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DECEMBER FOCUS: CHILD CARE | ISSUE 2 OF 4 | 12.14.20
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Good morning and happy Monday! This week we’re telling the stories of three dads and their experiences with taking paternity leave and staying at home with their kids. My co-worker Kate Hayden takes a
closer look at Ruaa Khaleefa, a child care specialist at Lutheran Services of Iowa. We’ve got a plethora of good reads and women in the news. And, if you haven’t yet shared your opinion on what the ideal family leave policy would look like, please do so here. Have a great week!
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‘Child rearing is not just a mother’s job’: Three men’s stories on their role at home
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| BY EMILY BLOBAUM, FEARLESS CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
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Note: For this particular piece, I talked to heterosexual couples. However, I would love to share stories of folks in same-sex relationships in future stories. If you are in a same-sex relationship and would like to share your own experience as a stay-at-home parent or someone who has taken parental leave, please email me at emilyblobaum@bpcdm.com. Below is the shortened version of this story. I encourage you to read it in its entirety here.
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Ben Keenan works in his office while his son, Beckett, participates in remote learning. Photo by Emily Blobaum
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When you think about the topic of paternity leave, your mind probably doesn’t immediately go to Disney Pixar movies. Or maybe it does.
When I asked Ben
Keenan, an HR consultant at Principal Financial Group, why he took paternity leave, he asked me if I had seen the Pixar movie "Inside Out." Having watched it before, I immediately knew where he was going.
The main premise of the movie is about emotions, but of particular importance are core memories, which are key events and milestones like taking your first step or scoring your first goal in a hockey game.
"There are these game-changing moments in your life, and welcoming a new child into the world is
one of them. I don’t want to miss out on those moments. It’s important to be there for them, for your child and your partner," Keenan said.
Another big reason why he has taken advantage of paternity leave is for his wife, Kenzie, who spent 10 years as an elementary school teacher and recently became a real estate agent.
"Ultimately it’s about being involved with my children and helping to take care of them and show them the appropriate framework for a partnership. To take time away and be actually physically present and be a part of those conversations will help illustrate the way I want them to be treated and treat others."
Earlier this year, Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit and husband to Serena Williams, argued in an op-ed that the fight for paternity leave is a feminist one and it’s up to fathers to normalize taking advantage of it.
In it, he responded to a 2019 incident where Melanie Whelan, then CEO of SoulCycle, allegedly told a male employee who was planning on taking paternity leave that "paternity leave is for
pussies."
"The implication that paternity leave is unimportant sets a dangerous precedent, one that suggests fathers are not an integral part of the child care unit, and perpetuates the antiquated belief that mothers alone should be the primary caregivers," he wrote.
Harris Federman, a data and operations research scientist at Principal Financial Group, said: "I don’t want to get overly political, but there’s an issue with having two-week paternity leave and three-month maternity leave. That issue is whether, intentionally or not, you’re disadvantaging the females in career progression." Numerous studies have shown that paternity leave increases male participation in the home and female participation in the workforce. It helps shape parenting habits from day one and breaks down stereotypical gender roles. "Child rearing is not just a mother’s job," Keenan said.
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The Federman family, courtesy of Harris Federman.
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When Federman’s daughter was born in 2018, he was working at General Mills as a plant engineer. At the time, General Mills’ paternal leave policy was two weeks, but it was in the process of expanding its benefit to 12 weeks of
paid leave for fathers, adoptive parents and partners. Additionally, the policy included up to 14 weeks of unpaid parental bonding leave to align with the same 26 available weeks that birth mothers are eligible for.
Federman welcomed the change, but he also knew that his daughter would be born before the new policy was implemented. Coordinating two parental leave policies to line up with an already-secured day care spot would take some finessing.
He hoped to be able to work it out to take his two weeks of leave right when his daughter was born and then split the remaining 10 weeks of FMLA time after his wife’s six-month maternity leave was up at Dorsey & Whitney.
But due to a miscommunication, the FMLA didn't work out the way he planned, but was able to switch his schedule to work the second shift for six weeks to be able to watch his daughter during the day.
Federman left General Mills to work at Principal in March 2019 and admits that it was hard to leave that benefit behind.
"Honestly, it was probably the biggest drawback to going to Principal because I had already known that General Mills had changed their policy by that point to six months so I left that time on the table."
Federman and his wife welcomed another child, a son, in October. Like Keenan, he’s working from home and hasn’t taken his four weeks of paternity leave. Instead, he took some vacation time around his son’s birth and is waiting until his wife goes back to work to take his paternity leave.
"It sets a good stage for a relationship with your children. Being super involved, I feel like taking that time allows my wife to focus on her career too and it does create a sense of balance in the household, which is fantastic."
***
As much as we as a society try to dismantle the stereotypical gender roles of men being the providers and women being the caregivers for the family, stigmas around fathers taking time off from work to focus on their families still exist, whether internally or externally.
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Before becoming a high school science teacher and stay-at-home dad, Jay Teeter was a walk-on basketball player at Iowa State University. He continues to coach his sons’ basketball team. Photo by Emily Blobaum.
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Jay Teeter has been a stay-at-home dad for eight years. Before that, he was a high
school science teacher in Wichita, Kan. His wife, Tanya, works as the vice president of labor relations at Cargill.
They, along with their two sons, decided to move to the Des Moines area eight years ago to be closer to family when Tanya’s job allowed her to work remotely.
