When my daughter was born, I was blown away to find that my company offered 16 weeks paternity leave. A couple of weeks before my wife was due, I was talking to a coworker and found that his wife was also pregnant, but he didn’t know about our company’s parental leave policy. He had only been planning to take a couple of weeks. After we talked I found out he took the whole thing.
That four months was one of the greatest times of my life, getting to know my newborn daughter.
Three years later I was in a different job when my son was born. They offered three days. Six months later I found a new job, and I took an extra month off during the transition, just so I could spend every day with my son.
I don’t regret any of that. I can’t even imagine what that would feel like. I love my children and love being a dad. This is life. This is all we get.
It’s clearly chocolate cake, pineapple, and carrot.