Parental Leave

The PL stands for Parental Leave, which I am currently doing for six months.

It is a rainy Wednesday morning over here, one boy is napping and one is watching a show. The perfect time to catch up on yesterday. I was pretty drained last night for some reason and the thought of sitting at the computer was painful. So what did I do? I sat at the computer last night and instead of blogging, I participated in a Twitter chat with other dads. I had never done that and it was pretty interesting. It certainly was a great way to interact and add to my followers list. Anyways, then I went downstairs and watched the Spurs put a 36-point beat down on the LeBron James and the Heat. Great way to end the day.

The weather was dull and Charlie was pretty content to hang around the house for the day. Not an exciting day on the PL, but it was fun.

As a dad on parental leave who happens to be very much connected to an online group of dad bloggers, I was asking about other’s experiences.

The more and more I hear from other dads, the more I realize I have it pretty good living in Canada. We have a much longer period of time where we are granted paid leave to take care of a child.

My wife and I were discussing this and she said it would be a good blog post topic to see what the rest of the world offers in paid maternity/parental leave.

So, I did. It is always a good idea to listen to your wife.

When it comes to the world’s maternity leaves report card, not all countries are passing with flying colours.

In a report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 2012, the majority of the United States (excluding two states) received a failing grade in providing women and new mothers support entering motherhood. Based on what I hear from friends who live there, this did not surprise me at all. It is hard to believe they get so little time.

I have friends living in the US who are from Canada and this really bummed them out. Knowing they would not get the time to spend with their baby that they would have back home.

In at least 178 countries around the world, paid leave is guaranteed for working moms, while more than 50 countries provide wage benefits for fathers, according to the ILO. The United States, along with Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Liberia and Lesotho are some of the only countries in the world that provide no type of financial support for mothers, according to a study done by McGill University’s Institute for Health and Social Policy.

The group looked at the top developed countries that are succeeding in maternity leave benefits, and which ones continue to fall far, far behind.

The country with the longest paid leave topped out at 420 days, while the length of time for countries with the lowest paid and unpaid leaves was around 12 weeks. Any guesses before reading on?

Here are the maternity leave benefits for 43 developed countries from shortest to longest periods of time based on data collected in 2011.

A link to all countries can be found at the bottom.

After going through this list, I have to say I am pretty happy to be living in Canada. Granted only having half of your pay is hard, but at least I get six months of it.

Oh Day 39, so close to 40. On this day, everyone was tired. Why? Well the day started at 5:30 am. Sounds about right for this dad who is still enjoying life on the PL.

Pretty quiet day although the naps were short and dad was pretty tired. It felt like a day where I did not get anything taken care of. I guess that is what Tuesday is for once Harrison goes back to school

The Spurs won, the Hawks won and Rob Ford’s world is falling apart by the minute. Now for what happened on the home front.

Good evening, I welcome you to your normally scheduled blog post. Day 21. The day I almost did the whole day from dawn til dusk. My wife thankfully made it home just in time to catch Harry before bed and now they are up doing bedtime.

But other than that, it was dad all day long today. My wife was up earlier than the birds for a work event and that meant I had to take care of her part of the morning. No biggie, it was just breakfast and getting Harry to school.

The worry was, he had a rough drop off on Monday, so we were interested to see how his mood was today. He was fine. Why?

Angry Birds.

The toys we got in the mail yesterday were still fresh in his head. Even to the point where the first thing he said when he got up today was, can we play with the Angry Birds?

Monday night, at the computer, telling it like it is. Day 20 was not bad.

It all started bright and early just before 6 am when the baby awoke. I went to get him and brought him back to bed to try to get him back to sleep. Great idea, until we got all cozy and I smelled him. Yep, there was a present waiting.

So the choice was, stay in bed and let him sleep, or change him which would mean awake time. I chose uncomfortable and smelly. I did not sleep but the baby did, past 7 am. So that was a win.

For breakfast, it was the first day of a new cereal for Harrison. He picked out Frosted Flakes yesterday because he thought it was Tigger on the box. He is on a current Winnie the Pooh kick, so any tiger out there is Tigger.

We were not sure he would like the cereal, but all worry was gone in two seconds. Yep, they were greeeeeeat.

Well, Day 19 was a long one and when you add in that it was Friday, it is no shock that I did not feel like blogging last night.

Charlie is napping and my wife took Harry to Saturday gymnastics, so here I am.

Yesterday was a definite win for me I think. As you may have read, we have been transitioning Charlie from his beloved swing to his crib for naps. I mean he sleeps all night in the crib, so why not naps.

The first day was rough as expected, but yesterday was awesome. He was up there and asleep for almost three hours. My wife used the term “dad for the win” when she heard this.

Flash forward to today, it was back to rough. But that was expected as a weekend day is different from a weekday. Everyone is home, the house is less quiet and we were out doing stuff this morning which threw off the sleep schedule.

But he is up there right now, fighting it out and I think he has at least scored an hour of doze.

It is a cold, rainy and depressing evening in Halifax tonight. It is almost May and the weather is still flirting with the freezing mark. What gives? The boys want to be outside playing, not sitting on the couch looking out the window.

Oh well, the forecast looks much better next week.

Today, even though I got to sleep in past 7 am, was a tiring day. You know the days, when your eyes are like gum and your brain just does not want to function.

Luckily for me, I just had Charlie and he loves to sleep. He is like a bear. As long as he gets to eat, he is quite happy to doze and nap and sleep as much as you let him.

The overall goal of the day was to try to get the house in order. I feel like I am slipping from the tidy standard that Katie set while she was home with the baby. She had a schedule and the house was for the most part a clean space for us men to mess up.

I did manage to get a few rooms done but there is a lot more. Maybe one day. At least the hair got sucked off the floor. Having pets can really add to the mess.