Comments on: The Wall Street Journal tries to guilt women into giving up maternity leave

By: Norcross

Norcross — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:36:50 +0000

That article is complete garbage. Luckily, my wife was just finishing law school and taking the Florida Bar exam when we had our baby, so there was no "leave" to take. Although, some paternity leave would have been nice. I had my vacation and sick time…that's it.

By: Penelope Trunk

Penelope Trunk — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 03:45:35 +0000

Canada sets a good example for maternity leave policy. Not only is it national, but it's longer than the three-month leaves we get in the US.

I like to think that the WSJ is not reflecting the general conversation in either Canada OR the US…

By: Wendy

Wendy — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 15:12:30 +0000

Here in Canada politicans, right and left wing newspaper editorialists (especially the conservative side), and oridinary people are debating and discussing how to keep educated women in the workforce. Many parts of Canada are in a labour shortage, and with baby boomers retiring, this will get worse. One solution — besides more immigration — is to try to tap into skilled, educated women who are also dedicated mothers who without some concessions from the workplace tend to "opt out" for a few years.

Discussions about flexible hours for parents, generous maternity and paternity leave, and the idea of a national daycare program are in the news and on the street everyday.

Apparently this is similar around the world — but apparently not at the WSJ.

If Wall Street companies want to succeed in the future, and attract and retain high quality employees, they may need to offer both good maternity benefits and an culture that values work-life balance and families.

By: Penelope Trunk

Penelope Trunk — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 13:52:04 +0000

Benjamin, thank you for bringing up the issue of paternity leave - it's a key aspect of creating positive attitudes toward maternity leave.

In organizations where senior managers take paternity leave, family-friendly attitudes trickle down throughout the whole organization.

There is tons of information about this online, of course, but here's one company that found that when senior executives took leave, lower-level employees were more likely to take leave:
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/sex_discrimination/pml/report/sectionc.html

By: Benjamin Strong

Benjamin Strong — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 11:27:39 +0000

I cannot believe such an esteemed paper would allow such nonsense to be published. What horrible advice. As a boss that is directly responsible for hiring people I have converted a full time position into a part time position to tap into the market of working parents. Our office lost a position and I was able to negotiate getting a part time position instead. The market of working parents, both men and women, is growing and I want to tap that resource.

As a father you can bet that I even took my family leave! I believe I was the first man in my organization to do so. Our first son had complications and spent two weeks in the NICU. Fortunately my office never blinked when I took the time off.

What do we earn leave for anyway? Wouldn’t an employer want to encourage an employee, foster a good relationship to keep them coming back?

Maybe Mr. Sutaria should be reading this blog to learn what career minded people really want.