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The solution to daycare is to really not daycare. Want kids? Here are the options that people in the Seattle Metro have come up with: * People giving up on kid

by nocsi 3y ago

The solution to daycare is to really not daycare. Want kids? Here are the options that people in the Seattle Metro have come up with: * People giving up on kids and substitute it with dog ownership * Daycare rackets wherein they just turn on blippi as soon as the parents are gone. * Professionals that have migrated to a 4-day work week have figured out that they could create a co-op daycare/school and help raise one another's kids * Go full remote and grind out the parenting/work until your kid is old enough for some sort of preschool. I've been actually seeing more and more parents just bringing their kids to work. I really don't think subsidization is an answer. It punishes parents that figured out how to make things work w/o daycare. That and we start getting into a similar scenario as student loans.

verinus 3y ago
Interesting difference: here in Europe, it is mostly agreed on that childcare should be free, like any education.
Tade0 3y ago
> I really don't think subsidization is an answer. It punishes parents that figured out how to make things work w/o daycare. My take is that needing to figure this out is the real punishment here. France has the highest fertility rate in the EU (and higher than that of the US) and subsidies apparently are the way forward. They need to be applied correctly though. My country is currently doing worse than Japan even though it's spending, as a percentage of GDP, than France on subsidies - these are in the form of what amounts to an UBI scheme for parents per child. The US has a lot of low-hanging fruit here, like having any sort of actual parental leave, not just whatever pittance the employer throws in people's way.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>Here are the options that people in the Seattle Metro have come up with Those are all awful and while I see your point about subsidization being a band-aid, it's way better than what these "solutions" are. Because they clearly haven't "figured out how to make things work". - a kid is not a pet. And there's a whole rabbit hole about how people adopted and abandoned pets as the pandemic came and went. Besides, not having a kid makes the whole thing moot and runs into current issues on first world population growth. - To be honest, this is fine as long as they are honest about it. Not every Daycare doesn't need to be pre-pre school, you may just want a responsible, trustworthy adult to make sure the house doesn't burn down and you can offer that at a discount. But odds are they can't be honest due to regulations. - I'm very confused on how this works unless every single people in the co-op has their day off on different days. - this is probably the best compromise out of them all, but the most exhausting. It may be borderline impossible to do depending on the industry you're in. >That and we start getting into a similar scenario as student loans. I'd hope we don't get to a point that raising a child is a non-bankruptable loan. But if so, its still better for the current situation than student loans. Many people have children older, and that means they have more savings prepared. And late 20's/30's adults understand debt and interest a lot better than an 18YO leaving home for the first time. I think the real solution is simply to solve the housing and minimium wage issues, though. Helps way more than parents to boot.

by nocsi 3y ago

verinus 3y ago

Interesting difference: here in Europe, it is mostly agreed on that childcare should be free, like any education.

Tade0 3y ago

> I really don't think subsidization is an answer. It punishes parents that figured out how to make things work w/o daycare. My take is that needing to figure this out is the real punishment here. France has the highest fertility rate in the EU (and higher than that of the US) and subsidies apparently are the way forward. They need to be applied correctly though. My country is currently doing worse than Japan even though it's spending, as a percentage of GDP, than France on subsidies - these are in the form of what amounts to an UBI scheme for parents per child. The US has a lot of low-hanging fruit here, like having any sort of actual parental leave, not just whatever pittance the employer throws in people's way.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>Here are the options that people in the Seattle Metro have come up with Those are all awful and while I see your point about subsidization being a band-aid, it's way better than what these "solutions" are. Because they clearly haven't "figured out how to make things work". - a kid is not a pet. And there's a whole rabbit hole about how people adopted and abandoned pets as the pandemic came and went. Besides, not having a kid makes the whole thing moot and runs into current issues on first world population growth. - To be honest, this is fine as long as they are honest about it. Not every Daycare doesn't need to be pre-pre school, you may just want a responsible, trustworthy adult to make sure the house doesn't burn down and you can offer that at a discount. But odds are they can't be honest due to regulations. - I'm very confused on how this works unless every single people in the co-op has their day off on different days. - this is probably the best compromise out of them all, but the most exhausting. It may be borderline impossible to do depending on the industry you're in. >That and we start getting into a similar scenario as student loans. I'd hope we don't get to a point that raising a child is a non-bankruptable loan. But if so, its still better for the current situation than student loans. Many people have children older, and that means they have more savings prepared. And late 20's/30's adults understand debt and interest a lot better than an 18YO leaving home for the first time. I think the real solution is simply to solve the housing and minimium wage issues, though. Helps way more than parents to boot.