Photo credit: Giving.ucsd.edu

Lucky are the couples, Christian Igualt and his wife, Ana Castro to equally get their parental leaves from their respective employers as it is very rare in the U.S.

And it’s very unusual for employers in the U.S. to offer paternity benefits at all, thus provide the same amount of paid time off for mothers and fathers.

Igualt works at Optimizel, a software company that offers generous parental leave policy of 17 weeks at full pay for all new parents. And that’s exactly a big amount of leaves that both parents can enjoy. While his wife, Ana is eligible for 12 weeks off at half pay under California’s parental leave laws.

Both of them need not to worry about earning money or keeping their jobs. It’s an enjoyable moment as both of them are involved in parenting.

When men do take the parental leave, women tend to benefit as they shared the same responsibility and it’s the time for moms to take rest and recover from delivering a baby.

“It’s worth making clear that [parenting is] really hard,” says Igualt. “With the extra time, there is less stress on the whole family. We’re both able to be our better selves, both at home and also at work.”

Source: Bloomberg