JD Vance’s paternity leave decision reveals a bigger issue facing American fathers

On Sunday, Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance announced the birth of a baby son, their fourth child. The news marks the first time in over 100 years that a sitting vice president has had a newborn while in office.

But what Vance is doing next with his family is in line with traditional gender norms in America — he’s not taking time off work. 

Politics: Vice President JD Vance Is Having Another Baby

In May, Vance told NBC News that he plans to forgo formal parental leave: “It’s one of these jobs where it’s impossible to completely disconnect from it,” he said. 

The vice president’s office did not comment to HuffPost about his current plans for leave.

Too many dads like Vance still take minimal paternal leave, whether that’s by choice or by necessity. The United States has no national paid parental leave policy, and families must cobble together paid leave from what states and their employers allow. A 2026 national parent survey of over 5,000 parents found that the average paternal leave dads took was about two weeks long. In that same survey, a majority of both moms and dads said they had less parental leave than they wanted.

And according to paid-leave researchers, Vance’s decision not to take any paternity leave as a politician is setting a bad example for the rest of Americans. 

Politics: JD Vance Admits Government Shutdown Will Bring 'Pain'

“When men don’t take leave, it increases the stigma on women who basically have to,” said Joan C. Williams, a law professor and founding director of WorkLife Law, which documents workplace bias against mothers. “One of the reasons we have a low birth rate is that, economically, one of the worst decisions that women can make is to have a child.”

A large body of research has found that mothers face career and economic penalties after having children. 

Vance is “basically normalizing a situation where real men don’t take leave,” Williams said. “That’s exactly the situation where real women won’t have children.”

Fathers who keep working and opt out of changing diapers and helping raise newborns also set family dynamics in stone. 

“When fathers do not take time off of work to focus on family, it reinforces traditional gender roles of fathers as breadwinners and mothers as caregivers,” said Richard Petts, a sociology professor at Ball State University who studies paternal leave. “Importantly, fathers miss out on critical time to bond with their new baby.”

Politics: Second Lady Usha Vance Gives Birth To Fourth Child

“People look up to [Vance] as a leader,” Petts said, which is why his decision to forgo parental leave is “a missed opportunity to demonstrate commitment to engaged fathering.” He noted that Vance taking even one or two weeks would “demonstrate to men throughout the country that it’s OK to take leave.”

There are long-term benefits that families miss out on when dads don’t or can’t take time off.

In his interview with NBC News about how he balances his vice presidential duties with his growing family, Vance said that he will schedule more time at home after his fourth child is born and help his wife take care of his older children. 

But paternal leave offers a different kind of help than an informal arrangement. When men in leadership like Vance don’t take paternal leave — especially when they have the resources to do so — it discourages other fathers from taking paid leave and experiencing the many documented benefits associated with parental leave. These include greater parental involvement, better health outcomes for parents, and greater co-parenting support, Petts noted.

One 2019 study that Petts co-authored found that when dads took at least two weeks of leave, children reported feeling closer to their fathers even nine years later.

“What the studies show is that men who take parental leave end up being more involved with their children years later,” Williams said. “Taking parental leave changes your relationship with your children forever.”

Taking paternity leave can also make or break your marriage. Petts has conducted multiplestudies with his fellow researchers and found that even dads taking a short paternity leave of two weeks or less lowered the risk of relationship dissolution for several years after their child’s birth.  

“The boost is sustained,” Petts said. “In a second study, we found this trend persisted through when children were 9 years old.”

Career: JD Vance Is Taking A Lot Of Vacations — And It Speaks Volumes About His Power

Petts said taking parental leave can keep couples together because it “signals commitment from fathers to be engaged parents” and reduces stress for mothers as they physically and mentally recover from childbirth, leading to greater relationship satisfaction. 

Meanwhile, “when only mothers are home, they become the parenting expert and fathers are relegated to secondary parents,” Petts noted. “When fathers learn alongside mothers, they are more likely to feel confident in parenting, further increasing the likelihood that they remain engaged.”

Countries outside the U.S. are tackling the stigma against paternity leave by mandating it with use-it-or-lose-it “daddy quotas” so that families must take paternal leave. Until more systemic policies like this are set in America, family leave will continue to be a less viable and more individual option for men to take, researchers said. Vance is not disrupting that narrative. 

“We live in a society where parental leave is still largely seen as something for women, and then it’s optional for men,” Petts said. 

“When dad doesn’t take leave, the message is sent that caregiving is the responsibility of the mother, and for the dad when and if he has time,” Williams said. “And that’s the message that JD Vance is sending.”