Paternity Leave Was Crucial After the Birth of My Child

Breastfeeding is a necessary part of taking care of a newborn that men cannot do. Women can do all the parts that you listed, plus the vital component of breastfeed. Hence, it makes sense to encourage moms to stay home with babies. Dads should stay home too, because the ideal is for mom and dad to be at home playing with babies (isn't that everyone's dream??). However, most people are not independently wealthy, so compromises are made, and dad goes to work.

Where in my post did I say men can't do this? I just said it is many times more inconvenient for a man to do this, than for a woman to breast feed. Inconvenience experienced over time is another way of saying stress.

Honestly, I'm going to bow out of the conversation now. I realize that my wife and I make several choices to maximize our convenience that would seem odd to other couples. My basic idea is to just go with the way natural selection made your bodies act and don't add pressure to do anything different. It's much much much easier that way.

You still need to wake up to pump, and whether pumping or breastfeeding it does not change how many times you (the baby) wake up at night in general.

> I know several men who have taken parental leave to be the primary caregiver for their >newborn but <1 year olds, while their wives return to work. It was cruel for neither the father, mother, nor child.

I hate the term 'primary caregiver'. Mom and Dad are primary caregiver, independent of whether they are working, staying at home, etc.

> Your argument, I believe, is that if the mother dies in childbirth, then it is cruel for the father to take care of the child. In that case, what do we do? Or does that follow under the "necessary" exception which allows cruelty?

Well no. This is a strawman. Above, in my previous comment, I said it is cruel to mom, dad, and child. I even mentioned the inconvenience of mom pumping milk. If mom is dead, then this arrangement cannot be cruel to her, and she cannot be inconvenienced by pumping milk. A straightforward and benevolent reading of my comment would have you believe that it does not apply to cases in which mom has died.

This is a rare enough occurrence that policies that seek to work well with the norm can't really be criticized for not addressing it.

> It might just be that it isn't actually cruel.

Or it might be that we as a society are used to being cruel to both women and children.

Breast milk is not a fixed product. Rather, the suckling action as well as pathogens present in the baby cause it to change its composition. It contains antibodies for the baby if the child is sick, and its fat/sugar ratios change depending on the age of the baby (via suckling). Pumping removes this feedback loop from the mother. There is little research here, but preliminary research (https://psmag.com/economics/unseen-consequences-pumping-brea...) demonstrates several negative effects of pumping. Pumping often produces too much foremilk (high in sugar), rather than hind milk (high in fat), because pumping doesn't work in the way baby's mouths do.

As for comfort. I think most babies are comforted by feeding. However, with formula, you have to be careful not to overfeed. You can't really overfeed with breastfeeding. The maximal amount of calories the child can get is whatever amount his mother is eating, so if mom is eating the right amount, the baby will get it.

It makes my partner happy, and as I said, I don't want to do it full time. I still make an active effort raising them when I'm not working my day job (mornings, nights, weekends).

https://globalnews.ca/news/3230205/women-work-more-than-men-... - "Women work more than men and it’s impacting their health, study says"

"According to a recent study by the Australian National University, women (on average) work fewer hours at the office. But when taking unpaid domestic labour and care-giving into account, they’re going above and beyond their “workhour-health limits.”" ...

"Men, the researchers say, are able to dedicate more time at work because they spend less time on housework, which gives them an edge in their career, co-author Lyndall Strazdins tells Broadly.

In fact, men get 100 extra hours a year to advance their careers, she says."

and https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/mar/10/housework-ge... - "Forty years of feminism – but women still do most of the housework?"

"Nick Pearce, director of IPPR. "Women still shoulder the overwhelming burden of household tasks, particularly after they have had children. When they earn more, their bargaining power with their partners increases, so closing the gender pay gap would help. Universal childcare, rather than tax relief for nannies or cleaners, is also the best way forward for a family-friendly, more equal Britain."

And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages_for_housework :

"The International Wages for Housework Campaign was a feminist global social movement, which grew out of the International Feminist Collective in Italy in 1972 and organized resistance and public debate on the social formations produced by gendered labor and reproductive labor, for example domestic work such as housework, childcare, gender discrimination, and the socially reinforced performance of gender roles, gendered desire, and leisure inequality. The Campaign's platform included the women's right to work outside of the home, unemployment benefits, parental leave, and equal pay."

The history section includes the term 'oppression' directly:

"A number of early feminists focused women's economic independence along with the role of housewife in relation to women's oppression. In 1898 Charlotte Perkins Gilman published Women and Economics. This book argued for paid housework 74 years before the International Wages for Housework Campaign was founded as well as arguing to expand the definition of women in the home."

Given your other comment, though, it sounds like your concern isn’t “taxpayers” paying for family leave, it’s you. So yes, ultimately, you, productive member of society, might be paying for other, “unproductive” members of society (as defined by you) to have kids.

You sound grumpy about this arrangement. Of course, as an upstanding citizen, you’ve never taken advantage of incentives or benefits paid for by other taxpayers, right? And of course you’ve never had the assistance of a government program, or it was different because it was for something “not in your control” — unlike having kids.

This attitude rubs me the wrong way, hence my less-than-civil response. It’s like the people who hate public transit because they only drive, not realizing that public transit takes other cars off the road and improves their own commutes. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Employer-wise, pregnancies are a loss. You have one skilled worker parked for 1,2, or 3 years. You have to hire and train from scratch a replacement. You risk, basically.

I find all of this Neo-Malthusian. There's abundant data showing that the more educated is a population, the less kids per capita they produce. This does not mean that the uneducated or poor shouldn't reproduce.

> And parents with babies dying in the streets is the worst solution morally (and hygienically).

Oh come on, that's not what is going to happen if we lift the monthly baby cheque.