[mcbobgorge]

My wife and I have no interest in ever having children, yet we are happy to pay property taxes that go to local public schools. Why? Because an educated society is better able to make educated decisions. We are being "penalized" for making the choice to not have kids in order to "subsidize" those who don't.

[Ajedi32]

Correct. It all comes down to whether you believe parents leaving home to work on their careers instead of staying home to raise their kids is an unambiguous good that needs to be subsidized the same way education is.

[9rx]

Assuming by education you actually mean schooling, this is the very same thing. The question is really only about at which age subsidized schooling should first start. This moves that age of first subsidized engagement to approximately birth, as opposed to waiting until age ~3-5 (varies by jurisdiction).

Historically it was considered a beneficial necessity to gather the children to write down knowledge so that it could be brought back home for the whole family to learn from, but in the age of the internet perhaps separating children and parents is never good at any (young-ish) age?

[Ajedi32]

I think the biggest difference isn't age, it's that childcare also happens during the summer, not just during the school year. (And of course the lack of any particular educational curriculum.)

[9rx]

Is that a meaningful difference, though? Schools were originally open all year round, but the hot summer classroom eventually was deemed an unsuitable place to occupy, thus schools decided to compromise by closing during the hottest months.

Since the advent of air-conditioning, there really isn't any good reason to close schools during the summer. But, like the internet bit before, we've just never bothered to stop and actually think about what we're doing. We carry on with the status quo simply because that's what we did in the past. Not because it makes sense, just because that's what we do.

But in establishing subsidized daycare now, we don't have to think about the time before air-conditioning was invented. We only have to worry about the constraints we have today. Hot summers are not a practical problem as of right now.