YES.
Recent studies have found that over 25% of women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce entirely. This is such a shame!
I have had the opportunity to lead, mentor, work alongside and report to many talented and ambitious women during my career. As a husband, I want to support my wife in doing the amazing work that she does and growing in her career.
As a father, I want to ensure my daughter has ever opportunity possible to pursue her professional aspirations.
Be a part of the new era who questions the traditional social norms that fatherhood and motherhood. It is time that we re-write the invisible scripts for ourselves, the people we care about and the future of our society.
We need to provide a level playing field for women, so that they can decide what is best for their careers and their families. Parental leave for both men and women is an important initiative to help this cause!
Two years ago, I took a paternity leave with my youngest son.
Paternity leave was a new benefit at my employer at the time. My manager asked me what my plans were for taking paternity leave.
I told him I was planning to just take a couple days off and then work from home for a week like I did when my other two children were born.
Even though my employer graciously offered an extremely generous benefit of 6 weeks off at 100% pay, the concept was so foreign to me that I naively didn’t even think twice about using the benefit.
I was busy growing my career and didn’t want to let down my clients and teammates.
As the father in the equation, I didn’t feel worthy of taking that much time off; especially considering that my wife was going to take her third unpaid maternity leave since her employer did not offer any paid parental leave.
Fortunately, my manager convinced me to take the full 6 weeks. The time was so precious for my family and me.
I had 6 weeks to focus on nothing but what matters most; my family. I even had the flexibility to take the time off in 2-week segments to help when my wife was transitioning back to work.
I felt like a whole new kind of dad. Dedicating the time to do nothing but take care of my family helped turn a new page for me in fatherhood. I was able to build an incredible bond with my youngest son, who still insists that I put him to bed every night.
I was able to help take care of my recovering wife. I helped at home while she transitioned back to work.
I was able to help my older two children adjust to having a new baby brother in their lives.
I will forever be grateful for this time.
As an aspiring leader in my industry, I am so glad that I was able to have this experience and hopefully set a positive example for others. It’s one thing to add parental leave to your employee benefits package, but what truly makes the difference is embracing it as a part of your CULTURE, so that employees feel empowered to use it.
Not everyone is as fortunate as I was to have an employer that provided such a generous parental leave program. If you can’t take off several weeks, do what you can. Depending on your employer, you may have access to FMLA which could provide you with unpaid job protected leave. Hopefully your manager and co-workers will be supportive of taking some time off. At a minimum, it doesn’t hurt to ask. The more employees ask for these types of benefits, the more likely employers are to offer them.
My advice to new dads is EMBRACE IT. Go all in. It’s weird. It’s exhausting. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it’s amazing.
Recommended content:
- For the nerds out there, I highly recommend this article from McKinsey that provides an overview of parental leave from both a wellness and economic perspective.
- Dads Documentary on AppleTV – entertaining and inspiring!
letswinatlife.com 
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