Link: https://www.krone.at/4247188

Sorry for linking to Krone.at, which is a running joke in Austria regarding their quality, but i couldn't find an english language source anywhere else.

And it's only mildly infuriating if you are a well-tempered person - i personally find it outrageous. His main argument is that child rearing is no business case. Maybe we should make it one.

Is he advocating that child care should be free?
It does sound like it.

Let me guess, he's never actually done any sort of child care. Especially for children with any sort of developmental or behavioral special needs, that shit is hard work.

Either that or he’s taking the stance that stay at home moms and dads are lazy bastards who do no work

The next generation supports the current adult generations.

Investing in the next generation is vital to ensure the continued success of the nation.

Early child development is incredibly important to long term success.

Understanding this is beyond the capability of many politicians.

Well of course it isn't! Work comes with a paycheck. Raising children produces no monetary remuneration for the parent. Ipso facto, it can't be work! The logic is flawless.

Because this is the internet: this is sarcasm.

You can't expect people to understand something that they're getting paid to not understand.

I'll be dropping off my kids at his office tout suite.

This reminds me of a deleted scene from The Incredibles (2004) in which Helen confronts a party guest who said that it's a waste of potential to spend years caring for your children instead of working:

https://youtu.be/sh8Vz_7obMM?t=255

Tell me you've never cared for children without telling me you've never cared for children.

That's the worst part of it - he is a father. Which means his public utterances completely devalued the years and years of work of his wife.

I'm a childless man who is not able to deal with children because i am very sensitive to voices and noise, and i understand anyone who does not want to have children. But negating that children are a ton of work very important for a functioning society that goes unrecognized because "they are no business case" is just infuriating even to me. I am ashamed to have this guy as a chancellor.

He is a father, which makes this even more awful. He publicly devalued the hard work his wife does. The most powerful person in Austria devalued his own wives work in front of a huge crowd of journalists.

Yep, no business case there! /s

I am pretty sure he meant he meant what you said. He afterwards "apologized":

He said:" Family "is no business and no job, where you leave the office after your work is done. The payment is not to be measured in money, but in trust, family cohesion and uncountable shared moments". He knows that "how much this assignment takes from you", but family "still isn't a business case“

I say fuck him. I say the time used for rearing children should be financially compensated, since it is work that makes sure that the next generation become a valuable member of society. This time should also be valued when calculating pensions - Austria had it's "equal pension day" on 9th of August. Women in Austria work on average 96 hours per week for unpaid children care work, which would more than make up for that difference if acknowledged.

This cuts deeper than just "care work isn't work". It also devalues men who are willing to put in the work and hours to care for children together with their partner. This mindset makes it harder for men to refuse to work their ass off and never seeing their family.

I am a man. Fuck everyone who thinks like him. People like him shouldn't be "a business case", they should be sitting in a gutter dependent on the goodwill of random people - just as he expects from people who offer valueable time and work towards their children.

I wouldn't - he doesn't even care for his own children. Or the work his wive does. Or the work that is done in kindergardens and schools.

Shit. As someone with two daughters I can assure you that we can deduce that his wife has never had a genuine break from childcare however long their kids have been alive.

i mean it depends on how you define work. if you go by this definition, then basically any mechanical movement (as long as the force is non-zero) is work. therefore, just standing up in the morning, is work.

Yeah, i pity her. She should dump that scumbag and get a partner that wants to be there for the children - i am sure they would call the new guy "papa" faster than the divorce goes through,

Fuck this guy- spoken like an absentee parent

"Why is the birth rate so low?"

I mean, unless both of them pawned the child off on a nanny.

Sounds a bit like childcare being work to me.

I'm sure, to him, it isn't work, since he probably hardly ever does it

I’m not trying to debate your point itself, but where are you getting the 96 hours figure from? That sounded like a lot to me, and I get a much lower figure from this source: https://fairsorgen.at/zeitverwendungsstudie-mehr-arbeit-weniger-zeit-weniger-geld/

Sorry, i adopted the number from ORF.at, where this number was cited by the woman who then got told that "childcare isn't work". I did not verify it - but maybe she referred to homesteading women, where this number might easily be reached (and still doesn't count for their pensions)

https://orf.at/stories/3438475/