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Looking for children under a certain age is more or less a full time job. Trying to mix it with work is, well, simply a bad decision. Over that age, and if the

Looking for children under a certain age is more or less a full time job. Trying to mix it with work is, well, simply a bad decision. Over that age, and if the kids themselves can manage it... sure, it's great. You're there for breaks and emergencies - much better than being absent for the whole day.

prmoustache 4y ago
It is more for the commuting in and out of school that it helps. My kids could walk back from school but primary school do not allows them to get out without me. This is kind of stupid as I would sign a waiver if they wanted it but they won't. So until they both reach what you call high school in the USA I have to go to the primary school and back every day. The most funny thing is sometimes I go there by bicycle, let them out of school give them a kiss then ride bike at full speed home to make it before the call while my daughters are walking on their own. I could pay someone to do that but that just sounds so stupid.
- Hackbraten 4y ago
  > primary school do not allows them to get out without me Please tell me you’re joking.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    The inevitable result of three things: 1. an absurdly car-friendly society that prioritizes cars well above everyone else - basically, parents have to pick up their children in cars because there is no reasonable pedestrian infrastructure to allow them a safe walking home. 2. a truckload of busybodies ("Karens") that call CPS on children wandering alone - Utah had to pass a law in 2018 [1] to cut down on that crap and other US states are following suit. Unfortunately, in states without that explicit carve-out, schools can be cited for neglect as well. 3. US healthcare being absolutely rotten to the core, which means that should a child get injured on the way from the school home, their health insurance will try to pass the bucket down to somewhere else, and the first obvious thing is to attempt to sue the school because they were the last ones in custody of the child. As a result, schools introduce such policies because the second the child is in custody of the parent, the school is no longer liable for anything and the insurance can go and stuff its claims. [1] https://www.npr.org/2018/04/01/598630200/utah-passes-free-range-parenting-law https://www.npr.org/2018/04/01/598630200/utah-passes-free-ra...
    - mikewarot 4y ago
      I blame Otis Toole[1], who confessed (and later recanted) to the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh. The hysteria Adam's father was able to create in the United States is astounding. I grew up before that happened, and I was still freaked out the first time my child wanted to walk home from a friends house, 2 blocks away about 10 years ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottis_Toole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottis_Toole
    - prmoustache 4y ago
      In my case this is in europe and most people don't even bring their kids by cars because there is almost nowhere to park and because kids are zoned and are expected to go to the nearest public school which is usually in the same neighborhood. I guess it is just liability. Child abduction is not a problem we are talking a lot in my area, maybe it has been in the past, I don't know I am an expat.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        > I guess it is just liability. Child abduction is not a problem we are talking a lot in my area, maybe it has been in the past, I don't know I am an expat. Here in Europe we do have the advantage that we don't share the same language, meaning that a child being abducted in Portugal or an immigrant raping a woman in Germany doesn't make headlines in Eastern Poland. In contrast, in the US even small scale regional everyday crimes (not belittling rape here, just noting the fact that sexual crime is a regular occurrence!) can make national outrage.
  - sidlls 4y ago
    I doubt it, because I have a similar issue at my kids' school. Kids must either enter a parent's vehicle (which must have a paper or other sign with the names of the kids being picked up on display) at the drive-through pick up, be picked up in person, or get onto a school bus or other approved after-school service. They cannot leave, basically, without an adult who takes them. I was shocked when I found out about it.
    - anthomtb 4y ago
      For real? I started doing the 1 mile/2.2 km walk home from school at the age of 8. This wasn't in the idyllic 1950's America either - we're talking the mid 90's with plenty of headlines stating "it could happen to YOUR CHILDREN". How do the logistics work here? Does each teacher stay with their class until all students have been picked up?
      - sidlls 4y ago
        I started school in the early 80s, and was walking or riding my bike to school by myself/with friends in the first grade. This went on through the kidnapping hysteria of the time, so it's just weird to me. The way it works is they dismiss class in groups of a few teachers at a time, and there are supervising adults at the pick-up places who watch the kids. Personally I think it's terrible for the development of their independence. Maybe Gen-X and some millennials had too much independence, but it seems like the pendulum has swung far too much to the opposite side.
- LastNevadan 4y ago
  Wow, the world has changed! I remember walking home from school by myself when I was in kindergarten.
  - sshine 4y ago
