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The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets
- 11101010001100 3y agoIf someone could help me, I recall a study of all the decisions (on the order of 100-1000s) that a parent makes in the first year of a child's life. The conclusion of the study was something along the lines of most decisions have little to no effect. IF there was a single decision that had the largest effect, it was where home was. Of course, there is coupling between where you live and other decisions, making the conclusion not so straightforward.
- gjjgjgjjg 3y agoI think you're missing a detail. The studies I've read generally found that it doesn't really matter which option you choose from a list of active/intensive/interested options, they'll all produce good effects. But neglect, indifference, and lack of involvement are not on that list. Neglecting your child vs being involved and supportive certainly has an incredibly large effect. In fact, quantity of parental involvement is probably the #2 predictor of a child's success later in life, with #1 being family monetary wealth.
- jjw1414 3y agoI completely agree that neglect, indifference and lack of involvement can only result in negative outcomes for a child (e.g., sense of insecurity, lower feelings of self-worth, delayed development in certain areas due to lack of stimulation). I’m just curious what definition of “success” you are using in your final sentence. Not being snarky here - I’m honestly interested. There can be no question that having financial stability as an adult can be considered a form of success in that it provides security, shelter, access to a healthy lifestyle. Being raised by parents who have significant monetary wealth likely increases the chances that the child will have similar opportunities for financial gain as they become independent. I just wonder if parental involvement is at least equally important by teaching proper social interaction skills that can lead to favorable relationships later in life (i.e., the “it’s not what you know but who you know” effect).
- 11101010001100 3y agoI agree I am missing details, but I don't think wealth is considered a decision a parent makes in the first year of a child's life.
- sebastianconcpt 3y agoAnd the most successful ones?
- Symbiote 3y agoBy what measure of success?
- bilbo0s 3y agoI think that guy probably means "money"? Whichever kid has the most when they die wins. But yeah, there are way more dimensions along which to measure success. Almost every one is more important, in my view, than how much money you have when you die.
- sebastianconcpt 3y agoNo, money is only one parameter (a very influential one) but looks and fitness and power and fame and health and temperament are also involved in the success equation.
- sebastianconcpt 3y agoWell that's a good discussion starter. What about preventing the study and discussion to be myopic or monocultural? What about a study with several cultures ranked by country? The successful criteria could be measured by how the status ladder is composed in each country and making the cultural cosmovision of each country explicitly defined. It would reveal a lot.
- dopamean 3y agoWhat if you measured success as health + happiness + economic prosperity.
- bigfudge 3y agoYeah, but then you’re into utility weighting functions. It’s simpler to just reify wellbeing/happiness because the others are all essentially subsidiary. I think there is probably a Pareto optimum for wellbeing which is not a simple function of health and monetary prosperity.
- MBlume 3y agoI'm strongly in favor of expanding the US social safety net, but I don't want to neglect other obvious factors here. Dutch children are able to walk or bike outside unsupervised. In the US they'd risk either being killed by a driver, or stopped by an overzealous neighbor or police officer. I think this kind of freedom of movement has a big effect on happiness, it certainly did for me. ETA relevant links: https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes https://letgrow.org/ https://letgrow.org/ ETA again: I glibly mentioned "being killed by a driver" but of course navigating the typical US built environment if you're under 16 or otherwise unable to drive is a miserable experience in a number of ways even if you survive it. Highways make pedestrian paths unnecessarily roundabout. Parking lots make everything further from everything else. Crossing major roads requires getting drivers to notice and stop for you (harder when you're short!), or waiting through interminable signal cycles, etc.
- besofrrn 3y agoCertainly not as big as "do I have food tonight", though.
- softwaredoug 3y agoCars ruin cities - https://www.ft.com/content/27169841-7ee3-481e-919d-41b247e401f6 https://www.ft.com/content/27169841-7ee3-481e-919d-41b247e40...
- Lance_ET_Compte 3y ago[flagged]
- wyre 3y agoAll this, but unironically.
- literalAardvark 3y agoWell, yes.
