npr: Mike Cruse is the father of a new baby. His daughter Olivia was born in July. But like most fat
npr: Mike Cruse is the father of a new baby. His daughter Olivia was born in July. But like most fathers in the U.S., he doesn’t get paid parental leave. That means his wife, Stephanie, will have to take care of the baby mostly herself — an already difficult task that may be even harder for her since she’s dealing with postpartum anxiety.Cruse, who manages the warehouse for a lighting company, had to take vacation days from his job to stay home and help for those first 10 days. Now he has no vacation left for the next calendar year.And that’s better than the situation about four and a half years ago, when his son Benjamin was born. Cruse says he wasn’t able to take any vacation at all then — he was working for a different company that told him to be back at work in five days. Those days off were unpaid.“This is exactly what millions of men all over the country are dealing with,” says Josh Levs, who was written about parental leave in the book All In. Levs is a journalist and advocate for paid family leave, including paternity leave. ‘I Wasn’t There To Help’: Dad With Newborn Struggles With Lack Of LeavePhotos: Claire Harbage/NPR -- source link