Three years ago when his son Scott was born, Don Sessions turned off the lights and walked out of the office on ”parental” leave from his job as director of accounting for General Foods USA.
”It was the best four, five, six weeks of my life,” says Sessions, now General Foods` director of financial reporting.
”Neither Barb nor I knew much about babies,” he admits. ”In that time both of us got comfortable with the baby. We learned together. Since Barb had to have a caesarian section, I was the one who was running around with him in my arms and taking care of him. I really felt close to the little guy.”
Home full-time for the first month after Scott was born, Sessions returned to his White Plains, N.Y., office on a part-time basis the second month, all with the full support of his boss and a progressive company policy that allows men as well as women to take time off for child care.
Not yet a term in common usage, parental leave nevertheless is looming on the personal and political horizon of millions of Americans for a host of economic and emotional reasons.
CHANGES IN THE WORKFORCE
Women today make up 44 percent of the workforce-projected at 50 percent by 1990. More than half of all mothers with children under age 1 work outside the home, according to recent Department of Labor statistics. More than 80 percent of the working women are in prime childbearing years, and 93 percent of these women will become pregnant, according to proponents of pending family leave legislation.
With this swift influx of women into the workplace has come a dramatic shift of family responsibilities as two-income couples (sometimes making equal salaries) become the norm. Who stays home with the kids-newborns, or those just adopted or seriously ill-increasingly is a practical consideration, not a matter of sex.
Rob Grossinger, 33, took four months` leave in 1986 when his lawyer wife, Maren Dougherty, received a job offer she couldn`t refuse.
”Maren had been working 80-hour weeks doing criminal defense work before her maternity leave,” says Grossinger, a lawyer with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago. Two months after daughter Anne was born, ”she was offered a job that has less stress, fewer hours, but also less pay-and she had to begin right away.”
Because it was ”a better deal in all ways-she never got home before 9 p.m. before, and she also worked Saturdays”-Grossinger urged his wife to take the job as administrative judge with the Illinois Human Rights Commission. Because she had to go to work right away, he added one more month to the leave he already had requested.
6 MONTHS, AND MORE
”We have a parental leave policy where we can take up to six months off and then up to three years part-time following childbirth or adoption,” says Grossinger. In effect for nearly four years, the policy is the result of a United Auto Workers union contract covering Legal Assistance workers.
There never was a doubt in Grossinger`s mind about going home for a while.
”It was my first kid,” he explains. ”I`d be crazy not to stay home with her. I didn`t know what a baby was like. I knew the best way for me to be comfortable with a baby was to have to do it myself.
”Now we both really have an understanding of the amount of work involved with a child,” he says. ”There are no false assumptions about the amount of work and what has to be done. I didn`t want to be a father who would ask his wife, `What`s wrong with her? What should I do?` when his child is cranky or cross. And I`m not.”
Still, not all parents who have requested parental leave have had such happy experiences. Tim Andersen, 35, negotiated a three-month unpaid leave from his job as a typesetter after his son Sam was born four years ago. Though his company did not have an official parental leave, Andersen`s supervisor was sympathetic to his request and, after checking with her superiors, gave him permission.
NO SITTER, PLEASE
”My wife had eight weeks of maternity leave from her job, but I didn`t want to send Sam to the baby-sitter when he was only 2 months old. He seemed too young,” Andersen says.
When his wife went back to work, Andersen came home to cook, clean and care for the baby. Despite a promise that he could return to his day-shift job at a major ad agency, Andersen found himself working nights when he returned. It was an obvious demotion.
”In this town, printing is night work,” he explains. ”You work years at night, so when you get on a day shift it`s like a promotion.”
He soon left the company. Now happily employed at another shop that recently printed ”Jet Streams,” his book of poems, Andersen says he has no regrets about his decision to take a leave.
”Sam`s a happy, well-adjusted little boy,” he explains.
Andersen is usually the parent who goes to the day-care center if Sam becomes ill, because his wife, Sandy, a claims adjuster for an insurance company, is frequently out of the office. ”They do call my wife first-I don`t know why; I guess because she`s the mother. But she is in the field a lot at the scene of an accident, so then they call me.”
Clocking out, sometimes in mid-sentence, Andersen admits that his supervisor, a woman, does not like it, ”but she puts up with it.”
He has not inquired, however, whether he could take a parental leave from his current employer. ”I`m shaken, I admit. I`m chicken,” he says. ”I don`t want to have the heat if the request is all wrong.”
A SCANTY SAMPLE
Statistics about how many men like Andersen are asking for parental leave are sketchy at best. Catalyst, a New York-based research organization, began a study of the benefit policies and attitudes of the 1,500 biggest U.S. companies in 1984. In data first released in 1986, 37 percent of the 384 participating companies offered unpaid parental leave to men. However, men in only nine companies actually had taken it at that time. The other 63 percent of the responding companies indicated that parental leave of any kind was inappropriate for men.
Still, parental leave may be more widely available than some workers think. In some corporations that have policies allowing workers of both sexes to take unpaid time for child care, the requests often fall under the
”personal leave” heading. Since most leave time is negotiated between a worker and his immediate supervisor, the personnel office may not know the exact reason a man is gone.
Where numbers are available, there is no indication of a male stampede to go home.
In June of 1985, Commonwealth Edison Co. was sued by Stephen Ondera under equal opportunity laws for the right to take up to six months of unpaid leave for child care, a benefit routinely available to Com Ed`s female employees. Ondera won and Com Ed was directed to publicize the benefit to all 18,000 employees.
”Since June, 1985, we`ve had 20 requests from men,” says Patricia McKiernan, director of employment programs. ”Ten were in 1987, so they are increasing each year.”
Other companies also report low or no requests for parental leave by men. One reason, personnel officials suggest, is that many people don`t think about the benefit.
”I think companies do a pretty lousy job often of communicating benefits to employees,” observes Mary Holt, who until recently worked on corporate strategy for work and family for American Telephone & Telegraph Co.
