4 ms·

The failure to me seems in outsourcing your child to a daycare, vs parents having flexible schedules to actually take care of your kid (either 1 with PT job or

The failure to me seems in outsourcing your child to a daycare, vs parents having flexible schedules to actually take care of your kid (either 1 with PT job or staying home FT, or both with flexible jobs). I understand this isn't popular in our culture these days, but I imagine it has many positive outcomes for the child and family.

coffeebeqn 4y ago
I’d love to do that but my software job is the thing keeping us afloat. And part time seems to not be a thing for devs
vkou 4y ago
Parents never did this when both of them worked. Grandparents did this. Unfortunately, these days, parents can't afford to keep living near the grandparents (because home prices have gone up too much, or because the grandparents are in a dead-end no-jobs town). Your options are to fix the housing market (By which, I mean, utterly destroy the value of existing homes[1]), or to make it possible for a single breadwinner to feed a family again (again, this is largely driven by the cost of housing) or to make due with the status quo. [1] That's going to be hugely popular among demographics that vote. /s
- notch898a 4y ago
  Grandparents are now paid out via violence against the children (aka taxes) once they grow up. Why would they participate in raising the kid when the unspoken quid-pro-quo is no longer present and their benefits are guaranteed? There used to be significant bilateral benefit.
  - wins32767 4y ago
    I guess that's the state of the world today, where actual violence is rare enough that people start calling things that don't cause any bodily harm with the same term.
    - notch898a 4y ago
      Question: if I stop paying my taxes will the sheriff come with guns and toss me out? How many people want to find out? This happens with social security and other taxes too, just usually takes a bit longer and they wait until you owe a lot more. The violence is there, it's just under the polite veneer of pay up or get got.
      - wins32767 4y ago
        Depends on the kind of taxes you pay. They can put a lien on your house, garnish your wages, etc. Eventually, sure they may put you in prison, but generally they aren't going to hurt you doing it unless you try to hurt them. You're just renaming coercive measures violence.
  - ROTMetro 4y ago
    And this is super abused by older people that didn't even bother adding their own children to society. Childless and less expenses their whole life, then the same societal benefits provided in old age as provided to people that contributed to society via childrearing.
- duringwork12 4y ago
  Also a lot of the grandparents are way older since they did college instead of kids at 20 thing. It makes a difference my parents are both close enough but other than 1 hour maybe a month is taxing for them to watch my demonspawn.
- esotericimpl 4y ago
  [dead]
AllegedAlec 4y ago
Pretty much. Parents in my neighborhood pooled together and made sure that one of them always had a day off to pick up the kids from school and home and feed them until the other parents got off work.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  How many nine-month-olds were among that group?
  - AllegedAlec 4y ago
    None. This started after we started going to kindergarden. Before that my grandparents came over to fill in.
wjamesg 4y ago
Working parents send their kids to daycare out of necessity, it’s not a matter of being popular. Two working parents is also a necessity for many economically. Not everybody has the income and thus the convenience of having a stay at home parent. In your words, this is a failure of the parent, but I disagree.
- danielvf 4y ago
  The cost of childcare services per child has a fairly hard floor on it. Working class families tend to have more kids in the US. Thus, the total expenses of childcare approx nets out around the same for a working class family as for an upper-middle class family. But the "higher class" family has a lot of extra income to be earned by having two parents working vs one. So its often bad economics for a poorer family to work two jobs and pay for regulated childcare. And good economics for a rich one. And this is how it works out in reality too. I checked a bunch of census stats, and the percentage of children in childcare facilities in the US rises steadily with family income. (interestingly enough, the percentage of children watched by their grandparents also rises steadily with family income too)
morsch 4y ago
It also has many positive outcomes for a kid to spend some time in a daycare with other kids its age, for some more so than others. Social capabilities, language capabilities, nourishment, ...
dap 4y ago
This doesn't match my experience. We've got two young kids. Both went to daycare from an early age (6 months or so). It's been great for everyone. I think there's pretty significant upside to the kids to spending time both with other kids and also with multiple different caregivers. It's also great for us adults to have interests/activities/ambitions (like, a career) outside of the kids. Not saying there are no downsides, but overall we're very happy with the decision. I'm not saying you're saying this, but there's this fallacy/myth out there that if you don't want to spend 24 hours a day (or all waking hours of the day) with your child and responsible for their well-being, then you're a bad parent or damaging them or something. It's possible to love your kids, enjoy spending time with them, be a great parent, and also find it exhausting or even untenable to be responsible for them all the time. There's also this idea floating around that people used to raise kids with an extended network of adult caregivers, and that that was good for everyone. That resonates with me. For people who don't have family around to help, daycare has sort of taken that place, for better and worse. (Daycare providers are not faceless service providers -- they become close members of your extended community!) The downsides of this are widely talked about. But I know folks who've had loads of family help ... with significant associated emotional burden.
- jewayne 4y ago
  Yep. As always, we need to keep in mind that our natural social unit is not the nuclear family, but the tribe. Even two parents trying to parent a single child without the help of the tribe is essentially beyond our evolved capabilities.
harryf 4y ago
With all due respect, you sound like someone who doesn't have children. Most of the argumentation for "parents should stay at home and care for their kids" is based a different world to the one we now live in - a throwback to times where we lived in small communities and child raising was more a group effort with grandparents and relatives helping out. Today 56% of the worlds population lives in cities. That means childcare is essential for socialising a child. A child at home with a parent until kindergarten is probably going to spend the first 4 years of their life in a small apartment with one adult, bearing in mind that many young parents are generally not well off. This is not healthy situation for the child or the adult.
- tetromino_ 4y ago
  > A child at home with a parent until kindergarten is probably going to spend the first 4 years of their life in a small apartment with one adult This is such a strange take. Do you really imagine you and the child will be locked up all day in your apartment? Most cities are not warzones or quarantine areas. Cities have playgrounds and parks, and the child will probably insist on going to one at the minimum daily. The local branch of the city library will have storytelling sessions at least once a week, likely more; and when the storyteller is done, there will be the shelves of early books your child will love to explore. Cities will have lots of kids of the same age group on your block, probably even in your apartment building; your child will inevitably play with them. There will be friends and relatives who will visit you and whom you will visit. Perhaps organized play dates with friends' kids who live further away. And some sort of local young family meetups, organized at the library or playground or via the local Facebook group. There will be parades, festivals, strolls through the historical center, beach days, museum visits, barbecues in the public park... Unless you make a deliberate effort to avoid all of that, your child will surely get socialized.
- TheGigaChad 4y ago
  [dead]
anonymouskimmer 4y ago
Another alternative: In the modern economy how many employers have allowed their employees to take their very young children to work? I know that some large companies have experimented with childcare facilities at the office, but why not allow parents to take care of their children on the job? Sure it's disruptive, but it should be manageable in many cases.

