4 ms·

I've been tussling with my wife about putting our kid into daycare when he's 6 months old. I feel it's way too early, partly due to concerns about contracting a

I've been tussling with my wife about putting our kid into daycare when he's 6 months old. I feel it's way too early, partly due to concerns about contracting a virus (though from the perspective that it would cause more hassle for us, rather than concerns about him getting sick per se, which I figure is inevitable). That being said, I hadn't even thought that RSV would be a bigger problem due to the pandemic.

leetrout 4y ago
Its a real concern. Kids going in to daycare will be sick a ton based all the anecdata. It SUCKS having to keep paying $250+ a week to keep them home while you or a partner are missing work on top of it.
- semi-extrinsic 4y ago
  Solution: move somewhere else where workers are not treated as cattle by big corporations. Like, say, anywhere in Europe. Seriously, we pay $380 per month for childcare and each parent gets 20 days of paid your-child-is-sick leave, on top of the 20 days of regular sick leave and mandatory 25 days of holidays each year. All of the above is according to law and applies to everyone, whether you work in tech or you're the school janitor. I have never seen a hospital bill above $100, and I have a chronic autoimmune disease. With a population larger than Alabama we have never had a school shooting in the entire history of firearms. I can keep going like this, but you get the picture.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - google234123 4y ago
    You will get paid 1/2 to 1/8 as much as an software engineer in Europe.
  - Teever 4y ago
    Is that really a solution though? Like you're advising people to just pack up and move across countries and continents without having any idea whether or not that's feasible. Are you really trying to offer a constructive solution or are you just trying to brag about living in Europe?
    - carlivar 4y ago
      It also assumes an income level where this is possible. Unsurprising with the tech crowd here but not at all generally realistic.
  - robswc 4y ago
    When the rubber hits the road, people prefer the money. You see lots of people from Europe moving to the US for a better life. Rare to see the opposite. Not sure which country you're referencing but I've looked at jobs in Europe (seriously too) and the salaries were honestly a joke. At least for SDE. $30-40k in Spain for a qualified SDE. Made more than that as an intern.
    - semi-extrinsic 4y ago
      No, people fall for the propaganda of American exceptionalism, and they haven't done the actual math to see if they actually would have more or less money moving to another country. Yes there are differences in pay level within Europe, which broadly also reflect differences in cost of living. In Northern Europe where I live a primary school teacher makes above $50k a year. But you cannot just compare salary numbers like that, you have to do a full budget with real numbers and compare how much you're left with each month after you've paid all expenses. And you have to add PTO and health insurance and all that jazz. Health insurance is $0 here. An average a parent here will have maybe 15 days of my-child-is-sick and 5 days of I'm-sick per year, in addition to 25 days of vacation, plus Christmas and Easter and other public holidays combining to 10 days on average, so 55 days total of paid leave per year for a parent with small children. And when the child was born, the mother received 9 months of paid maternity leave while the father got 3 months of paid leave. Did you know that the average total monthly payment for a house in the Bay Area is $5300? Where we live you are paying way less than half of that for a similar house. Say you pay half then, $2600 a month, meaning you live in a large house in a posh neighbourhood. That $2600 per month that you don't spend means you can live just as well with $31k lower salary. And we are just getting started. To continue the example, we pay about $1500 per year for all our insurances - house, car, boat, travel. We own a 1900 sq.ft. semi-detached house with a large garage and nice garden, which is biking distance from downtown, our monthly mortgage cost is about $1700. The property tax is $500 per year. With kids the cost of day care is $350 per month until they start school at 6, then it's $200 a month for after-school care until they are 10. School itself is free all the way up to and including PhD level, there is nobody here saving up for their kids going to college. I ride my bicycle to work in 10 minutes. The longest commute of anyone I know is 45 minutes one way. How big of a pay cut would you take if your commute was less than 30 minutes? Then you have things that are even harder to put numbers on, like the fact that my 7-year-old just walks by herself to and from school, we only drop off on Monday and pick up on Friday when there is a lot of stuff to carry. And there has never been a school shooting, ever. My 10-year-old can ride public transport to the city center by herself to meet friends, and I don't have to worry. The probability of a fatal car accident per million miles driven is reduced by 75% compared to the US. The infant mortality rate is less than half of that in the US. My life expectancy here is 4 years longer.
DANK_YACHT 4y ago
We put our kid into daycare around 7 months old. Obviously every kid is different, but we're happy we chose that time. Around 7 months, our child had developed an understanding that we leave and come back, but was still young enough that separation anxiety wasn't a problem. The kids who start daycare at 1 or 2 seem to really struggle. She does get sick all the time, but it's becoming less frequent over time. It's annoying at the time, but her immune system is getting stronger and that is a good thing in the long term.
- choko 4y ago
  We had to put ours in at 6 months. About a week in, she caught her first cold, then it was continuous illness (for all of us!) of one kind or another for about 2 months. Things have gotten much better since.
nradov 4y ago
Kids are all going to catch those viruses eventually. Might as well get it over with.
ac2u 4y ago
>rather than concerns about him getting sick per se, which I figure is inevitable It might be better to be exposed to immunity-challenging activities before a child is one year old in order to prevent the most common childhood leukaemia which is theorised to occur due to a combination of genetics and the lack of an immune-priming event in the first year of life. https://www.icr.ac.uk/news-archive/leading-uk-scientist-reveals-likely-cause-of-childhood-leukaemia#:~:text=Professor%20Greaves%20suggests%20that%20childhood,life%2Dlong%20consequences%20of%20chemotherapy https://www.icr.ac.uk/news-archive/leading-uk-scientist-reve....