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- jdmoreira 3y ago> American parents on both sides of the political spectrum know this and are increasingly frustrated by how little they have been offered in this country—particularly in exchange for the high taxes they pay. How much taxes do Americans think we Europeans pay? Those dutch parents are paying close to 60-70% taxes once you account also for VAT
- username135 3y agoSource that please
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jeffbee 3y agoYou must have assumed some level of income. How much?
- lotsofpulp 3y agoThe comparison is very difficult. Just incorporating health insurance premiums (even the portion that is employer paid) paid from pretax income plus some proportion of deductible/out of pocket maximum involves assumptions that change the calculations. Not to mention the myriad other ways to defer or exempt future income from taxes such as 401k/IRA/roth/529/HSA/etc. And then on top of that, you have 50 different states with myriad ways of taxing income, different types of income, consumption, and estates, and within those 50 states, there are numerous counties and cities with their own ways of taxing the same. For example, my effective individual tax rate at similar W2 incomes has varied from 30% to 17% (including health insurance premiums) just by changing the jurisdiction I live in. And that’s calculated using various assumptions one may or may not agree with.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago> The comparison is very difficult. Just incorporating health insurance premiums (even the portion that is employer paid) paid from pretax income plus some proportion of deductible/out of pocket maximum involves assumptions that change the calculations. I'm pretty sure the Netherlands has payroll taxes (employer paid) as well, so you would have to balance that assessment with what employers are paying.
- hackinthebochs 3y agoI started the article expecting it to be little more than a standard case of one's pet grievance being the cause of all of society's ills. I was pleasantly surprised as I started reading. I thought maybe 'social safety net' to the author doesn't mean wealth distribution but rather something like community engagement and mutual support. Alas. Not halfway through does the article take the expected turn towards pet grievance. Not that wealth disparities aren't a serious issue; the issues mentioned for poor parents raising children are certainly real. They just don't strike me as the reason Americans don't parent in a laissez-faire manner. The reasons are more to do with lack of community engagement, lack of trust, misplaced fear of harm, an endless optimizing mindset, and so on. Wealth disparity doesn't even register.
- dadjoker 3y agoYes, I file this article under the categories of "straw man" and "non-sequitur".
- 11101010001100 3y agoDoes wealth disparity have nothing to do with 'lack of community engagement, lack of trust, misplaced fear of harm, an endless optimizing mindset, and so on'?
- hackinthebochs 3y agoIt's not obvious that it does. Sure, some of these things correlate with wealth disparities. But there's no reason to think the causal arrow flows from wealth disparity to distrust, lack of community engagement, etc. For example, most communities are wealth-segregated. So within community will not see a vast wealth disparity. Any proposed explanation must also contend with the fact that parenting was to a much larger degree laissez-faire just a couple of generations ago. (Average/median) Wealth disparities haven't grown that much in this time (meaning discounting the culturally irrelevant growth of a handful of tech billionaires). We might say that low income and a lack of social safety net results in increased anxiety about oneself and society, which results in lack of trust, increased fear, etc, and consequently more controlling parenting. This seems plausible enough. But it doesn't well explain the recent massive increase in hypermanaging/helicopter parenting. American society hasn't become more precarious or more dangerous. While income anxiety may be a contributing factor, it probably isn't the proximal cause. There was a phase change in the average parenting ideology in the last 30-40 years that isn't well explained by the usual societal bugbears.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoI'm somewhat skeptical that the Dutch social safety net is why Dutch parents let their kids "ride their bikes in the rain unsupervised". Does anyone believe that Americans would be more like Dutch parents with a social safety net? What causal chain is necessary for that result, when American parents tend to be be like that due to anxiety about monstrous crimes? Do we really believe that the crimes happen enough that the anxiety is warranted, but when welfare starts taking care of the underclass, there will somehow be fewer kiddy diddlers? Do we believe the anxiety is unwarranted, but when the parents' unemployment insurance is more robust that they'll realize that such dangers are so statistically unlikely that they won't worry until the kid hasn't checked in for 3 straight nights? Is there some evidence that these hypotheses might be true? Am I missing something?
