paternity leave

[AmyC]

Last time, my husband found out that he didn't have to use any vacation or sick time; his employer gave an automatic two weeks of paternity leave that didn't count in his regular paid time off. So that's what he took.

This time (different job), he's been trying to find out what he can expect. Human Resources finally got back to him on Friday, and said that if he takes 3 weeks of his own time (which he has saved up, in preparation), they will match it with 3 weeks paid leave. After that, he can take unpaid leave if he wants or needs more time.

6 weeks paid! I'm so pleased. We need that time and I'm glad he can take it.

Is this pretty typical? I know benefits can be all over the map, but this seemed to be FMLA-related, according to the woman in H.R. Unfortunately, I think that may be all they offer (paid) for maternity leave, too.

I remember that some of my Canadian friends split their time off....Mom went back to work after 3 months or so and dad stayed home for what was left of the leave. Or else the year of maternity leave can be slightly shortened by whatever leave Dad takes at the beginning (and when exactly she went on leave from work--before the birth or not.) But I may have misunderstood the system, there.

What are you planning?

[Kidzaplenty]

No, not typical. At least not for us. My DH just found out that his "paternity leave" consists of 6 weeks, unpaid. And if he takes it, it comes under the FMLA, not really paternity leave. And if he wants pay, he can use his vacation or sick days instead. We have no savings at this time, so all he can take are the five days of sick days he has left (he only got 6 for the year).

But, at least he does have a few days. That is something.

[broodymama]

DH is in the military, so he'll be able to take his 2 weeks of baby leave. By sheer coincidence, his leave period following the deployment he just got back from starts this coming Friday and lasts until my due date, which is very convenient. I'm so happy that he'll be home to help for the last couple weeks!

[njbeachgirl]

DH is taking 2 weeks of vacation time. Although if I don't have the baby by monday I think I will ask him to make sure he is not entitled to any other paid leave when he goes in to the office.

[aprilsfools]

Nope, that is not normal. DH is taking 2 weeks vacation.

[julesinottawa]

Canadians definitely enjoy more benefits in this area and I often cringe when I read what american families suffer regarding maternity and paternity leave. A working woman is entitled to a year off with employment insurance (that's about 55% of full pay) but if the woman doesn't take this leave, the husband can. And many companies will top up the pay. For example, I'm already a SAHM so my dh would be entitled to take the parental leave (that's the term we use) and the military would top him up to 93% of full pay. When my ds was born, he took 4 months of that and it was heavenly. This time, he isn't doing it though. It does have some impact on pension so he would rather just use his post deployment leave (just returned from Afghanistan) and he'll probably dip into his 5 weeks leave that he hasn't used yet. If for some reason the challenges were greater than expected (we have a high risk for Down Syndrome) I might ask him to take more depending on the situation.

[HidaShara]

Originally Posted by AmyC

I remember that some of my Canadian friends split their time off....Mom went back to work after 3 months or so and dad stayed home for what was left of the leave. Or else the year of maternity leave can be slightly shortened by whatever leave Dad takes at the beginning (and when exactly she went on leave from work--before the birth or not.) But I may have misunderstood the system, there.

What are you planning?

In Canada (or maybe just in Ontario?) *each* parent gets up to 35 weeks of parental leave. This is in addition to the 15 weeks of maternity leave you get. So I will be taking 50 weeks of maternity + parental leave.

As for DH, he *could* take his 35 weeks either right after I give birth so that he's with me for the first while, or he could take it once I go back to work, meaning someone is home with the babe for the first 85 weeks of it's life.

As it happens, DH is a student, so he doesn't need to take leave at all... he's home most of the time anyway (as a philosophy student, he has like 12h of class a week or something. ) So our new LO will have both of us for 50 weeks, and then DH until he/she is old enough to go to school or daycare... or until I'm off with another pregnancy/birth.

[finnegansmom]

FMLA is generally unpaid, and you have to be at the company for 12 months prior to birth. My dh took 3 days vacation last time, out of his PTO. He started a new job in April and only has 4 days banked so that's all he gets. I worked at my last company for 18 months prior to having my son and I got ZERO paid maternity leave. I took the unpaid plus all my vacation days that I had to save up which means while I was pregnant I took NO DAYS OFF. I won't even go into where they wanted us to pump during work.... "family friendly is a joke".... That is typical where I live.

[xixstar]

No paternity leave here - dh will just use up a couple weeks of vacation. Good thing he's got it, but he never really uses all his leave anyways and it's been accruing for a couple years. He asked if they offered paternity benefits, nope. Its a small company, so thats just how it is. No FMLA either, but unpaid leave wouldn't really help us either as we rely on his income 100%.
I'm happy he'll be home afterwards for a couple weeks, wish he could stay home before hand too, but then would eat up vacation too fast.

[calynde]

My dh gets one week of paid paternity leave and is taking an additional one week of the 5 weeks of paid vacation he receives. That should hopefully get us through the craziest phase at least.

[njbeachgirl]

Originally Posted by finnegansmom

I worked at my last company for 18 months prior to having my son and I got ZERO paid maternity leave.

Is that even legal!!?? How cr*ppy!

