Family assistance is more than just cash though. If my mother helps me look after the kids twice a week for free, that frees up hours I could use to "get ahead" in life (study, prep for interviews). Should that not be allowed?

Life IS unfair.

Recognizing that fact, many people spend quite a lot of time, thought, and energy to make it less so.

Yes. But even so, that doesn't make it immoral to help your children of for children to accept that help.

Being in favor of a better world tomorrow doesn't mean that you can't play by the rules of the world today.

Every election, I vote for policies that will considerably increase my taxes, but at the same time, I expect my CPA to make sure that I only pay the taxes that I'm legally required to pay.

Recognizing that fact, you adapt, utilize all the cards you have been dealt with, turn your disadvantages into advantages.

For example, when you are born poor, you develop skills that someone who is wealthier does not have the opportunity to learn.

If make it less so means reducing personal freedom to the point of regulating how much time a grandmother can take care of it's grandchildren, I really strongly disagree with that vision.

I believe the solution is probably more along the lines of taxing everyone fairly, and using some of the funds to provide free or affordable childcare to everyone who wants/needs it. Likewise with other forms of family support/advantages. Provide alternatives for people who don't have things by birth-lottery.

So you can still have grandma watch your kid all you like, while the person who has no living relatives can still have a kid and hold a job by taking advantage of subsidized daycare.

And under that system grandmother could be paid for the value she provides.

No one is suggesting that.

Equal opportunity is good. Preventing or even suggesting a family cannot help their own children is ridiculous.

I don’t give a shit whether it’s fair or not. I’ll do whatever I can to help my children just as most parents would.

One of the things I realized watching the tv show Revolution was that every time someone had a choice between "my child might suffer, even a little" and "destroying the whole world" the parents on the show chose the destruction of the world every time.

Maybe parents shouldn't get to make decisions.

Parents should not make decisions about their children?

I am not liking where this thread is going.

Parents routinely choose selfish outcomes at the detriment to their children and society.

Not vaccinating your children not only affects your immediately family, but everyone's children around you. That is the most obvious example, others include indoctrinating children in religion is another.

Not vaccinating your children isn't selfish, it's the opposite because they are at greater risk of contracting disease.

If this just boils down to "it's unfair", then I don't know what to tell you. Very rarely does anything in this life boil down to pure meritocracy.