6 ms·

Yes, this was the same thought I had. What about investing in children by making it easier for their own mother to actually care for them, instead of working ou

Yes, this was the same thought I had. What about investing in children by making it easier for their own mother to actually care for them, instead of working outside the home and dumping the kid in an institution.

nemomarx 1mo ago
how would that work? replacing her lost wages to be sure it's not an economic disadvantage sounds hard
- Forgeties79 1mo ago
  We managed to have a society with a significant number of families living on one income for quite some time. 2 incomes shouldn’t be a requirement to keep a roof over a family’s head. The goal shouldn’t be “2 incomes,” it should be “1 income is sustainable and families can actually be a family.”
  - bluGill 1mo ago
    Really? What society? The 1950s got close in the US (I'm not sure about elsewhere, but I doubt it), but even then there were a lot of women working. If you go back to 1800 you will discover that saying families had only one income was because history is generally blind to "women's work" and so you have no idea what women did. (for that matter what most men did is something history only barely mentions). In 1850 a lot of people were more self sufficient - the whole family was growing their own food and making their own cloth - and so saying there was even one income is false - there mostly was no income but they only bought a few things and so only need a small income rarely. (historians can give you a much longer and more complex answer - mine is a gross simplification)
    - Forgeties79 1mo ago
      That’s a fair point I considered including but it’s easy to get lost in the weeds here so I opted for an overly simplistic description. Ultimately what I am trying to say is the household income now required for many is too high and often unobtainable without 2 full time incomes outside the home (and often that’s not enough). That’s not sustainable if we don’t want people offloading all their parenting outside their home. The one working at home (domestic tasks and misc.) one working outside the home (direct income) model is basically impossible now for most people.
      - nemomarx 1mo ago
        what economic program or change would you like to fix this?
        Forgeties79 1mo ago
        I didn’t answer the first time you asked because it strikes me as somewhat unproductive and frankly whenever people ask questions like this it’s usually bait, but I’ll assume good faith here. I am not an expert on this subject, I am not proposing changes and mostly just saying what I observe/my opinion on this issue. This is also a US-centric take so bear that in mind. If I must voice a solution or something: Top of mind, in no particular order, is we need to talk about PTO being more universal (and not just a measly 10-20 work days a year or so) and, more importantly, we need to crack down on exploitative labor practices that lead to low incomes/too few working hours, compounded by (particularly in the shift work world) demands that people say “yes” to coming in to work at a moment’s notice. Generally speaking we need more flexibility for families, instead of the current model where we basically demand people burn their PTO (or just lose their job) for basic childcare reasons (sick, early dismissal from school, etc). This is all really dancing around the core issue though, which is that, despite our rhetoric about strong nuclear families, we’re culturally and economically hostile to families. Particularly those with young children. The support we offer is inadequate and many workplaces punish people for caring for their kids during work hours even when it isn’t really a choice. And when we talk about the cost or difficulty people often respond with “well, you shouldn’t have had kids. You’re irresponsible.” That’s just ridiculous when you think about it. We can’t say we want people to have families and then structure our society in a way that creates unnecessary barriers. Especially when those barriers depend on assumptions like “kids can’t demand anything during work hours.” I understand it’s easy to complain and offer no solutions, but I feel like what I’m doing is a little more nuanced than that. I don’t know what the answer is but I know what we are doing is not working and needs to be interrogated. That’s often the point of discussion after all - working out a possible solution. What do you propose we do?
        nemomarx 1mo ago
        That's basically all stuff I support for it. I also think socially something about extended families would be good - grandparents watching kids is good for cohesion and lightens burdens etc. I also think job hopping is probably related? think of the burden of having to move so often with the housing market and how it might compound things. But cynically I really doubt we're ready to support and fund any of these kind of changes basically. The best anyone offers is a little more maternity leave (paternity if you're being cool) and some tax or economic incentives to try and reduce daycare costs. Which will not holistically solve anything. Also giving up on WFH probably really hurt us here - that could have helped with housing substantially.
    - visarga 1mo ago