- trgn 3y ago> I'm somewhat skeptical that the Dutch social safety net is why Dutch parents let their kids "ride their bikes in the rain unsupervised" It's blindingly obvious for anybody who has experienced both sides. Dutch parents let their children outside because the roads are safe for children to bike and walk. bikelanes, bumpouts, bollards, slow cars in town, ... American roads are a thunderdome by comparison. Most americans just cannot see it, fish in a bowl, surrounded by water.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago> Most americans just cannot see it, fish in a bowl, surrounded by water. They just don't have a comparison. How many Americans have been to the Netherlands, or even Europe, let alone have lived there?
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago> American roads are a thunderdome by comparison. Teach your kids to not challenge Master Blaster to to-the-death combat in Thunderdome if it really worries you. My concern has never, ever been that they'll get run over. Not by age 7 or 8, when I would consider letting them wander unsupervised. There are many traffic fatalities in the US each year, but those occur not to people crossing suburban streets (or rural roads). Hell, I don't think they much happen when people are darting across downtown streets either. It is a combination of abduction anxiety plus people who are worried the neighbors will call CPS on them. Those latter sort might be able to break the cultural norm that's forming, but there have been high-profile cases of people siccing the authorities on them for letting their kids be independent. I think any survey not specifically designed to lead them to other conclusions would discover this to be the case. Or is this more r/fuckcars propaganda, and I've lost the plot? Are we all nostalgic for the days when only party officials could ever afford a Lada or Trebant, and the proletariat had more important things to worry about?
- uncletaco 3y agoSkeptic that I am I do wonder if this is something normal in all of the Netherlands or specific to, like, these hyper urbanized walkable places in (clearly) affluent neighborhoods of Amsterdam. While the social safety net is a factor I'd honestly like to know if what's true of her sister's children is also true of some kid living in a country village or wherever.
- yokoprime 3y agoI've never lived in the Netherlands, but what's described in the article is pretty much how it is most places in Norway. Sure, if you have to go 5km to go football practice someone might drive you, but otherwise kids roam around on their own a lot.
- kredd 3y agoIt's really not just Amsterdam. Very obvious if you check out Rotterdam, Hague, Eindhoven, Utrecht and etc. Obviously richer sides will have better and more "things", but biking and taking trains is very convenient. The country is much more urbanized, and the distances are just not that long. Even if you take two big cities - Rotterdam and Amsterdam, it takes like 4 hours to bike. So if you live just a bit in the outskirts, you can still bike to a walkable place, or bike to the train station and go from there.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zachmu 3y agoThe science is in and it confirms that our values are objectively correct
- throwitaway222 3y ago> "Dutch parenting" allowing kids to bike in the rain... That's how I grew up IN America. So what is parenting in America now?
- bitwize 3y agoHelicopter parenting. You risk a visit from CPS in the best case, and arrest (and forfeiture of your children) in the worst case, for not engaging in it.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> You risk a visit from CPS in the best case, and arrest (and forfeiture of your children) in the worst case, for not engaging in it. There is evidence of class bias in this policy's enforcement. I live in Jackson Hole. Kids are unaccompanied everywhere. I also remember the same in Manhattan. My friends raising families in Phoenix, on the other hand, have almost continuous totally-bizarre interactions with their cops.
- twojobsoneboss 3y agoDo you see kids biking or running around on their own in the US now? No? We’ll then, there’s your answer
- annoyingnoob 3y agoWe have a lot more diversity in the US. More diverse level of education, more diverse level of income, more diverse housing, more diverse everything. I'm happy to let me kids roam the neighborhood. But I do get calls from other parents that think I'm crazy. The helicopter Dad down the street stopped talking to me, I'd guess his kids protest his watchful eye when they see my kids free.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoUniversal non-chronic prenatal, neonatal and pediatric healthcare seems like a moral and financial no-brainer for our country.
- gnicholas 3y agoI think CA pretty much provides this, if your employer's health care doesn't (via MediCal and such). I wonder what other states do as well.
- newsclues 3y agoFreedom to try things and fail is a great gift.
- jannw 3y ago"But, after spending time at their former home on Bloemgracht, a street and canal in the Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam" So ... for context ... the Bloemgracht is where the 1% of Dutch people live. Not exactly Park Avenue ... but not Queens, and certainly not the Ozarks.
