[hugh3]

But things like paternity leave, maternity leave, requiring employers to consider flexible working -- these kind of things Europe is doing are far more family friendly than the republican party.

Everything has consequences elsewhere. Make paid maternity/paternity leave compulsory and you make it riskier for employers to hire. So you increase the probability that your father gets three months off after you're born, but you also increase the probability that your father is a long-term unemployed bozo living in a housing project on the outskirts of Paris.

The family values line of "mothers should stay at home" espoused by Pat Robertson et al. probably is better than both parents working, however much childcare you can afford.

I agree.

No reason it has to be the mother though.

It doesn't have to be, but this seems to be the natural way things go if left to their own devices. Most human societies have the other taking on the vast majority of childcare duties -- it seems to be part of the way our minds are put together that mothers want to do a lot more childcare than fathers do.

[euccastro]

So you increase the probability that your father gets three months off after you're born, but you also increase the probability that your father is a long-term unemployed bozo living in a housing project on the outskirts of Paris.

Employers wouldn't hire more than they need anyway. Even if that was the case, the flip side would be job insecurity. You can theorize all you want about these tradeoffs, but the experience shows that these measures do work in Europe, and more so in Scandinavian countries. Never have I seen so many child carts as in Iceland, and despite the crash their unemployment is 8% and going down.