    Yeah, as kids we just roamed. My parents put me on a cross-country train (4 hour trip) to see my grandparents every summer since I was 8. When I was 9 I had to figure out how to switch trains halfway because the direct route discontinued. This was before mobile phones. I’m only 37.
  - shswkna 4y ago
    I’ve often asked myself, what has changed that this is now a thing of the past?
- atwebb 4y ago
  >My kids could walk back from school but primary school do not allows them to get out without me. Where is this? Our kids flood the park and walk home, that's how it has been in a few places we've lived. Maybe y'all are near major roads or no walkable paths?
- ta1243 4y ago
  Our local primary school (UK) allows year 5+ (aged 9/10). Annoying that means I have to meet them off the school bus, despite the bus stop literally being on my land at the bottom of the garden, 20 yards from the house, which means having to wait around for upto 15 minutes depending how early/late it's running. I'm not aware of any high school in the country that forces parental pickup from year 7 (aged 11/12)
sharemywin 4y ago
And yet if we don't want a massive population decline we need to figure out how to raise kids and have a decent standard of living. Even if there's only one parent in the picture.
- Barrin92 4y ago
  throw the nuclear family back into the dumpster where it belongs. The most straightforward answer how two working parents raise a kids is, they don't. At least alone. It takes a village as the proverb goes. If you have your grandparents and your uncles, aunts and other folks around as I was lucky enough to have growing up you're never bored, and they're never bored.
  - sixstringtheory 4y ago
    I agree it takes a village, and like you I was lucky to grow up with lots of aunts, uncles, and grandparents around all the time. But I don’t like the idea that it we need a village so both parents of the child can work full time. The first couple years of a kid’s life are formative, and fleeting. Why only spend a small portion of each day together? It takes more than that to form a good bond. Plus, grandparents might have all the free time, but aren’t as able to do everything as someone in the next younger generation. But why don’t any of the aunts and uncles have jobs, while the kid’s parents do, in your hypothetical? The sooner we get away from 5 8s the better IMO, so we can start living richer, balanced lives. At least the commute is going, which really makes it more like 5 10s on average.
    - phil21 4y ago
      > But why don’t any of the aunts and uncles have jobs, while the kid’s parents do, in your hypothetical? They do. In functional families everyone still works but because you have a dozen+ people to split the "chores" of life with, someone is typically available or can make themselves available at any given time. It's also a family, so it's not just "aunts and uncles" but everyone from grandparents down to nieces and nephews. Lots of people at different stages of life able to contribute different things. The working-age folks tend to bring in money, and those who aged out or are too young contribute in other ways offloading tasks from those working a standard job. The American nuclear family unit along with suburbanization in my opinion will destroy the country at a societal level. Thought this for a very long time. Humans are not meant to be isolated efficiency machines.
dustedcodes 4y ago
I disagree. I work from home as a new dad of a nearly 8 month old girl now. The first 3 months I took off work to be a full time dad, but since then I've returned back to a 4 day work week and when I work Monday to Thursday I am not distracted by my baby girl at all. I have a separate room as an office, if the door is closed then it means no interruptions. My wife is still on maternity leave so she is free to do the majority of the child care during the working week. She respects the door is closed rule and knows that I cannot be interrupted then. However, WFH with a young baby has some MASSIVE advantages which I wouldn't be able to get if I was going to an office: - I get to spend time with my baby girl in the morning before I start work. I wake up at 6:30, it's by choice, I love getting up early and get half an hour of quiet and peace, drinking a coffee and watching breakfast news before the rest of the house wakes up. Then I get to cuddle my daughter for a while whilst my wife gets up and gets ready herself. By 7:30 or 8am I am in my office, often an hour or even two hours online before any of my peers and I'm already working away completely uninterrupted and get more shit done than so many others. - When I come downstairs to top up a cup of coffee, have a snack, eat lunch, etc. I get to see my daughter again. I get a chance to quickly give my wife a hand with something, or often I just have the opportunity to cook for us rather than her, which is a huge help if nothing else. - Because I start earlier than everyone else I can also finish on time and when I finish work then I'm immediately available to start winding down and spend time with my family and my daughter again. Overall I get more work down, I get more sleep, I am more refreshed, I even get extra time to have an outlet after work, playing tennis, going to the gym, etc. and I get to be a much much better husband and a very involved dad even though I have to work 4 days a week. This is priceless and if I had to go into an office I'd be less productive, more tired, more angry and irritated (less balanced life) and a worse husband/father.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- anchochilis 4y ago
  The key point is that someone else is watching the baby while you work. WFH is indeed wonderful for parents and families, but if you try to do it without childcare, you're not going to be working much.

