Dads Want Suits (Not the Paternity Kind)

Office vs. Home: Even if afforded the opportunity, nearly six in 10 working fathers would not take company-paid paternity leave, according to a study by Melville, New York-based staffing company Adecco USA. Mostly feeding this reluctance are financial worries. Nearly half those surveyed (46 percent) say they would be unable to afford to take the leave, even at partial salary. Read between the lines, however, and a commentary emerges on modern fatherhood. Of fathers who would reject paternity time, 12 percent don’t believe they could do as good a job caring for children as mothers do, while 8 percent “don’t have the patience to spend that much time” with an infant. Nearly a quarter say they devote more time to their professional life than fatherhood, compared with 11 percent of mothers.