
American Express will give all parents 20 weeks of paid leave - codegeek
http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/12/pf/paid-parental-leave-american-express/index.html
======
dharmon
This is a great step for what's really a sad state of affairs in the US.

My wife and I like to "joke" (it's not really funny) that we know enough to
not take a puppy or kitten away from its mother before 8 weeks, yet we make
human mothers go back to work after 6 weeks. And that's in CA, other states
have lower minimums, or none at all.

To those who don't understand parental leave: it is self-evident that child-
bearing is a necessary condition for the continuation of society. We also know
that time spent with parents, the mother in particular, during that first year
is super important for both mental and physical well-being. Just like we
subsidize public schools because we recognize the importance of education for
society, we should be happy to "pay for" parental leave.

~~~
rsync
"yet we make human mothers go back to work after 6 weeks"

No, we don't. We don't make them do anything. They are free to pursue whatever
course of action they choose to. Many, many parents choose not to go back to
work - ever.

I hope it works out great for AMEX and their workers - two private entities
that agreed on one detail, among many, of their compensation package. Good for
them.

Yes, I do have children - three of them, in fact - thanks for asking!

~~~
emperorcezar
There is a lot if hidden privilege that allows you to think for most people it
is a choice.

~~~
paulddraper
And there's a lot of hidden choice that you are ignoring.

A government mandate requiring companies to provide paid leave _forces_ (i.e.
opposite of choice) everyone else to pay for it.

~~~
Frondo
That is called society, and as someone who pays a lot of tax, has owned
businesses in the past, and plans to do so again, I fully support it. And I
speak out in favor of such ideas and plans, to encourage my fellow citizens to
support these as well.

~~~
paulddraper
And once you have enough citizens supporting such ideas and plans, you can
force the rest.

~~~
Frondo
Well, yes, just like taxes are a thing, and you can't drive on sidewalks or
against traffic lights, and we all pay for fire, police, courts, food
inspectors, and so on. Turns out the world is full of coercive behavior--if
you kill someone, there's generally a consequence, and so on.

Again, that's society.

------
gaur
Yet again, people who have family responsibilities through no fault of their
own (e.g., taking care of a sick parent or sibling) are ignored while
companies fawn over people who (largely) choose to pop out more mouths to
feed. I'm not saying parental leave is bad, but it's entirely eclipsed the
other reasons why someone might need to take time off work to help family.

Saying "I want 20 weeks paid leave and $35,000 to provide hospice care for my
brother" would probably result in derision and maybe a pink slip at many
companies, even ones that have generous parental leave.

~~~
pauleastlund
> people who have family responsibilities through no fault of their own ...
> are ignored while companies fawn over people who (largely) choose to pop out
> more mouths to feed.

This is really a regrettable choice of words. There is no "fault" involved in
becoming a parent. The point you are trying to get across could have been
communicated so much more convincingly if you had checked your attitude. "This
is a great first step, but many of us have responsibilities to other family
members, also -- sick or disabled parents or siblings, for instance. It would
be terrific to see benefits that support those needs as well."

EDIT: It has been (correctly) pointed out that my translation was lossy; I
dropped the fact that no one chooses to have a sick sibling, and thus it might
be even worthier of compensation / support than parenthood. That was
unintentional, and I regret it. I still think there's a less caustic, more
productive way to make that point.

~~~
gaur
A key point that I was making (and a point which your rewriting of my comment
completely erases) is that parenthood can be planned ahead for (or avoided) to
a much greater degree than other situations that require family leave. I could
have made some anodyne choice of words that obscures this fact, but I didn't
because I wanted to make the point that if we are giving people support for
voluntarily taking on extra family burdens, then it's absolutely inexcusable
that we don't extend the same support to people who have had similar burdens
thrust upon them involuntarily.

------
nunez
Their policy is quite generous. Not only does it also apply to men, but
they'll also chip in for parents wanting to adopt:

> And employees who wish to have a child will receive up to $35,000 for
> adoption or surrogacy for up to two children.