prmoustache 4y ago

It is more for the commuting in and out of school that it helps. My kids could walk back from school but primary school do not allows them to get out without me. This is kind of stupid as I would sign a waiver if they wanted it but they won't. So until they both reach what you call high school in the USA I have to go to the primary school and back every day. The most funny thing is sometimes I go there by bicycle, let them out of school give them a kiss then ride bike at full speed home to make it before the call while my daughters are walking on their own. I could pay someone to do that but that just sounds so stupid.

Hackbraten 4y ago
> primary school do not allows them to get out without me Please tell me you’re joking.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  The inevitable result of three things: 1. an absurdly car-friendly society that prioritizes cars well above everyone else - basically, parents have to pick up their children in cars because there is no reasonable pedestrian infrastructure to allow them a safe walking home. 2. a truckload of busybodies ("Karens") that call CPS on children wandering alone - Utah had to pass a law in 2018 [1] to cut down on that crap and other US states are following suit. Unfortunately, in states without that explicit carve-out, schools can be cited for neglect as well. 3. US healthcare being absolutely rotten to the core, which means that should a child get injured on the way from the school home, their health insurance will try to pass the bucket down to somewhere else, and the first obvious thing is to attempt to sue the school because they were the last ones in custody of the child. As a result, schools introduce such policies because the second the child is in custody of the parent, the school is no longer liable for anything and the insurance can go and stuff its claims. [1] https://www.npr.org/2018/04/01/598630200/utah-passes-free-range-parenting-law https://www.npr.org/2018/04/01/598630200/utah-passes-free-ra...
  - mikewarot 4y ago
    I blame Otis Toole[1], who confessed (and later recanted) to the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh. The hysteria Adam's father was able to create in the United States is astounding. I grew up before that happened, and I was still freaked out the first time my child wanted to walk home from a friends house, 2 blocks away about 10 years ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottis_Toole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottis_Toole
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    In my case this is in europe and most people don't even bring their kids by cars because there is almost nowhere to park and because kids are zoned and are expected to go to the nearest public school which is usually in the same neighborhood. I guess it is just liability. Child abduction is not a problem we are talking a lot in my area, maybe it has been in the past, I don't know I am an expat.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      > I guess it is just liability. Child abduction is not a problem we are talking a lot in my area, maybe it has been in the past, I don't know I am an expat. Here in Europe we do have the advantage that we don't share the same language, meaning that a child being abducted in Portugal or an immigrant raping a woman in Germany doesn't make headlines in Eastern Poland. In contrast, in the US even small scale regional everyday crimes (not belittling rape here, just noting the fact that sexual crime is a regular occurrence!) can make national outrage.
- sidlls 4y ago
  I doubt it, because I have a similar issue at my kids' school. Kids must either enter a parent's vehicle (which must have a paper or other sign with the names of the kids being picked up on display) at the drive-through pick up, be picked up in person, or get onto a school bus or other approved after-school service. They cannot leave, basically, without an adult who takes them. I was shocked when I found out about it.
  - anthomtb 4y ago
    For real? I started doing the 1 mile/2.2 km walk home from school at the age of 8. This wasn't in the idyllic 1950's America either - we're talking the mid 90's with plenty of headlines stating "it could happen to YOUR CHILDREN". How do the logistics work here? Does each teacher stay with their class until all students have been picked up?
    - sidlls 4y ago
      I started school in the early 80s, and was walking or riding my bike to school by myself/with friends in the first grade. This went on through the kidnapping hysteria of the time, so it's just weird to me. The way it works is they dismiss class in groups of a few teachers at a time, and there are supervising adults at the pick-up places who watch the kids. Personally I think it's terrible for the development of their independence. Maybe Gen-X and some millennials had too much independence, but it seems like the pendulum has swung far too much to the opposite side.
LastNevadan 4y ago
Wow, the world has changed! I remember walking home from school by myself when I was in kindergarten.
- sshine 4y ago
  Yeah, as kids we just roamed. My parents put me on a cross-country train (4 hour trip) to see my grandparents every summer since I was 8. When I was 9 I had to figure out how to switch trains halfway because the direct route discontinued. This was before mobile phones. I’m only 37.
- shswkna 4y ago
  I’ve often asked myself, what has changed that this is now a thing of the past?
atwebb 4y ago
>My kids could walk back from school but primary school do not allows them to get out without me. Where is this? Our kids flood the park and walk home, that's how it has been in a few places we've lived. Maybe y'all are near major roads or no walkable paths?
ta1243 4y ago
Our local primary school (UK) allows year 5+ (aged 9/10). Annoying that means I have to meet them off the school bus, despite the bus stop literally being on my land at the bottom of the garden, 20 yards from the house, which means having to wait around for upto 15 minutes depending how early/late it's running. I'm not aware of any high school in the country that forces parental pickup from year 7 (aged 11/12)

