Essay On Paternity Leave

As of right now, the U.S. does not have a direct law pertaining to paternity leave; Paternity leave is a period of absence from work granted to a father around the birth of his child. A study that was recently released in January shows that fathers who take a leave of two or more weeks, are more likely to be involved in childcare related activities. Therefore, fathers should be allowed paid paternity leave from work.

In previous history, it has always been that men were dominant in the work field and women were devoted to the private house hold of children or cleaning. During WWII, women took on many caring responsibilities and nursing the wounded soldiers back to health. That opened the door to the idea of women getting a job and then also being the one known to take off to care for the children. Originally in 1984, the Women’s Legal Defense Fund wrote the draft that later became the Family and Medical Leave Act (History of the FMLA). The act states: any eligible employees of covered employers can take unpaid, job-protecting, leave up to twelve work weeks. Then many vetoes and arguments later, the FMLA was passed in 1991 and 1992 by President Clinton (National Partnership). It was created for women to regain their health from the childbirth process and to gain a stable schedule for the baby. But even with the ‘Family’ meaning it can go for dads too and with more fathers wanting to be involved with their children, though does not provide any comfort towards the man about his job.

Statistically not many fathers have taken the full FMLA leave, or even much past a week of leave. On average, men take around five sick or vacation days off by negotiating directly with their boss (James Levine). It’s rare to find someone w...

... middle of paper ...

...eave a month before she had the baby and it showed that there was a seventy-three percent less likely to have a caesarean section. It works better for the mom if she doesn’t have a c-section so then it’s a shorter hospital stay and takes less recovery time. Also it has been shown that women who take maternity leave have less diverse complications and birthing problems ( Med Page Today). This is very affected by stress and having more maternity leave time can help reduce stress. Even though in the end it would be more effective for the men to receive a paid paternity leave since mothers already have one in place.

Finally having the dad home for the first few weeks of a childs life can really make a drastic difference in the mom, house, family and health wise. Concluding that fathers should receive paid paternity leave around the birth or adoption of a new child.