Having it all
More men taking time off, but policies haven’t kept up
For fathers, company policies haven’t always kept up with a desire to spend more time with their children.
Before he heads to work, Craig Oshrin clocks in as a dad.
Every weekday, the Fairfield resident drops off his 22-month-old son, Jacob, at 8 a.m., at his day care center at Temple Shalom in Norwalk and picks him up at 5 p.m.
As he marks his second Father’s Day as a parent, Oshrin, 40, a Darien-based Realtor for Coldwell Banker, said he has embraced the challenge of juggling his family responsibilities with his career. But getting the balance right requires unrelenting focus and commitment for Oshrin — one that employers and elected officials in Connecticut and throughout the country are also trying to perfect.
“As a working dad, I’m more hyper-focused,” Oshrin said in an interview last week. “Before I was a dad and married, I could waste time. Time wasn’t as valuable. Now, time as a dad is super valuable.”
Grappling with time off
Oshrin took about a week and a half off after Jacob’s birth. He felt obligated to quickly return to work to maintain his professional progress.
“I needed to get back to work to continue to grow my business,” he said. “I’ve been in real estate now for four years, and I now have a really strong client base. I didn’t have that when Jacob was born. … In hindsight, if I had all the money and everything I wanted, I would have loved to (take more time off). But, from a work standpoint, that wasn’t an opportunity.”
Nationwide, only 12 percent of private-sector workers have access to paid family leave through their employers, according to recent U.S. Department of Labor data.
There is no federal law guaranteeing paid family leave. Only a handful of states — California, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Washington — offer paid time off for care of relatives.
New York’s policy went into effect this year. In 2018, it allows workers to take up to eight weeks off and receive 50 percent of their average weekly wage during their work absence.
The federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides all public-sector employees, and those in private-sector organizations of more than 50, with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave during a 12month period. It covers care for newborn, adopted or foster children, other family members or time for employees to manage their own health issues.
Connecticut’s equivalent state law gives up to 16 weeks of unpaid time off in a two-year period for businesses with more than 75 in-state employees.
Several bills introduced in the General Assembly in recent years have proposed instituting paid family leave, but none has been signed into law.
State Sen. Len Fasano, R-North Haven, said he is studying the issue. The
“In hindsight, if I had all the money and everything I wanted, I would have loved to (take more time off). But, from a work standpoint, that wasn’t an opportunity.” Craig Oshrin
Republican leader in an evenly divided Senate said he would introduce legislation in the Assembly’s 2019 session if he could develop a paid-leave proposal that would garner bipartisan support and backing from the state’s business community.
“We have to understand the cost impact, and I don’t think we have a real cost impact yet,” he said. “The key to this type of legislation is to get all the grunt work done before the next session. If we do that work, we can roll into the next session with a plan that covers all of the main concerns.”
Messages left for state Sen. Ed Gomes and state Rep. Robyn Porter, the Democratic co-chairs of the Legislature’s Labor and Public Employees Committee, were not returned.
Connecticut in 2011 became the first state to require
paid sick leave for certain private-sector employees.
Corporate initiatives
A number of major employers in Connecticut have worked to fill the gaps in state and federal policies by offering their own paidleave programs.
In 2016, professionalservices firm Deloitte expanded its family-leave policy to give employees up to 16 weeks of fully paid time off for the birth and adoption of children and general caregiving of family members.
The policy covers all of Deloitte’s U.S. employees regularly working at least 20 hours per week and includes Deloitte’s Stamford offices, where about 1,160 people work.
“I know a number of people who have taken advantage of the policy — and we’re hearing a lot more stories of men taking it, as well,” said Heather Ziegler, Deloitte’s Stamford managing partner. “Just
removing that stress for our professionals to really focus on family and not have to worry about the office is really important. Then, when they come back, they can be re-energized to fully focus on work.”
Stamford’s Synchrony Financial provides employees up to six weeks of fully paid leave following births or adoptions. Available to both male and female employees, the leave can be taken continuously or incrementally within one year of births and adoptions.
Finding a balance
Like other fathers in two-parent households, Oshrin cites the importance of his spouse’s support. His wife, Rachel, works full time for a beauty care firm in Wilton.
“A lot of working dads, their success is owed to their wife or partner,” Oshrin said. “And we’ve got grandma coverage, from my wife’s mother. She’ll take Jacob on Thursdays and Fridays. Without them, to have a work-life balance wouldn’t exist, if everybody wasn’t ready as a family.”
In the nearly two years since Jacob’s birth, the couple has developed a reliable system, using tools such as Google Calendar to manage Jacob’s care.
“It could be ‘Honey, I’ve got to take this person out to go look at these properties,’ or ‘I’ve got to put this home on the market,’” Oshrin said. “And I send her an invite (on Google Calendar). So we’re always covered.”
Oshrin said he thinks support groups for fathers in or out of the workplace could also help men to cope with the challenges of parenthood.
“I’m at a place where I can say I’m unequivocally proud of the man that I am for my son, to view me and look up to me,” Oshrin said. “We should support more dads to have that self-esteem and awareness and be excited to not only honor themselves as men, but to be proud to be dads and role models.”