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it makes sense. One adult can monitor many children. With childcare a single adult can watch 10+ kids. Makes more sense than having each adult watch only their

it makes sense. One adult can monitor many children. With childcare a single adult can watch 10+ kids. Makes more sense than having each adult watch only their own 1 - 2 children. I don't think there have been many societies in human history that don't have some kind of communal child care for that exact reason. It is actually pretty deranged that we have each parent raise their own kids in relative isolation (until school).

plutoh28 3y ago
It’s not deranged for kids to be raised by their parents.
- closeparen 3y ago
  The deranged part is the parent being the only person involved in raising their child / raising the child being the parent's only activity. This level of separation from extended family and community is a contingent feature a certain time, place, and social bubble, not something natural or inherent to the human condition. The commercial daycare center is hardly the ideal model, but it is at least something besides total individualism.
  - yawboakye 3y ago
    > This level of separation from extended family and community is a contingent feature a certain time, place, and social bubble, not something natural or inherent to the human condition. in my experience, this is a feature of city dwelling. when people live in villages there’s a tendency to have the same neighbors for a lifetime, and so to form more lasting bonds, which allows the full expression of our humanity. i have lived in some french villages and the community i experienced there isn’t different from how anthropologists described community among primitive cultures.
    - mcny 3y ago
      It isn’t just city dwelling but the reality of trying to escape poverty. My parents did the “right thing” and delayed having children until they could feed us. I delayed getting married until I felt stable. In previous generations, I’d imagine my parents would look after my children while I was out tending goats or tilling a farm but it would be incredibly unfair for me to expect my aging parents to look after a child. I can’t make the math work no matter how I slice it. I had a very fortunate childhood considering the childhood my parents had. If I have children, I want to give them at least the same level of comfort and security which right now I can’t. I think people who are having multiple children without thinking it through are being extremely selfish.
  - anon291 3y ago
    My wife stays at home and this is simply not reality. Every day she and the kids are over at friends houses, playdates, hiking, etc. She basically hangs out with her friends while all the kids play. The great part about this arrangement is that the adults get to plan all kinds of community events for families and kids. Parties, get togethers, camping trips, etc. Our lives are richer because of it and more communal because we're not all sitting in cubicles each day. It's amazing and way less isolating than my own childhood of daycare. My kids get solid friends who they see almost everyday. We know the families well so they see their friends in more than one context. Being a stay at home parent doesn't literally mean staying at home. And to address the last point, my in laws live two blocks away, so my kids get a lot of time with them. And my parents live a short drive so we see them multiple times a week.
    - steve1977 3y ago
      > The great part about this arrangement is that the adults get to plan all kinds of community events for families and kids. Parties, get togethers, camping trips, etc. Our lives are richer because of it and more communal because we're not all sitting in cubicles each day. And it's an actually community. Not some "I care for your kids because I get paid for it".
- spiderice 3y ago
  I know you already know this.. but you intentionally misquoted GP. "In relative isolation" was very clearly an important part of their statement.
- watwut 3y ago
  Kids in preschool or school are still being raised by their parents.
- afpx 3y ago
  Except those parents that mainly teach from religious texts
meheleventyone 3y ago
I don’t think the OP is arguing against communal childcare rather the paradox of the way we choose to measure economic activity results in the same work outside of the home having more value than the work inside the home. Even if we were to assume efficiencies that would still imply that the work inside the home should have a value higher than zero.
- midasuni 3y ago
  If I charge my neighbour $100 to chop some wood and he charges me $100 to paint a fence then the economy booms. If we barter it the economy doesn’t notice. If we do the wood/fence ourselves the economy diesnt notice If we charge $1000 each the economy booms more than charging $100 each.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > If we barter it the economy doesn’t notice. It does. Of course it might not be properly reflected in the statistics but it still creates additional value in the economy.
    - adhesive_wombat 3y ago
      The best way to generate value will be if you both get done for illegal trading of services without training or licenses and generate a few hundred thousand to a million in GDP via the legal fees, plus remediation though approved service providers. Now you're thinking with Line Go Up!
    - steve1977 3y ago
      Not really IMHO. It only would if those goods get traded later on. One could probably even argue that it destroys value, as the labor is not bought on the market.
    - kbelder 3y ago
      Right. People are mistaking the map for the territory. Barter absolutely is part of the economy, and benefits the traders to the same degree a monetary transaction would; it just isn't included in most economic measures, because they're imperfect.
yawboakye 3y ago
