City leaders here are proposing, and may succeed in enforcing mandatory 18 week paid parental leave from employment.   I did the math.  Eighteen weeks is one third of one year.   Small business owners will be forced to pay moms and the workers needed to replace them during their leaves.  In the case of public utility companies, they will pass the increased labor cost to home owners and everyone else, higher utility costs.

Water will cost more.   Gas and electric power, too.   Property taxes will increase to pay for parental leave.  But I want to clock the shittiest point of all:   There is no proof of competence or character on the part of parents granted eighteen weeks paid leave.   What if parents are drug addled spouse/child abusing alkies?   They get more free time to gamble at the Casino, or online.

What if parents are patently stupid or sick,  and their kids would be set better examples in  a day care?    I contend it is unsafe to assume parents are safe to be with.   No one is discussing the character of parents.  

It's a shithole out in the real world.  Fuck me for bringing this shit up.  Kids are exposed to horrible people and shithole home environments.  Have you heard the lyrics to mainstream music these days? 

 Not only will the paid leave mandate destroy what's left of the local economy, it will pay shitty people to produce more people like themselves.  At worst the plan will pay people to produce gangsters and inmates.   

Yes, I'm a prick for bringing this up.   I'm producing the crap like Charles Fucking Dickens.   Thanks for reading.

addenda:   In the worst case senarios parents will get eighteen week paid leave to drink, do drugs and gamble.  It could mean more time to incubate an addiction to drugs or other vice.   Some people are sadistic child abusers.  They will be eligible for  paid leave.  More time to inflict harm and endangerment.

Costs of food, housing, transportation and fuck knows what else are going up.   Literacy has been atrocious in Pittsburgh forever.  All the more since leadership imposed its will on the school system.  If parents are illiterate and incompetent, it might rub off on kids.