I’m not sure, I agree on everything in this opinion piece, but it does help make a connection between childcare and family policy and the rest of society.

These family policies (which might be called constitutive or de-constitutive) do nothing to ensure that all children are born into conditions that comply with the United Nations Children’s Rights Convention—the minimum children need to comprise democracies—but instead push children into horrible conditions with no minimum levels of welfare, something done to ensure economic growth and to avoid “baby busts” or declining fertility rates. This puts wealth in the hands of a few, argues Nobel Laureate Steven Chu…

These policies, designed around a system premised on unsustainable growth, aim to prepare children, already suffering from vast inequality, to become consumers and workers for shopping malls rather than preparing them equitably to grow up to become effective citizens in democratic town halls. These inequitable policies have created a fantasy world of self-determination—freedom to take part in markets—while stealing the power each voice should have in true democracies.

Alternet

Logically, if you wanted to create a truly equal opportunity society and level playing field for all people at the moment they are born, you would start with a 100% inheritance tax. Then you would provide some combination of excellent parental leave and childcare benefits and services, so parents have the choice to either take time out from a career to focus on young children, or else have excellent childcare options available to them. You would need excellent health care for all children. Then you would move on to excellent public education, probably extending all the way through four-year college. This would obviously be “expensive”, but the benefits to society would almost certainly outweigh the costs to society. The way to pay for it would be for everybody participating in the economy to pay a little bit for it all the time, rather than the cost falling just on parents just for a few years while their children are young. Society as a whole, and the vast majority of parents, would be best off under this system. A tiny fraction of wealthy individuals and organizations would be worse off, and as long as our system gives these people the vast majority of political power, they will fight like hell against this system and they will prevail.

Inheritance taxes are fair and logical, but I admit they seem distasteful because it seems like you have worked hard your whole life to set your children up for success, and then the government is taking that away and giving it to other children whose parents were not as responsible or hard working. Under this system though, you would know your children are going to be fine, and logically you should be fine with it. I am not claiming logic, human emotions and politics are closely correlated! A value added tax might approximate the same benefit and be more politically palatable. Serious campaign finance reform has to come first before we can even begin to consider this.