childcare =/= raising kids. raising kids is done over the next several years of their lives, and schools, for example, play a big role here. childcare has traditionally been the job their parents. even in societies with communal activities: labor, rites, ceremonies, etc the onus still falls on the parents. see sparta for example. only when kids have attained a certain age can the rest of the community help in their upbringing.
scarface_74 3y ago
> I don't think there have been many societies in human history that don't have some kind of communal child care for that exact reason Yea its called multigenerational housing.
- gwervc 3y ago
  Which boomers hate with passion: they quitted their parents home as fast as possible, and kicked their children as soon as it doesn't yield tax benefits anymore. All while using real estate as an investment vehicle which led to unaffordable prices of today.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    We are boomers at 49 and 47. Our responsibility for our children ended at 18. What we do/did (21 and 26 now) for them after that is out of the kindness of our hearts. It’s definitely not our responsibility to take care of of their kids. This is our life now… https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306966 As far as housing affordability, there are plenty of affordable homes in the US. You just have to be willing to live there.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - steve1977 3y ago
      > We are boomers at 49 and 47 You're not. You're full on Gen X. Your parenty (probably) were boomers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      > What we do/did (21 and 26 now) for them after that is out of the kindness of our hearts. yeah, other countries just call that "taking care of family" instead of treating it like a free handout. Beware that the US "kick the kids out the nest" mentality isn't a shared one worldwide, and even in the US is a fairly recent phenomenon. >there are plenty of affordable homes in the US. You just have to be willing to live there. maybe now, very recently with workplaces in tech specifically opening up to remote work. That wasn't the case when I graduated college as recent as 5 years ago. You don't get much negotiation for remote work and move wherever the job you choose takes you. What you describe as a digital nomad lifestyle for you and your spouse speaks to your experience and value. Young 18-23 year olds don't get that flexibility in their new careers, nor have the savings lying around to start cosidering that.
bluedino 3y ago
> With childcare a single adult can watch 10+ kids. Not quite. The rule is generally 6-8 kids depending on what state you are in, and the younger they get the lower the number is. 3-4 under 5 years old and only 2 under 2 years old.
- steve1977 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure OP never actually had to deal with kids for a whole day.
lm28469 3y ago
Life isn't about finding the most optimised thing in term of resource usage. That's how you get Matrix style pods
kashunstva 3y ago
> It is actually pretty deranged that we have each parent raise their own kids in relative isolation (until school). The quality of communal childcare varies widely; and having seen some examples of under-stimulating and inattentive care settings, I’d say the choice to raise one’s own children can be more rational than deranged, particularly if you have a caring and empathic relationship with your own children. In my own n=1 experiment, the decision to leave behind an income in the mid six figures to stay home with my child during her early formative years was anything but deranged.
- 11101010001100 3y ago
  It was not a deranged decision, but a privileged one.
  - steve1977 3y ago
    And that is the deranged thing. This should not be a privilege.
steve1977 3y ago
I would challenge the assumption that a single adult can actually care for 10+ kids in a meaningful manner. The word "monitor" speaks for itself. I'm also pretty certain than in, say, more ancient societes, even if there was communal child care, it wasn't a 1:10+ ratio. And even if. The decision is basically, would you rather be working for your children, or for "the man"?
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >that a single adult can actually care for 10+ kids in a meaningful manner. It's a good thing those daycare's aren't just one person renting out a large building, in that case. Real shame the people getting the most money out of it aren't doing any caregiving, though. >And even if. The decision is basically, would you rather be working for your children, or for "the man"? Sure, if most people could help it, they would never work a day in their life if they got 10m dollars (post tax). Not everyone, but I wager 80+%. But that's not the fantasy we live in. While it was great to encourage women into the work force, the government took nasty advantadge of the 2-income households and made it the standard, all while spending power atrophied for decades. Now childcare is rising so much that it's more financially viable to NOT work for some parent's cases. It's all a mess.
  - steve1977 3y ago
    That's certainly the case. It also seems to be an international issue - I'm living in Europe, but here as well, if we would both work, childcare and progressive taxes would eat up a good chunk of the additional income. Not all of it, but enough to kind of not make it worthwhile anymore (even from a purely financial perspective, not considering factors that parents might actually want to be with their kids ;)
loco5niner 3y ago
It's not about 'monitoring' them, it's about nurturing humans to adulthood (and giving them a wonderful childhood to boot). If it were all about efficiency, we could just put them in individual pens with auto-feeding slots or something.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
> With childcare a single adult can watch 10+ kids. 1:10 is only valid for preschool age. It gets more expensive for kids under 30 months. But the other benefit is that your kid has other kids to play with, and learns out how to interact with kids and adults outside of their own home (e.g. they learn how to stand in line and such). It is also a huge boon for the kids if their parents are less engaged (i.e. avoid excessive screen time).

