Lets ban a doll that can help a child pretend to be a doctor, lawyer, pilot or pretty much anything they want. She can drive the nicest cars and live in a great house. But because she has a figure that is unattainable its forbidden. I hope you ban princess too since the odds of her marrying the Prince of Monte Carlo are less than having Barbies figure. What the hell do you let your kids play with? Lego's will give the mistaken impression that you can build a 120 story building with just bricks. Toy Cars are a no go because no one wants to play with a toy Corrola or Prius.

Looking after children IS work. Breastfeeding, breast-pumping, and bottle feeding are all part of that work.

It would be best to be able to make free and fully informed choices regarding job-work and the work of child care, including feeding, for our kids.(This is not an either-or).

But real free choice won't happen and women will never be fully equal until the WORK of child care - especially including child care by mothers - is acknowledged as work AND financed on level *equitable with other socially essential work*.

Nonsense. This is like the stupid articles that come out close to mothers day saying a stay at home mom does 150k worth of work a year which is just nonsense.

You get paid based on what you produce for society. That is why in Europe Parents receive the benefits they do because the number of people that want children does not match the needs of their societies. In America we have more than enough people to meet our countries needs and than some.

Taking Johnny to soccer practice does not benefit anyone besides your family. Staying at home and washing his cloths benefits only him.

The state (in Canada) finances the work of professors, medical staff,librarians, social workers,military, police, bureaucrats, road builders, teachers, etc. In the past almost none of this work was financed by the state.(Let's not mention bank bail-outs). If we can afford to finance this work yes-we- can equally finance the work of child rearing.

All of these groups have a direct measurable benefit to society. The professors take you minds and turns them into professionals that will in 4 years or so will produce something for society that has some value that can be measured. Medical Staff again produces a service that has measurable benefits to productivity. And on and on.

In you dream scenario can the government fire you or take your kid away if they do not like the job you do? Can the public at large make requests of you that might be against your beliefs?

A benefit paid through the tax system would work.

Obviously this would redistribute some wealth from non-parents to parents. Not a bad idea.

This benefit could be used to cover the opportunity costs of mum and /or dad foregoing all or some job time, and/or used to pay someone else to do the child care work.

You may be shocked and think, "But it's your choice to have kids!" as if people doing other kinds of tax-financed work were not also doing it by choice, or , "You're paid for with the love of your children!" But many others love their work too, but love does not cover their bills or pension plans.

Nice that you want to take even more of our money when the number of people having kids has not dropped yet.

You also use the term OC. When a lawyer decides to stay home with her kid and be paid that is a loss from the work force of someone that has been trained in a specialty to the tune of a quarter to half million dollars.

Sorry but watching after kids is unskilled labor. No one has to go to school to be a parent to do a good enough job. No one needs to be licensed to be a parent. We as a society have been raising kids for millions of years.

Unless and until we all agree that we want a birthrate of zero, it must be recognized that the work of bearing and rearing children is essential for the existence of society,

Come back to me when that actually happens. Even Japan and Europe people would have kids even with out benefits provided. Here in the US it will be a long time before we see the birth rate get anywhere below replacement let alone zero. Biology wants us to reproduce it is an innate part of being alive and there will always be those that go along with it.

Society relies on women to choose to bear children voluntarily. Great. But by not financing the necessary child care work equitably (if at all) society free rides on - exploits - those who it - mainly mums - while disproportionately rewarding other choices.

No society does not rely on any one women bearing children. It relies on the common. And there is no tragedy of the commons coming any time soon.

Here is the first black man descended from slavery to sit in the Senate since reconstruction. And this is the day that the rule of law was actually respected despite attempts to play politics with it.

This means that Obama will have a dinner with say Chomsky, Mike Moore or hell Krugman? For some reason I have my doubts. The last thing that is acceptable to be in America is right. I call it the club Krugman called it recently being wrong in socially acceptable ways others being not preternaturally anti facisit what ever you want to call it it boils down to if you kiss the money/political classes ass you can have any idiotic belief but if you are right but rude about it that is unacceptable.