Josh Levs, based in Atlanta, Ga., said that Time Warner offers 10 weeks of paid-time leave to mothers (biological and adopting) and adopting fathers but not to biological dads, who are offered two weeks of paid time off. Both are more generous than what is required legally by the Family and Medical Leave Act, which typically mandates that employers provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave to new parents.
“Under Time Warner rules, I have only two choices: stay out for 10 weeks without pay, or return to work and hire someone to come to our home each day,” Levs, who is in his 40s, wrote on his Tumblr page. “Neither is financially tenable, and the fact that only biological dads face this choice at this point in a newborn’s life is ludicrous. Time Warner has two policies that create this discriminatory result. The first: Women who give birth get 10 weeks off, paid. The second: Women or men who have babies through adoption or surrogacy have the option of 10 weeks off, paid, to be caregivers to their new children.”
New fathers are increasingly filing similar work-leave lawsuits, reflecting different generational assumptions about parenting, according to Joan Williams, law professor and director of the Center for Work Life Law at the University of California, Hastings.
“Millennial men have different assumptions and tend to assume that to be a good father means being involved in daily care of children,” said Williams, who is not involved in Levs’ case. “That’s something very new.”