Could you go into a little bit of detail about taking paternity leave off work—how your colleagues viewed it, and so on?
Everyone was very supportive. My work had just raised paternity leave from 7 to 12 weeks, and several other coworkers have taken leave recently. My boss did say several times that he was very glad to have me back, and that it was hard to schedule work when people disappear for months at a time, but there was no pressure to take less leave.
The $16k in lost wages is pre-tax while the other expenses are post-tax, which means the $16k cost is effectively more like a $12k cost.
EDIT: I’m wrong, the $16k Julia gave is a post-tax number.
This is a sufficiently big difference it might be worthwhile Julia updating the original post?
Also, could you go into a little bit of detail about taking paternity leave off work—how your colleagues viewed it, and so on?
Everyone was very supportive. My work had just raised paternity leave from 7 to 12 weeks, and several other coworkers have taken leave recently. My boss did say several times that he was very glad to have me back, and that it was hard to schedule work when people disappear for months at a time, but there was no pressure to take less leave.
(More details on the different childcare arrangements we’ve tried: http://​​www.jefftk.com/​​p/​​childcare)