They made the move in the middle of the school year, so it didn’t make sense for Teeter to find a new full-time job. Then they found out they were expecting their third son. Coupled with Tanya’s heavy travel schedule for work,
they decided that it would be in their best interest for Teeter to stay at home to avoid having to hire a full-time nanny.
"Being a teacher, I already had been doing the stay-at-home thing during the summers. So it was fairly seamless to do that full time," Teeter said.
He quickly settled into his new title, perusing the aisles at Costco, joining the after-school pickup line and even convincing Tanya that they needed a minivan — "they’re super functional."
"I didn’t have any issue with the role. It was more of, I’d meet somebody new and they’d ask me what I do. At first it was a little bit of an ego check to say I’m actually just a stay-at-home dad."
For the first few years, he said it felt isolating being one of the only or the only stay-at-home dad.
"The hardest part initially was not having the social circle. Being a teacher, I always had friend groups that were made up of the teachers I worked with. … [Being a stay-at-home dad], you’re sort of living in a mom’s world," he said. "There wasn’t a network of similarly situated males that I was dealing with. And it’s not like I can’t interact with the moms, it’s just not quite the same thing."
***
A whole other can of worms surrounding parental leave is availability.
While the Family and Medical Leave Act, which grants 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave for family and medical reasons, has been a saving grace for some, it still remains widely inaccessible.
The fine print of the FMLA reads that only those who have worked at a covered employer for at least a year and at least 1,250 hours are eligible. As a result, the National Partnership for Women and Families found that FMLA isn’t accessible for 61% of
Iowans.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 20% of workers in private industry have access to paid family leave.
The United States is the only country among 41 developed nations that doesn’t mandate any paid parental leave, according to data compiled by the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development.
But, even if slowly, there is work being done.
This fall, Colorado voters
approved a new paid family and medical leave law, joining eight other states and Washington, D.C., that have similar programs.
The Biden administration plans to push for paid family leave benefits. In an op-ed for Parents magazine, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris wrote, "We plan to provide people with up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave and paid sick days to make it easier for people to care for loved ones without facing lost income or being forced to choose between their jobs and their family."
As of 2018, the 20 largest employers in the United States offer paid parental leave to at least some employees. IBM offers both salaried and hourly workers 20 weeks of paid leave for the birth parent and 12 weeks for the other parent. For both salaried and hourly workers, Walmart offers 16 weeks for the birth parent and six weeks for the other parent.
Coming out of the pandemic and months of working from home, companies will likely face pressure to create or improve already existing policies surrounding flexible work options.
Working from home has "made me reconsider employment moving forward and the flexibility of employers," Keenan said. "If flexible work, at least on a part-time basis like one or two days a week, isn’t an option, I’m not sure I’d consider that as
strongly as some of the other options out there, just because those moments and opportunities that I’ve seen, I want to continue to be around for."
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Closer Look: Ruaa Khaleefa
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| BY KATE HAYDEN STAFF WRITER, BUSINESS RECORD
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Ruaa Khaleefa came to Iowa four years ago after leaving Iraq and had an initial plan in mind. After attending Des Moines Area Community College English language classes, Khaleefa hoped to open her own in-home child care business. Soon, she found Lutheran Services of Iowa.
"When I went to LSI and I saw the staff, the organization, I felt like this is what I want to do. I want to help other people more than opening my own business and being at home," Khaleefa said. "I love to connect with people, I love talking with them."
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Khaleefa joined LSI as a registration associate, helping clients embarking on their own dreams of child care entrepreneurship to fill out paperwork for the Department of Human Services. After one year, LSI named Khaleefa as the child care specialist on staff to help guide new Des Moines residents in opening their own child care businesses,
mostly based at home. This year, Khaleefa received the Emerging Leader Award by the Iowa Association for the Education of Young Children for her role assisting LSI clients in child care.
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Left: Sioux City School Board President Perla Alarcon-Flory. Center: Incoming MSNBC President Rashida
Jones. Right: Capital City Pride President Jen Carruthers.
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- For the first time since the recovery began after a pandemic recession that has decimated jobs held by women, the majority of the job losses in November were sustained by men.
- Perla Alarcon-Flory is the first Latina to be named president of the school board in Sioux City.
- Rubin Ritter, who has been co-chief executive of German online fashion company Zalando since 2010, will step down next year to allow his wife’s professional ambitions to take priority.
- Rashida Jones — no, not the actress — will become the first Black woman to run a cable news network when she takes over the helm at MSNBC next month.
- After 43 years, Capital City Pride now has the largest and most diverse board of directors in its history.
- A record number of women will serve in statehouses next year, representing 30.3% of the country’s 7,383 seats.
- From The 19th, meet the newest women President-elect Joe Biden has selected for key leadership positions, including CDC director Rochelle Walensky, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge and domestic policy adviser Susan
Rice.
- More than a dozen Army officials have been fired or suspended as part of an investigation into Fort Hood, which is where Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old soldier, was killed after being sexually harassed earlier this year.
- Starbucks has named Mellody Hobson as board head, making her the only Black woman to lead
a board of directors for an S&P 500 company.
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"FEMINISM ISN'T ABOUT MAKING WOMEN STRONGER. WOMEN ARE ALREADY STRONG. IT'S ABOUT CHANGING THE WAY THE WORLD PERCEIVES THAT STRENGTH."
-G.D. ANDERSON
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