A Father's Perspective
Announcing our 7th Real Life Story! The newest addition to our growing list of stories of real ESP couples comes from Ben and Alicia, two lawyers who work slightly reduced hours to equally care for their three boys. The story is told by Ben, who made the rare move of requesting a full 3 month parental leave (later extended to 4 months) when their first baby was born. His company offered this leave as a gender-neutral employee benefit, and Ben took them for their word.
This bold decision was the key to cementing his fully equal place in their baby's life. And Alicia loved his involvement because it made things easier for her to return to work. Having established himself as an equal parent from the beginning, Ben tells us about his many attempts (some successful, others not) at working a reduced schedule over the subsequent years and babies' births.
We hope you find Ben's wisdom about navigating the workplace as an ESP parent, and fighting for what you want, as inspirational as we do.
Enjoy!
posted by Marc @ 7:11 PM
1 Comments:
What a wonderful story. Our daughter is much younger, but as a lesbian non-bio mom who did the bulk of our daughter's home care from months 2 to 6 I am 100% on the same page as Ben. That time home was absolutely critical in establishing our family as equally sharing. I also love what Ben says about how their son could come to both of them for comfort and how that wouldn't have been possible without that extended one on one time. I'm so glad to hear that there are dads out there demanding flexible schedules, though I am a bit horrified (if not exactly surprised) that Ben experienced discrimination. Thanks for such a great story.
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