When my wife and I adopted Misha Gabrielle, our oldest daughter was a two-week old infant in the late summer of 1998, the last thing we had thought about was my paternity leave. My wife was working at a relatively progressive college, and she was able to take eight weeks off before returning to work as an administrator. It had never occurred to me to ask for such a leave at my own institution—not nearly as progressive—and among a decidedly older generation of colleagues for which men asking for such leaves was unfathomable. As an academic though, I also knew that I had the kind of flexibility...