My spouse and I have recently been talking more about starting a family. There's a good chance we'll stop preventing soon though we won't exactly be "trying" either.
I currently work as a software engineer at a fully-remote startup. Its a pretty small company without an official paternity leave policy, but I emailed HR and they indicated they had given other people 2 weeks of PTO for paternity leave. My question is; if you were in my position, would you consider looking elsewhere for companies that have more paternity leave? I'm not sure what amount is normal or good, but a previous search yielded dads talking about months of paternity leave being too short, which got me worried. Then again, since I am remote, maybe I am more worried about this than I need to be? My wife has chronic fatigue so I expect she will need plenty of help from me especially with a newborn.
I have worked for this company for about a year and feel neutral about staying. It is somewhat chaotic like any startup, but it also seems to have the best chance of success out of any of the startups that I have worked at. I could maybe find better pay elsewhere, but I am not interested in chasing money alone. Another concern I had was if I started looking and got a new job I wondered if there might be some delay before I was even eligible for parental leave, but again I have no idea if this is a realistic concern.
I'm pretty sure the real answer to the title is no amount of time is "enough", but hopefully you all can help me form realistic expectations. I'm excited and terrified at the idea of having kids and I also tend to agonize over decisions and over-preparation, so any and all advice is welcome. Thank you!
Yes, but some states provide that coverage on top of FMLA, e.g. California providing up to 52 weeks paid for injury recovery (DI), and 8 weeks for child care/ bonding (PFL).
Even if 8 weeks isn't much, it's 4 times what they were being offered, so certainly worth checking for their state.