Quote Originally Posted by TuffStuffMcGruff View Post
I'm sorry - I meant mandated on the companies.

http://pregnancy.lovetoknow.com/wiki...aternity_Leave

My point is that the maternity leave can be split, but more reasonably it should be more available to pregnant women. My point is that women have a special right that makes sense due to their sex. It is a separate right and I wouldn't push for men to have it. I find it similar to the right that women have to marry only men, and men have the right to marry women.

Your exceptions to that don't need to happen within the same institution and are covered in civil unions in your state.

The point is that separate rights based on sex are sometimes sensible and based on the sheer biology. Maternity leave and marriage are examples of those. If you want to get rid of or modify marriage as policy take it to the legislature.
Countries like Sweden and others allow paternity leave and I believe we will see more of this in the future, and I support it. Now that women are largely no longer "stay at home moms", and it will increasingly be the case that women are professionals and needed income earners, I would support any change in the laws allowing time split, flexibility, or paternity instead of maternity leave. We already have many clients (in my accounting workplace) where the dad comes in to take care of all the tax stuff, on weekdays, during the daytime, with kid in tow or on his shoulder, because between him and the mother, the wife made more money, and it was more financially sensible for him to take time off work with the newborn.