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Comment by ryanmercer | Hacker News Reader

I know I'm going to be downvoted and already regret deciding to share this but...

I've never understood parental leave. If I want to go on a vacation, I have to plan for that and save time to use for it. If you want to have a child, you should have to plan to save your time to take and spend with the child or be in a financial place where one parent can quit their job to stay with the child. It's not like you go to sleep one night and wake up to find a baby next to you that was delivered by a stork. My fiance and I plan to try to have a child once we're married in May but it's something we will save our time off for during the early days of its life because we are choosing to try and have a child.

If a company wants to offer this as a benefit, that's awesome, but I don't understand why governments need to create law to make it a mandatory thing. Having a child is a choice.

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Governments have an interest in how the children grow up. Now there is some "whatever that means" encoded in the above. However it is generally noted that children with a good relationship with both parents tend to do better in life than those with only one parent. Thus there is an interest in ensuring that relationship exists if possible.

I would rephrase that as "society has an interest in how the children grow up" so that the reader is clear that it's not a third party, but themselves that is benefited by having fellow citizens that grow up in stable families.

> it's not a third party, but themselves that is benefited by having fellow citizens that grow up in stable families.

This is something that I think can help to build common ground between working people, whether they are family oriented conservatives or economic progressives in the US.

By reducing the economic stress our current system places on working families through guaranteed benefits (parental leave, education, healthcare), we can actually promote the well-being of families in general, which is a goal shared by people across the political spectrum.

Everyone benefits from the reduction of crime and other social ills that often have their origin in unstable families.

Because most people can't go on a 6 month vacation no matter what the circumstance. And this is a much more critical event to another persons development than going to see Macchu Picchu.

And I'm saying this as someone with no kids, but I did have the displeasure of growing up with my family overseas at various wars throughout my childhood.

Government could give a credit for that 6 months paternity vacation to be paid from future income. Not saying it is a great idea, but it’s possible to make paternity leave self paid.

Because many governments rely on children to finance the country's economy?

It's still less costly than immigration.

>It's still less costly than immigration.

Can you explain this? Its hard for me to imagine how letting someone through a border could cost more than providing healthcare and education to an individual for 18+ years.

If a government really wants the increase the tax base, how could you possibly find a better ROI than letting skilled working age people immigrate?

It's not easy to establish any single country as a preferred destination for skilled, working-age folks with pro-social, modern cultural values (as opposed to Third-World $#!+hole ones). It requires very high standards of good government, low corruption, strong economic growth etc. Canada can achieve this with relative ease, as can (potentially) other Anglosphere countries. Northern European countries as well, with their "socialism w/ Scandinavian characteristics". Other places, it's very much a crapshoot. But if you can just make more people, you're set even if your country has terrible policies.

Because it's not about individuals making good or bad decisions, but about building a good, equal society. And importantly this means caring for children as a collective society.

Both of my parents worked full time and my mother went back to work very shortly after having me. I was plenty cared for without my parents sitting at home with me for weeks or months.

Pretty much all of my friends with kids the women went back to work within a few weeks and the men didn't take time off.

I can't see how sitting at home with a child that will have no memories of you sitting at home with them, that will sleep half the day and cry the other half, for 12 weeks (U.S. FMLA) or 14 months (apparently Germany) will make any significant difference in the child's adult life.

"Pretty much all of my friends with kids the women went back to work within a few weeks and the men didn't take time off."

Yes, but statistically, PPD, surgery, year-long health problems, etc. are common among women. And we have also recently uncovered that PPD also can occur to men despite having not given birth.

It's great that all of those parents raised perfectly healthy children and weren't dealing with the NICU, post-partum depression/issues and everything else that can happen.

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