      > In 1850 a lot of people were more self sufficient - the whole family was growing their own food and making their own cloth - and so saying there was even one income is false - there mostly was no income but they only bought a few things and so only need a small income rarely This was true for my grandparents in 1970s
    - jimbokun 1mo ago
      Yes the 1950s is the existence proof. I don’t see the relevance of the 1850s, our economic productivity has greatly increased since then. Why can we no longer have the same economic productivity we had in the 1950s that allowed for more single income families?
      - bluGill 1mo ago
        1950 proves it is possible. It doesn't prove it was ever common.
      - Sohcahtoa82 1mo ago
        > Why can we no longer have the same economic productivity we had in the 1950s that allowed for more single income families? Three words: World War II. The 1950s were a unique time. World War II had just ended, and much of Europe's manufacturing capacity was destroyed, while the USA had just spent several years building factories to produce everything needed to fuel that war. It put the USA into an extremely favorable position. Everyone needed manufactured goods, half the world needs to rebuild, and the USA happened to own tons of factories that nobody bombed. Also, during the war, a lot of purchases were being deferred because factories were tooled for war. After the war, they retooled for consumer goods, and years of deferred purchases were suddenly being made. People think America started to decline after the 50's, but the reality is that the rest of the world just caught back up. Factories rebuilt, economies recovered, and they no longer needed American products. Bringing back the 1950's boom without a catastrophic war is going to require taking a lot of steps that are very unpopular among the rich though. Landlords especially. The pipeline of "Dad finishes high school -> Gets a union factory job -> supports spouse + 2 kids -> buys suburban house/car -> retires at 65" isn't possible when the factory job pays $11/hr and houses start at $500,000. Part of the trouble is the gains from productivity growth go to shareholders, not workers. The increased automation in the last 75 years means fewer workers, while the remaining worker's wages remain stagnant, and only the owning class reaps the benefits of the corporate savings. Meanwhile, we keep cutting taxes on them, so they get hoard it all, rather than allowing the money to be reinvested into the next generation.
        jimbokun 1mo ago
  - nemomarx 1mo ago
    making housing affordable also sounds like a pretty hard problem in most of the developed West, yeah? like if you have a good idea definitely pursue it though
    - jimbokun 1mo ago
      It’s an easy problem but our political system is just really stupid, here in the US.
    - deleted 1mo ago
      [deleted]
- SoftTalker 1mo ago
  You are either paying the mother (or father) to stay home, or paying for child care so they can work. I don't think it has to be a completely level trade on an economic basis. A lot of parents would prefer to be able to stay home even if it's not a purely economic optimum. And staying at home doesn't necessarily preclude earning any income. A parent could still do part time work from home, or even outside the home, when the other parent is there etc.
- bluGill 1mo ago
  There is more to life than economics. Economics should put a floor on what you do in life - that is you need enough food to live, and enough shelter (including clothing)... However once that basics are met you need to ask about trade offs. Rice and beans are a nice meal once in a while, but sometimes I want "steak and caviar". Likewise, all I need to live is a "tiny house" shack with some heat - but I really like having more space. I wouldn't mind having the largest private house in the world complete with staff to maintain it - but the work I would need to afford is not something I'm willing to do (I'm not sure if I could get into the CEO suite if I tried, but I know enough of that CEOs do with their life that I'm not willing for that) At what point will you decide that something other than economics matter? I can tell you now that I have kids time with the kids is more important than money. However I'm also a staff software engineer and so I'm making more $$ than most. You need to make your own decisions based on your own life.
- jimbokun 1mo ago
  We had a few decades in the US where it was pretty normal and comfortable to raise a family on a single income. What law of physics dictates that it’s impossible to construct such a society again?
graemep 1mo ago
Their own mother or father. This is important for multiple reasons. Some fathers are better parents (I undoubtedly was), if you assume mothers do childcare it limits choices for both men and women. It is a barrier to equal childcare which I feel is ideal. Even other family member will have a lasting relationship with them and give them more one to one attention.
nkrisc 1mo ago
