next »

[canadatourismguy]

I just officially adopted my niece last week and discovered something really interesting.  I am eligible for paternity leave.   Now I would not take it because: a) we are getting to the end of term; b) the purpose is to bond with the child (she has lived with me for seven years - so I am pretty sure all the bonding that is going to happen has already done so); and c) I think my co-workers and dean would go ballistic. 

People I have joked about this with today have been quite adamant that a male taking paternity leave would be highly frowned upon by the powers that be and fellow faculty members.

So my question for the wise fora is; Is paternity leave for faculty members really just lip service to pretend to show progressiveness?

 

[glowdart]

Small sampling, but my colleagues have been able to take paternity leave without fuss.  That said, their spouses always seem to have some travel-heavy profession or work as a doctor who needs to be in surgery/on-call, etc. 

[prytania3]

It *shouldn't* be, but since I don't know anyone who has actually taken it--there's a good chance it is lip service, which is really too bad.

[harry]

I had a great experience with my department when I took paternity leave for what was essentially a whole semester. Our college-level unit in the university had worked out a system whereby you only had to contribute enough sick days to cover your teaching days, rather than cover a 40-hour work week like staff. (We don't get paid paternity leave, but you can use sick days to continue being paid under FMLA). That was great, since my wife also works for the university and therefore we had to share the available FMLA leave.

One caveat to this--in just getting out of my classes, my tenure clock didn't stop. I was expected to do research and attend the occasional committee meeting, as well as faculty meetings. I did go to those meetings, and I brought our baby, who helpfully was not disruptive and pretty cute at 3-4 months old.

I'll be honest--I didn't think too much of it, though perhaps I should have. I just did it, trusting in the decency of my colleagues. I didn't get any nasty glances or comments, no impact on my annual reviews, and no impact on my subsequent tenure decision. I also work at an R1 institution, so it's not necessarily a warm and fuzzy liberal arts college. (Since I'm in the humanities, however, I didn't have to supervise a lab or anything like that.)

This is one of those situations that doesn't occur in a vacuum. I had already created good relationships with my colleagues, I was well on my way to tenure, etc. etc. Had I not prepared the ground in that way--though I wasn't intentional in doing that to prepare for a kid--things might have been different.

Your situation, of course, is different, since as you note your niece has been with you for sometime. Plus she's older (presumably), so going on paternity leave might be construed as a way to get an early sabbatical--i.e. you're on leave so that you can be home the whole day to prepare for when she gets out of school.

[prytania3]

Oh, but congratulations to both you and your niece on the official adoption!

[stitch]

My only experience was on the staff side.  A male staff member took two or three weeks after his first child was born.  Noone blinked an eye.

I have to agree that it's definitely a context issue.

That was great, since my wife also works for the university and therefore we had to share the available FMLA leave.

I'd never heard the concept of sharing FMLA.  In the situation above, both parents were staff members.  She took the full 12 weeks in addition to his taking a few. 

I suppose the argument could be made, assuming the mother was not physically disabled from the birth, that both parents were not needed to care for the infant at the same time.  So maybe they wouldn't both be allowed to use fmla on the same day.  But they would still each get their 12 weeks.

[the_honey_badger]

Two of my colleagues took and also had tenure clocks stopped. Both had "stay-at-home" (their term) wives and both already had at least one child.  No one in our super-conservative college frowned on it and in fact encouraged it.  (That they got to look "progressive and family-friendly" was something they milked to death while adding unpaid extra classes to untenured people to cover for our absent friends.  This, however, was a system/admin driven decision so no one resented the colleagues, just the chair and dean for grandstanding on the backs of others).  The fact is that if a policy exists you should be able to take it without any flack.

[temporaryname]

I took a semester's paternity leave with the tenure clock paused) not terribly long ago. My department was amazingly supportive and happy for me, but HR handled things poorly (no surprise, I suppose) to the point of insurance lapsing, and worse, the administration at the dean and provost level made it clear (informally, with no paper trail) that I'd be expected to show an extra year's research productivity no matter what the university regulations said. The logic was that paternity leave is different from maternity leave, and I obviously wasn't being honest when I claimed that I was the full-time primary caregiver for a newborn that semester. Not happy.

I'm not there anymore, though, and have landed at an amazingly family-friendly university, so there's a happy ending to the story.

[sciencephd]

I know Europeans who have taken it, but they probably don't count.

[janedoh]

In Canada, I know 3 men who have taken a semester of paternity leave upon the birth/adoption of their children. One was tenured, the other two are still pre-tenure. One didn't tell anyone he was planning on taking leave until the last minute. No one really batted an eye (but people were a little annoyed by the last minute notice to cover classes).

[t_r_b]

I am told that my current institution still lacks any official provision for maternity leave: not even lip service. New mothers have to use sick leave instead. Around here, paternity leave amounts to a pipe dream (but then, the same seems to be true of COLA raises).

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this report, but that's the word on the street in TT-ville.

[canadatourismguy]

I had a chuckle thinking that if I was in Canada still I could have been off nearly a year with 2/3 my pay (being off on E.I.) versus having to take sick time and two weeks max here.

It is pretty amazing how diverse the policies related to paternity leave are.

[toothpaste]

Fathers should take parental leave whenever they can. Otherwise the burdens of parenting will continue to fall predominantly on women's shoulders without workplaces adjusting accordingly.

[harry]

I'd never heard the concept of sharing FMLA.  In the situation above, both parents were staff members.  She took the full 12 weeks in addition to his taking a few. 

I suppose the argument could be made, assuming the mother was not physically disabled from the birth, that both parents were not needed to care for the infant at the same time.  So maybe they wouldn't both be allowed to use fmla on the same day.  But they would still each get their 12 weeks.

Actually, it's now black-letter law that the 12-week FMLA period must be shared if both partners are with the same employer. That only applies, however, to FMLA for healthy babies, adoption and foster care, and caring for one's elderly parents. Each partner can get the 12 weeks for children with serious health concerns.

This section was formalized in the Dept. of Labor's "Final Rule" on FMLA which went into effect January 2009. In part, that rule contained clarifications as well as new interpretations, so my guess is the shared FMLA was a clarification. It may be that the college you're thinking of was operating under a different interpretation (mine wasn't, and clearly discouraged one from making a stink about it), or it may be that the college had better policies. There's nothing to prevent an employer from offering better leave policies--FMLA just sets the legal minimum.

[new_bus_prof]

Around here it's not quite, but close...

Instead of splitting the teaching load they simply pile it all onto the next semester. Several fathers here have taken parental leave and reaped the repercussions of heavier teaching loads the next semester.

Of course, we don't tend to have a lot of adjuncts around these parts.