Way to Go, California
Posted on 28. Apr, 2010 by Brian Reid.
As part of a job switch I am undergoing, I received a helpful brochure in the mail today regarding California’s paid leave law. It made me stunningly happy. (The brochure is reproduced here, to the left. If you want one for your own wall, you can download the PDF.)
It doesn’t make me happy because I expect to need to use paid leave. I hope that my family remains healthy and that my vasectomy holds and that I never have to take advantage of the law. No, the brochure makes me happy because of the five images in the brochure, three include men and two feature what appear to be fathers.
I’ve long argued that guys should be using paid leave at a much higher level, and that taking two or three days for the birth of a kid shortchanges everyone. So I am absolutely thrilled to see that the State of California has chosen to depict those who use paid leave as they should be, not as they actually are.
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Odds and Ends and Administrative Stuff
Posted on 28. Apr, 2010 by Brian Reid.
While I still have some hiccups from the redesign to iron out, I’m slowly trying build out the functionality of the site. This week, there are a couple of new features that I wanted to flag.
First, I’ve taken advantage of the new functionality that Facebook rolled out last week, so that you can “like” a post without leaving this page. Every post has a “like” button at the bottom, so if you’re a Facebook guy and want to play along, just go ahead and click. I’ll keep exploring the concept … I would love for people to be able to “like,” say, Jeremy Adam Smith’s Daddy Shift right from rebeldad.com, too, but I haven’t figured that out yet. (As an aside, I find the new Facebook stuff, in general, to be a bit creepy. But if it makes the site more usable to you all, I’ll use the technology until something better or more open comes along.)
Second, I’ve rolled out a mobile version of the site, which should make life easier for those of you who like to get your RD fix via your smartphone.
If either of these items don’t work as you’d like them to, please let me know.
Finally, I wanted to let you all know that the website for Daddyshome Inc., the at-home dad non-profit, has launched a blog, which will occasionally include content from me. My first post (on Scooby-Doo) is now up.
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Compare and Contrast: NYC Dads and Brazil
Posted on 27. Apr, 2010 by Brian Reid.
Last year, a reporter with Brazil’s TPM (think People, only in Portuguese) spent some time hanging with the NYC at-home dad group. I spend a lot of time here bellyaching about the fact that the United States ranks pretty poorly when it comes to laws that support families. But that doesn’t mean that this is a lousy place to be a dad.
The whole reason that TPM wanted to hang with Lance and the rest of the New York guys is that the SAHD culture in New York (and almost everywhere else in the country at this point) doesn’t exist in Brazil, which sounds like something of a nanny state: uniformed nannies are de rigeur at a certain spot in Brazilian culture.
The piece — a translated version is up on the NYC Dads Group’s website — doesn’t necessarily break new ground about the life of the American at-home dad, but it does have interesting details on how Brazil measures up (or doesn’t measure up). Plus, it quotes Jeremy Adam Smith.
Interesting reading …