leetrout 4y ago

Its a real concern. Kids going in to daycare will be sick a ton based all the anecdata. It SUCKS having to keep paying $250+ a week to keep them home while you or a partner are missing work on top of it.

semi-extrinsic 4y ago
Solution: move somewhere else where workers are not treated as cattle by big corporations. Like, say, anywhere in Europe. Seriously, we pay $380 per month for childcare and each parent gets 20 days of paid your-child-is-sick leave, on top of the 20 days of regular sick leave and mandatory 25 days of holidays each year. All of the above is according to law and applies to everyone, whether you work in tech or you're the school janitor. I have never seen a hospital bill above $100, and I have a chronic autoimmune disease. With a population larger than Alabama we have never had a school shooting in the entire history of firearms. I can keep going like this, but you get the picture.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- google234123 4y ago
  You will get paid 1/2 to 1/8 as much as an software engineer in Europe.
- Teever 4y ago
  Is that really a solution though? Like you're advising people to just pack up and move across countries and continents without having any idea whether or not that's feasible. Are you really trying to offer a constructive solution or are you just trying to brag about living in Europe?
  - carlivar 4y ago
    It also assumes an income level where this is possible. Unsurprising with the tech crowd here but not at all generally realistic.
- robswc 4y ago
  When the rubber hits the road, people prefer the money. You see lots of people from Europe moving to the US for a better life. Rare to see the opposite. Not sure which country you're referencing but I've looked at jobs in Europe (seriously too) and the salaries were honestly a joke. At least for SDE. $30-40k in Spain for a qualified SDE. Made more than that as an intern.
  - semi-extrinsic 4y ago
    No, people fall for the propaganda of American exceptionalism, and they haven't done the actual math to see if they actually would have more or less money moving to another country. Yes there are differences in pay level within Europe, which broadly also reflect differences in cost of living. In Northern Europe where I live a primary school teacher makes above $50k a year. But you cannot just compare salary numbers like that, you have to do a full budget with real numbers and compare how much you're left with each month after you've paid all expenses. And you have to add PTO and health insurance and all that jazz. Health insurance is $0 here. An average a parent here will have maybe 15 days of my-child-is-sick and 5 days of I'm-sick per year, in addition to 25 days of vacation, plus Christmas and Easter and other public holidays combining to 10 days on average, so 55 days total of paid leave per year for a parent with small children. And when the child was born, the mother received 9 months of paid maternity leave while the father got 3 months of paid leave. Did you know that the average total monthly payment for a house in the Bay Area is $5300? Where we live you are paying way less than half of that for a similar house. Say you pay half then, $2600 a month, meaning you live in a large house in a posh neighbourhood. That $2600 per month that you don't spend means you can live just as well with $31k lower salary. And we are just getting started. To continue the example, we pay about $1500 per year for all our insurances - house, car, boat, travel. We own a 1900 sq.ft. semi-detached house with a large garage and nice garden, which is biking distance from downtown, our monthly mortgage cost is about $1700. The property tax is $500 per year. With kids the cost of day care is $350 per month until they start school at 6, then it's $200 a month for after-school care until they are 10. School itself is free all the way up to and including PhD level, there is nobody here saving up for their kids going to college. I ride my bicycle to work in 10 minutes. The longest commute of anyone I know is 45 minutes one way. How big of a pay cut would you take if your commute was less than 30 minutes? Then you have things that are even harder to put numbers on, like the fact that my 7-year-old just walks by herself to and from school, we only drop off on Monday and pick up on Friday when there is a lot of stuff to carry. And there has never been a school shooting, ever. My 10-year-old can ride public transport to the city center by herself to meet friends, and I don't have to worry. The probability of a fatal car accident per million miles driven is reduced by 75% compared to the US. The infant mortality rate is less than half of that in the US. My life expectancy here is 4 years longer.

DANK_YACHT 4y ago

We put our kid into daycare around 7 months old. Obviously every kid is different, but we're happy we chose that time. Around 7 months, our child had developed an understanding that we leave and come back, but was still young enough that separation anxiety wasn't a problem. The kids who start daycare at 1 or 2 seem to really struggle. She does get sick all the time, but it's becoming less frequent over time. It's annoying at the time, but her immune system is getting stronger and that is a good thing in the long term.

choko 4y ago
We had to put ours in at 6 months. About a week in, she caught her first cold, then it was continuous illness (for all of us!) of one kind or another for about 2 months. Things have gotten much better since.

nradov 4y ago

Kids are all going to catch those viruses eventually. Might as well get it over with.

ac2u 4y ago

>rather than concerns about him getting sick per se, which I figure is inevitable It might be better to be exposed to immunity-challenging activities before a child is one year old in order to prevent the most common childhood leukaemia which is theorised to occur due to a combination of genetics and the lack of an immune-priming event in the first year of life. https://www.icr.ac.uk/news-archive/leading-uk-scientist-reveals-likely-cause-of-childhood-leukaemia#:~:text=Professor%20Greaves%20suggests%20that%20childhood,life%2Dlong%20consequences%20of%20chemotherapy https://www.icr.ac.uk/news-archive/leading-uk-scientist-reve....