Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion 'Outliers', anyone reading it??

Re: Family and Medical Leave Act

Just curious as to how this works, Kriston? Is it leave for which either parent is eligible? Does the govt. pay your salary? How long is it? Is it just for a baby being born, or other medical conditions, too?

In Canada, parental leave is 52 weeks, and can be divided between parents (adoptive parents are eligible, too). The first 16 (I think) weeks are maternity leave, and the other 36 are parental; the government pays the standard employment insurance rate (55 or 60% of earnings, I think), and one's employer can choose to top it up. Frenchie's employer did top his up, to 93%, so he had 36 weeks off with each of our three kids, at 93% of full pay (I took the 16 weeks the first time, when I still had a job, but wasn't eligible for it the next two times). It was lovely having one's husband home, as you say--especially since I had caesareans every time, and was pretty creaky for about six or eight weeks--and it was very nice to be able to share the parenting for which we had waited (in great frustration) for more than a decade!

Just wondering if your system is similar--it's funny, we live so close, but I don't know much about how this kind of stuff works there (all the threads y'all write about the SAT are basically Greek to me, too!).

Thanks for satisfying my curiosity!

minnie

ps An old friend of mine is Hungarian; he told me that his wife had two years at full pay after each of their children were born--what a lovely thing!