Friday, January 2, 2009

Full-time fatherhood


Lev at 3 weeks, originally uploaded by mricon.

One of the nice things about living in Quebec (in addition to federally-insured healthcare), is that the provincial government offers a very convenient parental leave program, which allows both parents to take an extended leave and just be full-time moms and dads. There are financial compensations in place to make sure that parents can afford to do that -- e.g. for fathers, the first 12 weeks the government pays 70% of the father's previous year's income, and after that, it's at 55% income for up to 25 more weeks.

I have opted to take full advantage of this plan, so for the next 9 months I get to be a full-time daddy. Since Barbara works from home, we have decided that she doesn't need to take advantage of this plan and will just continue with her Fuzzy Mitten work whenever she gets to the point where she doesn't need to wake up every 2.5 hours to feed Lev. :)

So far, I like being a full-time daddy -- and I have 8 more months of this to enjoy to the fullest.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish they had something like that in the UK - Lev is just adorable..
lisa x

igel said...

Thank you so much for taking the time to post the adorable photo--and thanks to Barbara for her previous post. It's so wonderful that little Baby Mitten will be able to have Papa Mitten at home!

Hugs to you all.

Mare said...

That is wonderful! Good for you! Happy New Year!

Anonymous said...

It's so wonderful that you can be home for your family. Wish we had that in the US. Enjoy! He's a beautiful baby and you're a lovely family