Congrats to AMEX employees!

~~~
run4yourlives2
It's not generous, it's normal for a first world nation, and has been for
about 15 years now.

It's the US that is really, really lagging behind here. And with many
corporations multi-national, Americans should really be asking themselves why
that is.

~~~
rtkwe
It's generous in that it's in no way required of them and is way beyond what
all but a handful of companies in the US provide.

------
mathattack
Enormously positive message. I hate that I have to recruit against them! The
real question is will men be able to take the 20 weeks without their mid-
management holding it against them. If someone in the C suite takes 20 weeks,
then it will be culturally ok.

~~~
lb1lf
We had this exact same discussion at my workplace (Large, UK-owned engineering
multinational) a while ago; turned out a lot of people expected long leaves to
have a detrimental effect on their career, but no-one had anything except
assumption to go on. My own experience (working in Scandinavia) suggest that
at least around here, career and leave is mostly a non-issue.

I am currently staying at home with our nine-month-old daughter; my wife
started working again when she was seven months old. I am now on paid leave
until May next, and have the following observations:

a) While my leave is of a slightly unusual duration (Father normally takes 10
weeks of leave or so - not 28 as I did), it is not unheard of. My line manager
actually claims to prefer longer leaves, and I believe him.

Reason? Much simpler to plan when you know employee such-and-such will be off
work for, say, six months rather than just a couple of months. You might even
get away with grabbing a temporary replacement from another department or a
temp agency, whereas if I had a shorter leave, he'd just be told to split my
work load on my colleagues and stop whining until I was back in the lab.

b) To the extent that the top brass ever talks to their minions, anecdotal
evidence suggests envy more than derision. My leaves (this being the third
one) has come up in conversation with executives on a couple of occasions, and
response has been more along the lines of 'I wish I could get away with doing
that!' or 'Good for you, I wouldn't last a month!' than 'WTF?'

Heck, during my previous leave, I was even promoted in my absence! (A minor
one, but still...)

c) My male colleagues are supportive, though most choose shorter leaves. The
most skepticism has come from female colleagues - who, while amused that I
take as much leave as I do, worry about what my wife really thinks about it -
after all, society is biased towards females taking care of infants, the first
year or two of their lives traditionally being seen as the mother's domain.
(No-one has voiced any concerns about the children, though - only about my
wife...)

~~~
azernik
Whether or not parental leave affects career prospects depends on cultural and
employer attitudes. Even after hearing your experiences in Scandinavia, I
still think career worries are a legitimate concern for taking parental leave
in eg the United States.

~~~
alkonaut
That's why it's so important to have tax funded (not employer funded) programs
that also have allocated days for each parent, quickly making it first
_acceptable_ but soon also _expected_ for both parents to take parental
leaves. That is - if it's an explicit goal for society to have parents and men
in particular take longer parental leaves.

My coworkers and managers would probably start wondering wth my values are if
I didn't take at least 4 months with each kid. I'd look like some kind of
stone age man to then I hope).

------
cylinder
Not a solution. Leaving it up to massive cashed up corporations only isn't
fair. It hurts small businesses who cannot pay this. It needs to be mandated
at the government level, means tested and subsidized. One more advantage to
mega corporations and one more weakness for small business, add it next to the
health insurance clusterf*.

You also need a huge cultural change in the American workplace, where people
act like an employee taking time off will crash the whole company. Theyve
hardly even heard of maternity leave contracts here.

------
PrimalDual
I read a couple of comments that say this is a step in the right direction to
reverse the demographic trend in most developed countries of decreased
fertility.

I don't think that we will ever be able to compensate a couple and mother in
particular for the cost of bearing children simply because we have made child
rearing so expensive. I am not talking about education or housing costs but
rather the opportunity cost.

I don't think there is any way to adequately compensate couples for the loss
in career opportunities and wages that they forgoe by choosing to instead
spend time raising children. The unfortunate thing is that the more
financially capable a couple is to raise children the less likely they are to
do so probably because of the increased opportunity cost. I am not sure even
the most generous maternity leave policies will be able to fix that.

------
synicalx
Kids are great, future of humanity and all that (at least some of them), but I
cannot wrap my head around why businesses should have to fund them directly. I
could understand subsidising this in some other way - maybe tax
breaks/refunds, or banks providing more lucrative savings/investment options
for future parents.

I get that people want everything, and they want it yesterday. They also don't
want to have to make choices, and certainly don't want to have to plan too far
ahead. But really, if you can't survive on one income for a year, then you're
not financially secure enough to support one or more children. The problem
that paid parental leave is trying to solve isn't a short-term money problem,
it's a long-term, generation-wide pattern of financial irresponsibility. The
old 'teach a man to fish' adage sums this up pretty nicely I think.

I'm genuinely in favour of supporting parents and encouraging people to have
babies, after all I'm going to need someone to sponge bath me after I soil
myself and forget who I am when I'm 80. I just don't understand why this is
considered the 'right' way to do it.

------
randomgyatwork
In Canada every family gets 52 weeks of 55% pay.

This 'progress' is behind the rest of the world, sure its a good innovation or
whatever, but why is the USA miles behind the rest of the world in this
regard?

Parents being around for their kids is important.

