High-pro­file tech/​me­dia guru Alexis Ohanian has been mak­ing a na­tional mis­sion out of his highly pub­li­cized paid pa­ter­nity leave, cour­tesy of the com­pany he founded and owns.

The mul­ti­mil­lion­aire (and co-founder of Red­dit) and hus­band of ten­nis pro Ser­ena Wil­liams took the full 16 weeks of paid leave avail­able to him from his em­ployer — the ven­ture cap­i­tal firm he co-founded and runs — when his daugh­ter Olym­pia was born. And Mr. Ohanian has made a point of talk­ing about it to any­one who will lis­ten and pro­mot­ing it on so­cial me­dia to any­one who will look. Now he is part­ner­ing with Dove on a cam­paign to cham­pion pa­ter­nity leave.

It’s a good way to kin­dle a move­ment and a wor­thy move­ment it would be.

Mr. Ohanian is right in be­liev­ing — and demon­strat­ing — that there should be no stigma about fathers tak­ing a leave of ab­sence from work to be with their kids; and the leave should be paid.

Let’s take it a step fur­ther, though. There should be no stigma about ei­ther par­ent — or both — tak­ing a leave of ab­sence from work to be with their kids; and the leave(s) should be paid.

Polls show peo­ple of both gen­ders worry that tak­ing fam­ily leave (paid or un­paid) will cast them in an un­fa­vor­able light. This stigma could be dis­patched in quick fash­ion with two ini­tia­tives:

• The fed­eral Fam­ily and Med­i­cal Leave Act should be amended to in­clude paid time off. Cur­rently, the law al­lows 12 weeks of un­paid leave to qual­i­fy­ing em­ploy­ees. The job is pro­tected and health care (if it’s pro­vided) con­tin­ues. If FMLA were changed to in­clude man­da­tory pay, more peo­ple would take it and the stigma of leave would dis­si­pate.

• Em­ploy­ers — even those that are too small to be re­quired to par-

tic­i­pate in FMLA — should be­gin of­fer­ing paid fam­ily leave. The length of time should, at min­i­mum, be six weeks. But the lon­ger the bet­ter.

 In the pri­vate sec­tor, some com­pa­nies com­pet­ing for hires are of­fer­ing paid leave for em­ploy­ees and — Am­a­zon, for in­stance — even pay for the spouses of em­ploy­ees to take time off. U.S. House mem­bers are try­ing to re­quire that paid leave be of­fered by the coun­try’s larg­est em­ployer: the fed­eral gov­ern­ment. Law­mak­ers are work­ing hard again to pass a paid fam­ily leave bill for fed­eral em­ploy­ees. The leg­is­la­tion would guar­an­tee up to 12 weeks of paid leave for fed­eral em­ploy­ees for the birth, adop­tion or fos­ter­ing of a new child. Es­sen­tially, it con­verts FMLA into paid leave time for fed­eral em­ploy­ees. The bill has a dozen co-spon­sors (all Dem­o­crats) and a lot of union sup­port.

Amer­ica is the only coun­try in the de­vel­oped world that does not fed­er­ally re­quire paid leave, at least for new moms. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has said he fa­vors six weeks of paid leave. Demo­cratic Sen. Kirsten Gil­li­brand, a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, has in­tro­duced a plan for par­tial pay at 12 weeks of fam­ily leave.

Ev­ery­one ben­e­fits from paid pa­ren­tal leaves. Par­ents get time to ad­just to a new fam­ily unit. Chil­dren get to bond with their par­ents. Fam­i­lies are less likely to need the help of pub­lic as­sis­tance. The econ­omy grows be­cause paid leave is as­so­ci­ated with higher job per­for­mance, re­ten­tion and fam­ily in­comes.

Mr. Trump should bring to heel his Re­pub­li­can sup­port­ers: Ideally, a broad-based fed­eral man­date for paid pa­ren­tal leave would be passed by Con­gress. At the least, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment should be­gin of­fer­ing paid leave to its own em­ploy­ees.

On March 15, the chil­dren led the way across the world with the Global Cli­mate Strike bring­ing at­ten­tion to cli­mate change (March 17, “Stu­dents Glob­ally Pro­test Warm­ing, Plead­ing for their Fu­ture”). Cen­tral to their de­mands is sup­port for the Green New Deal.

The agenda set by young peo­ple in our coun­try aligns with that of my union, 32BJ SEIU. De­trac­tors must re­al­ize the youth have got it right: Cli­mate change and eco­nomic justice go hand and hand.

Sci­en­tists pre­dicted we have 11 years to change the course of our cli­mate and take ac­tion to re-in­dus­tri­al­ize our na­tion with a green econ­omy, re­ly­ing on re­new­able en­ergy and elim­i­nat­ing de­pen­dence on fos­sil fu­els.

The Green New Deal is an op­por­tu­nity for green jobs. With the right train­ing, these jobs will al­low many low-wage work­ers a chance to ob­tain a fam­ily-sus­tain­ing job, which can help strengthen our econ­omy and sta­bi­lize fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties.

We owe it to our chil­dren to leave them a world that is bet­ter than the one we have. Sup­port­ing the Green New Deal is a step in the right di­rec­tion.

Sam Wil­liam­son

Friend­ship

The writer is the Western Penn­syl­va­nia dis­trict di­rec­tor for 32BJ SEIU.

Out­pa­tient treat­ment

In the March 18 let­ter “Flaws with As­sisted Out­pa­tient Treat­ment,” Joni Sch­wa­ger cor­rectly states that Penn­syl­va­nia’s new as­sisted out­pa­tient treat­ment (AOT) law will go into ef­fect next month. Un­for­tu­nately, most of her other com­ments about the new law are far less ac­cu­rate.

First, AOT is not de­signed for peo­ple with ad­dic­tion dis­or­ders, but for a very small sub­set of in­di­vid­u­als with se­ri­ous men­tal ill­ness who can­not, on their own, rec­og­nize their need for treat­ment (a con­di­tion re­ferred to as “ano­sog­no­sia”). With­out a civil court judge’s over­sight, in­di­vid­u­als with this con­di­tion are un­likely to ad­here to treat­ment.

Second, the new law will not add stress to the com­mu­nity’s men­tal health and court sys­tems. These sys­tems are al­ready strained to the break­ing point by the in­di­vid­u­als with un­treated men­tal ill­ness who cy­cle through jails, hos­pi­tals and cri­sis cen­ters. AOT can stop this re­volv­ing door and save money.

Third, there ab­so­lutely are con­se­quences for peo­ple that do not ad­here to court-or­dered treat­ment. A judge may, as ap­pro­pri­ate, re­quire more fre­quent ap­pear­ances, ex­tend a court or­der or have a per­son re­hos­pi­tal­ized. How­ever, the goal of AOT is not to pun­ish peo­ple who are ill but rather to en­cour­age them to par­tic­i­pate in their own re­cov­ery.