Discussion Time

Let's have a discussion about new military daddies!   

Read the article after the jump - then please share your thoughts and opinions on the information provided.

Please remember that this is not yet a law.  This is simply for discussion purposes.

Senators OK extra leave for military dads

About 76,000 active-duty servicemembers will father babies next year if recent military birthrates hold. The Senate Armed Services Committee has voted to give those new fathers 21 days of paternity leave after their children are born or within 60 days of fathers’ return from deployment.

New dads are expected to use the extra three weeks of leave to bond with infants and care for their mothers, without dipping into 30 days’ annual leave earned by all active-duty servicemembers.

If the Senate committee plan becomes law, paternity leave would be granted regardless of marital status, as long as new fathers claim the infants as dependents. As many as 32,000 soldiers, 18,000 sailors, 17,000 Air Force personnel and 9,000 Marines stand to benefit next year alone.

The Navy is leading the charge for paternity leave to improve sailors’ quality of life. Every service except the Air Force, which worries about the impact on mission readiness and unit workloads, is said to be supportive.

Sens. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., embraced the Navy’s idea, attaching it as an amendment to fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill during committee mark up the last week of April. The Senate panel, unlike its counterpart in the House, makes final changes to its defense bill behind closed doors. It’s unknown whether any senator questioned whether paternity leave is appropriate for a military in wartime.

A spokeswoman for Inhofe said he sought his amendment for equity reasons, noting that Congress in the ’06 defense bill approved 21 days’ administrative leave for any military parent, male or female, who adopts a child. Also, Inhofe noted that the Marine Corps already grants 10 days of paternity. No other service offers extra leave for new fathers. Female members get several months of convalescence leave after giving birth.

Air Force officials confirmed that the service is worried that 21 days of added leave for new dads could hurt mission readiness and put new strains on units already dealing with a force drawdown and two wars.

In fiscal 2007, Air Force statistics show, 17,193 active-duty men had newborn dependents. The same population, on average, had 30 days of unused leave available. That suggests to Air Force officials that paternity leave would be a perk to new fathers rather than a family necessity.

Lt. Col. Jeff Bomkamp, chief of Air Force compensation, said his service is committed to supporting families, and cited a host of recent initiatives as proof. But for now, he said, the service continues to evaluate the potential impact that paternity leave could have on service missions.

He emphasized that Air Force units routinely encourage new fathers to take time off when a child is born, which usually means using a portion of annual leave. Bomkamp disputed arguments made by some military parents since 2006 that, because of new adoption leave, it’s only fair to balance the scales by giving natural fathers an equal amount of paternity leave.

“The intent for adoption leave was to provide members time to tend to legal matters. Sometimes there’s travel involved. And when you bring a child that is not an infant into a family, there is time needed to allow that child to integrate into a new environment,” Bomkamp said. “That is not the same as what we are now talking about.”

Air Force officials are said to argue privately that their units don’t stand down like returning forces of the other services do. Mechanics who work on aircraft do so whether stateside or deployed. With paternity leave, many of them simply could end up working longer hours.

The Navy decided to get behind paternity leave after asking sailors and families for nonfinancial incentives that might improve quality of life, said Navy Lt. Stephanie Miller, director of women’s policy for the chief of naval personnel. She serves on Navy’s Task Force Life/Work, which was created in 2007 to develop and implement policies to keep balance in sailors’ lives between work and family time. The task force studied incentives used in corporate America, then sought feedback from the fleet on the best nonmonetary incentives to improve Navy life.

Paternity leave, Miller said, not only is gaining popularity among U.S. businesses, but it was identified by Navy families as among the most attractive retention incentives the service could offer.

Corporations that grant paternity leave do so for an average of three weeks, Miller said. That military parents who adopt are allowed 21 days of administrative leave, she said, leaving natural fathers as “the only parental demographic” in the military not provided such leave.

Paternity leave would have some time and geographic restrictions, Miller said.

“We are not going to, necessarily, be taking someone off of a ship in the middle of the Persian Gulf and sending them home. There are cost implications with that,” she said. But within 60 days of returning from deployment, any new dad could take three weeks off without charge.

Miller said Army and Marine officials are “overwhelmingly supportive” of the initiative. She also said the Navy believes it will not boost personnel costs even though 18,000 sailors won’t be working three more weeks a year.

“The research we found, and the corporations we talked to found, shows that a benefit like paternity leave translates into increased loyalty and more productive employees. They have [fewer] concerns when they return to work that their child is in a stable, happy environment,” Miller said.

Miller said her own dad, a retired surface warfare officer, said, “We never got this!” when told of the paternity leave initiative. “But I think he and others who are a generation ahead,” she said, “realize that American society is changing and becoming more family friendly.”

Comments

[mandyp]

I would think it is a good idea. I would like to note a correction in the article also. Females do not get "several Months of convalescence leave ". A normal birth gets a mother 42 days, and a c-section gets 2 more weeks. When did 2 months become several?

[Penny]

I also think it's a good idea.. Too bad it wasn't thought up before.. like last year (or earlier this one!) so we could've really used it. We're not planning on having another child this deployment though hehe ^_~

[Love My Tanker]

Mandy - if I remember correctly the amount of time a mother gets varies between services as does time as non-deployable after giving birth. Someone correct me if my memory doesn't serve me!

[MO]

I think paternity leave is great. All too often the father gets overlooked and one thing a few male soldiers have brought up is that the female soldier gets the choice of staying in or getting out. Male soldiers have voiced they would like that option too. Personally I'm keeping my opinion on that one to myself, but I'm very happy to see more paternity leave for new daddy's. I think it might relieve some postpartum depression on installations :).

[Ann M.]

This is a really nice idea. I would love it if my husband could be home with us for that long and not have to worry about burning through his leave or --although I don't know if, assuming it passes, it will apply to us anyway, since I'm due first week of September.

[wifeunit]

I think this is a great idea. I think the AF guy was spinning his wheels trying to justify adoption paternity leave versus the natural paternity leave and don't see him making a lot of sense there.

[Erin]

This would be HUGE for all of us! I know it would be a big morale booster for dads who're already dealing with conflicting feelings about being away from their birthing spouses. Hopefully this gets signed soon!

Hey AF, step up to the plate!

[Jewel]

Hey Erin, I agree...Step up to the plate Air Force!!! My DH is active duty AF and I can remember the days following our son's birth. Thank goodness it was not during wartime! My DH was able to come home on his lunch hour to "bond" with his son which usually turned into the two of them napping together, and I've got the pictures to prove it! It would have been wonderful to have paternity leave 20 years ago!

[Army Blogger Wife]

This would have been nice, but I'm all done having babies. LOL

In Germany when our first daughter was born, Gunner's CO gave him 10 days off without taking leave from him. It was wonderful.

Hopefully they will make this change!

[Ramie]

I think this is an awesome plan. I hope that it gets approved. We're Navy and DH has always gotten 2 weeks off after, which has been fantastic, but with both kids, he deployed when they were 5 weeks old, so having that 3rd week home would have been so nice. I'd have felt much more comfortable, especially with our first.

I hope to hear good things about this in the news soon! I think this would be a HUGE morale booster, especially for those on ships who'd get some "free" time off when they got back. I can't imagine not seeing my baby for 5-6months or more after they're born.

[sarah g]

this is such a great idea! and it's true that paternity leave is becoming more and more popular these days anyway. we're not planning on having kids in the immediate future, but hopefully by the time we do, this thing will be passed!