Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is leading by example. At least publicly.
The billionaire head of the world's largest social network is taking two months off to care for his newborn, a move that is consistent with Facebook's stated policy of allowing and encouraging workers to take paid leave after the birth of a child. Employees at the company are entitled to four months of paid leave.
While many big companies — particularly in the tech sector — have announced generous parental leave policies in recent years, it is rare to see those in the male-dominated world of corporate leadership exercise their right to take time off.
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Facebook has made a big point of emphasizing parental leave to its employees. One executive, Andrew Bosworth, told Business Insider in September that he was chided by coworkers for only taking two months off after the birth of his son. He explained to them, he said, that he would eventually take the full four months off, just not all at once.
"Now that I've had a child, it's absolutely mind-boggling that somebody wouldn't take it. Especially a first child," he said.
Many career-oriented men and women no doubt forgo lengthy parental leave for fear that they'll fall behind their colleagues or be viewed as uncommitted to the job. And unlike their subordinates, C-Suite executives don't have to worry about the cost of childcare when they go back to work only days after delivery.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's announcement in September that she would take "limited parental leave" to care for her newborn twins was greeted with support from those who saw the decision as illustrating that a woman does not have to sacrifice motherhood to be successful in corporate America.
Others countered that Mayer's situation hardly related to those faced by average American working moms. Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former Obama administration official and Princeton professor who has written about work-family balance, told the Associated Press in 2012, following Mayer's first pregnancy, that the calculus of a CEO is very different than those of average working moms.
"We all applaud [Mayer]," she said. "But she's superhuman, rich, and in charge. She isn't really a realistic role model for hundreds of thousands of women who are trying to figure out how you make it to the top AND have a family at the same time."
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