You'd think it would be the same for both parents. How does my employer know whether I am the primary or secondary caregiver? How do they know there even is a primary or secondary caregiver?
It's also frustrating from a "feminism" perspective. Women need time to recover physically from childbirth and time to figure out a feeding/pumping schedule (even if they don't plan to breastfeed long term, there may be complications to work out). Those are things that men can't do. In order to get that time, they may need to legally declare themselves the "primary caregiver." Especially at companies like mine where "secondary" caregivers get only 2 weeks of leave and FMLA doesn't apply. You can't recover from a c-section in 2 weeks.
But "primary caregiver" is a loaded term that goes beyond biological necessity. What if a woman's husband is quitting his job to take care of the kid(s) and the woman plans to return to work? Is she the secondary caregiver because she spends less of her time doing childcare than her husband? What if the primary caregiver is a nanny?
Even if HR says "Oh, nevermind what you actually plan to do, if you're pushing the kid out, we can mark you as primary" it creates a terrible start to things if you have two parents who set out with good intentions to share childcare efforts equally. HR is telling one parent they're the "primary" and another parent they're the "secondary" and they have to sign legally binding documents attesting to this. It's just ridiculous. I think it's a great example of good intentions backfiring dramatically.
But "primary caregiver" is a loaded term that goes beyond biological necessity. What if a woman's husband is quitting his job to take care of the kid(s) and the woman plans to return to work? Is she the secondary caregiver because she spends less of her time doing childcare than her husband? What if the primary caregiver is a nanny?
Even if HR says "Oh, nevermind what you actually plan to do, if you're pushing the kid out, we can mark you as primary" it creates a terrible start to things if you have two parents who set out with good intentions to share childcare efforts equally. HR is telling one parent they're the "primary" and another parent they're the "secondary" and they have to sign legally binding documents attesting to this. It's just ridiculous. I think it's a great example of good intentions backfiring dramatically.