You're right, Madam Minister. We need much more.

The last few days have been prolific in bringing ever more criticism to the already existing chorus, after the Minister of Labor stated that she found it difficult to understand that children over two years old have to be breastfed during working hours.

And perhaps you're even right, since food is introduced in the first year of life, so that at 2 years of age the child will no longer depend on breast milk or any other form of nutrition.

The point, Madam Minister, is that the fact that a child no longer depends on breast milk or breastfeeding for nutrition should not place him or her among those eligible to be left in a nursery, spending more time there than with his or her own parents — and this is where the problem lies.

We truly understand that there's no need to reduce breastfeeding hours or periods. What we need is a true parenting regime!

A parenting regime that allows parents to spend more time with their children in the early years of life, that allows them to combine professional and personal life, that allows them to deal with the endless infections and illnesses that characterize the early years of life, that allows them to participate in school activities, among other things.

Madam Minister, what we need is to build from the ground up, in a thoughtful and strategic way, a system that allows parents to be parents, taking into account the interests of all, so that there is no friction between the various stakeholders involved in the issue.

We cannot continue to treat parenthood as an obstacle that arises in all of our lives, and to downplay the effort required to support our children during their first years of life.

Children are not problems, they are blessings, and from the point of view of the country's interests, they are extremely necessary in a country like ours, where the age pyramid is completely inverted, placing us in a very weak situation, for example, in the solidity of our pension system.

And if we want to look at the problem from an economic perspective, it should be noted that creating a true parenting regime cannot be seen as an expense, but rather as an investment. Today's children are tomorrow's adults; they are the ones who will pay taxes and support the pensions of today's adults. They are the ones who will fuel the economy.

Promoting isolated measures, such as those currently being discussed, underestimates the urgency of our country's demographic renewal.

Therefore, Madam Minister, we feel that we have had enough of thinking small, with "little permission slips" and "little papers" that only overburden doctors who no longer have time to treat truly sick people, or to schedule appointments for our children, who are already few in number.

Madam Minister, our labor legislation truly needs a major overhaul, and specifically in the area of birth rates, it needs to prioritize integrated public policies that address the problems we face. But if we're going to think with the small-mindedness that has characterized recent administrations, please leave it as it is!