This piece originally appeared on Monster.com.
Have you read the New York Post’s recent story on “meternity”?
If not, we’ll catch you up: Coined by Meghann Foye, a magazine editor and author of a new novel of the same name, meternity is the idea that non-parents should be entitled to the same time-off benefits as recent mothers and fathers.
In her words to the Post: “For women who follow a ‘traditional’ path, this [break in work] often naturally comes in your late 20s or early 30s, when a wedding, pregnancy and babies means that your personal life takes center stage. But for those who end up on the ‘other’ path, that socially mandated time and space for self-reflection may never come.”
Unsurprisingly, Foye’s plea for the perk has created some controversy—as many of those who’ve had to use maternity and paternity leave to provide constant care, feeding, burping and diapering for a new baby wouldn’t equate their days off with “me time.”
But this might just be a word-choice problem. What Foye’s asking for already exists: It’s called a sabbatical, and lots of companies offer these more-than-just-a-vacation breaks from work—fully paid and no offspring needed to qualify.
More from Monster:
10 fastest-growing industries for executive jobs
Why you’re rolling the dice when you don’t give your reference a heads-up
100 companies making big hires in May
A quick search on Monster found more than 1,000 job postings with the word sabbatical in the description. Meanwhile, research and consulting firm yourSABBATICAL has a running list of employers offering paid sabbatical—and these are the 10 with the longest:
- Goldman Sachs: 24 to 52 weeks
- Hallmark: 24 weeks
- General Mills: Up to 24 weeks
- Deloitte: Up to 24 weeks
- American Express: Up to 24 weeks
- Meetup: 12 weeks
- Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass: 12 weeks
- Arrow Electronics: 10 weeks
- Boston Consulting Group: 8 weeks
- Russell Investments: 8 weeks
Check out your employee manual to see if your company offers this benefit. Of course, to get approved for a sabbatical you might have to give your boss a bit more explanation than someone on the verge of giving birth. (In a previous article on Monster, we’ve recommended formulating an upbeat story of what you want to do, why and when you’ll return.) But the result is still a dose of just the me-time Foye’s talking about.