That's because you don't understand economics.

When a government implements a policy allowing for paid leave while also making it illegal to discriminate hiring based on whether you have children or not the net result is that wages for everyone decreases. In essence, men without children are now subsidizing the paid leave of men with children.

Without going into the further details, at a basic level, it's because you can't create something out of nothing. Paid leave doesn't add value/productivity and in fact does the opposite. Otherwise, why not give everyone paid leave forever without doing any work? See the problem? There's a cost associated with this policy and the cost is put onto everyone; however, men without children aren't benefiting from this cost. The only truly fair thing to do is to not have any government enforced paid leave. That way the costs will follow the end-user whose decisions lead to the direct consequence.

As it stands right now, we're punishing men who don't have children by making them get paid less to support men who do have children.

That's because you don't understand economics.

When a government implements a policy allowing for paid leave while also making it illegal to discriminate hiring based on whether you have children or not the net result is that wages for everyone decreases. In essence, men without children are now subsidizing the paid leave of men with children.

Without going into the finder details, at a basic level, it's because you can't create something out of nothing. Paid leave doesn't add value/productivity and in fact does the opposite. Otherwise, why not give everyone paid leave forever without doing any work? See the problem? There's a cost associated with this policy and the cost is put onto everyone; however, men without children aren't benefiting from this cost. The only truly fair thing to do is to not have any government enforced paid leave. That way the costs will follow the end-user whose decisions lead to the direct consequence.

As it stands right now, we're punishing men who don't have children by making them get paid less to support men who do have children.