[draw_down]

> Saying "I want 20 weeks paid leave and $35,000 to provide hospice care for my brother" would probably result in derision and maybe a pink slip at many companies, even ones that have generous parental leave.

Well, that's bad! But I'm not sure why the solution should be to discontinue offering parental leave.

[gaur]

> I'm not sure why the solution should be to discontinue offering parental leave.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm suggesting that solution. In fact, I explicitly said "I'm not saying parental leave is bad".

[johnchristopher]

Might have something to do with the way you express it: « [..] choose to pop out more mouths to feed. »

[CobrastanJorji]

Well, what solution would you suggest?

[gaur]

Policies that encompass parental leave as well as more general family leave situations, obviously.

[jerf]

Are you familiar with the provisions of the Family and Medical Leave Act? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_o...

I am not saying it will satisfy all your concerns. It is just my experience (having worked in an HR department a while back) that most people are not familiar with what is in there. It doesn't provide mandatory pay, but it does provide a lot of protections other than that. I also find a common reaction to it is to assert that it should do more, but when faced with the question of what to do when people start deliberately gaming it, the objections become a bit more muted. (Yes, in some sense it sucks that there's a condition on how long you've been employed before it kicks in, but it's quite unclear what the alternative is that would work in the real world.)

[draw_down]

Cool, then we agree: extended parental leave is good.