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It's not that it's a failure, it's that being taken out of the workforce for many years is damaging to careers. It's more than a matter of perception. Public sc

It's not that it's a failure, it's that being taken out of the workforce for many years is damaging to careers. It's more than a matter of perception. Public school starts when kids are 5. If you have several kids, it could then take someone out of the workforce for a decade. While it's not impossible to recover from that, it's extremely difficult, especially at a point where you're past your prime years such as your 20 or 30s.

HBKXNCUO 7y ago
>While it's not impossible to recover from that, it's extremely difficult On the other hand, it's impossible for your children to get back the time they could have spent in their most formative and vulnerable years around people that love them, rather than minimum wage daycare workers.
- crashedsnow 7y ago
  It's extremely difficult to correlate this to long-term happiness or well-being. If parents can accelerate their time to retirement they get to spend more time with children as teenagers or young adults. Is that better or worse? More or less memorable? I don't remember much before I was 5-ish. Do we really know that having stay-at-home parents during that time alters a lot? Does having the extra money for "better" college outweigh time in "formative" years? How about having more wealth to transfer to children when you're gone? What if the stay-at-home parent is desperately unhappy with staying at home? Is it better to have a happy, harmonious environment? It's complicated, and just saying it's better to have a stay-at-home parent versus "minimum wage daycare workers" (who in my experience are actually often highly qualified), is an incomplete perspective (IMO).
  - HBKXNCUO 7y ago
    >It's extremely difficult to correlate this to long-term happiness or well-being. Sure, as with any social science there are huge numbers of complicating factors, which makes it difficult to really study anything conclusively. No double blind studies, obviously. >If parents can accelerate their time to retirement they get to spend more time with children as teenagers or young adults. Is that better or worse? Studies would be great, but probably far worse. Teenagers and young adults are developing independence from their parents and would probably feel overly constricted. >Do we really know that having stay-at-home parents during that time alters a lot? No, we can't know it without running trials. >Does having the extra money for "better" college outweigh time in "formative" years? Maybe in some cases. The overwhelming majority of people aren't going to go to any college "better" than a state university and wouldn't benefit from it. >"minimum wage daycare workers" Why put that in quotes? >who in my experience are actually often highly qualified Qualified for what? To show children the love and care that their parents would show them? I don't think so, because I don't think you can fake that, and I don't think their love for the children can be genuine because any loving parent would be emotionally destroyed if they couldn't see their child any more because the child graduated from daycare and moved on to kindergarden.
  - tomatocracy 7y ago
    Whilst none of those points are necessarily wrong, I think you have implicitly ignored the happiness of the parents in your arguments. Many parents who feel they have to work and then pay for childcare and not see their children in order to make ends meet are definitely not happy about that at all. That shouldn't be forgotten.
- jonstewart 7y ago
  Both my kids have been in nanny shares. That’s a bit higher end than minimum wage daycare, but, trust me, they’ve been better taken care of and more loved than if I’d had to take care of them. Comparative advantage works another way with daycare: you can benefit from hiring a professional.
  - HBKXNCUO 7y ago
    >they’ve been better taken care of and more loved than if I’d had to take care of them. If you can afford to pay other people to give more love to your children than you can, then by all means, hand them off. >Comparative advantage works another way with daycare: you can benefit from hiring a professional. Do you prefer to get your love from professionals? I hope not for your wife's sake.
