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Comment by kinkrtyavimoodh | Hacker News Reader

Yes but it needs a desire to be helped on part of the populace. If the popular narrative is that anyone receiving govt help is receiving handouts[1], as is the case in the US, there's little that can be done that won't be seen as shameful charity.

[1] Unless the handouts are in the form of tax breaks for big companies, in which case they are the most patriotic thing to do.

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> "shameful charity" I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a society where charity is seen as shameful

It is rooted way way way back to the Puritan ideal of doing the hard work yourself and not needing to rely on anyone else to succeed.

One big difference to the scandinavian mindset is that children are much more seen as individuals than dependents belonging to their parents. If it's unacceptable that a child is less successful because its parents did not work hard (or any other reason they aren't well off) then a lot of social welfare programs will follow naturally.

For example, having time with parents (parental leave) is a right of the child, not a luxury for the parents. In that perspective it's much harder to frame tax-financed parental leave as a handout to the parent. Without it, some children would miss out on something through no fault of their own.

On the other hand, I've had female coworkers carefully plan pregnancies to chain the maximum amount of paid leave. Others taking as much paid leave (100% pay, then diminishing, then almost nothing) as possible and then resigning on the first day coming back to work. It's a double-edged sword, in most cases.

Resigning on parental leave is probably common, but on the other hand the paid leave was at least not paid by the company. And at that point the company will most likely have a trained temp, so seen that way it's not a bad time to quit (although you could of course have given that notice a while before returning).

Maximizing the use of paid parental leave I see as pretty much a given. I don't think many see it as the most important factor for planning a pregnancy, but I absolutely want to maximize the amount of paid leave I can take. My kids are 6 and 8 and I still do multiple weeks of parental leave per year. Typically doubling my summer holiday from 4 to 8 weeks or similar. It's a benefit I have paid for many times over. There have been suggestions though that this is an unncessarily luxury and it would be better (for children) if parents had to use the majority of the parental leave before age 3 instead. I kind of agree.

I'm on the opposite side on this issue, I don't like publicly funded leave nor benefits and as a taxpayer this kind of opportunistic behavior further cements my view that the state should not spend public money into helping parents.

> spend public money into helping parents.

For these policies to be even remotely understandable I think the key is as I said to fundamentally see it as money spent towards children, not parents.

Fine, but downvotes for a civil discussion?

Does that logic extend to all public assistance? All systems will be gamed to some extent, even corporate welfare and programs available to professionals (mortgage income tax deduction in the US, EV car rebates in the US, etc). I'd much prefer to see a program like "babies in boxes" that extends to all families than programs like a massive EV subsidy given to rich dentists and VCs who don't need the money.

> On the other hand, I've had female coworkers carefully plan pregnancies to chain the maximum amount of paid leave.

So, taking the maximum amount of paid leave they are allowed. How is this an issue? Do you take less pay than offered? Please explain how maximizing your benefits if wrong.

i guess they are just maximising what they can get out of the system, which is far less than if the system was setup with above-mentioned scandinavian mindset

It's more complicated than that. Charity is seen as something your community and private institutions are supposed to provide out of the goodness of their heart, not something the government should 'force' onto people. There is not the same shame in getting help from your church, your neighbors or some other similar group, but being reliant on the government is by many seen as a failing.

Imagine it like this: It feels like toxic propaganda that doesn’t jive with reality or empathy for anyone- an every man for himself lack of community and warmth. And for some, it feels even worse: it feels like the pressure to pretend you are slways doing well, even when homeless and starving, lest you appear weak and thus marked as such in a society that shuns anyone who doesn’t look wildly successful and wealthy and somehow like a celebrity.

> shameful charity

I suppose that's one way of looking at it. I see it as getting some return of investment for all the taxes I pay. During the course of one year, I pay the state back for the box many times over.

In Finland, there is an option to take an "equivalent" cash grant, but the box is likely better value (if you were going to get all that stuff anyway), because of the big batches the state orders.

I'm sure there are also some who get neither the box nor the grant, all you have to do is to not apply for it.

Here in Finland it seems (to an expat) that the baby is the one getting handouts, not the parents. The social program is about making sure every child gets what they need, regardless of the ovarian lottery.

Here it is quite frowned upon for men to take parental leave.

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