I think with rasing children there's a question of where lies the responsability and consequences? Laws mandate many things that are meant for you to clean up after yourself and not leave a mess which others have to be burdened with.
In theory, one could argue raising a child is a similar scenario, and I think we already have many laws around it to some extent.
So it could be said that both parents must share the burden, and thus they could both be mandated to take time off. Or it could be argued that this will lead to children raised better and who will be more productive to society at large, so also could justify mandating it, etc.
I'm not really into the idea, because it assumes a lot and I feel so many situations related to parenthood are much more complex, so it's hard to blanket say what is best for all parties, but I feel it's not unprecedented to make laws around responssabilities of a parent towards their child.
The government wouldn't be forcing any father to do anything. The government would be forcing companies to provide all workers the privilege of time off for parenting. A father who didn't want to bond with his children could use the time off to go fishing, take up woodworking, watch youtube videos, or work on a side-business.
I mean, you can do these things with your kids.
Enough with this, and the 'Swedish shaming' as noted above.
People are offered leave, that's good, if they don't want to take it, it's none of anyone's business really.
Hum... wouldn't that depend on why you're not taking them?
Say you're not taking them because of social pressure?
Say you don't want to take them because doing so will put you up for promotion before your co-workers who do?
Say you don't want to take them because it result in a loss of money (if say employer offers reduced pay only)
And maybe others. But I feel some of those reasons call for further discussion. Like, it shouldn't be that you don't take them due to social pressure, lower pay, or to get ahead. None of these seem equally fair to all employees.
If you really just really were someone whose favourite thing to do is go to work day in, day out, then ok sure. It be hard to argue against that, but like... really?
No, definitely not.
You've made no argument here.
It's not the company or the government's business why someone would want to take family leave - or not - same for vacation time, or where someone would go, or what they do frankly.
Unless it's illegal or really adversely affecting the company, or obviously if the company is trying to 'suppress' people from taking vacay etc..
Forcing vacations and such things, to achieve some kind of ideological and probably unscientific premise is a bridge too far.
If the company is promoting those who don't, that can be seen as retaliation against those who do.
If companies don't provide adequate pay for employees who have a child, it can be seen as punishment for those who bear the burden of children for all others.
And if you're not taking them because of social pressure, well then it's a vicious cycle, since no one takes them due to pressure, and now it invalidates the point of giving them in the first place. So possibly something needs to be done to break the cycle.
Etc.
I'm not saying any of this is reason enough to push for enforcement or anything like that. But it's also not simply a matter of "not being anyone's business". For example, it can very much be my business if I want to be able to take some time off, and not lose out to my co-workers on the next promotion just because I wanted to take some time to take care for my new born. Same could be said for sick leave or other.
So I guess we could reframe the debate in terms of:
Is it fair for a man who would like to take some time to care for his new born, that doing so could hurt his career? And off course, that asks a greater question: Do we want to promote fatherhood and give incentives for people to have kids and care for them properly? Or would we rather incentivize full time careers with little to no downtime and complete dedication to work?
It's your subjective opinion that not having 'dad's around 24/7 is going to 'hurt babies'.
In all pragmatism, there's no need for 'a second parent' to take 30 days off, and I'll bet most guys, while they wouldn't mind 'some time' - probably don't need or want 30 days.
7-14 days is reasonable for second parent.
There's no optimizations here, I think we are 'mostly past' these issues, whatever tinkering we do is academic.
Subsidized childcare is a different story though, that has major impact, for better or for worse, there's still a lot of experimentation going on there.
For example, we all pretty much agree at least on 'kindergarten' before that, it's still different from place to place.
> In all pragmatism, there's no need for 'a second parent' to take 30 days off, and I'll bet most guys, while they wouldn't mind 'some time' - probably don't need or want 30 days.
Speaking of subjective opinions, here's another one.
Nobody is forcing a parent to take 30 days, or 3 months off to spend with a child. If you get the time off and want to spend it golfing, go for it. But it means that the large number of fathers who _do_ want to take time off are now able to, and more importantly, a mother isn't forced to take 6-9 months out and suffer in their career for it.
Because they would be able to bond with their children during paternity leave, which is a huge positive for father and child.
Forcing someone to stop working would likely piss a lot of people off, and would generally hurt the companies these fathers work for.
So it’s better to hurt children then ‘companies’?
Edit: I agree that fathers should not literally be forced to take leave. That would be dictatorial. The grandparent poster used the term essentially forced, which implies strongly encouraging both parents to take the offered leave. For example, if they would still receive most of their salary during this time, and their position were protected.