[paublyrne]

People who choose not to have children should not be forced to subsidize those who do.

Why not?

If you pay tax, some of that will go to paying school teachers, regardless of whether or not you have children of your own. Is that also wrong? Like it or not, all western societies include some form of wealth redistribution.

[jay-anderson]

Agreed. It's in everyone's interest (whether you choose to have children or not) that children are well adjusted, healthy, and educated. They will be our neighbors when we are older.

[wyager]

> Is that also wrong?

Possibly, but in a less odious way. Public school has at least two benefits over paying people to have children; 1) it probably doesn't incentivize people to have kids, but it does (probably) benefit the kids that already exist and 2) it might actually have a positive net value to the people being forced to pay for public school but aren't using it. In particular, public schools serve as a form of division of labor, where the adult/child ratio is much lower, freeing up a huge number of parents to remain in the workforce instead of staying home and watching the kids all day. This, I would argue, is most low-quality lower-division public schools' primary function; it's not about the kids learning, it's about freeing the parents' schedules for 8-9 hours a day.

[plandis]

To be clear the person you're responding to is talking about companies subsidizing those who choose to have children. That is different from a government social program.

You can be for the government paying people on maternity/paternity leave while also being against mandating the business should be the ones to pay for it.