[kylepdm]

I think you've completely over looked the benefits to the individual, and society, as a whole when you allow parents to spend more time with their new born kids.

It's really easy to say "hey you decided to have a kid, so that's on you". But you do need children to sustain society in the future. It does them a lot of good if their parents can spend more time with them during their infant stage.

Also that attitude is really detrimental to women. Are future mothers supposed to choose over one day raising a kid or their careers? Doesn't society lose out on a lot of potential if we just say "sorry, if you want a kid then you're going to find a new job" ?

[SomeStupidPoint]

Im all for societal level support of parents, I just don't think the obligation should be on corporations. I dont think a corporation should be required to do anything but hold your position open for up to 3-6 months as a sabbatical. (I do think we should have a parental unemployment benefit, to make up the pay.)

But it seems fundamentally unfair to impose on the business's ability to function (or other people's ability to get hired/promoted) because you want to have a kid.

So if you want to incentivize parents, do it through social benefits, rather than unreasonable demands and distortions of the labor market.

[ska]

The Canadian 55% mentioned above is an unemployment benefit, so there is some confusion in this thread. The obligation to the corporation is that they maintain your job (or equivalent) for some period, I forget the details.

Corporations are free to offer top up benefit, and many do as a competitive incentive.

[rglullis]

I am all for having children, and I do support some kind of parental leave, but I think that any progressive that resorts to defend parent-friendly policies always end up suffering some kind of cognitive dissonance. You want to see examples?

> you do need children to sustain society in the future.

Do we really? A lot of the worries, especially among progressive circles, is how automation is reducing the need of manual labor and how the people in this world already are replaceable by machines.

Also, the ones that are more focus on protecting the environment always get to pull some kind of neo-malthusian argument. So, one could argue that we should not be establishing policies that encourage people to have more kids.

> Are future mothers supposed to choose over one day raising a kid or their careers?

Why do you assume that the mother is the one that will stop working? Why not the father? Or, to make it more "equal", why can't both parents switch to part-time jobs and participate in the child rearing part, equally?

[plandis]

I'd argue that even if you employer is fully supportive it will sideline your career. Raising kids is very time consuming. Even if you get lots of maternity leave time and child care benefits, if you plan to spend a lot of time with your kid you will not be able to make that time up at work.

Think about all the time you spend thinking about work in off work hours. You no longer really have the time. All those hobby projects that make you a better worker? What time do you have for that?