Delving into this research question, the argument seems quite clear. Social groups have been fighting for across-the-board equality for decades upon decades. So, why should there be a gap in the leave granted at childbirth between mothers and fathers? Both have contributed half of the child's DNA and the child, more often than not, favors both parents in its physical attributes. The counter argument is that males are, traditionally, the higher paid individual, and should assume financial responsibilities while the mother assumes domestic and child raising ones. Apart from being widely outdated, this ideology goes against all progress we have made towards total equality. The overall goal for equality is for anyone to be able to accomplish whatever he or she wants to, inhibited only by his or her own motivation. I take this to mean that if you are a male, you are free to pursue your career and your home life to the extent of your motivation, not to the extent of government allocated funds. 

The first source I analyzed was an article called "The Daddy Wars" by Charlie Gillis, a Canadian author. In this article, Gillis backs up his theory that men stay at work, not for financial reasons, but for social ones by presenting the reader with the programs available to Canadian fathers and the percentage of those fathers that choose not to take advantage of them (Gillis). In the U.S., both parents are guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid leave without fear of losing their jobs (Gillis). Fathers in Canada are offered 35 weeks of paid leave at 55% pay, while mothers are granted a full year of leave. In the evidence presented by Gillis, only 9.4% of men were taking advantage of the paid leave. Of that 9.4%, the average time taken for leave was 13 weeks, compared to the average 31.5 weeks for women. Gillis's explanation for this stark difference in the acceptance of leave is that the father is typically the higher-paid individual in the household. This makes it difficult to afford all the things you need for a new baby with a 45% pay cut. Because of this, men take some time to visit with their newborn, but typically get back to work as soon as they can in order to fill their role as breadwinner (Gillis). This source is reliable because it offers an "outside looking in" sort of perspective on paternity leave. Gillis is a Canadian who is used to a different system and is more objective when analyzing the American paternity leave norms.

My second source is a study published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Janet Shibley Hyde, a psychology professor at UW-Madison shows that there is a growing demand for fathers to play a larger role in child raising, however, government policies and workplace realities conflict with this cultural change. She cites the U.S. law passed in 1993 mandating 12 weeks of unpaid leave for both parents and states that 78% of men and 89% of women supported it (Hyde). On the contrary, only 20% of fathers took seven days or more of leave (Hyde). This compares to the study's nine-week average for women. Again, the gender roles perpetuate themselves again. The fathers have every opportunity to stay home for 12 weeks, but they choose to get back to work and bring home the money while the mother tends to the child and the domestic responsibilities (Hyde). Being a professor of psychology, Hyde is able to demonstrate credible survey techniques. Surveys that are published by a university are usually worked on by multiple people, offering a level of bias that is far lower than that of a study released by a single person. 

The final source is an article from an academic journal. In their article, "Paternity Leave and Fathers' Involvement with their Young Children," Lenna Nepomnyaschy and Jane Waldfogel use the first wave of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a representative study of over 10,000 children born in 2001. They find that a father that takes two or more weeks off after his child is born is far more likely to be heavily involved in child raising responsibilities nine months after birth (Nepomnyaschy and Waldfogel). Lenna Nepomnyaschy is an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University School of Social Work. Her scope of research is loosely focused on how poverty and inequality impact all areas of child and family health and wellbeing. Her background is almost tailored to provide the best possible research for this topic. Jane Waldfogel is a Research Associate at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics. Again, her status as research associate puts her in a very unbiased position due to her devotion to research and truth preservation. The authors' credentials make them the perfect ones for conducting this analysis of the ECLS-B data. 

Although the majority of the research points to the idea that fathers should care for their child just as much as mothers, the fact that child rearing is a physical endeavor for a mother grants a certain amount of leeway. On average, it takes 6 weeks for women to get to the point in their postpartum recovery where they can physically return to work. These are 6 weeks that men do not have to contend with. If those weeks are subtracted from the 12 weeks granted to both parents by the government, there are still six weeks allotted for childcare. Those weeks are built into the leave as weeks with which to get settled down with your new child and grow accustomed to your new responsibilities. Those are things that a parent needs regardless of whether they carried the child or not. My research question remains arguable, however, if I were to change it, I would switch it to "How much Paternity Leave Should Fathers Get?" 