Your phrasing betrays your bias. Having kids in childcare is not the downfall of society, and in some ways is similar to The Way Things Used To Be. My youngest goes to pre-school childcare where he gets to interact with kids and parents from his local community whom we see outside of childcare as well. He sees his “teacher” when he walks with me and his older brother to his school because her daughter goes to the same school as his brother. The people who work there are part of the community as well. Childcare can be the modern form of the village collectively caring for the children so that not every parent is busy with child-rearing all the time. It’s also good for kids to spend time interacting with people who aren’t part of their immediate family. Not every childcare program is created equal, but there is a place and need for good ones. Not once has it ever felt like “dumping him in an institution”. Your kids do not need you 100% of the time, and usually it’s better they’re not with you 100% of the time.
- SoftTalker 1mo ago
  Sure, and epecially when the child is a bit older then introducing a "preschool" situation for a few hours a day is probably valuable. But having an infant in a daycare for 8-10 hours a day is probably not.
  - estearum 1mo ago
    I would bet that approximately 100% of people advocating for funded childcare programs++ would want to avoid the "putting infants in daycare for 8-10hrs/day" scenario.
    - moduspol 1mo ago
      In what way? I've seen many people advocate for universal childcare as a way to get mom back to working full time as quickly as possible. I've also seen it framed as a way of leveling the playing field, so women are less disadvantaged from men as a result of childbirth / care. I find that, if anything, there is little to no stigma to getting your child in daycare ASAP after maternity leave ends and going back to working full time. That's "infants in daycare for 8-10hrs/day".
AndrewDucker 1mo ago
Having had two kids go through nursery from an early age, they absolutely had a better time there, with more friends and a higher quality of entertainment, than they would have had at home with either of us.
- jimbokun 1mo ago
  That has to be true for the preservation of your own emotional well being and self image as a good person.
- MaxHoppersGhost 1mo ago
  You can take your kids to parents days out or parks where they consistently meet with other kids and become friends. The option isn't 100% daycare or 100% staying at home and never seeing anyone.
Kinrany 1mo ago
Children being cared for solely by their parents isn't "natural": children used to be raised by entire villages
- MaxHoppersGhost 1mo ago
  Yes but a daycare isn't your village raising your kids, it's random people, most aren't from your community much less your own country.
  - tylrprtr 1mo ago
    How far away are people traveling for daycare?!?
  - SepiaSapient 1mo ago
    Ah, now the pearl clutching makes sense. Some of other children in daycare are from the bad and weird ethnicity. Would a 23andme be a good requirement for playdates then?
    - MaxHoppersGhost 1mo ago
      I didn't say anything about ethnicity - are you kidding me? My community has nearly all ethnicities.
      - SepiaSapient 1mo ago
        The worry about people from other countries kinda implies it, but maybe I'm misreading.
eszed 1mo ago
I'm deliberately not addressing the article as a whole, but I'd like to engage with your smaller point. My parents viewed all day care as "dumping [their] kid in an institution" and made massive sacrifices so that my mum could housewife for a decade+ with me and my younger sister. My wife and I have made a different choice with our son, and I honestly wish my parents had done the same - at least after we were two or three. Admittedly, my wife and I are fortunate to be able to pay for him to go to an excellent pre-school (though the one local to my parents was similarly good), and I see him naturally acquiring a social fluency and confidence with his peers that I didn't have (if I even do!) until I was an adult. Furthermore, had I been cared for outside the home, my mum would have spent vastly more time with my sister when she was an infant and toddler, which I think would have been a lifelong benefit to her. I also think my mum would have been personally better off getting back to full-time work ~5 years earlier than she did: full-time parenting wore on her, and she and my dad would have been able to retire a few years sooner. Those are all highly-dependent personal circumstances, so I'm not going to draw a universal rule - but I'm telling you this in order to caution you against doing the same. All families, and all individual circumstances, are different. [Second thought] I am going to make one general point: the benefit my son draws is highly dependent upon attending a good school. Institutions absolutely exist where "dumping them" is an appropriate epithet to apply, but there is no reason why that has to be the case. I don't know where you live, but in my country the "pro-natalist" political party is also devoted to policies which make schools worse (cutting funding, lowering teacher pay, meddling with curricula, etc), which seems to me to be perverse.
- jimbokun 1mo ago
  You are citing the results of an experiment that is impossible to perform.
  - eszed 1mo ago
    Oh, absolutely! But, so are most of the lessons we draw from life experience, instead of, like, science. That doesn't make them unimportant to talk about, so long as we approach them - and each other - with appropriate degrees of humility and good will.
- 1mo ago
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]

