It feels like there's some kind of weird amnesia that a lot of people experience, where for part of their lives they forget they were ever children.
They read about a child friendly policy and think about "other people". Somehow their mind doesn't click in such a way that they can generalise and understand that such measures might be universal and benefit every future person[1]. And that they would have helped them too.
[1] At least, those lucky enough to have families.
I know it's difficult to disagree, but please don't strawman.
Obviously I know everyone was a kid. But we agree as a society that parents are responsible for the financial burdens of their offspring. It isn't fair to make people who choose not to have kids to pay for those who do.
And maternity leave isn't really a benefit for the child--it's a benefit to the parent. No one will ever remember their first 8 weeks of life.
Just like it isn't fair to make people who don't take vacations to pay for those who do.
I don't believe one has a right to have children in the same sense that one has a right to fair trial or healthcare. If you cannot afford to skip work for 8 weeks, then save money or don't have a kid.
I'm sorry that I unfairly characterised your position.
My perspective is that universal worker's rights (like the 40hr week, paid maternity leave, minimum yearly vacation weeks) help prevent the "trap of moloch" (context: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/). The kind of system traps that ends up screwing human beings. The purpose of work, money, capitalism, government is to benefit human beings. When the pursuit of system goals ends up getting in the way of human needs then the system is broken and needs to be fixed. When we define good baselines there is no competitive penalty for organisations that provide sane benefits.
Taking vacations as an example, we need laws to define some vacation minimum because it seems self evident that all human beings need some level of downtime in their life. If we don't define a minimum then competitive pressure will squeeze this out such that only the well off ever get time off.
Our systems need human-shaped holes carved out in them to prevent the things that make life good from being optimized away.
My perspective is slightly different than yours; I suppose I believe that every child has the right to enjoy their first few weeks of life in as peaceful an environment as can practically be arranged and that all parents deserve time to physically and mentally recover from childbirth and have time to adjust to the reality of a new child.
I think this is absolutely beneficial to the child and I still maintain that in the steady state it is not actually redistributive because everyone receives the benefit and everyone pays for every other person to get it.
They read about a child friendly policy and think about "other people". Somehow their mind doesn't click in such a way that they can generalise and understand that such measures might be universal and benefit every future person[1]. And that they would have helped them too.
[1] At least, those lucky enough to have families.