[catnap70]

Originally Posted by AmyC

6 weeks paid! I'm so pleased. We need that time and I'm glad he can take it. Is this pretty typical?

It really isn't--it is very generous for most US companies. FMLA allows 12 weeks of time off--for eligible employees (1 year service in a company of 50+ employees and have worked 1250 hours in the last year)--but does not require that it is paid. Many companies do allow accrued paid time to be used but the law does not require it.

For a lot of families, that doesn't amount to much. It is nice that the law allows the time but most families can't afford to use much unpaid time.

DH is self employed so I might get 2 or 3 days but then he will back to work.

The US system is sorely lacking in this area. Don't even start reading about what mamas get in European countries!

[RubyOrganique]

We have our own business so there is no paid time off ever. In fact, it costs us for him to be off. We are planning on two full weeks in lieu of our semi-regular 'vacation' but I'm guessing it won't be totally uninterrupted time off.

You're very lucky. FMLA only applies to larger companies, so if someone works for a small business with under 50 employees, I don't believe there is any legal reason they have to give you time off. And my understanding is that FMLA only guarantees time off with your job secured, not necessarily paid time off. NY state doesn't have any law that applies to all employers in regards to maternity or paternity leave to my knowledge, but I think there are some other states that have state mandated requirements. Pretty pathetic. My friends in Europe are astounded by how poorly our country deals with quality of life benefits. I think one of them was required to take 7 weeks off for his newborn and his wife got a year.

Catnap is right - don't even read about what other developed countries do to nurture this very important time in a family's life. It's depressing.

[newfiemomma]

I'm in Canada, so I will be off for 50 weeks from the day of baby's arrival. I have been off now for 6 weeks under my work's sick leave as well as Employment Insurance sick leave that will cover me for a total of 15 weeks or until the baby is born. DH is taking 3 days of family leave as well as his regular 3 weeks holidays. We are lucky that he works 2 days, 2 nights then 4 days off, so even when he is working, we have that 4 days off to look forward to. He could use some of my 50 weeks of parental, but since my shifts are longer with less days off, it makes more sense for me to take the full 50 weeks.
Sounds like you are very lucky, as well. I know some Mommas on here don't get much (if any) break.

[~Megan~]

Wow! That's awesome.

We completely lucked out last time. Dh had worked for his company for 3+ years and had a bank of time called short term disability. They discontinued short term disability but he had 3 weeks saved up that he had to use before the end of the year.

He took his 3 weeks short term disability as family leave, then 2 weeks of PTO. After that his boss let him work from home for 1 week, work from home half days and then to work the other half day or something like that. We ended up with him home for 2 months.

This time he has 1 week he can take off work. He can't work from home now because the new program they use doesn't work well from a distance

[JennaW]

Well, the way it works at DH's work is that the first two weeks he has to take PTO. After that he can take up to 6 weeks (I think) of "disability" and get 60% of his salary. We just can't afford to lose 40% of his salary right now, so he is just going to take the 2 weeks PTO.

[AmyC]

I'm not sure what would happen if he didn't have the 3 weeks of vacation/sick time in the bank already, because that's what they are "matching."

I think that is their policy for maternity leave, and when the H.R. person checked, she was told it's the same for women & men.

I think her FMLA reference was to unpaid time after those six weeks are up...that he would be entitled to a period of unpaid leave. We are not in a position to go entirely without pay, since I stay at home, so I just was glad to know we'd have six weeks of paid time. So nice that half of it isn't "charged" to his account of PTO, too. (I'm not sure if he'll have anything left in his own bank after he uses 3 weeks....when we talked awhile back, it sounded like he had a lot of time accrued but I don't remember how much.)

He generally accrues time pretty quickly, and the rate goes up after a certain number of years. Those kinds of benefits are a nice perk of academic jobs...the vacation time usually is pretty good, and you often get tuition benefits for your children, which is nice when it comes to college!

I feel like he's never gotten a chance to decompress since his surgery, and all the work he's done to pick up the slack around here, so being able to be home (even though it will be with newborn twins & a four-year-old) should relieve a lot of the stress. Even if it's still a lot of work....mowing to keep up with and demands from our daughter, and me needing his support (and cooking!)....at least he won't be trying to juggle that at the end of a day at work.

[BetsyS]

Dh travels several nights a week for work. I'm 39 weeks now, and he's toying with the idea of not traveling this week and working from home. He'll definitely not travel next week (40-41 weeks) and work from home.

When the baby comes, he'll take a week of vacation time.

Last time, he had a more generous boss, and he didn't travel from 36-41 weeks (worked from home), then took a week of vacation. I was also working then (SAHM now), and I took 12 weeks of unpaid time, but it started at 36 weeks when I went on bedrest.

[finnegansmom]

Originally Posted by njbeachgirl

Is that even legal!!?? How cr*ppy!

This company was so hideous, that they made me pay full price for my health insurance while I was on my unpaid FMLA leave AND made me pay full price for my parking pass in the garage while I was away as well. : Needless to say, I have since quit and now work for myself. :

[prothyraia]

My husband gets nothing. Not at the place he works now, not at the place he worked when my son was born. : The did have 2 weeks paid paternity at the place he worked in between, though.

The kicker? He works in the mental health field.