sharemywin 4y ago

And yet if we don't want a massive population decline we need to figure out how to raise kids and have a decent standard of living. Even if there's only one parent in the picture.

Barrin92 4y ago
throw the nuclear family back into the dumpster where it belongs. The most straightforward answer how two working parents raise a kids is, they don't. At least alone. It takes a village as the proverb goes. If you have your grandparents and your uncles, aunts and other folks around as I was lucky enough to have growing up you're never bored, and they're never bored.
- sixstringtheory 4y ago
  I agree it takes a village, and like you I was lucky to grow up with lots of aunts, uncles, and grandparents around all the time. But I don’t like the idea that it we need a village so both parents of the child can work full time. The first couple years of a kid’s life are formative, and fleeting. Why only spend a small portion of each day together? It takes more than that to form a good bond. Plus, grandparents might have all the free time, but aren’t as able to do everything as someone in the next younger generation. But why don’t any of the aunts and uncles have jobs, while the kid’s parents do, in your hypothetical? The sooner we get away from 5 8s the better IMO, so we can start living richer, balanced lives. At least the commute is going, which really makes it more like 5 10s on average.
  - phil21 4y ago
    > But why don’t any of the aunts and uncles have jobs, while the kid’s parents do, in your hypothetical? They do. In functional families everyone still works but because you have a dozen+ people to split the "chores" of life with, someone is typically available or can make themselves available at any given time. It's also a family, so it's not just "aunts and uncles" but everyone from grandparents down to nieces and nephews. Lots of people at different stages of life able to contribute different things. The working-age folks tend to bring in money, and those who aged out or are too young contribute in other ways offloading tasks from those working a standard job. The American nuclear family unit along with suburbanization in my opinion will destroy the country at a societal level. Thought this for a very long time. Humans are not meant to be isolated efficiency machines.

dustedcodes 4y ago

I disagree. I work from home as a new dad of a nearly 8 month old girl now. The first 3 months I took off work to be a full time dad, but since then I've returned back to a 4 day work week and when I work Monday to Thursday I am not distracted by my baby girl at all. I have a separate room as an office, if the door is closed then it means no interruptions. My wife is still on maternity leave so she is free to do the majority of the child care during the working week. She respects the door is closed rule and knows that I cannot be interrupted then. However, WFH with a young baby has some MASSIVE advantages which I wouldn't be able to get if I was going to an office: - I get to spend time with my baby girl in the morning before I start work. I wake up at 6:30, it's by choice, I love getting up early and get half an hour of quiet and peace, drinking a coffee and watching breakfast news before the rest of the house wakes up. Then I get to cuddle my daughter for a while whilst my wife gets up and gets ready herself. By 7:30 or 8am I am in my office, often an hour or even two hours online before any of my peers and I'm already working away completely uninterrupted and get more shit done than so many others. - When I come downstairs to top up a cup of coffee, have a snack, eat lunch, etc. I get to see my daughter again. I get a chance to quickly give my wife a hand with something, or often I just have the opportunity to cook for us rather than her, which is a huge help if nothing else. - Because I start earlier than everyone else I can also finish on time and when I finish work then I'm immediately available to start winding down and spend time with my family and my daughter again. Overall I get more work down, I get more sleep, I am more refreshed, I even get extra time to have an outlet after work, playing tennis, going to the gym, etc. and I get to be a much much better husband and a very involved dad even though I have to work 4 days a week. This is priceless and if I had to go into an office I'd be less productive, more tired, more angry and irritated (less balanced life) and a worse husband/father.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
anchochilis 4y ago
The key point is that someone else is watching the baby while you work. WFH is indeed wonderful for parents and families, but if you try to do it without childcare, you're not going to be working much.