Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

Yeah, that is exactly the worry about "finances" that I mentioned. Why are you hellbent on disagreeing with me?

I also get the notion that the repercussions may now be less for women because when you hire men, you will now also risk losing them to parenthood. But parental leave is just a small dent. The bigger impact is that women will tend to work only part time or not at all once they have children.

Also, as for the alleged "frowning": doesn't it contradict your theory that fathers actually did take parental leave when they were given time allotted especially for them? Imo it rather confirms my theory, that the reason fathers rarely do it is because it is a female privilege that mothers would have to give up (or would be forced to give up by such new laws). The frowning by society must have still been in place, but the mother privilege was not, because she had no claim on that period of parental leave (it was only for fathers).

Of course everybody's situation is different. My wife is actually currently at home as well. But you cannot advocate a system that just works for you.

You got to have a system that benefits the population at large. Many women want a career and independence and many men would enjoy spending more time with their children.

They should be given a chance to do that.

You also have to consider that when a lot of people do like you guys, you keep promoting gender inequality. Men like you working long hours naturally get valued. Bosses come to expect men to be more dependable and flexible workers because they have no obligations at home.

Women in contrast hit a glass ceiling because a company will expect that she will not have the same flexibility as a man. Men will be prioritized in career advancements and get higher salaries.

Hence you get stuck in this gender pattern. Women end up staying home because they simply cannot compete salary-wise with men.

I am not blaming you. I am just pointing out that if too many people make the kind of choices you make, it really holds back women's advancement in the workplace.

> I use my resources to enable that, and make their life as easy as possible (hired help around the house, childcare, etc).

Sounds great, but keep in mind there is a downside to this. It promotes the view that every parent is available for long work hours, because "hey just pay some help." For people with less fancy jobs that is not a simple option. One has to think of what role models one are. I find it somewhat disturbing when these higher powered women brag about being back at work the day after birth. It signals to everyone further down the chain that they are lazy asses if they don't do the same. Reality is that these are women with large amounts of resources who can hire a lot of help and don't have physically demanding jobs.

I don't expect you to agree with me, because it is probably not in your culture to think like this. But at least in Scandinavia where both independence and solidarity are considered important values, we do think a lot about being good role models and showing solidarity with others.

E.g. in Norwegian neighborhoods of all income levels people participate in "dugnad" which is a communal work together thing. Everybody clean up and fix up their neighborhood. The rich could have hired people to do it. But it is considered an important value even among rich Norwegians to physically contribute like this and be like everybody else once in a while.

It affects the children you raise. I notice children from countries where rich people hire a lot of help are exceptionally spoiled.

I just want to disabuse you from this idea you seem to hold that the money I received is from "other people".

It is not. It is from the Government. Sure it was taken from all of society via taxes, but once it is taken it is no longer yours or mine to determine what to do with it.

There is no point in trying to argue who-paid-for-what in this redistribution made by the Government. If there were a choice for tax payers to say where they want their taxes to go, sure let's go and talk about "Who is paying for my wife's Elterngeld". But there is no such rational and efficient resource allocation method in any Big Welfare State, is there? There is no way to pull apart who is "me and my family" and who is "the rest of society", is there?

There is just - like you said - one big redistribution of wealth driven by bureaucrats who are (allegedly) working in the best interests of the people. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Not very practical for childcare facilities?

" If businesses want to operate in such a region/country they will have to comply with ALL the laws and regulations there"

The point is that laws can be changed. Here in Germany especially, we are very aware that laws are not automatically good. We went through this period of time where a lot of bad laws were in place.

"they should only hire people old enough that they can be sure they're barren/impotent"

Or, you know, men? Which is exactly what the feminists governments want to avoid, but they bring it about with their paternity laws. Also, what you suggest is technically illegal in most Western countries (discrimination).

Sorry, but I get the impression you haven't really thought much about these issues yet.

"14 months parental leave with up to 67% or the maximum"

Yes, the government pays mothers, but it doesn't compensate businesses for the losses they incur when women they hired leave for motherhood. They just have "punishing" laws like the job position has to be kept open in case the mother wants to return. That is a punishment for businesses, who are not at fault for women having children.

"this was never part of my argument."

You just dismiss it if certain types of businesses struggle. I explicitly mentioned childcare facilities because I have experienced the problem firsthand.

The point is that laws can have unintended consequences. And those don't go away by simply saying "the business should just go bankrupt or operate in another country".

"many many businesses and branches of business have difficulty hiring people but that doesn't really matter here."

Of course it matters, it means the cost of hiring women is even higher, because replacing them is expensive.

It doesn't have to be interventional study.

> But there are tons of stories that babies neglected/suffering perform much worse for rest of their lives. Deep mental issues, lower IQ etc. Some proof might be stories I read from some specifically cruel communist Romania orphanage, where children were neglected, often caged or chained. Something like 90% of them struggled significantly in the society in their later lives.

Children being caged and chained having long lasting consequences is so far from from the original claim that first 3 years of our lives are most forming on our deeper personalities. It appears there is no reason to consider that claim true.