~~~
cloakandswagger
Want to spend time with your kids? That's fine, just don't expect to get paid
for it.

Here's my all American take on this: you made the choice to have kids. Don't
expect companies to subsidize your child-rearing efforts, we owe you nothing.

~~~
kylepdm
I think you've completely over looked the benefits to the individual, and
society, as a whole when you allow parents to spend more time with their new
born kids.

It's really easy to say "hey you decided to have a kid, so that's on you". But
you do need children to sustain society in the future. It does them a lot of
good if their parents can spend more time with them during their infant stage.

Also that attitude is really detrimental to women. Are future mothers supposed
to choose over one day raising a kid or their careers? Doesn't society lose
out on a lot of potential if we just say "sorry, if you want a kid then you're
going to find a new job" ?

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
Im all for societal level support of parents, I just don't think the
obligation should be on corporations. I dont think a corporation should be
required to do anything but hold your position open for up to 3-6 months as a
sabbatical. (I do think we should have a parental unemployment benefit, to
make up the pay.)

But it seems fundamentally unfair to impose on the business's ability to
function (or other people's ability to get hired/promoted) because _you_ want
to have a kid.

So if you want to incentivize parents, do it through social benefits, rather
than unreasonable demands and distortions of the labor market.

~~~
ska
The Canadian 55% mentioned above is an unemployment benefit, so there is some
confusion in this thread. The obligation to the corporation is that they
maintain your job (or equivalent) for some period, I forget the details.

Corporations are free to offer top up benefit, and many do as a competitive
incentive.

~~~
twblalock
That's way better than the way people expect it to work in the US.

------
clifanatic
My kids were born 11 and 13 years ago... can I get a job there and take those
40 weeks retroactively?

------
mabbo
Every now and then I wonder if I should have stayed in the USA rather than
coming back to Canada. I could have made a lot more money. Then someone like
you says something like that, and I breath a big sigh of relief.

Thanks, I was due for one of those.

~~~
dang
Please don't react to a comment with a bad thing in it by turning that into
the entire subject and going one worse yourself. That's the opposite of civil,
substantive discussion.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13160679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13160679)
and marked it off-topic.

------
revelation
It's American Express, their money is made by a bunch of servers in racks,
they could put half of their staff on paid leave for an entire quarter and the
numbers would be unchanged.

~~~
chipperyman573
Do you know what website you're on right now?

~~~
revelation
It used to be a website where people posed useful counterpoints instead of
redundant rhetorical insulting questions.

Of course the ability of a company like AMEX to offer these benefits hinges
directly on the fact that a large number of their employees are non-essential
to the value producing process.

