This week Mayor Ed Murray, flanked by City Councilmember Jean Godden, announced legislation that, if approved, will provide city employees with up to four weeks of paid parental leave for the birth, adoption, or foster placement of a child. For Godden, a longtime advocate for gender-equity issues, the moment was particularly sweet. Seattle is now poised to join four other major U.S. metropolitan areas to offer paid parental leave, including San Francisco and Washington, D.C. (although Seattle’s four weeks would be the least). “The United States is the only developed nation in the world without a statutory right to paid parental leave,” Murray said. “I hope this is yet another way Seattle leads the nation.”