> But why does it fall on companies to create an "environment" that treats people with kids the same way when in fact their circumstances are different?
In the US. It doesn't. The Federal Government mandates every eligible employee gets 12 weeks leave to deal with certain "family" related issues:
* Taking are of yourself, your spouse, your parent, a new child
In countries like Sweden, the government mandates that parents can take up to 480 days paid leave per child.
As others have posted, for tech companies, they are doing it to remain competitive. More recently, companies like MSFT, Netflix, Facebook have started to offer paid paternity leave, as employee incentives.
Put it this way, if my company did not make concessions for parents, we would leave and find jobs else where. That would make the jobs of all employees that are left that much harder, and in all likelihood, cause the company to fail.
> "I would be reluctant to start a startup with a woman who had small children, or was likely to have them soon", as an example of a morally outrageous statement. But surely people with small kids are more preoccupied?
Is there evidence that startups with female co-founders with small children fail more, less, or about average? What if that family had a nanny (like I do), or the spouse was planning on staying at home? There are women who have small children, work full time, and attend night school. If they can do that, then certainly they can start a company.
Personally, with a young baby, I much prefer the stability and predictability of an established company, to that of being a co-founder, or very early employee of a startup.