On yesterday’s Cavuto on Business, the panel bashed discussed Yahoo’s decision to double maternity and paternity leave to keep top workers. Dagen McDowell didn’t like it. She sneered, “Did new dads start lactating and I didn’t know about it?” Charles Payne laughed heartily.
“Why do they need eight weeks of maternity leave?” McDowell asked.
Cavuto, apparently, enjoyed the humor. “Why did you have to start lactating on me?” he quipped.
McDowell continued, “Why do the men need to be home? The women are the ones who did all the hard work. Why do the men need eight weeks?”
Cavuto replied, “Ah, hello, hello? Helped make them, hello? …Fathers have feelings. …That was a very sexist comment.”
Ben Stein jumped on board. He said, “I think the attention of (Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer) should be turned to getting some earnings out of that very fine company instead of getting points from the women’s lobby.”
“Ooooh,” Cavuto responded, before turning to Adam Lashinsky for an opinion.
Lashinsky, the lone liberal on the panel, said, “This is very straightforward. She’s trying to keep up with Google, her former employer which offers very generous maternity and paternity benefits. …It’s a smart move and Dagen, the three weeks that I spent with my newborn daughter were some of the best weeks of my life. I wish it were eight weeks. It would have made me even more loyal to my employer.”
“I agree with Dagen,” Payne chimed in. “Two weeks unless you lactate. …For the economy, this is nuts. …Economically, two weeks, max, for the father.”
This was a good topic that could have made for an interesting discussion. Instead, Fox dumbed it down and made it trivial and silly.