plutoh28 3y ago

It’s not deranged for kids to be raised by their parents.

closeparen 3y ago
The deranged part is the parent being the only person involved in raising their child / raising the child being the parent's only activity. This level of separation from extended family and community is a contingent feature a certain time, place, and social bubble, not something natural or inherent to the human condition. The commercial daycare center is hardly the ideal model, but it is at least something besides total individualism.
- yawboakye 3y ago
  > This level of separation from extended family and community is a contingent feature a certain time, place, and social bubble, not something natural or inherent to the human condition. in my experience, this is a feature of city dwelling. when people live in villages there’s a tendency to have the same neighbors for a lifetime, and so to form more lasting bonds, which allows the full expression of our humanity. i have lived in some french villages and the community i experienced there isn’t different from how anthropologists described community among primitive cultures.
  - mcny 3y ago
    It isn’t just city dwelling but the reality of trying to escape poverty. My parents did the “right thing” and delayed having children until they could feed us. I delayed getting married until I felt stable. In previous generations, I’d imagine my parents would look after my children while I was out tending goats or tilling a farm but it would be incredibly unfair for me to expect my aging parents to look after a child. I can’t make the math work no matter how I slice it. I had a very fortunate childhood considering the childhood my parents had. If I have children, I want to give them at least the same level of comfort and security which right now I can’t. I think people who are having multiple children without thinking it through are being extremely selfish.
- anon291 3y ago
  My wife stays at home and this is simply not reality. Every day she and the kids are over at friends houses, playdates, hiking, etc. She basically hangs out with her friends while all the kids play. The great part about this arrangement is that the adults get to plan all kinds of community events for families and kids. Parties, get togethers, camping trips, etc. Our lives are richer because of it and more communal because we're not all sitting in cubicles each day. It's amazing and way less isolating than my own childhood of daycare. My kids get solid friends who they see almost everyday. We know the families well so they see their friends in more than one context. Being a stay at home parent doesn't literally mean staying at home. And to address the last point, my in laws live two blocks away, so my kids get a lot of time with them. And my parents live a short drive so we see them multiple times a week.
  - steve1977 3y ago
    > The great part about this arrangement is that the adults get to plan all kinds of community events for families and kids. Parties, get togethers, camping trips, etc. Our lives are richer because of it and more communal because we're not all sitting in cubicles each day. And it's an actually community. Not some "I care for your kids because I get paid for it".
spiderice 3y ago
I know you already know this.. but you intentionally misquoted GP. "In relative isolation" was very clearly an important part of their statement.
watwut 3y ago
Kids in preschool or school are still being raised by their parents.
afpx 3y ago
Except those parents that mainly teach from religious texts

meheleventyone 3y ago

I don’t think the OP is arguing against communal childcare rather the paradox of the way we choose to measure economic activity results in the same work outside of the home having more value than the work inside the home. Even if we were to assume efficiencies that would still imply that the work inside the home should have a value higher than zero.

midasuni 3y ago
If I charge my neighbour $100 to chop some wood and he charges me $100 to paint a fence then the economy booms. If we barter it the economy doesn’t notice. If we do the wood/fence ourselves the economy diesnt notice If we charge $1000 each the economy booms more than charging $100 each.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > If we barter it the economy doesn’t notice. It does. Of course it might not be properly reflected in the statistics but it still creates additional value in the economy.
  - adhesive_wombat 3y ago
    The best way to generate value will be if you both get done for illegal trading of services without training or licenses and generate a few hundred thousand to a million in GDP via the legal fees, plus remediation though approved service providers. Now you're thinking with Line Go Up!
  - steve1977 3y ago
    Not really IMHO. It only would if those goods get traded later on. One could probably even argue that it destroys value, as the labor is not bought on the market.
  - kbelder 3y ago
    Right. People are mistaking the map for the territory. Barter absolutely is part of the economy, and benefits the traders to the same degree a monetary transaction would; it just isn't included in most economic measures, because they're imperfect.

yawboakye 3y ago

childcare =/= raising kids. raising kids is done over the next several years of their lives, and schools, for example, play a big role here. childcare has traditionally been the job their parents. even in societies with communal activities: labor, rites, ceremonies, etc the onus still falls on the parents. see sparta for example. only when kids have attained a certain age can the rest of the community help in their upbringing.

