Yes. I'm calling into question the idea that modern treatment of children is responsible for the world we live in. Clearly it is not given the relative scarcity of it in our history. I'm not saying we shouldn't give children a free lunch just that the OPs reasoning was rather lofty and detached from history.
> They said "without kids", not without this particular program.
They're replying to someone with the obvious implication that this program is in some way critical to children "learning and becoming productive members of society."
> Someone is carrying them no matter what.
Now are you serious? Do parents consider it their career to raise their own children? Does this career have the effect of increasing the number of children they care for in exchange for greater profits?
Which is why I invoked incentives. The tragedy here being that schools consider their primary obligation to the child and not to the family. So when parents are in a situation where they cannot care for their children successfully, for whatever reason, we completely ignore the core problem and instead patch over it. Worse it can sometimes create negative stigma for the child and work to further destabilize their living situation.