>>I may be in the minority on this, but I find it really weird how people, more and more nowadays, believe the consequences private, personal choices should be borne by everyone else

Starting or not starting a company is a completely private decision, yet we as a society have recognized that having entrepreneurs and a functional business culture is very important and actually profitable. So most governments, even the American ones, give grants and support to new companies to prop them up. Even though again, they are the consequence of someone's personal choice - yet the taxpayer bears the burden. Sounds familiar?

Bearing children is a benefit to the society as a whole - someone has to work, someone has to pay taxes, etc etc. So as a society we support mothers by allowing them to take maternal leave, even if having a child is very much a personal choice.

Also I don't see anyone advocating that companies pay mothers through entirety of maternity pay - in most countries it's the public budget that does after some short initial time period.

>>People need to work. If enough people don't, we go back to the default state of reality: poverty, starvation, etc etc.

And within reason, people need to have children or the country you are part of won't have enough citizens to support it within few decades - that's the reality of life.