They say a woman becomes a mother the moment she gets to know she’s pregnant, while a man becomes a father from the moment he holds his child. Back in the day, it was a mother’s duty to take care of kids, while fathers went to work. But things are slowly changing, more and more dads want to be an active part of their children’s life from the start and hence, are opting to take paternity leaves to be with the mother and baby. While there is no real law regarding paternity leave in India (except for government employees), private companies are free to give it away according to their own discretion. Working mothers in India get up to 12 weeks of maternity leave, but paternity leaves are hardly heard of. With tech giants like Facebook giving out 4 months of paternity leave to their employees, we’ve certainly living in good times.
It ain’t just tech companies, but Bollywood celebrities are also leading the way by taking time out from their busy schedules for their babies. Shahid Kapoor, Riteish Deshmukh, Imran Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Kunal Khemu and Vivek Oberoi are some of the Bollywood daddies that made sure to take paternity leaves before or after their babies were born so as spend some quality time. It’s great that B-Town dads are setting a trend of being hands-on with their tiny tots, this tends to take the weight off of mothers who are expected to be there whether they’re working or not. While dads tend to miss some of those precious moments, these B-Town dads have chosen to not to do so. And this one leaf all expectant fathers should take out from these dads books.
Here’s what some of Bollywood’s #SuperDads had to say about their paternity leaves.
Imran Khan
Back when Imran’s wife was pregnant with their baby girl, the actor made sure to pamper his wife with a babymoon in Europe.
After marriage you go on a honeymoon, and before a baby is born you go on a babymoon, it is the last holiday before you have a child. It was very relaxing.
Imran was super excited for the arrival of his baby and reportedly had got his hands on any kind of book that would help him take care of his child.
Vivek Oberoi
According to DNA, the Krissh actor seemed super pumped before the birth of his son. The actor had even taken close to a month off to be with his newborn and was working out his wife’s hometown, Bangalore before his son was born. He had even taken his wife on a shopping spree/babymoon to Europe and Bali! A #SuperDad and #SuperHusband, eh?
I was like a coolie carrying so much of luggage. We bought maternity products, shopped for some cute stuff in neutral pink and blue colours, as we don’t know if the baby will be a boy or a girl. I am super excited to be a father.
Aww! How cute!
Kunal Khemu
More recently, Kunal and Soha Ali Khan welcomed a baby girl and the newbie dad was all kinds of excited as he talked to DNA,
I really look forward to spending a significant amount of time with the baby. I have decided to take time out even though we are going to have a rigorous schedule during the promotions of the film (Golmaal 4).
The whole point of paternity leave is to connect with your child right from the beginning. While mothers have a chance to get used to the child as it’s growing inside them, fathers usually never get that. Paternity leaves are a total yay from our side, what do you think?