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> In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person. What does this imply, that two parents cannot care for three children?

• michaelmior 2y ago
  I don't think it's implying that at all. Whether or not you agree with the statement, it's referring to a specific moment. Most parents will have many moments with their children.
• plaidfuji 2y ago
  No, they go on to say > With four kids, the kids can feel like kids; if there were forty kids, they’d probably feel like they were cattle. The point of the article is that you’ll never achieve economies of scale (10, 100, 1000x) for situations that require individualized attention, no matter how much engineering effort you put into it. At least with today’s technology…
  • paulryanrogers 2y ago
    The quiver full movement is certainly testing the limits.
    • watwut 2y ago
      I would argue that they found it and that kids are not getting that individual attention they need.
      • paulryanrogers 2y ago
        Worse, the elder kids are forced into parenting their younger siblings.
      • themaninthedark 2y ago
        I don't know how many kids the Quiver Full families have but are they any different from Amish families? Are the kids not getting enough individual attention something from an outside perspective or from the kids perspective?
• closewith 2y ago
  No, because normal healthy children do not require 24/7 care, even as newborns. Children in care do, partly because of the circumstances that led to them being in care, but mostly because the State in general is not willing to accept the same risk profile as individual parents.
  • mrweasel 2y ago
    I think it comes down to the many meaning of the word "care" in English. The state is certainly willing to accept way greater risk than the individual parent, in many circumstances. If we take something like daycare, which I presume is included in "care", then it's typically four children per adult until the age of 4, in schools it goes down to 20+ children per one adult, where at home it might be more than two adults per child (but also less obviously). The risk profile is different, if you have a newborn in hospital, then that child may have their parent present at all times, plus staff, but it might also be one or two nurses and an on-call doctor for any number of babies. In some sense the potential risk is greater, but it's also more professionally measured.
    • closewith 2y ago
      >The state is certainly willing to accept way greater risk than the individual parent, in many circumstances. I don't think that's true. > If we take something like daycare, which I presume is included in "care", then it's typically four children per adult until the age of 4, in schools it goes down to 20+ children per one adult, where at home it might be more than two adults per child (but also less obviously). That's a much lower care ratio than parents accepted before regulation, so I think you're arguing against your own point here.
      • mrweasel 2y ago
        Those ratios are heavily debated in Denmark for being absolutely terrible. Parents have been complaining for years that the ratio of especially children for 4 to 6 are awful (typically 7 children per adult). They might be a improvement in other countries, but they are considered a move in the wrong direction here, because they are worse than previously.
• dbingham 2y ago
  No, it's saying that _in any moment_ you can only focus deeply on, and thus care for, one other person. And if you have to care for multiple people, then you have to shift your focus moment to moment. As a parent, can confirm. To give an example, it's really hard to hold and comfort two crying kids at the same time. When the toddlers are melting, they really want your whole attention and don't want to share it. If they're melting because they got in a fight with each other, it really takes an adult per toddler to help calm them. That doesn't mean I can't love and care deeply for both kids, it just means you can only implement that caring with one at a time. I think he's generalizing the point a bit and not all situations are like that. But it's close enough to accurate to be valid. Care doesn't scale.
• triceratops 2y ago
  Two parents, all alone, without a community around them. Yeah it's near-impossible.