nemomarx 1mo ago

how would that work? replacing her lost wages to be sure it's not an economic disadvantage sounds hard

Forgeties79 1mo ago
We managed to have a society with a significant number of families living on one income for quite some time. 2 incomes shouldn’t be a requirement to keep a roof over a family’s head. The goal shouldn’t be “2 incomes,” it should be “1 income is sustainable and families can actually be a family.”
- bluGill 1mo ago
  Really? What society? The 1950s got close in the US (I'm not sure about elsewhere, but I doubt it), but even then there were a lot of women working. If you go back to 1800 you will discover that saying families had only one income was because history is generally blind to "women's work" and so you have no idea what women did. (for that matter what most men did is something history only barely mentions). In 1850 a lot of people were more self sufficient - the whole family was growing their own food and making their own cloth - and so saying there was even one income is false - there mostly was no income but they only bought a few things and so only need a small income rarely. (historians can give you a much longer and more complex answer - mine is a gross simplification)
  - Forgeties79 1mo ago
    That’s a fair point I considered including but it’s easy to get lost in the weeds here so I opted for an overly simplistic description. Ultimately what I am trying to say is the household income now required for many is too high and often unobtainable without 2 full time incomes outside the home (and often that’s not enough). That’s not sustainable if we don’t want people offloading all their parenting outside their home. The one working at home (domestic tasks and misc.) one working outside the home (direct income) model is basically impossible now for most people.
    - nemomarx 1mo ago
      what economic program or change would you like to fix this?
      - Forgeties79 1mo ago
        I didn’t answer the first time you asked because it strikes me as somewhat unproductive and frankly whenever people ask questions like this it’s usually bait, but I’ll assume good faith here. I am not an expert on this subject, I am not proposing changes and mostly just saying what I observe/my opinion on this issue. This is also a US-centric take so bear that in mind. If I must voice a solution or something: Top of mind, in no particular order, is we need to talk about PTO being more universal (and not just a measly 10-20 work days a year or so) and, more importantly, we need to crack down on exploitative labor practices that lead to low incomes/too few working hours, compounded by (particularly in the shift work world) demands that people say “yes” to coming in to work at a moment’s notice. Generally speaking we need more flexibility for families, instead of the current model where we basically demand people burn their PTO (or just lose their job) for basic childcare reasons (sick, early dismissal from school, etc). This is all really dancing around the core issue though, which is that, despite our rhetoric about strong nuclear families, we’re culturally and economically hostile to families. Particularly those with young children. The support we offer is inadequate and many workplaces punish people for caring for their kids during work hours even when it isn’t really a choice. And when we talk about the cost or difficulty people often respond with “well, you shouldn’t have had kids. You’re irresponsible.” That’s just ridiculous when you think about it. We can’t say we want people to have families and then structure our society in a way that creates unnecessary barriers. Especially when those barriers depend on assumptions like “kids can’t demand anything during work hours.” I understand it’s easy to complain and offer no solutions, but I feel like what I’m doing is a little more nuanced than that. I don’t know what the answer is but I know what we are doing is not working and needs to be interrogated. That’s often the point of discussion after all - working out a possible solution. What do you propose we do?
        nemomarx 1mo ago
        That's basically all stuff I support for it. I also think socially something about extended families would be good - grandparents watching kids is good for cohesion and lightens burdens etc. I also think job hopping is probably related? think of the burden of having to move so often with the housing market and how it might compound things. But cynically I really doubt we're ready to support and fund any of these kind of changes basically. The best anyone offers is a little more maternity leave (paternity if you're being cool) and some tax or economic incentives to try and reduce daycare costs. Which will not holistically solve anything. Also giving up on WFH probably really hurt us here - that could have helped with housing substantially.
