[rayiner]

My wife and I had a baby last year (she's 5 months now), and I can't imagine being away from work for 37 weeks. My wife is an involuntary housewife for almost a year (she graduated early and her work doesn't start till the fall), and while she appreciates the opportunity to spend time with the baby, I'm pretty sure she'd say you can have too much of a good thing. I love my daughter to bits, but let's be realistic--she's not 18 hours a day worth of "magical"...

That said, good parental leave benefits are great for a different reason: very young children are a pain in the ass to take care of, which means that daycare providers charge a lot more until they're older.