> disagree. having children as a goal in itself needs to be incentivized, financially and otherwise. germany is doing that by giving parents extra money unconditionally, among other things.
I can see how that might be of short-to-medium term benefit to an individual nation. I'll have to be less flippant with my arguments in future.
We can easily go down a rabbit hole there that's different from the one I was initially exploring. I'm gonna back-track:
The article and its defenders are arguing for even more media and legal support to encourage two-parent nuclear families. I argue that amplifying the already-common structure with stronger legal stature, and the cultural assumptions that will bring, is of detriment to the culture. I'm not saying "kids don't need stable families", they clearly benefit from that. But I am saying "that thing you call a stable family doesn't always look like two adults and their kids in one home". There are many, many other successful forms. The important factors are predictable, comfortable support from involved caregivers, ideally with a range of opinions. We should be centring the care and support on the children (and in fact, on people in general), rather than on "a two adult family". Centering on the family like that effectively outsources care to the family, making the assumption that "the family" can handle it. There are too many cases of two adult homes failing those they're assumed to support. There are even more cases of single-adult homes struggling to care for their kids because the system is built around "the nuclear family" and rejects supporting alternatives.