I'm on the leave right now! I am writing this comment with my baby daughter on my lap, and it’s not easy - sorry for the typos (oh boy, do babies love grabbing

I'm on the leave right now! I am writing this comment with my baby daughter on my lap, and it’s not easy - sorry for the typos (oh boy, do babies love grabbing the phone). Automattic (The company I work for) offers six months of paid parental leave regardless of gender. Both my wife and I work there, and she just finished her parental leave. I decided to take the full six months right after. I have to admit to some reservations because I am a team lead, so I was worried it would hurt my career, or the work that we’re doing (and I’m pretty proud of) won’t be there anymore when I’m back. But then my baby daughter is the most important thing in my life, and this is the only opportunity to spend so much time with her. I did some mental accounting, and here’s why I think going on parental leave is good for everybody: - Antifragility: it’s the same case as with sabbaticals. Nobody should be irreplaceable, and forcing the company to be without kohl’s decision-makers for extended periods reduces the bus count factor. I had to put a lot of work to make the system more robust and documented so it won’t break in my absence. - The inevitable parental leave forced me to delegate much more than I would be otherwise comfortable with. After all - my team would stay without me for a long time so I had to make sure I’m not a blocker. - When you’re an individual contributor seeing your "superior" postpone or cut short the parental leave or a sabbatical sends a clear signal that you shouldn’t be taking one either. I was thinking of cutting my parental leave short to for example four months, but that would send a signal that that’s not important. I don’t wanna set an example of a bullshit hustle culture. - The imminent parental leave made me focus on high leverage long-term important work vs short-term day-to-day business. That focus has actually been a force multiplier for everything I did. When you have unbounded time due to Parkinson’s law the stuff you have to do will fill it up. If you have limited time to do something you will be much more productive. If you need something done, ask a busy person. - I also don’t want to contribute to the world where the freaking work is more important than a child. Despite all those great reasons I still had some reservations before taking before six months off. I had a nagging feeling on the back of my head that I may be should cut this a little short, despite EVERYBODY (including my lead, HR, and CEO in the DMs) convincing me to take as much as I need, so I see how hard of a decision can it be for somebody less supported. I am two weeks in and I am very happy that they took the whole time. I've written about my plans for this time here: https://piszek.com/2021/07/10/parental-leave/ https://piszek.com/2021/07/10/parental-leave/