5 ms·

"Demographers say that a far better investment would be to support women juggling motherhood and careers by expanding day care and after-school programs." In c

by jobu 12y ago

"Demographers say that a far better investment would be to support women juggling motherhood and careers by expanding day care and after-school programs." In college I had a professor from East Germany that talked about this. The communists did a lot of things wrong, but one thing they got right was an impressive support system for working parents. The preschools and child care programs were excellent, and women were encouraged to work instead of staying home. After the wall fell, these support systems stopped, and his wife had to quit her job and stay home to take care of their kids. He thought it was such a waste of talent because his wife had a PHD and was also a college professor, but there were few other options at the time.

cbd1984 12y ago
Right. Not just maternity leave, but general parental leave: Don't focus entirely on one gender, with the assumption that either gender is necessarily more focused on raising children. Allow single fathers to raise kids as well, without stigma or handicap, by making everything more available to all. This dovetails nicely into marriage equality, which I don't know if Germany has yet, but I know it will if it temporarily does not.
- kuschku 12y ago
  In Germany men can also go into maternity leave, so yeah, we got that.
sologoub 12y ago
Russia had the same support system (though lesser quality), but it endured to some degree even today. Unfortunately, it's so underfunded that there are waiting lists and rampant corruption that one has to endure in order to get a spot for the child. Moscow (as usual) is better off than the rest of the country, but even there it's a problem. Living in US, that's a huge contrast for me and I'm not entirely sure what options are out there aside from paying private.
cylinder 12y ago
I think this is the biggest gap in western governments currently, and huge productivity boosts could be had if they solve this problem. Especially in the US. It's incomprehensible that a parent should have to pay thousands per month just to be able to have a child and work at the same time. Paid maternal leave is not the big issue! After six months of leave, the problem remains that a child needs to be looked after and cared for while the mother returns to work.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  It's incomprehensible that a parent should have to pay thousands per month just to be able to have a child and work at the same time. Why is it incomprehensible? Watching a kid takes time, time costs money. Someone has to pay for it. Maybe you don't think it's right that the parent should be the one to pay for supervision of their kid, but I'm still lost as to how you arrived at "incomprehensible".
  - TulliusCicero 12y ago
    It's incomprehensible that it still works this way in a modern economy. The eventual financial benefit of the child goes to society, not the parents, therefore it follows that society should bear the initial financial cost.
    - aianus 12y ago
      There is no eventual financial benefit to having children for society. Our lives would be much better if the population of the Earth was smaller. The oil would last longer, food would be cheaper as we could farm only the most fertile easily-cultivated land, less competition for housing, etc, etc.
- tomp 12y ago
  > while the mother returns to work But why? I'm young and child-less, so I'm not speaking out of experience, but I really see no reasons why we should be encouraging people to be able to work while having kids. Instead, I think we should enable them to not work and have kids. 50 years ago, it was more than possible to sustain a family with only a single working parent. Nowadays, this doesn't seem even remotely possible (hell, many families barely survive with 2 working parents!). Furthermore, it's not like we're facing a shortage of workforce problems - we're facing unemployment problems. If we could enable e.g. 30% of the workforce (hopefully dads as well - I would love to stay at home instead of working) to stay at home with kids instead, not only would that solve the unemployment issues, but it would also be hugely beneficial for the children's development! Edited to add: I actually come from a country where most adults worked even 50 years ago. However, when I was young, my grandmother was already retired, so she was able to take care of me and my brother until we started school. Still, I wish my parents had been able to spend more time with me when I was little, and I wish I'll have that opportunity with my kids.
thejdude 12y ago
AFAI have heard, East Germany still has much better child support infrastructure than West Germany. They also have a different culture. Women in or from the East tend to marry younger and get children earlier in their lives than Western women. I think that's a good thing, and also implies fewer medical complications related to birth, healthier kids, etc.
klunger 12y ago
Norway has an excellent subsidized preschool program. It is called it kindergarten here, but is for children age 1-5. Children start public school at age 6 and most parents have paid leave for one parent or the other for a child aged 0-1. The kindergarten prices are based on a sliding scale (with a maximum fee), so even a single mother with a relatively low paying job can afford it and rich people don't pay absurd amounts either. The result is that almost all parents work, it is frowned upon to be a "stay at home mom," and single mothers do not struggle so terribly, like in the US where there is very little childcare support. The other result is that Norway is one of the few countries in Europe with a positive growth rate (not even counting immigration). One could argue that the other factors like paid maternity/paternity leave help, but the affordable child care seems much more important to most parents I know here.

