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

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#561

Post by yesenadam » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 12:37 AM UTC

tropo wrote: post #545

lacker wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80% of the personality is formed in the first 5 years of development. There's just a huge difference between a 3-month-old baby, who can't recognize faces yet and spends most of the day sleeping and eating, and a 3-year-old child who is running, jumping, telling stories, making friends, and learning to read. For a 3-month-old baby, I doubt that parents do much more than a random babysitter. For a 3-year-old child, th…

We hope for "a 3-year-old child who is running, jumping, telling stories, making friends, and learning to read." It could also be biting, jumping off of tables, hiding poo, poking holes in drywall, poking both ends of the dog, hitting sleeping parents with tools, and learning to scribble in books.

Children are haughty, disdainful, quick to anger, envious, curious, self-seeking, lazy, fickle, timid, intemperate, untruthful, secretive; they laugh and weep readily; the most trivial subjects give them immoderate delight or bitter distress; they wish not to be hurt, but they like hurting others: they are men already. – La Bruyere, Characters (1687)

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#562

Post by triceratops » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 12:55 AM UTC

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #432

resolaibohp wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To even use FMLA you must have worked for the employer for at least a year, at least one of the major restrictions. For example if you have your baby a couple days before your 1 year work anniversary and your employer does not offer parental leave, you are pretty much forced to quit just to be able to take care of your baby for 3 months. FMLA is not the solution for everyone.

That's a feature not a bug, otherwise you'd have people gaming the system. I'd say if you haven't worked a year, you don't deserve a year off, pregnancy or not. Plan your life accordingly and take responsibility.

Cool so if you get laid off but find a new job immediately, you still have to put off babymaking plans?

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#563

Post by souprock » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 1:24 AM UTC

istjohn wrote: post #554

souprock wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From another comment, it looks like the father only gets half, but I assume you get weekends off too. Sweden also has 25 days of vacation. I have a kid about every 600 days. (have 12 so far) Out of that 600 days, it looks like I'd work just 164 days. It would be 2-day weeks for decades. That is quite a way to run a country. I think it only works because there are very few births in Sweden.

Basing policy on 99.99 percentile sized families would certainly be odd.

Policy would change what the 99.99 percentile is. If having a large family means that you don't have to work, many more people might do it.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#564

Post by scruple » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 1:41 AM UTC

aetimmes wrote: post #246

0xcafecafe wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens to your responsibilities at work while you are out? And are you totally cut off from work while you are out or are you occasionally responding to mails? Also are you more of an individual contributor or have a leadership role?

I was/am an IC on a medium-sized team. I had a project I was the primary contributor for within that team that I've handed off to my teammates to continue (after writing up documentation and doing some knowledge transfer). I occasionally log in to read my email to keep up-to-date with happenings among the team, but I haven't needed to respond to anything since I went out. Our team made an effort in the last year to r…

First time I'd seen it called the "lottery factor." I like that much more than the "hit by a bus factor."

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#565

Post by dang » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 2:02 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #506

dang wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please edit out swipes like "What are you on about" from your comments here. They poison discussion badly. The rest of your comment is fine. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

My apologies. Unfortunately I cannot edit that comment anymore.

Appreciated. I've re-opened it for editing if you want to take that bit out.

If you do, let us know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can remove the [flagged] annotation.

Edit: removed now.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#566

Post by jschwartzi » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 2:07 AM UTC

legostormtroopr wrote: post #533

sudders wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you miss the biggest point. This will have a significant impact on the wages of women. As suddenly women are not longer at a disadvantage when companies need to decide who to hire for a certain position.

I don't understand this argument. A man and a woman can decide that whats best for them is that he not take leave, but for the benefit other people he should take parental leave. Even if he enjoys working, even if the mother has decided she wants to stay home, even if they need opportunity that work brings (such as the opportunity to get promotions). Even if there are a hundred reasons for a man to not want to take l…

Frankly I would rather you be forced to take the 2 months off so that I can safely take it without people like you sneering at me the entire time.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#567

Post by jschwartzi » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #528

aetimmes wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the question. Can you elaborate?

If you dont have the money to take 6 times off, who is giving you the money to do so? The basic economic question of giving someone money is that you are taking it from someone else. Is it childless employees? Is it taxes? Is it the unemployed?

Your question makes it sound like he's stealing from someone by taking paid time off to be with his child. In reality, the money is coming from a corporation, who presumably has already costed the risk and is willing to accept it.

Moreover money is not zero-sum. The way you talk about it, there's only a finite number of dollars in the US and he's stealing some from someone else. This is not even remotely how our economy works. And frankly that's a crazy idea that could be applied to all kinds of things. For example, by working you're stealing money from your employer who could easily spend that money on himself. How dare you work?

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#568

Post by legostormtroopr » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 2:43 AM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #566

legostormtroopr wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this argument. A man and a woman can decide that whats best for them is that he not take leave, but for the benefit other people he should take parental leave. Even if he enjoys working, even if the mother has decided she wants to stay home, even if they need opportunity that work brings (such as the opportunity to get promotions). Even if there are a hundred reasons for a man to not want to take l…

Frankly I would rather you be forced to take the 2 months off so that I can safely take it without people like you sneering at me the entire time.

Who is sneering? You can take 2 months off, you can take 2 years off. Take time off for children, sickness, holidays. Its none of my business.

What I am against is the government enforcing someone who must take time off from work, that may not be in their best interests.

I support your right to chose to take time off, and I support your right to not take time off too. I don't support the government telling you, you must take 7 months off at the cost of your career, because you taking time off helps others.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#569

Post by username90 » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 4:56 AM UTC

legostormtroopr wrote: post #556

teekert wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure no one can force you away from your laptop and colleagues, but also, no one can force you to work. It's a protection. I like it.

> no one can force you away from your laptop and colleagues But they can! The article talks about 2 months the father must take off.

It is just government sponsored leave, you can choose not to take it.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#570

Post by dragonsngoblins » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

legostormtroopr wrote: post #555

growse wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to have 10,000 people working for you to be able to afford to hire cover for when people going on parental leave. 10 people or 10,000 people, if you can't afford your staff going on parental leave / long term sick / vacation, you don't have a sustainable business.

> if you can't afford your staff going on parental leave / long term sick, you don't have a sustainable business You've never run a startup or small business. At the beginning margins can be razor thin, and unplanned or extended leave can have a huge impact.

Parental leave shouldn't be unplanned though, there should be several months of notice surely