Opening day at Citi Field. The stadium is buzzing with excitement from fans, vendors are hawking overpriced junk food and people are singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” but there’s one thing missing… the Mets’ starting second baseman Daniel Murphy.

Murphy skipped the beginning of his season with his team to be at the side of his wife as she gave birth to their first born son, Noah, in Florida – an absence that was highly criticized by many sports commentators and disappointed fans. This brings into question: Who is better to disappoint, thousands of fans or your family? “You’re a Major League baseball player. You can hire a nurse to take care of the baby if your wife needs help,” WFAN afternoon host Mike Francesa said about Murphy’s choice to take the full three days of paternity leave guaranteed by his contract.

This kind of criticism and pressure to choose between the fans and family isn’t anything new. In 1993, Houston Oilers coach Bob Young stated that right tackle David Williams “let the guys down, and he let hundreds of thousands of fans down” after Williams chose to miss a game against New England to be with his wife while she gave birth to their son. Baseball is as American as apple pie, but so is the nuclear family.

In an age where family is often pushed to the wayside by the hecticness of work, the distraction of technology and the seemingly adopted new attitude that family comes second, shouldn’t we be praising a family man who chooses to support American tradition?

“Here in the U.S. the significance of the father’s early interactions with their children has been ignored for far too long,” Linda Graf, assistant clinical professor of nursing at DePaul, said. “Gone are the days when extended family members lived just down the street who were available to move in with the new parents to take care and comfort of the new mother and child.”

With the amount of time team members spend together, a player’s team becomes a secondary family and a support system. If a player feels like their team isn’t there for them outside of the game, why would they trust them during it? “The social and scientific research unanimously support a father’s early involvement with his children and their mothers as being absolutely necessary to their health and well-being,” Graff added.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Labor reports that only 11.4 percent of workplaces in the United States provide paid leave for employees who are having or adopting a child. The Family and Medical Leave Act entitles “eligible employees of covered employees” to take unpaid leave for up to 12 weeks under the same circumstances, but this is an option that many families can’t financially afford. Unfortunately, many times, even if there is allotted paternity leave given by a company, the negative stigma around leaving work to tend to the birth of a child keeps many men from utilizing their time off.

“Traditionally speaking, I think some guys were afraid to ask. So many guys didn’t want to ask because of job security. It was almost like a standard way of doing it that you didn’t leave,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. Former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason was even as crass as to say that if he were in the situation that Murphy was in, he would have told his wife, “C-section before the season starts. I need to be at opening day.”

“I think that all fathers should get a three to four day paternity leave to make sure things are in order for his family. There is not a clear cut prediction of when a mother will or might go into labor, so the father needs and deserves that time to make sure things are okay and care is put in motion,” Brett Price, director of athletics at The Henderson International School, said. “While men do not physically give birth, they do go through physical, emotional, and mental stress and adjustments following the birth of their children,” Graff added.

Despite what anyone thinks, it should be the mother and father who decide how they deal with the birth of a child into their family, and employers, teams and coworkers should be there to give support, not demoralize that decision.