I’ll be getting 20 days time off and on top of that I can choose between 4 months of time off if I so wish.

Other options are 1 day off for 20 months or half a day off for 40 months.

The thing I’m truly desiring from this is that the flemish government is protecting me from being fired the moment I request this extra parental leave.

If they cannot prove that they fire me for good reasons, then they’ll have to pay me 6 months wage on top of the rest.

So if they are going to downsize, or whatever, they’ll be less prone to pick me.

I’ll take either the 20 or 40 months on this one.

My wife doesn’t have a choice, she’s 7 weeks pregnant now. Taking off work until 1 June. Then maternity leave starting 1 august (is what her HR said, even though internet says 6 weeks instead of 12, but perhaps it’s cuz it’s a physical job) until 15 weeks after the birth.

Personally I will do anything I can to make sure we have a long term source of income.

Keeping a good relationship with the place that pays me my wage will be beneficial.

I’ll take a bulk of 1 or 2 weeks of paternal leave when the baby is born. Take one day off afterwards for 2 years.

Yesterday I saw clips on TV from us media supporting trump’s stances on Ukraine and stuff like that. Made me quite angry because the way that the presentation of the news was set up was to influence the viewer. Nothing else. It wasn’t to inform, it was to influence.

When it’s about politics on Belgian nationalised TV channel, then it’s always various people who share their points of view and it’s more to inform than to dictate.

As Belgian I do think Switzerland is one of the best countries on the entire planet. There’s a reason why they have 30% immigrants, and it’s not because German is a fun language to learn 😁