
What Marissa Mayer's maternity leave decision means for working parents at Yahoo - pmcpinto
http://www.fastcompany.com/3054512/second-shift/what-marissa-mayers-maternity-leave-decision-means-for-working-parents-at-yahoo
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rnernento
I'm not sure that I agree with this. With the current state of Yahoo Mayer is
clearly in a tough position. She can't afford to be absent AT ALL. I suspect
employees may recognize that her circumstances are not the same as their own
and take the time they need.

~~~
username223
I'm inclined to agree with you. If the board is questioning Mayer's
leadership, i.e. her boss thinks she is not that great independent of her
pregnancy, she's on thin ice. But what do I know -- if I were her, I'd gladly
take the $100 million golden parachute and retire at 40.

~~~
ryandrake
I don't get it. With or without a golden parachute, she is likely already in
the class of people who have enough wealth to never have to work a day in
their lives ever again if they don't want to. Her children will probably not
ever have to work a day in their lives either. Why choose not to take time
with them? They're only babies once.

~~~
askafriend
This is why us normal people aren't hyper successful. We're not psychotic
enough.

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pen2l
Do you know there are guys working at Walmart who are forced to miss the birth
of their children? I personally know a guy who was in this situation, he was a
cashier at Walmart and was forced to miss his child's birth because he was
forced to be there on a busy day.

It's not just CEOs and high-paying folks not taking time off for
paternity/maternity leave, it's everybody people who work in autoshops, cell
phone stores, construction jobs, etc.

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kumarski
That's awful. Didn't know that type of thing still happened.

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the_ancient
What kind of Candy coated, sheltered existence do you have?

Missing a childs birth is disappointing, not being able to feed that child is
awful... Not being able to get that child medical care is awful, Children
working $2 a day to make your $500 pants is awful.....

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massysett
What she is doing sends a message not to take all your leave. It also shows
she is a poor manager. No manager, even CEO, should be so irreplaceable that
she cannot step away from the job for several weeks, especially when the leave
is anticipated. The leave should be viewed as a valuable opportunity to ensure
that successors are being groomed and are ready to step in.

She might think this "unique time in Yahoo's transformation" talk shows that
she is pitching in to help, but all it says to me is that she either thinks
she is more important than she is or that due to poor management she really is
that important. Fail either way.

~~~
the_ancient
I disagree 100%...

The board did not hire "other managers" they hired her, for the expressed
purpose of turning Yahoo Around, and splitting out the Ablibaba Stock, now
they have reverse that and will split out Yahoo Core but the fact remains when
a Major restructuring like that is going on your damn right the CEO, the one
hired by the board, should be at the helm, not the "other managers"

Ultimately people need to stop looking to other people as "examples" and
determine for themselves what they need to do for their family. If Yahoo
Provides X leave, and a person chooses to only take Y, that is their choice,
that does not mean other employees can not take all of it.

Society seems to be developing a massive co-dependency problem and loosing
individualism.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
"...what they need to do for their family."

Exactly.

~~~
the_ancient
Which may or may not include taking time off.

What you view is as a "need" may not be what someone else views as a need and
people should not feel they must take 3 months off, or even 3 days if they do
not desire to do so.

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davedx
Typical. Zuck takes half his parental leave, yet Facebook employees say "Four
months and very little pressure to come back to work. I've personally never
seen anyone not take the full amount when they had a child."

When Mayer doesn't take her full leave, she is setting a bad example and
pressuring her employees.

What is the difference, here? Oh wait, I see it now...

~~~
mrob
The difference is two months vs. two weeks (assuming Mayer's "limited time"
will be the same as with her previous child, which is the best guess with
nothing else reported). Two months is still reasonably generous by American
standards, two weeks is not.

~~~
jacquesm
Two weeks after giving birth to twins is ridiculously short.

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freewizard
Well, what if she took 6 months off? Would there be another kind of
criticizing, given Y!'s status?

Tough be a woman in sv.

