Paternally Yours - India Inc. and the Daddy Clause in the light of Zuckerbaby
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement recently that he will be taking 2 months paternity leave has cast the spotlight firmly on the daddyhood domain...the cans and cannots, the whys and why nots. So perhaps now is as good a time as any to address the generic mindset that a man who wants to stay at home, or take more time off after having a baby, is not just considered less of a man, but less committed as an employee. And that, THAT needs to change!
As the first millennial CEO of a Fortune 500 company, Zuckerberg is part of a generation of men who place greater value on work-life balance. His COO is none other than "Lean In" doyen Sheryl Sandberg, who not only advocates for more women in leadership roles but for more dads to take on diaper duty. In fact had Zuckerberg not chosen to take time off as a new father, it would have sent a rather contradictory message. Following his announcement, Facebook also announced that from January 2016, it would extend its policy of 4 months of paid leave to both male and female new-parent employees beyond just its U.S. personnel to all Facebook employees, globally.
Both are significant milestones, in the global discussion about parental leave and how it affects the organisation and the employee irrespective of which parent it is, as well as in the ongoing debate over the gender gap and how to bridge it. To have a male Fortune 500 CEO say he will take two months of paternity leave and tout its benefits for children and families is the sort of leadership by example that's necessary, both to get more men to follow suit, and to help female executives feel they can do the same, without having to compromise their career progression. When it comes to India, these winds of change seem to be blowing merely in little bursts and only across select corporate circles. The likes of Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, McKinsey, Ernst & Young and Facebook have chosen to be fairly generous in terms of the paternity leave benefits (which include paid leave, flexi hours and work-from-home options) that they offer with paid leave for new fathers ranging from 14 days to an entire 4 months. Then there are employers such as Infosys, Deutsche Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Sapient, to name just a few, who are treading in cautiously with anything between a 2 to 5 days paid leave for new fathers. For the majority of other corporate entities in India however, paid paternity leave appears to be the proverbial pill, they’re not yet willing to swallow.
Yet this doesn’t seem to be a scenario where one can accept the “something is better than nothing” theory for long. The fundamental idea behind offering paternity leave is that when men play a significant role in child-rearing, the early bonding strengthens a more involved father-child relationship going forward. It gives the new father the time and opportunity to slip into his newly-minted role, without the usual work pressures and distractions. With the steady increase in nuclear families, without the traditional support framework of grandparents and other relatives, the father being present also offers much-needed support to the new mother who could be feeling overwhelmed and possibly experiencing post-partum blues. Keeping these in mind, isn’t upholding a 4 day or lesser paternity leave, merely paying lip service to the concept? Even God reportedly needed 6 days to create the world. Expecting daddyhood to be divine enough to trump that and actually create a bond that matters or be present in any useful way, in half that time, might be a tad naive.
Having said that, even with paid leave, how many Indian men (even amongst the minuscule urban corporate subset under consideration here) would feel secure enough to actually take a couple of months or more off, to better induct themselves into fatherhood? Are our men emotionally equipped to slip on the domesticity cloak while forsaking the daily battles and its wins and losses that make up the corporate battleground and a large part of their identity? With the resources more easily available to hire cheap domestic help in our country to look after and help rear one’s child, how many of these dads would actually be hands-on in changing diapers or taking on feeding and burping duties? But while as a country and society, we wake up to the importance and relevance of paternity leave, let at least more employers, offer these options and create the environment where one day paternity leave will seem as natural and necessary, as maternity leave is considered to be. Gender equality, after all, needs to work as much for men as for women.
Or with social media having taken over our lives the way it has, could new fathers too do with some much-cherished time in clicking, posting and sharing new baby pics and aww-some moments? With an open letter to Baby Max from Mark and Priscilla Zuckerberg going viral within minutes of their baby girl’s birth, maybe Zuckerbaby will show the way. And if you’re one amongst the 43 million (and growing) followers that Mark Z has notched up, you get a front-row view and are hopefully taking notes.
By Sukanya Mukherjee
