Stop telling professional athletes when they’re allowed to have children

On Monday the Washington Nationals announced that catcher Wilson Ramos is taking three days paternity leave to be with his wife during the birth of their first child. Ramos is not the first player to take paternity time. Yet with each instance it renews the embarrassing debate about whether athletes should take advantage of such privileges. Each swell of anti-paternity sentiment also comes with solutions offered by talking heads who are clearly experts in such matters.

“You’re a major league baseball player. You can hire a nurse.”

Said professional howler monkey Mike Francesa, who went on an anti-paternity leave tirade in reaction to Mets second basemen Daniel Murphy’s three-day leave at the start of the season.

The shitty thing about Francesa’s hot-take is that it devalues a father’s role in the birth of his child. Sure, an athlete can hire a nurse to help care for his baby. Will she also bond with his baby for him? Will she download those precious first-time father memories and upload them into his brain so he can cherish them forever? And when his wife is physically recovering and emotionally overwhelmed, with spit up in her hair and hormone driven tears running down her face, is that nurse going to lay next her, hug her and tell her she’s amazing?

Francesa went on to say that he was at work hours after the birth of his children. He’s entitled to do whatever he wants, but perhaps he should have done everyone a favor, shut his mouth for a few days and spent time with his family.

“Missing games is detrimental to the team.”

This was the argument made by ESPN 980’s Kevin Sheehan on his afternoon show The Sports Fix, after Ramos’s paternity leave was announced.

Being an athlete does not obligate any man to give up the right to experience the first few days of his child’s life. It doesn’t matter if he’s missing three days out of 162, or one game out of 16. Ramos is taking his three days — which is an incredibly short amount of time for a new parent — and making the statement that his family comes first, before the game that will one day be done with him and cast him aside.

“Why don’t you just schedule the baby around the season?”

Ah, my favorite. This was the suggestion Boomer Esiason offered in reaction to Murphy’s leave. But he didn’t put it quite as nicely.

“Quite frankly I would have said, ‘C-section before the season starts. I need to be at opening.’”

We’re ripping our child form your loins, honey. He can finish cooking on the outside.

Esiason later apologized for the remarks.

The idea that anyone should be obligated to schedule the birth of their children around their job to appease people who have no business demanding such things is appalling.

But let’s put emotion aside and take a look at the facts. A woman has a 15-25 percent chance of getting pregnant in any given month, and that’s only if the biological timing is perfect and there are no fertility issues. The odds are already stacked against a couple trying to conceive, and you’re asking them to put aside their effort for seven months out of the year.

Let’s assume for a minute that Esiason and Florio’s idea isn’t incredibly ignorant, short-sighted and insulting. In order for the partner of a baseball player to give birth to a child during the offseason months of November to March, they would have to conceive between February and June. Perhaps we should build Ovulation Leave into the Collective Bargaining Agreement, just in case the player is on the road when biology strikes. Or just confine the efforts to February and March. What? They’re in spring training in March? Baby-making in February only, guys.

Oh, he a pitcher or a catcher? Then get your ovaries and uteruses on board and schedule your ovulation for the first two weeks in February. There’s baseball to play.