Employers are part of society and have to accommodate peoples' human functions. Requiring employers to make bathrooms available and giving bathroom breaks is reasonable, as is requiring employers to provide say parental leave (even if childless people can't use it). Setting working hours that can accommodate having kids is another reasonable thing--expecting people to regularly be in the office after typical daycare closing times is a bad thing to do.
> requiring employers to provide say parental leave
You pivoted into govt laws on employers. That is not what we are discussing here though, I was referring to "values" that employers come up with voluntarily. I don't have any issues with clearly laid out govt policies.
> Setting working hours that can accommodate having kids is another reasonable thing
I don't disagree with this as long as everyone can use this flexibility.
By "requiring" I mean in terms of social expectations, not government laws. Many policies, e.g. lunch breaks, are "required" by social norms, not law. (Only a minority of states require lunch breaks; bathroom breaks are not required for the most part either: https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/labor-employment/b/...) E.g. Most tech companies offer far more than the minimum FMLA required leave. That reflects "'values' that employers come up with voluntarily." That's also based on social expectations--a tech company that only offered the legally required minimum leave would get a lot of bad publicity for violating social norms, even though it would be legal to do so. Finally, it's not "discriminatory" even though childless people can't take advantage of such leave.
Raising children is a service to society. That doesn't mean the childless should be discriminated against, but it does mean families should be accommodated. Giving a parent more flexibility than a non-parent is not discrimination, it is accommodation, and it's for the good of us all. The childless clearly benefit from healthy families.
