Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal takes Paternity Leave
Maybe in a few years, when a top CEO takes paternity leave, it won’t make the news. But because paternity leave isn’t widely available in America, Twitter’s announcement that CEO Parag Agrawal is taking “a few weeks” off after the birth of his second child received plenty of attention. Many applauded the 37-year-old Agrawal for setting a good example for other fathers, including those at Twitter. “I wish leaders did this when I was early in my career and becoming a father,” Twitter’s chief financial officer, Ned Segal, tweeted.
But others expressed dismay that Agrawal was taking only “a few weeks” off, seemingly far less than the 20 weeks that Twitter generously grants fathers. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who took 16 weeks off in 2017 when his wife, tennis star Serena Williams, gave birth to their daughter Olympia, encouraged Agrawal to “take the time you need.”
Agrawal could split the parental leave, Ohanian tweeted, taking a few weeks off to make sure everything is okay at home and then taking “every Friday off to use the rest of the leave. You’ll always be a text message away!” As Joe Pinsker of The Atlantic magazine noted recently, the United States is the only wealthy country that doesn’t have a national program for paid parental leave.
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Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
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