scarface_74 3y ago

> I don't think there have been many societies in human history that don't have some kind of communal child care for that exact reason Yea its called multigenerational housing.

gwervc 3y ago
Which boomers hate with passion: they quitted their parents home as fast as possible, and kicked their children as soon as it doesn't yield tax benefits anymore. All while using real estate as an investment vehicle which led to unaffordable prices of today.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  We are boomers at 49 and 47. Our responsibility for our children ended at 18. What we do/did (21 and 26 now) for them after that is out of the kindness of our hearts. It’s definitely not our responsibility to take care of of their kids. This is our life now… https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306966 As far as housing affordability, there are plenty of affordable homes in the US. You just have to be willing to live there.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - steve1977 3y ago
    > We are boomers at 49 and 47 You're not. You're full on Gen X. Your parenty (probably) were boomers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    > What we do/did (21 and 26 now) for them after that is out of the kindness of our hearts. yeah, other countries just call that "taking care of family" instead of treating it like a free handout. Beware that the US "kick the kids out the nest" mentality isn't a shared one worldwide, and even in the US is a fairly recent phenomenon. >there are plenty of affordable homes in the US. You just have to be willing to live there. maybe now, very recently with workplaces in tech specifically opening up to remote work. That wasn't the case when I graduated college as recent as 5 years ago. You don't get much negotiation for remote work and move wherever the job you choose takes you. What you describe as a digital nomad lifestyle for you and your spouse speaks to your experience and value. Young 18-23 year olds don't get that flexibility in their new careers, nor have the savings lying around to start cosidering that.

bluedino 3y ago

> With childcare a single adult can watch 10+ kids. Not quite. The rule is generally 6-8 kids depending on what state you are in, and the younger they get the lower the number is. 3-4 under 5 years old and only 2 under 2 years old.

steve1977 3y ago
I'm pretty sure OP never actually had to deal with kids for a whole day.

lm28469 3y ago

Life isn't about finding the most optimised thing in term of resource usage. That's how you get Matrix style pods

kashunstva 3y ago

> It is actually pretty deranged that we have each parent raise their own kids in relative isolation (until school). The quality of communal childcare varies widely; and having seen some examples of under-stimulating and inattentive care settings, I’d say the choice to raise one’s own children can be more rational than deranged, particularly if you have a caring and empathic relationship with your own children. In my own n=1 experiment, the decision to leave behind an income in the mid six figures to stay home with my child during her early formative years was anything but deranged.

11101010001100 3y ago
It was not a deranged decision, but a privileged one.
- steve1977 3y ago
  And that is the deranged thing. This should not be a privilege.

steve1977 3y ago

I would challenge the assumption that a single adult can actually care for 10+ kids in a meaningful manner. The word "monitor" speaks for itself. I'm also pretty certain than in, say, more ancient societes, even if there was communal child care, it wasn't a 1:10+ ratio. And even if. The decision is basically, would you rather be working for your children, or for "the man"?

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>that a single adult can actually care for 10+ kids in a meaningful manner. It's a good thing those daycare's aren't just one person renting out a large building, in that case. Real shame the people getting the most money out of it aren't doing any caregiving, though. >And even if. The decision is basically, would you rather be working for your children, or for "the man"? Sure, if most people could help it, they would never work a day in their life if they got 10m dollars (post tax). Not everyone, but I wager 80+%. But that's not the fantasy we live in. While it was great to encourage women into the work force, the government took nasty advantadge of the 2-income households and made it the standard, all while spending power atrophied for decades. Now childcare is rising so much that it's more financially viable to NOT work for some parent's cases. It's all a mess.
- steve1977 3y ago
  That's certainly the case. It also seems to be an international issue - I'm living in Europe, but here as well, if we would both work, childcare and progressive taxes would eat up a good chunk of the additional income. Not all of it, but enough to kind of not make it worthwhile anymore (even from a purely financial perspective, not considering factors that parents might actually want to be with their kids ;)

loco5niner 3y ago

It's not about 'monitoring' them, it's about nurturing humans to adulthood (and giving them a wonderful childhood to boot). If it were all about efficiency, we could just put them in individual pens with auto-feeding slots or something.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

> With childcare a single adult can watch 10+ kids. 1:10 is only valid for preschool age. It gets more expensive for kids under 30 months. But the other benefit is that your kid has other kids to play with, and learns out how to interact with kids and adults outside of their own home (e.g. they learn how to stand in line and such). It is also a huge boon for the kids if their parents are less engaged (i.e. avoid excessive screen time).