by jobu 12y ago

cbd1984 12y ago

Right. Not just maternity leave, but general parental leave: Don't focus entirely on one gender, with the assumption that either gender is necessarily more focused on raising children. Allow single fathers to raise kids as well, without stigma or handicap, by making everything more available to all. This dovetails nicely into marriage equality, which I don't know if Germany has yet, but I know it will if it temporarily does not.

kuschku 12y ago
In Germany men can also go into maternity leave, so yeah, we got that.

sologoub 12y ago

Russia had the same support system (though lesser quality), but it endured to some degree even today. Unfortunately, it's so underfunded that there are waiting lists and rampant corruption that one has to endure in order to get a spot for the child. Moscow (as usual) is better off than the rest of the country, but even there it's a problem. Living in US, that's a huge contrast for me and I'm not entirely sure what options are out there aside from paying private.

cylinder 12y ago

I think this is the biggest gap in western governments currently, and huge productivity boosts could be had if they solve this problem. Especially in the US. It's incomprehensible that a parent should have to pay thousands per month just to be able to have a child and work at the same time. Paid maternal leave is not the big issue! After six months of leave, the problem remains that a child needs to be looked after and cared for while the mother returns to work.

sliverstorm 12y ago
It's incomprehensible that a parent should have to pay thousands per month just to be able to have a child and work at the same time. Why is it incomprehensible? Watching a kid takes time, time costs money. Someone has to pay for it. Maybe you don't think it's right that the parent should be the one to pay for supervision of their kid, but I'm still lost as to how you arrived at "incomprehensible".
- TulliusCicero 12y ago
  It's incomprehensible that it still works this way in a modern economy. The eventual financial benefit of the child goes to society, not the parents, therefore it follows that society should bear the initial financial cost.
  - aianus 12y ago
    There is no eventual financial benefit to having children for society. Our lives would be much better if the population of the Earth was smaller. The oil would last longer, food would be cheaper as we could farm only the most fertile easily-cultivated land, less competition for housing, etc, etc.
tomp 12y ago
> while the mother returns to work But why? I'm young and child-less, so I'm not speaking out of experience, but I really see no reasons why we should be encouraging people to be able to work while having kids. Instead, I think we should enable them to not work and have kids. 50 years ago, it was more than possible to sustain a family with only a single working parent. Nowadays, this doesn't seem even remotely possible (hell, many families barely survive with 2 working parents!). Furthermore, it's not like we're facing a shortage of workforce problems - we're facing unemployment problems. If we could enable e.g. 30% of the workforce (hopefully dads as well - I would love to stay at home instead of working) to stay at home with kids instead, not only would that solve the unemployment issues, but it would also be hugely beneficial for the children's development! Edited to add: I actually come from a country where most adults worked even 50 years ago. However, when I was young, my grandmother was already retired, so she was able to take care of me and my brother until we started school. Still, I wish my parents had been able to spend more time with me when I was little, and I wish I'll have that opportunity with my kids.

thejdude 12y ago

AFAI have heard, East Germany still has much better child support infrastructure than West Germany. They also have a different culture. Women in or from the East tend to marry younger and get children earlier in their lives than Western women. I think that's a good thing, and also implies fewer medical complications related to birth, healthier kids, etc.

klunger 12y ago

Norway has an excellent subsidized preschool program. It is called it kindergarten here, but is for children age 1-5. Children start public school at age 6 and most parents have paid leave for one parent or the other for a child aged 0-1. The kindergarten prices are based on a sliding scale (with a maximum fee), so even a single mother with a relatively low paying job can afford it and rich people don't pay absurd amounts either. The result is that almost all parents work, it is frowned upon to be a "stay at home mom," and single mothers do not struggle so terribly, like in the US where there is very little childcare support. The other result is that Norway is one of the few countries in Europe with a positive growth rate (not even counting immigration). One could argue that the other factors like paid maternity/paternity leave help, but the affordable child care seems much more important to most parents I know here.