The topic of paternity leave was all the rage Thursday as Silicone Valley venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale had a sharp opinion of Secretary of Transportation Peter Buttigieg’s decision to take months off from work, in the middle of the global shipping crisis, to help take care of the twins he and his husband adopted.
Lonsdale summed it up rather succinctly, calling men who do that “losers” and then saying “in the old days men had babies and worked harder to provide for their future’ which was ‘the correct masculine response.”
Say this about Buttiegieg, while nobody is going to be accusing him of being manly any time soon, the bigger question people are asking is how could someone with such an important cabinet position job duck his responsibilities during a crisis. Keep in mind, this was paid time off. So he didn’t work and made his full salary.
Lonsdale was responding to an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience where the topic came up. Stand up comedian Bridget Phetasy was on the show, and made the point that it’s not considered weird in Germany for both parents of a newborn to take paternity leave together.
Rogan disagreed, saying. “That’s great. You wanna live in Germany? Because in America you gotta work,”
The whole topic sparked a raging debate on social media. Lonsdale thrust himself into the conversation online and back pedaled eventually, saying he should not have called Buttigieg a loser.
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