    - jonstewart 7y ago
      I love my family, thanks, and am a competent father. I don't love, and am not good at, taking care of small children all day every day, and my children would suffer if I had to do that for an extended period of time. Your first post and, especially, this one come across as quite smug and holier-than-thou. And if you were to make that remark about my wife to my face, I'd politely ask you to step outside.
      - HBKXNCUO 7y ago
        >I love my family, thanks, and am a competent father. I don't love, and am not good at, taking care of small children all day every day, and my children would suffer if I had to do that for an extended period of time. I don't think that's uncommon for men, and I'm sure it happens for some women too. If both of you are that way, and you are convinced your children will suffer from being taken care of by you, and you can afford to pay people that will do a better job than you, then by all means. >And if you were to make that remark about my wife to my face, I'd politely ask you to step outside. Just to make it clear, I am not insinuating your wife is inadequate in any way, just that I would feel bad for her if you felt that love was something you could get from professionals. I am sure she's a wonderful woman and I hope you have a great relationship with her. My point is that these daycare workers don't love your children anywhere near the amount that you and your wife do (I assume, I don't know you personally), and they aren't going to be able to fool your children.
- speleding 7y ago
  > it's impossible for your children to get back the time they could have spent in their most formative and vulnerable years around people that love them, rather than minimum wage daycare workers Professionally trained, well rested, day care professionals probably do that job just as well as me, or better. Also, there are 168 hours in a week and the kids still spend a large part of that with their parents.
  - HBKXNCUO 7y ago
    >Professionally trained Minimum wage. High school diploma. >day care professionals probably do that job just as well as me, or better. If you are truly so terrible at taking care of children that you cannot care for your own flesh and blood better than minimum wage workers can simultaneously care for multiple children to which they have no personal emotional attachment, then please, get your children away from yourself as often as possible. >Also, there are 168 hours in a week and the kids still spend a large part of that with their parents. 70+ are lost to sleeping, and more for younger children, so no, they don't spend a large part of that time with their parents in any meaningful way. If both parents are working, the rest of the non-work hours are going to be consumed by cooking (if there is time for that, or else expensive prepared meals), cleaning, household chores, errands, and everything else people need to do to keep functioning.
    - speleding 7y ago
      > Minimum wage. High school diploma. No way! The training after high school for day care professionals in my country takes 4 years and is much better paid than minimum wage. If nothing else, I could never hope to beat them on experience. There are Nordic countries where a minimum of one day of day care a week is actually government mandated because it's been proven to be good for the kids.
      - HBKXNCUO 7y ago
        >If nothing else, I could never hope to beat them on experience. That's fine. Unless you are emotionally stunted, they could never hope to beat you on love. >There are Nordic countries where a minimum of one day of day care a week is actually government mandated because it's been proven to be good for the kids. Starting at what age? Is this what you're referring to: https://theglobepost.com/2018/12/13/denmark-compulsory-daycare/ https://theglobepost.com/2018/12/13/denmark-compulsory-dayca... If so, that's quite a bit different from what you described. That sounds like it's more about forcibly integrating foreign populations. They're not targeting Danish children with that.