- nicholasbraker 3y agoHaha this.. That part of Amsterdam is really for the hipster-rich people. Now go to the southern Burroughs of Rotterdam or Amsterdam-Bijlmer ;-)
- hooper_ 3y agoI had a simmilar experiance in Iceland, compared to my home country (Australia). Some examples: * The birth of our son cost us a total of $50. That was parking fees and a bed for me in the same room as my Partner. Who had a 30 hour labor and an emergancy C-Section. * For the first couple of weeks we had a nurse coming over and checking up on the health of my partner and son. Organized and paid for by the goverment. * Both myself and my Partner got 3 months maternaty/paternaty leave. Then another 3 months to split. And we could take that however we wanted. I ended up work 20hours a week for the first month. * Once our son was a little older and was going to Daycare, he was sick, a lot! I wasn't at work for more than 3 days a week for the first 3 months. I went to my boss to appologize and offer to take holiday days or something, and he laughed at me and said "No! I knew this was going to happen, your a new parent, look after your child!". * Kids as young as 5 and 6 would walk to school, in the snow, by themselves. That contrasts with my experiance in Australia: * Its illiegal for my son to walk to school by himself, before he's ~12 * It cost us as much per week for daycare in Australia, as it did per month in Iceland. IMHO, this comes down to a sociatal prioritization and allocation of resources. When countries invest in their children, they are investing in their future.
- anon291 3y ago> I went to my boss to appologize and offer to take holiday days or something, and he laughed at me and said "No! I knew this was going to happen, your a new parent, look after your child!". This is just a nice boss, not a social policy. There are plenty of nice bosses anywhere; and plenty of shitty ones.
- morsch 3y agoIt can be a social policy, as well. In Germany, each parent is entitled to up to 10 days a year (single parents get 20) to take care of their sick child. Most people get 70% of their regular wages for those days, paid by the public health insurance.
- seoulmetro 3y agoIn Australia those are part of your sick leave, and you get roughly 10 a year IIRC. Quite generous. At 100% wage, paid by your employer.
- lifeisstillgood 3y agoWhen I run for President of the world, one line of my manifesto will be - all children will be able to walk or cycle to school on car-free physically seperated paths
- anon291 3y agoAs someone from an Asian background that grew up in the United States, I'm shocked at how many of my friends parents refuse / don't want to look after their grandchildren. My parents watch our kids multiple times per week, and I seemed to have married a relative unicorn amongst Anglo-Saxons because my in-laws watch them as well. I think this is a highly under-rated reason why birthrates are falling. Grandparenting is actually a big deal, and we need to encourage it more. It's like the fatherhood campaigns we used to have. Don't be a deadbeat grandma / grandpa... it's not cool.
- gnicholas 3y agoI don't think this is that uncommon. It just depends on how far grandparents live, and whether they have other grandkids. When our first child was born, both sets of grandparents couldn't wait to help out — it was their first grandchild, after all. As other kids have been born, they've had less time to do so.
- MrYellowP 3y agoThis article accidentially exposes a lot about what's wrong with the US and or western countries in general ... but ... well ... dominantly the US. Touching the title in a minute, "even when it means permitting them to bike in the rain." already gives a great insight into how utterly clueless she is about what's wrong with her. *There is nothing wrong with having your child biking during rain.* "But the kid could get wet and sick." Yeah, well, so what? Congratulations, you're experiencing Life. What if it doesn't get sick? What if this is actually great for the immune system? What if the kid's body "hardens up" a little and it won't get sick next time? Ever thought that through? No? Why? Anyhow. "it’s the Dutch social safety net that permits parents to feel safe and secure enough to allow their children this broad freedom and independence." It is scary that the person who wrote that article actually has no fucking clue what a family is, what friends are, what the word community actually means. She writes about stuff that used to be the norm and, in most of the rest of the world still is, as if she never experienced them, and ... she apparently didn't. For the most part of my life, where i live, nobody cared about feeling safe and secure. That's just the obvious US bias she has, because she fucking doesn't. To actively desire feeling safe and secure one has to live in fear. Where there is no fear, there is no need to desire feeling safe and secure. The whole idea is foreign. Before the people of the US started living in constant fear, kids played outside. Kids were allowed to hurt themselves. Kids were allowed to play on the road. People actually trusted each other. They trusted each other with their kids, too. Anyways, this is all wrong. The happiest kids in the world are those who have parents that raise them with things like