coffeebeqn 4y ago

I’d love to do that but my software job is the thing keeping us afloat. And part time seems to not be a thing for devs

vkou 4y ago

Parents never did this when both of them worked. Grandparents did this. Unfortunately, these days, parents can't afford to keep living near the grandparents (because home prices have gone up too much, or because the grandparents are in a dead-end no-jobs town). Your options are to fix the housing market (By which, I mean, utterly destroy the value of existing homes[1]), or to make it possible for a single breadwinner to feed a family again (again, this is largely driven by the cost of housing) or to make due with the status quo. [1] That's going to be hugely popular among demographics that vote. /s

notch898a 4y ago
Grandparents are now paid out via violence against the children (aka taxes) once they grow up. Why would they participate in raising the kid when the unspoken quid-pro-quo is no longer present and their benefits are guaranteed? There used to be significant bilateral benefit.
- wins32767 4y ago
  I guess that's the state of the world today, where actual violence is rare enough that people start calling things that don't cause any bodily harm with the same term.
  - notch898a 4y ago
    Question: if I stop paying my taxes will the sheriff come with guns and toss me out? How many people want to find out? This happens with social security and other taxes too, just usually takes a bit longer and they wait until you owe a lot more. The violence is there, it's just under the polite veneer of pay up or get got.
    - wins32767 4y ago
      Depends on the kind of taxes you pay. They can put a lien on your house, garnish your wages, etc. Eventually, sure they may put you in prison, but generally they aren't going to hurt you doing it unless you try to hurt them. You're just renaming coercive measures violence.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  And this is super abused by older people that didn't even bother adding their own children to society. Childless and less expenses their whole life, then the same societal benefits provided in old age as provided to people that contributed to society via childrearing.
duringwork12 4y ago
Also a lot of the grandparents are way older since they did college instead of kids at 20 thing. It makes a difference my parents are both close enough but other than 1 hour maybe a month is taxing for them to watch my demonspawn.
esotericimpl 4y ago
[dead]

