Karlo Campana has three kids under the age of 4 and he is usually outnumbered at home. When his son arrived this spring he did something that a generation ago few fathers would have considered. He took paid time off to stay home with the baby just as he had for each of his two daughters.

Campana works at an ad agency in Orange County, California. He says the weeks away from the office gave his family room to adjust during the sleepless early days. Not having to think about work or worry about a smaller paycheck made all the difference.

He jokes that by the third child he figured he had mastered the diaper change. He was wrong. Still, he says those messy moments are the point. His wife never felt like she was handling a newborn on her own.

A big shift in who takes leave

Campana is part of a fast-growing group. In California men filed 51% of the state's paid bonding leave claims in 2025. When the program started in 2004 they made up only about 18%. Last year was the first time men outpaced women in the state. Colorado and Washington have seen the same flip.

There is still no federal law that guarantees paid leave for new parents in the United States. But 14 states and Washington, D.C., have created their own paid family leave programs. California lets parents take up to eight weeks of paid bonding time within a year of a birth or adoption or a foster placement. That comes on top of the medical leave mothers get to recover from childbirth.

Molly Weston Williamson, policy director for the advocacy group Paid Leave for All, says ideas about what dads should do at home have changed a lot in 20 years. She also points to bigger checks. Since 2025 workers in California and several other states can collect as much as 90% of their regular pay while on leave, which puts the option within reach for many more families.

Why it matters

Research ties paid parental leave to lower infant death rates and less postpartum depression. When fathers stay home the whole household tends to benefit including better health for both parents.

Campana admits he felt guilty at first. His own father worked three jobs and was rarely around. He says today's dads feel freer to be present instead of being only the provider.

Money worries hang over all of it. In a national family survey last year 7 in 10 Americans said raising kids has become unaffordable. Jeremy Pope, a political science professor at Brigham Young University who helps lead that survey, says most people do not want government deciding whether they have children. They do want help with what it costs.