Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums • Hacker News Board

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#101

Post by bhaak » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

lardo wrote: post #33

bhaak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But both genders can feed the baby. It is not a rare situation where a mother doesn't have enough milk to feed a baby without additional food. What other things are mother-only things in your opinion?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939272/

Posting a link without at least a short summary of what argument this link should prove or disprove is not very inviting for discussion.

Especially as my comment didn't even touch upon pro or contra breastfeeding but just stated a simple fact or reality.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#102

Post by hugg » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #86

Many comments laud this as a step towards gender equality, which is a noble goal. However, I do wonder about the unforeseen consequences. All mammals (afaik) are raised by mothers. Humans are mammals. Humans do a good job of making changes to our nature, and for the most part those changes have resulted in better lives. However we still have things like nuclear families. Children aren't taken away from parents and ra…

What kind of good reason would you be looking for? I mean for most just spending time with their small children and forming good relationships with them is 'good enough'

And yes, gender equality has not been tried fully in a society yet so it's hard to know.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#103

Post by muricayeah » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

baby_wipe wrote: post #61

I strongly dislike the idea of any government-mandated paternal leave. Staying home from work is not free, and the cost of it comes out of my salary. I personally want some paternal leave even with its costs, but I'd prefer that negotiation to stay between me and my employer. I don't want some bottom threshold set by a third party.

>and the cost of it comes out of my salary.

Why should it come out of you salary? Why can't it be fully paid?

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#104

Post by blub » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

dudul wrote: post #88

wincy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious what what happen if someone wanted to have ten kids and abused this system, and the mother didn’t work. At a gut I feel like I’d be less likely to have kids, not more, if I felt like I was burdening other people by accepting benefits like this. I have no worries as an American having as many kids as I want because I make a good salary, can afford them, and won’t take more than a weeks, maybe two weeks tim…

The goal is probably more to reach equal pay/opportunity as opposed to any population growth agenda. When I was in the EU, I knew a woman who had 4 kids, each ~1/1.5 year appart. So she would have a kid, be out 6 month, go back to work for 6 month, have another kid, rinse and repeat 4 times :) . It was a total nightmare for her employer because they couldn't let her go, and they couldn't hire anyone permanently to do…

A smart employer would have hired someone full time to have slack. Especially after the 2nd kid.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#105

Post by jopsen » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

wincy wrote: post #40

sudoaza wrote: post #2

Germany has this and is awesome. 14 months paid leave to distribute among the two parents.

I’m curious what what happen if someone wanted to have ten kids and abused this system, and the mother didn’t work. At a gut I feel like I’d be less likely to have kids, not more, if I felt like I was burdening other people by accepting benefits like this. I have no worries as an American having as many kids as I want because I make a good salary, can afford them, and won’t take more than a weeks, maybe two weeks tim…

> ...“have two kids and that’s as many as you should have”, and any more would introduce strong social pressure to stop.

I live in Denmark (but I suppose it's somewhat similar in Finland), there is very little social stigma to recieving support from the state.

Because such support is everywhere: child care is supported, parents are given money for each child under 18, when you turn 18 you get educational support, university is free (in fact you get educational support), when graduating you get unemployment support the next month while looking for a job.

I don't think we think of receiving benefits as burdening others, it's more a matter of solidarity. Most people more or less pay off the cost they incur to the state through taxes. So accepting benefits isn't shameful.

Note. it is possible to not get benefits, my little brother said no to educational support during highschool (while he was living at home). It was ~200 USD/month -- but he is a special case, most 18 yearolds do not say no to free money :)

(My little brother later did accept educational support during university ~1k USD / month).

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#106

Post by gambiting » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

nisuni wrote: post #54

Thanks but no thanks. When I’ll have a baby I‘ll have to breastfeed, after having carried him for nine months, and having him exit through my private parts. Give me my extended, non trasferrable maternal leave! Edit: since some people are misunderstanding my point: extending the paternal leave costs money. I would rather prefer those money being spent on more maternal leave.

Mothers already have a year of maternal leave, this is about fathers getting decent amount of leave as well. No one is taking anything away from you.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#107

Post by kaybe » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

weinzierl wrote: post #70

In Germany it is the parents who get the leave and they can freely decide who takes the 12 months of it. Even better yet: If they decide to split they get an extra of two months, so 14 in total.

And it usually ends with the mother taking 12 and the dad taking 2, and these 2 being spent on a longer vacation somewhere.

There are many reasons, it seems to me that external circumstances are shaping a lot of them.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#108

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #85

sgt wrote: post #3

Seems a bit bizarre seeing that mothers in most cases will need to spend more time with their babies. After all, there are certain things like breastfeeding that only a mother can do.

Would make more sense to point out how ridiculously short maternity leave is in many places. Like the US isn't it a couple of weeks or something and not even paid? I noticed when visiting the US that breastfeeding was not very normal. Like they don't even teach it in a standard hospital. Finnish moms are getting longer maternity leave than most countries in the world with this system. If other countries can manage wi…

> I noticed when visiting the US that breastfeeding was not very normal. Like they don't even teach it in a standard hospital.

Not sure how you would notice that when visiting, but, yes, they do.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#109

Post by gylterud » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

When we had our first child (in Sweden), we could divide the time (13 months total) freely between the two of us. Then we got some extra money if each of us took more than 30% of that time. I think they stopped with the money bonus, but it was really great for us.

We are now having our second child (now in Norway), and while the father quota is great, they now require the mother to be "in activity" (i.e. working) if the father is to have anything more than his quota. This feels like an unnecessary restriction, which we didn't have in Sweden.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#110

Post by sandos » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #22

Good job Finland! Fellow Nordic here (Norwegian) and a dad. The father quota here in Norway made a huge social change. It really helped make it socially acceptable for dads to spend more time with their children. I noticed for my two sons how much of a difference it makes being around your kids when they are young. You cannot cannot substitute short time with "quality time." The amount of time you are there matters a…

Its also good for the dads!

"Globally, paternity leave can increase fathers’ involvement within families and this has benefits for the children, the co-parent, the father himself, the economy and society."

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/06/16/involved-d...