curiosity, integrity, dignity, respect, responsibility, a sense for self-improvement. You know, what people often refer to as "values". Sprinkled with actual empathy, instead of morals. Instead, in the USm they raise their kids to become narcissistic, self entitled, insecure wannabes who care more about their opinions and ideology than about reality and the truth. They raise their kids to lie about literally everything, because an honest thought or feeling expressed towards someone might "hurt" them. They raise their kids into believing they can do what they want, they can be what they want, they can get what they want, without ever teaching them how to actually know what they actually want and how to achieve what they want. And how should they? Why should they? Where's the sense for self-improvement supposed to come from, when everyone's supposedly equal and the losers get Participation Trophies so they don't need to feel bad? The one thing, feeling bad about losing, is literally one of the biggest drivers of self-improvement. "I want to be better than that" turns into a completely foreign idea when everyone constantly being told they're great and even the losers get Trophies anyway! People with talents aren't talented, they're gifted. The idea, that someone actually might self-improve, is being removed in favour of the idea that one has literally nothing to do with it. Anyhow! "But what seems to be frustratingly glossed over in these case studies is the acknowledgment that it is an economic luxury to raise happy, confident kids who pay attention to the environment around them." No. It fucking isn't. Again, not her fault, she has no clue. Money doesn't raise good kids. Good parents raise good kids. Period. It does not, in any way or form, have anything to do with economic luxury. Good parents raise good kids. Period. They can be poor and good parents, they can be rich and good parents. Asshole parents can be poor, or rich. Doesn't matter, they'll be assholes regardless. Making "economic luxury" a requirement for raising good kids into good adults is greatly underlining that she has no fucking clue what the fuck she's actually talking about. I have little doubt that she never experienced actually good parents, never experienced being raised into a self-responsible, self-confident, self-improving personality and never experienced the base level of human normalcy most of the rest of the world has not yet actually forgotten. And that's not only not her fault, it most likely also isn't her parents fault. Can't blame people for being raised into a fucked up, artificially created normalcy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fynamo 3y agoThis author is delusional. The statement "it is an economic luxury to raise happy, confident kids..." is utterly false. American parents (regardless of their economic status) have the ability to choose - where they live, what school their kids attend, what friends they hang out with, etc. That kids would be growing up unhappy or lacking confidence is a failure of parenting ... NOT society or lack of "social safety nets". "it takes an infrastructure" - Socialist propaganda. The real truth is it takes _a community_ of people (parents) who care enough to make their community work. It used to be these communities centered around churches. Now families are transient, moving from place to place as their parents chase jobs. They're no longer grounded, which is a big reason so many people are asking for the government to intervene and create some sort of "infrastructure." It's BS. People need to wake up. "only six weeks of paid parental leave" ... Wow. I have 4 kids and all the companies I worked for would have been hit HARD if I took that much time off. I would have been taking money out of my coworkers pockets to support that much time off. The most I ever got might have been 2 weeks. Projects would have failed, we didn't have backups or people who could just "pick up where I left off." So many businesses, especially smaller ones, can't afford that. Making those demands raises the cost of owning / running a business, OR, puts barriers in place when these business look to hire. Questions like, "is this person pregnant, or is there a chance of them or their significant other having a pregnancy" will become a huge blocker. Utter socialist trash article. My message to the author: Stop asking me to pay, with my taxes, for you to have a perfect life for your littler kids, when I am already spending so much on my own. I can't afford to pay for yours too. And not only will you be taking my money, you'll also be restricting my choices, as any time the government gets involved it will also remove or make more expensive competing options. Get off your ass and go build the "infrastructure" you want to see. Ghandi was right. BE the change you wish to see in the world.
- mihaic 3y agoThere are lots of reasons why raising children is becoming harder, and ironically I haven't seen anyone here say the HN classic: scale. As some things have to be constant, the fewer children we have the more time-consuming and expensive it become to tend to each one. I remembered when I was young that children could be tended in groups, which allowed most of their parents some free time. Now every couple has to do everything by themselves.