  - visarga 1mo ago
    > In 1850 a lot of people were more self sufficient - the whole family was growing their own food and making their own cloth - and so saying there was even one income is false - there mostly was no income but they only bought a few things and so only need a small income rarely This was true for my grandparents in 1970s
  - jimbokun 1mo ago
    Yes the 1950s is the existence proof. I don’t see the relevance of the 1850s, our economic productivity has greatly increased since then. Why can we no longer have the same economic productivity we had in the 1950s that allowed for more single income families?
    - bluGill 1mo ago
      1950 proves it is possible. It doesn't prove it was ever common.
    - Sohcahtoa82 1mo ago
      > Why can we no longer have the same economic productivity we had in the 1950s that allowed for more single income families? Three words: World War II. The 1950s were a unique time. World War II had just ended, and much of Europe's manufacturing capacity was destroyed, while the USA had just spent several years building factories to produce everything needed to fuel that war. It put the USA into an extremely favorable position. Everyone needed manufactured goods, half the world needs to rebuild, and the USA happened to own tons of factories that nobody bombed. Also, during the war, a lot of purchases were being deferred because factories were tooled for war. After the war, they retooled for consumer goods, and years of deferred purchases were suddenly being made. People think America started to decline after the 50's, but the reality is that the rest of the world just caught back up. Factories rebuilt, economies recovered, and they no longer needed American products. Bringing back the 1950's boom without a catastrophic war is going to require taking a lot of steps that are very unpopular among the rich though. Landlords especially. The pipeline of "Dad finishes high school -> Gets a union factory job -> supports spouse + 2 kids -> buys suburban house/car -> retires at 65" isn't possible when the factory job pays $11/hr and houses start at $500,000. Part of the trouble is the gains from productivity growth go to shareholders, not workers. The increased automation in the last 75 years means fewer workers, while the remaining worker's wages remain stagnant, and only the owning class reaps the benefits of the corporate savings. Meanwhile, we keep cutting taxes on them, so they get hoard it all, rather than allowing the money to be reinvested into the next generation.
      - jimbokun 1mo ago
- nemomarx 1mo ago
  making housing affordable also sounds like a pretty hard problem in most of the developed West, yeah? like if you have a good idea definitely pursue it though
  - jimbokun 1mo ago
    It’s an easy problem but our political system is just really stupid, here in the US.
  - deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
SoftTalker 1mo ago
You are either paying the mother (or father) to stay home, or paying for child care so they can work. I don't think it has to be a completely level trade on an economic basis. A lot of parents would prefer to be able to stay home even if it's not a purely economic optimum. And staying at home doesn't necessarily preclude earning any income. A parent could still do part time work from home, or even outside the home, when the other parent is there etc.
bluGill 1mo ago
There is more to life than economics. Economics should put a floor on what you do in life - that is you need enough food to live, and enough shelter (including clothing)... However once that basics are met you need to ask about trade offs. Rice and beans are a nice meal once in a while, but sometimes I want "steak and caviar". Likewise, all I need to live is a "tiny house" shack with some heat - but I really like having more space. I wouldn't mind having the largest private house in the world complete with staff to maintain it - but the work I would need to afford is not something I'm willing to do (I'm not sure if I could get into the CEO suite if I tried, but I know enough of that CEOs do with their life that I'm not willing for that) At what point will you decide that something other than economics matter? I can tell you now that I have kids time with the kids is more important than money. However I'm also a staff software engineer and so I'm making more $$ than most. You need to make your own decisions based on your own life.
jimbokun 1mo ago
We had a few decades in the US where it was pretty normal and comfortable to raise a family on a single income. What law of physics dictates that it’s impossible to construct such a society again?

