> At this point I think it’s pretty clear that you have an unstated ideological problem with this policy, because your complaints about it are not coherent. My

> At this point I think it’s pretty clear that you have an unstated ideological problem with this policy, because your complaints about it are not coherent. My claim is that the time it forces parents to leave work negatively impacts their career. Sure, you can get paid your same wage, but you miss out on promotion opportunities, new ventures launched by the company, valuable professional development, networking, etc. Sorry if that wasn't obvious. My view on family leave was shifted by my first paternity leave, in which I happily took my state's fully funded paternity leave and realized... it was a waste of time and money. Don't get me wrong... I enjoyed it, but it was pretty obvious to me that I missed out on a lot of valuable time at my company and when new teams were started for new initiatives, the company was obviously going to choose people present at the company available to start the new work to lead the teams. No ones going to put the guy on paternity leave in charge of a team with a deliverable in a few months. And yet, when you get back to work, there's no guarantee there's going to be a similar business opportunity. Thus it seems to me that the best way to move ahead in your career is to be 'in the game'. Imagine this... Imagine if fathers had to withdraw all their investments for 14 weeks when they had a baby. In return, the government would guarantee preservation of their capital vis a vis inflation. Would we be surprised that they had less yield at the end of their life than childless men? of course not. Professional life is similar. Time in the market is the biggest determinant of how high you'll get on the career ladder. > How exactly does paid leave decrease the wage of familial bread winners? By impacting the biggest determinant of wage growth -- promotions and experience. > And how in the world is paying parents to spend time with their children making normal families “suffer”? Because as the system plays out, and more and more parents take time off, the only people left are the single people or the childless, who have more access to professional development, more experience than the similar aged father/mother and thus get promoted more easily. To me it seems like you are wedded to the idea of long paid paternity leave because it feels good. I mean... I agree, it sounds great. But I think the negative effects are too much, and very obvious if we're honest with ourselves and if more men honestly assessed the utility of their paternity leave.