Should Professional Athletes be Allowed Time Off for The Birth of Their Children?

Family always comes first

People are allowed time off from nearly all salaried jobs for the birth of a child. Family first.

I honestly can’t tell if TiH was kidding on this one.

Paid time off while wife/girlfriend is in the hospital. If mother and baby are home and player misses a game with team permission, no problem but unpaid with pro-rated salary reduction.

The Shawn Kemp rule: No more than one baby per season!!

Just because they are paid ungodly ammounts of money. They should be afforded the same things normal workers get. Just cause they make there money playing a game shouldnt exlude them from having children married or not. Its like saying your manager, boss, cfo types of people that make more money then you should they not get time off for a child birth? Some companys like the one I work @ give up 2 a full month fully paid after the birth of a child(fmla) so why shouldnt sports players get that same luxary. Its not like they are taking the whole season of or even 1-2 weeks. We as homers and sports lovers who support our players thru thick and think should get what ever other person in the country gets.

Why should they have to plan for a child for an “offseason?” Most children are, I hate to say this, mistakes, not in the sense that they are unwanted, but conflict with things that are going on in life. So I think it would be almost unconsititional to tell athlets that they have to “pla” child birth around an offseason.

When I consider that the child was born out of wedlock and he slacked off and missed games for it, I think it sends a bad message to the young Blazers fans that look up to Roy. Roy needs to send a message to the fans that he is committed to the team ABOVE ALL ELSE, and that he supports the sanctity of marriage.

I had to read over this about three times to make sure i read it and understood it correctly. In this current time in history i can not for the life of me understand how you could be seriously saying that. I mean really, his LONG time girlfriend had his baby. This isn’t Shawn Kemp with 12 kids by 12 different women, your statement is ludicrous. They are not married, who cares i would not judge a person for that if i was you. Ever here of the adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” There are people out there, alot of them, who do not get married simply beacuse things work just fine as they are.

My best friend for example: he married this girl and she completely changed after they got married. BTW they are now divorced. Also how does anything Roy has done regarding his girlfriend or his child sent a bad message? I cant understand, he is a stand up guy, you dont hear about his having affairs or domestic issues or anything.

I am ussually not critical of others statements but yours sir was………well i dont have the correct discription other than as i said earlier, Ludicrous

Let’s build a young team, let’s create a family environment, let’s encourage these guys to be positive role models for the children of our community.

Then let’s control how and when these people can become fathers… WTF???!?!??

I understand the concern with games off. But the world has changed. In the 1950’s, there were plenty of times that men received a phone call at work letting them know that their child had been born. Proud papa would pass out cigars to his co-workers, then go to the bar and pass out more there, then EVENTUALLY get to the hospital.

We live in a different world now. Fathers are more active in the birth of these children, and having been through it, I think that’s the way it should be. I watched my daughter be born. I watched a midwife react with lightning speed to remove the umbilical cord from around my daughter’s neck… three times. I watched the color return to my child as the midwife saved her life. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I watched my son be born. I cut the umbilical cord, and held him briefly. Then I watched him stop breathing. I watched doctor’s and nurses revive him. Not so long ago, I wouldn’t have been in the room when these births took place. Not so long ago, I could have lost either of those children and not have had the chance to lay eyes on them before they passed.

No, planning for a certain time? It’s possible, but there are complications to that. For instance, my ex-wife was on a certain form of birth control after our daughter was born. We decided we wanted another child, and for the kids to be three to four years apart. She went off that form of birth control, but her system was a bit of a mess for a while. We had more or less given up and decided that we would only have one child. Several months beyond our ideal “window”, she got pregnant. So our kids are a little more than four years apart in age. We had taken all the family planning classes and learned how to properly tell when ovulation occurs and all that, but the timing just didn’t work perfectly for us. Those are the breaks sometimes.

Now where exactly do you draw the line? If a player can’t leave to be there when their child is being born (and part of this is to be with their partner), what about if that partner or child or even one of their parents needs an operation or something else? Would you have not allowed Robert Horry any time off to be with his daughter? What about Derek Fisher? And what about all the times we hear of these athletes missing a game or two to be with their dying parent?

Just how cold and heartless do we need to be, to control these people to this degree? Sure, they are paid a lot of money to play a game. But they are still human, not slaves. We live in a more compassionate world than we used to. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Isn’t it legitimate? A regular season game probably isn’t a big deal, but a playoff game means a lot of money for a franchise. The owner pays a lot of money to these guys. I recognize the importance of the birth of a child, but don’t players have obligations to the franchise too?

Male athletes, yes. Female athletes, no.

Sans guaranteed contracts, are we even having this discussion? Miss two playoff games for the birth of your child? 30% less money for you next season.

We should keep in mind that this is all relative. As a white collar office professional in the USA, I make perhaps 100x a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa. A NBA players makes approx 100x my salary. We should be cautious creating expectations that we’re not able to live with were our middle class lives considered at the filthy rich end of the spectrum.

BUT ITS STARTING TO GET HARDER AND HARDER!

The birth of a child is an important event in one’s life. It doesn’t matter if you make $10 per hour or 10 million dollars a year. These people are not just athletes, they are human beings too.

As for you calling out Brandon Roy. His family and how he created it is is nobody’s business but his. He is a great player and an upstanding citizen. That’s what is truly important.

Lured in what, about a dozen fish with this one?

I really cant tell if he’s serious. I was crackin up the whole time. Sounds like someone needs a hug (besides Rudy)

How about a new poll ranking poll questions. This one belongs on the list of questions that really never should have been asked.

Everyone should get time off for the birth of their child. The only exceptions would be working emergency services people, and that’s only if they’re in the middle of a emergency.

They make to much money to take time off for family? Seriously?!?!?

…athletes make enough money, they should just pay someone to go be there for the birth. Game or not. It’s an awfully emotional event, and they need to have that emotion for GAMETIME!

In fact, they should pay someone to stand in for them all of the time. That way they could stay focused on basketball, without all of these family things getting in the way.

The nice thing about this is, it wouldn’t even end up being their child, so they wouldn’t have to feel guilty about not being there for the birth. They could just have one of their people send flowers and they could say, “nice job, buddy – hey, he looks just like you!”

He shoots, he SCORES! Yay!

You put this in any normal internet forum, nobody would get the humor, and there would be no witty responses.