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See, I read this and take it the exact opposite direction. Here's my 2c, as someone who got generous paternity leave with 2 of my kids and 0 paternity leave wi

See, I read this and take it the exact opposite direction. Here's my 2c, as someone who got generous paternity leave with 2 of my kids and 0 paternity leave with one of them, now watching many peers have their kids too. Here's 1 neat trick to help the whole situation a LOT:MANDATORY 1 year parental leave for the mother and father. it must be mandatory for both genders, or women will be pressured to take less and men will be pressured (or tempted) to take less or none (whereas women are of course physically forced to take at least some). Employers will whinge and cry about this because of productivity or something like that. I regret to inform them that whether they like it or not, any parent of a less-than-one-year-old is going to be pretty un-useful at work during that first year. I know I was. Waking up 2-3 times per night, every single night, for a year is a real great way to get very little done that isn't programmed into your lizard brain's firmware. Childless adults will complain it's unfair. They should not - these children are who is going to pay for their social security and who will generate the capital gains to fund their IRA/401k retirement. They're just getting to skip out on the work of raising them. We also need a lot of work in society to encourage fathers to be present and actually share the weight of child-rearing. Too much still falls to women all too often. But that's of course a lot harder to fix with policy. Mandatory parental leave is comparatively easy.

silverquiet 3y ago
I'm one of the childless adults here and I feel like I get to have things both ways because I can say I agree with you while knowing that there's zero chance of any of this making it into US (I'm pretty sure that's the country we're talking about here) law. So thanks for raising those future tax-payers.
- atomicnumber3 3y ago
  Yeah - pessimistically, the upper class won't vote for it because they don't want to pay more taxes and they don't raise their kids anyway. The middle class should vote for it, but they won't because the men can simply be absent fathers by being "career-focused", and our ultra-conservative midpoint will still mostly frame this as making taxpayers pay for poor black parents to not work, which is a double-whammy to racists - more nonwhite babies _and_ the parents can be "welfare queens". And obviously corporations won't like anything that implies their workers aren't just robotic cogs who are society's problem outside of the ages of 18 and 40.
almatabata 3y ago
> Here's 1 neat trick to help the whole situation a LOT:MANDATORY 1 year parental leave for the mother and father. it must be mandatory for both genders, or women will be pressured to take less and men will be pressured (or tempted) to take less or none (whereas women are of course physically forced to take at least some). You do not need to make it mandatory for it to become effective. Look at countries like sweden who have rolled such systems out. Both parents get paid parental leave (around 9 months per parent, per kid I think). The 9 months cannot be shared between the parents. So if the father does not take the months he loses them. From my experience working in Sweden people take those. Men take those months off and it is socially accepted and expected that you take them.
javier123454321 3y ago
> I regret to inform them that whether they like it or not, any parent of a less-than-one-year-old is going to be pretty un-useful at work during that first year. This statement is just untrue. 1 year of no productivity? That is a ridiculous claim.

silverquiet 3y ago

I'm one of the childless adults here and I feel like I get to have things both ways because I can say I agree with you while knowing that there's zero chance of any of this making it into US (I'm pretty sure that's the country we're talking about here) law. So thanks for raising those future tax-payers.

atomicnumber3 3y ago
Yeah - pessimistically, the upper class won't vote for it because they don't want to pay more taxes and they don't raise their kids anyway. The middle class should vote for it, but they won't because the men can simply be absent fathers by being "career-focused", and our ultra-conservative midpoint will still mostly frame this as making taxpayers pay for poor black parents to not work, which is a double-whammy to racists - more nonwhite babies _and_ the parents can be "welfare queens". And obviously corporations won't like anything that implies their workers aren't just robotic cogs who are society's problem outside of the ages of 18 and 40.

almatabata 3y ago

> Here's 1 neat trick to help the whole situation a LOT:MANDATORY 1 year parental leave for the mother and father. it must be mandatory for both genders, or women will be pressured to take less and men will be pressured (or tempted) to take less or none (whereas women are of course physically forced to take at least some). You do not need to make it mandatory for it to become effective. Look at countries like sweden who have rolled such systems out. Both parents get paid parental leave (around 9 months per parent, per kid I think). The 9 months cannot be shared between the parents. So if the father does not take the months he loses them. From my experience working in Sweden people take those. Men take those months off and it is socially accepted and expected that you take them.

javier123454321 3y ago

> I regret to inform them that whether they like it or not, any parent of a less-than-one-year-old is going to be pretty un-useful at work during that first year. This statement is just untrue. 1 year of no productivity? That is a ridiculous claim.