure that the team was prepared for one of us going out on leave. At the very least, nobody has called me up saying "hey, your systems are on fire!", so that's been nice.
  - 0xcafecafe 7y ago
    Thanks for the reply!
  - scruple 7y ago
    First time I'd seen it called the "lottery factor." I like that much more than the "hit by a bus factor."
zionic 7y ago
6 months paid? Holy cow. Even 1 month would seem like such a luxury to me.
- aetimmes 7y ago
  It's been a pretty amazing workplace benefit to have. My wife and I remark to each other on a daily basis about how lucky we are to be able to be home together to take care of the baby. We're planning on having at least one more child and I can't see myself working for a company that doesn't have a similar leave policy.
conanbatt 7y ago
Would you have taken 6 months off without pay to do what you are doing now?
- aetimmes 7y ago
  If I could afford it, absolutely. In reality, my mortgage and other financial commitments would likely have necessitated me going back to work. What we likely would have done instead is staggered my wife's medical leave with a shorter chunk of my own PTO rather than both of us being home at the same time, and put the baby into childcare earlier than we're currently planning on doing.
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    If you are a bet receiver of funds, who is the net giver?
    - aetimmes 7y ago
      I don't understand the question. Can you elaborate?
      - conanbatt 7y ago
        If you dont have the money to take 6 times off, who is giving you the money to do so? The basic economic question of giving someone money is that you are taking it from someone else. Is it childless employees? Is it taxes? Is it the unemployed?
        aetimmes 7y ago
        In my case, I get a paycheck from my employer as usual. I'm not sure how the specifics work; my employer might pay a premium to a private insurance firm and receive reimbursement from the firm when employees go out on leave so that they're not paying salaries of people who aren't working for them. But at any rate, the cost of providing this leave is similar to other non-mandatory benefits provided by a company (like health insurance), which gets rolled into the cost of doing business and likely gets passed on to our customers. My wife's leave comes from our state's short-term disability insurance program, which I believe draws its funds from state taxes.

0xcafecafe 7y ago

What happens to your responsibilities at work while you are out? And are you totally cut off from work while you are out or are you occasionally responding to mails? Also are you more of an individual contributor or have a leadership role?

aetimmes 7y ago
I was/am an IC on a medium-sized team. I had a project I was the primary contributor for within that team that I've handed off to my teammates to continue (after writing up documentation and doing some knowledge transfer). I occasionally log in to read my email to keep up-to-date with happenings among the team, but I haven't needed to respond to anything since I went out. Our team made an effort in the last year to reduce some of the silo-ization of knowledge and increase our 'lottery factor', and I think those efforts have helped make sure that the team was prepared for one of us going out on leave. At the very least, nobody has called me up saying "hey, your systems are on fire!", so that's been nice.
- 0xcafecafe 7y ago
  Thanks for the reply!
- scruple 7y ago
  First time I'd seen it called the "lottery factor." I like that much more than the "hit by a bus factor."

zionic 7y ago

6 months paid? Holy cow. Even 1 month would seem like such a luxury to me.

aetimmes 7y ago
It's been a pretty amazing workplace benefit to have. My wife and I remark to each other on a daily basis about how lucky we are to be able to be home together to take care of the baby. We're planning on having at least one more child and I can't see myself working for a company that doesn't have a similar leave policy.

conanbatt 7y ago

Would you have taken 6 months off without pay to do what you are doing now?

aetimmes 7y ago
If I could afford it, absolutely. In reality, my mortgage and other financial commitments would likely have necessitated me going back to work. What we likely would have done instead is staggered my wife's medical leave with a shorter chunk of my own PTO rather than both of us being home at the same time, and put the baby into childcare earlier than we're currently planning on doing.
- conanbatt 7y ago
  If you are a bet receiver of funds, who is the net giver?
  - aetimmes 7y ago
    I don't understand the question. Can you elaborate?
    - conanbatt 7y ago
      If you dont have the money to take 6 times off, who is giving you the money to do so? The basic economic question of giving someone money is that you are taking it from someone else. Is it childless employees? Is it taxes? Is it the unemployed?
      - aetimmes 7y ago
        In my case, I get a paycheck from my employer as usual. I'm not sure how the specifics work; my employer might pay a premium to a private insurance firm and receive reimbursement from the firm when employees go out on leave so that they're not paying salaries of people who aren't working for them. But at any rate, the cost of providing this leave is similar to other non-mandatory benefits provided by a company (like health insurance), which gets rolled into the cost of doing business and likely gets passed on to our customers. My wife's leave comes from our state's short-term disability insurance program, which I believe draws its funds from state taxes.