AllegedAlec 4y ago

Pretty much. Parents in my neighborhood pooled together and made sure that one of them always had a day off to pick up the kids from school and home and feed them until the other parents got off work.

lazyasciiart 4y ago
How many nine-month-olds were among that group?
- AllegedAlec 4y ago
  None. This started after we started going to kindergarden. Before that my grandparents came over to fill in.

wjamesg 4y ago

Working parents send their kids to daycare out of necessity, it’s not a matter of being popular. Two working parents is also a necessity for many economically. Not everybody has the income and thus the convenience of having a stay at home parent. In your words, this is a failure of the parent, but I disagree.

danielvf 4y ago
The cost of childcare services per child has a fairly hard floor on it. Working class families tend to have more kids in the US. Thus, the total expenses of childcare approx nets out around the same for a working class family as for an upper-middle class family. But the "higher class" family has a lot of extra income to be earned by having two parents working vs one. So its often bad economics for a poorer family to work two jobs and pay for regulated childcare. And good economics for a rich one. And this is how it works out in reality too. I checked a bunch of census stats, and the percentage of children in childcare facilities in the US rises steadily with family income. (interestingly enough, the percentage of children watched by their grandparents also rises steadily with family income too)

morsch 4y ago

It also has many positive outcomes for a kid to spend some time in a daycare with other kids its age, for some more so than others. Social capabilities, language capabilities, nourishment, ...

dap 4y ago

This doesn't match my experience. We've got two young kids. Both went to daycare from an early age (6 months or so). It's been great for everyone. I think there's pretty significant upside to the kids to spending time both with other kids and also with multiple different caregivers. It's also great for us adults to have interests/activities/ambitions (like, a career) outside of the kids. Not saying there are no downsides, but overall we're very happy with the decision. I'm not saying you're saying this, but there's this fallacy/myth out there that if you don't want to spend 24 hours a day (or all waking hours of the day) with your child and responsible for their well-being, then you're a bad parent or damaging them or something. It's possible to love your kids, enjoy spending time with them, be a great parent, and also find it exhausting or even untenable to be responsible for them all the time. There's also this idea floating around that people used to raise kids with an extended network of adult caregivers, and that that was good for everyone. That resonates with me. For people who don't have family around to help, daycare has sort of taken that place, for better and worse. (Daycare providers are not faceless service providers -- they become close members of your extended community!) The downsides of this are widely talked about. But I know folks who've had loads of family help ... with significant associated emotional burden.

jewayne 4y ago
Yep. As always, we need to keep in mind that our natural social unit is not the nuclear family, but the tribe. Even two parents trying to parent a single child without the help of the tribe is essentially beyond our evolved capabilities.

harryf 4y ago

With all due respect, you sound like someone who doesn't have children. Most of the argumentation for "parents should stay at home and care for their kids" is based a different world to the one we now live in - a throwback to times where we lived in small communities and child raising was more a group effort with grandparents and relatives helping out. Today 56% of the worlds population lives in cities. That means childcare is essential for socialising a child. A child at home with a parent until kindergarten is probably going to spend the first 4 years of their life in a small apartment with one adult, bearing in mind that many young parents are generally not well off. This is not healthy situation for the child or the adult.

tetromino_ 4y ago
> A child at home with a parent until kindergarten is probably going to spend the first 4 years of their life in a small apartment with one adult This is such a strange take. Do you really imagine you and the child will be locked up all day in your apartment? Most cities are not warzones or quarantine areas. Cities have playgrounds and parks, and the child will probably insist on going to one at the minimum daily. The local branch of the city library will have storytelling sessions at least once a week, likely more; and when the storyteller is done, there will be the shelves of early books your child will love to explore. Cities will have lots of kids of the same age group on your block, probably even in your apartment building; your child will inevitably play with them. There will be friends and relatives who will visit you and whom you will visit. Perhaps organized play dates with friends' kids who live further away. And some sort of local young family meetups, organized at the library or playground or via the local Facebook group. There will be parades, festivals, strolls through the historical center, beach days, museum visits, barbecues in the public park... Unless you make a deliberate effort to avoid all of that, your child will surely get socialized.
TheGigaChad 4y ago
[dead]

anonymouskimmer 4y ago

Another alternative: In the modern economy how many employers have allowed their employees to take their very young children to work? I know that some large companies have experimented with childcare facilities at the office, but why not allow parents to take care of their children on the job? Sure it's disruptive, but it should be manageable in many cases.