Why You Can’t Have “Family Values” Without Valuing Fathers

When my wife was pregnant and I realized I would need to be home, I discovered that Time Warner had this strange policy under which anyone could get ten paid weeks, unless you were a man who impregnated the mother of a child. I went, in private, straight to [the Time Warner] benefits [department] and said, “I’m sure this is an oversight and you didn’t mean to exclude dads.” They wouldn’t give me an answer for months. Then my daughter was born in an emergency delivery, and eleven days later I’m home holding my four-pound preemie, messaging benefits, saying “Hey, I need an answer.” That’s when they wrote back to say that they would be unable to give me paid leave benefits. I decided to file a suit with the EEOC for gender discrimination.

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Paid leave is not a law requiring businesses to pay you when you’re out. Paid family leave is an insurance system that would tax 20 cents for every $100 you make. Studies show that when people find out what paid leave is, they support it.