~~~
atom-morgan
I'd applaud it. There's nothing I hate more than seeing people putting in
extra hours at work instead of spending that time with their kids - especially
when they're young. At nearly every job I've had I worked less hours than co-
workers with a spouse and kids and I'm 25, single, with no kids. It's sad.

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fizixer
yeah but what does "limited time away" mean?

The whole article would be a waste if that really meant a couple weeks short
of what mothers take on average.

edit: okay, it says she took 2 weeks leave for her first child. That's short.
A key point is "does she have a small army of maids at home?" because she can
afford that when an average worker can't.

~~~
HillRat
Actually, she built and staffed a nursery at her office, which is certainly a
luxury not available to the average worker. Her statement on the matter
doesn't acknowledge the fact that she has resources that are unique to her,
which I find somewhat disingenuous.

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frik
Her CEO stint will get an textbook example and taught in university/business
schools.

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klunger
Can you elaborate?

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keketi
She's a woman.

~~~
DanBC
It's hard to untangle the sexist ranting from the actual critique.

Submitted article is saying that she should have taken more maternity leave in
order to make it culturally acceptable within Yahoo for other parents to take
that leave. (That's a good point, and is probably true.)

But if she had taken more leave we'd have had a bunch of articles saying why
she's terrible for taking that much leave.

The future people will want to know why her PR is so terrible; and will be
able to see a bit more clearly whether what she did was useful or not.

~~~
viscanti
I'm not sure it's a sexist ranting though. Zuckerberg just faced a similar
criticism (about the precedent he is setting by only taking half the allotted
time). I suspect that most CEOs would face criticisms if they were about to
spin-off the primary business and become a holding company for international
stocks (very few people would have defined that as a success before Meyer
stepped in).

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chrismcb
Maternity leave is not about her, it is about the children.

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flavor8
Tangent: I think that paid paternity/maternity leave is prejudicial against
those who have chosen not to have kids. I get the sleepless nights in the
first few months, and wouldn't want to deny parents time to bond with their
newborns.

But looking at it objectively, why should a company offer benefits associated
_only_ with parenting? It benefits society (not individual companies) to
encourage breeding, and therefore parental incentives should, if they exist at
all, come from the state rather than private enterprise.

At the company level, flexible personal paid leave for employees who have
earned it might be a fairer arrangement.

~~~
rayiner
Parental leave is available to everyone. It's not prejudicial just because you
choose not to take advantage of it, just like it's not prejudicial to offer
gym memberships to people who choose not to work out.

Besides that, parent leave is better seen as an _accommodation_ (like
bathrooms or wheelchair ramps), not a _benefit_. It's a human function
necessary to society--until the robots take over anyway. Because it's uniquely
tied up with work schedules, it's reasonable for society to force employers to
make the accommodation. It's entirely reasonable for private enterprise to
sometimes be forced to foot the bill for activities that benefit society
rather than the business itself.

~~~
flavor8
> Parental leave is available to everyone.

That's a parent-centric view. Some of us a really not wired to have offspring.
Obviously the magnitude of the situation is different, but your statement is
along the lines of saying that "marriage benefits are available to everybody"
prior to gay marriage being legalized.

> It's not prejudicial just because you choose not to take advantage of it,
> just like it's not prejudicial to offer gym memberships to people who choose
> not to work out.

That's a question of magnitude also. Parental leave for software engineers is
easily a $10-20k benefit. Gym membership is a $100/mo benefit.

~~~
rayiner
> Some of us a really not wired to have offspring.

Some of us are really not wired to go to the gym!

> Parental leave for software engineers is easily a $10-20k benefit. Gym
> membership is a $100/mo benefit.

But people use the gym benefit throughout their working life, while they will
use the parental leave benefit typically just twice (on average). Averaged
over a 30-year career, the net cost of the two benefits is about the same.

