Tbf children are a super valuable thing to a country.
It’s why governments freak when birth rates get low.
The machine needs bodies to function after all.
They’ll go so far as to do anything except any of the things that make happy, productive people more likely to feel inclined or comfortable having children.
Parental leave so people can be there when their child is born? Affordable or accessible daycare? A world that accommodates any workplace flexibility? Basic affordable healthcare? A world with some degree of optimism for the state they’re bringing their children into?
Nah, a once a year tax rebate covering a month or two of daycare should be more than enough.
Yeah, for someplace as supposedly pro-familly as the US, the parental leave thing is just shockingly bad.
Women are entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave for which they can’t be fired. That includes any time they need to take for health reasons related to the pregnancy. Fathers get the same.
The whole system doesn’t crumble purely because enough people get enough benefits above the minimum that it averages out to “tolerable if you ignore what you could have”.
Me and my wife are expecting twins with a common complication. She works for a better than average midsize business, and I work for a megacorp that’s realized employee happiness is a type of advertising.
She gets 12 weeks at half pay with claw back if she leaves for any reason or is fired within 3 months of return.
I get 13 weeks full pay and bonus, and any time in the NICU doesn’t count against that time. I also get a branded onesie, and my choice of cute towel or blanket per child. If I were the birthing parent there’s a whole other flowchart for how pre and post birth medical leave interacts with compensation and the bonding leave.
These are respectively “good” and “stellar” for America, or “compatible with legal requirements for most EU offices, plus a towel”.
I’m regularly outraged at this place, but this time the outrage was personal, and I wasn’t even the one being shafted.
It’s also why the abortion and birth control issues are front and center for the GOP, they know that they aren’t going to convince any new voters to join so they need to rely on their constituents giving birth to and raising the new generation of conservative voters.
Catholic church did the same thing for the same reason.