graemep 1mo ago

Their own mother or father. This is important for multiple reasons. Some fathers are better parents (I undoubtedly was), if you assume mothers do childcare it limits choices for both men and women. It is a barrier to equal childcare which I feel is ideal. Even other family member will have a lasting relationship with them and give them more one to one attention.

nkrisc 1mo ago

Your phrasing betrays your bias. Having kids in childcare is not the downfall of society, and in some ways is similar to The Way Things Used To Be. My youngest goes to pre-school childcare where he gets to interact with kids and parents from his local community whom we see outside of childcare as well. He sees his “teacher” when he walks with me and his older brother to his school because her daughter goes to the same school as his brother. The people who work there are part of the community as well. Childcare can be the modern form of the village collectively caring for the children so that not every parent is busy with child-rearing all the time. It’s also good for kids to spend time interacting with people who aren’t part of their immediate family. Not every childcare program is created equal, but there is a place and need for good ones. Not once has it ever felt like “dumping him in an institution”. Your kids do not need you 100% of the time, and usually it’s better they’re not with you 100% of the time.

SoftTalker 1mo ago
Sure, and epecially when the child is a bit older then introducing a "preschool" situation for a few hours a day is probably valuable. But having an infant in a daycare for 8-10 hours a day is probably not.
- estearum 1mo ago
  I would bet that approximately 100% of people advocating for funded childcare programs++ would want to avoid the "putting infants in daycare for 8-10hrs/day" scenario.
  - moduspol 1mo ago
    In what way? I've seen many people advocate for universal childcare as a way to get mom back to working full time as quickly as possible. I've also seen it framed as a way of leveling the playing field, so women are less disadvantaged from men as a result of childbirth / care. I find that, if anything, there is little to no stigma to getting your child in daycare ASAP after maternity leave ends and going back to working full time. That's "infants in daycare for 8-10hrs/day".

AndrewDucker 1mo ago

Having had two kids go through nursery from an early age, they absolutely had a better time there, with more friends and a higher quality of entertainment, than they would have had at home with either of us.

jimbokun 1mo ago
That has to be true for the preservation of your own emotional well being and self image as a good person.
MaxHoppersGhost 1mo ago
You can take your kids to parents days out or parks where they consistently meet with other kids and become friends. The option isn't 100% daycare or 100% staying at home and never seeing anyone.

Kinrany 1mo ago

Children being cared for solely by their parents isn't "natural": children used to be raised by entire villages

MaxHoppersGhost 1mo ago
Yes but a daycare isn't your village raising your kids, it's random people, most aren't from your community much less your own country.
- tylrprtr 1mo ago
  How far away are people traveling for daycare?!?
- SepiaSapient 1mo ago
  Ah, now the pearl clutching makes sense. Some of other children in daycare are from the bad and weird ethnicity. Would a 23andme be a good requirement for playdates then?
  - MaxHoppersGhost 1mo ago
    I didn't say anything about ethnicity - are you kidding me? My community has nearly all ethnicities.
    - SepiaSapient 1mo ago
      The worry about people from other countries kinda implies it, but maybe I'm misreading.

eszed 1mo ago

I'm deliberately not addressing the article as a whole, but I'd like to engage with your smaller point. My parents viewed all day care as "dumping [their] kid in an institution" and made massive sacrifices so that my mum could housewife for a decade+ with me and my younger sister. My wife and I have made a different choice with our son, and I honestly wish my parents had done the same - at least after we were two or three. Admittedly, my wife and I are fortunate to be able to pay for him to go to an excellent pre-school (though the one local to my parents was similarly good), and I see him naturally acquiring a social fluency and confidence with his peers that I didn't have (if I even do!) until I was an adult. Furthermore, had I been cared for outside the home, my mum would have spent vastly more time with my sister when she was an infant and toddler, which I think would have been a lifelong benefit to her. I also think my mum would have been personally better off getting back to full-time work ~5 years earlier than she did: full-time parenting wore on her, and she and my dad would have been able to retire a few years sooner. Those are all highly-dependent personal circumstances, so I'm not going to draw a universal rule - but I'm telling you this in order to caution you against doing the same. All families, and all individual circumstances, are different. [Second thought] I am going to make one general point: the benefit my son draws is highly dependent upon attending a good school. Institutions absolutely exist where "dumping them" is an appropriate epithet to apply, but there is no reason why that has to be the case. I don't know where you live, but in my country the "pro-natalist" political party is also devoted to policies which make schools worse (cutting funding, lowering teacher pay, meddling with curricula, etc), which seems to me to be perverse.

jimbokun 1mo ago
You are citing the results of an experiment that is impossible to perform.
- eszed 1mo ago
  Oh, absolutely! But, so are most of the lessons we draw from life experience, instead of, like, science. That doesn't make them unimportant to talk about, so long as we approach them - and each other - with appropriate degrees of humility and good will.
1mo ago

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]