HBKXNCUO 7y ago

>While it's not impossible to recover from that, it's extremely difficult On the other hand, it's impossible for your children to get back the time they could have spent in their most formative and vulnerable years around people that love them, rather than minimum wage daycare workers.

crashedsnow 7y ago
It's extremely difficult to correlate this to long-term happiness or well-being. If parents can accelerate their time to retirement they get to spend more time with children as teenagers or young adults. Is that better or worse? More or less memorable? I don't remember much before I was 5-ish. Do we really know that having stay-at-home parents during that time alters a lot? Does having the extra money for "better" college outweigh time in "formative" years? How about having more wealth to transfer to children when you're gone? What if the stay-at-home parent is desperately unhappy with staying at home? Is it better to have a happy, harmonious environment? It's complicated, and just saying it's better to have a stay-at-home parent versus "minimum wage daycare workers" (who in my experience are actually often highly qualified), is an incomplete perspective (IMO).
- HBKXNCUO 7y ago
  >It's extremely difficult to correlate this to long-term happiness or well-being. Sure, as with any social science there are huge numbers of complicating factors, which makes it difficult to really study anything conclusively. No double blind studies, obviously. >If parents can accelerate their time to retirement they get to spend more time with children as teenagers or young adults. Is that better or worse? Studies would be great, but probably far worse. Teenagers and young adults are developing independence from their parents and would probably feel overly constricted. >Do we really know that having stay-at-home parents during that time alters a lot? No, we can't know it without running trials. >Does having the extra money for "better" college outweigh time in "formative" years? Maybe in some cases. The overwhelming majority of people aren't going to go to any college "better" than a state university and wouldn't benefit from it. >"minimum wage daycare workers" Why put that in quotes? >who in my experience are actually often highly qualified Qualified for what? To show children the love and care that their parents would show them? I don't think so, because I don't think you can fake that, and I don't think their love for the children can be genuine because any loving parent would be emotionally destroyed if they couldn't see their child any more because the child graduated from daycare and moved on to kindergarden.
- tomatocracy 7y ago
  Whilst none of those points are necessarily wrong, I think you have implicitly ignored the happiness of the parents in your arguments. Many parents who feel they have to work and then pay for childcare and not see their children in order to make ends meet are definitely not happy about that at all. That shouldn't be forgotten.
jonstewart 7y ago
Both my kids have been in nanny shares. That’s a bit higher end than minimum wage daycare, but, trust me, they’ve been better taken care of and more loved than if I’d had to take care of them. Comparative advantage works another way with daycare: you can benefit from hiring a professional.
- HBKXNCUO 7y ago
  >they’ve been better taken care of and more loved than if I’d had to take care of them. If you can afford to pay other people to give more love to your children than you can, then by all means, hand them off. >Comparative advantage works another way with daycare: you can benefit from hiring a professional. Do you prefer to get your love from professionals? I hope not for your wife's sake.
  - jonstewart 7y ago
    I love my family, thanks, and am a competent father. I don't love, and am not good at, taking care of small children all day every day, and my children would suffer if I had to do that for an extended period of time. Your first post and, especially, this one come across as quite smug and holier-than-thou. And if you were to make that remark about my wife to my face, I'd politely ask you to step outside.
    - HBKXNCUO 7y ago
      >I love my family, thanks, and am a competent father. I don't love, and am not good at, taking care of small children all day every day, and my children would suffer if I had to do that for an extended period of time. I don't think that's uncommon for men, and I'm sure it happens for some women too. If both of you are that way, and you are convinced your children will suffer from being taken care of by you, and you can afford to pay people that will do a better job than you, then by all means. >And if you were to make that remark about my wife to my face, I'd politely ask you to step outside. Just to make it clear, I am not insinuating your wife is inadequate in any way, just that I would feel bad for her if you felt that love was something you could get from professionals. I am sure she's a wonderful woman and I hope you have a great relationship with her. My point is that these daycare workers don't love your children anywhere near the amount that you and your wife do (I assume, I don't know you personally), and they aren't going to be able to fool your children.
speleding 7y ago
> it's impossible for your children to get back the time they could have spent in their most formative and vulnerable years around people that love them, rather than minimum wage daycare workers Professionally trained, well rested, day care professionals probably do that job just as well as me, or better. Also, there are 168 hours in a week and the kids still spend a large part of that with their parents.
- HBKXNCUO 7y ago
  >Professionally trained Minimum wage. High school diploma. >day care professionals probably do that job just as well as me, or better. If you are truly so terrible at taking care of children that you cannot care for your own flesh and blood better than minimum wage workers can simultaneously care for multiple children to which they have no personal emotional attachment, then please, get your children away from yourself as often as possible. >Also, there are 168 hours in a week and the kids still spend a large part of that with their parents. 70+ are lost to sleeping, and more for younger children, so no, they don't spend a large part of that time with their parents in any meaningful way. If both parents are working, the rest of the non-work hours are going to be consumed by cooking (if there is time for that, or else expensive prepared meals), cleaning, household chores, errands, and everything else people need to do to keep functioning.
  - speleding 7y ago
    > Minimum wage. High school diploma. No way! The training after high school for day care professionals in my country takes 4 years and is much better paid than minimum wage. If nothing else, I could never hope to beat them on experience. There are Nordic countries where a minimum of one day of day care a week is actually government mandated because it's been proven to be good for the kids.
    - HBKXNCUO 7y ago
      >If nothing else, I could never hope to beat them on experience. That's fine. Unless you are emotionally stunted, they could never hope to beat you on love. >There are Nordic countries where a minimum of one day of day care a week is actually government mandated because it's been proven to be good for the kids. Starting at what age? Is this what you're referring to: https://theglobepost.com/2018/12/13/denmark-compulsory-daycare/ https://theglobepost.com/2018/12/13/denmark-compulsory-dayca... If so, that's quite a bit different from what you described. That sounds like it's more about forcibly integrating foreign populations. They're not targeting Danish children with that.