Why Child Care Is So Expensive • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#131

Post by aSplash0fDerp » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 8:12 PM UTC

With the lack of quality care (per the article), what trajectory are they on with the mandated increases to minimum wage and limitied access to immigrant labor?

It sounds like they're going to need to offer to make children wards of the state from birth to college graduation, just so both parents can work 60 hour weeks to save for retirement and pay the increased tax burden, while maintaining inflated insurance, housing and utility rates..

I personally don't see many wins there if you're still going by the 20th century playbook. Monetary cannabalism appears to be in full swing.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#132

Post by ChaosDegenerate » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 8:12 PM UTC

Dobbs wrote: post #92

ChaosDegenerate wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, somehow the society at large has no problem with exactly opposite generalization: that women prefer to work over staying home with their kids. It is an individual matter, I agree. With most women definitely having the preference of staying at home. But for that the right partner is needed, i.e. one who provides enough resources for her and her kids. If this is not present she will go to work. We decided as a so…

> I'm sorry but this is just how it works No this is not how any of it works. This is extremly sexist, and has no evidence to support it.

Ever been in a serious relationship with a woman?

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#133

Post by jperras » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 8:13 PM UTC

mherdeg wrote: post #62

jperras wrote: post #7

It doesn't have to be this way. Québec has had subsidized daycare for almost 25 years, and the program literally pays for itself (and more!) via increased income taxes from parents that would have otherwise chosen to stay at home. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/12/affordable-daycare-su... > In Montreal, Quebec’s largest city, a day of child care cost on average $10 in 2016 > Quebec’s program, which introduced lo…

Interesting! Any response to the view that universal-childcare-educated children are "DQN" from over in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21745453 ? (I'm not sure I understand it.)

As I've linked to in previous replies, all the studies[1] I've seen are meta-analyses that compare kids in Quebec to kids in other provinces. I don't see anything that accounts (nor could they, really) for the huge variety of factors that can differ among children in the same age group across vastly different provinces. Quebec is markedly different from the rest of the country and North America in more ways than our socialized universal daycare programme.

Moreover, they are comparing kids that are in daycare vs. kids that are raised solely by one or more of their parents; the fact that the daycare is "universal" or subsidized doesn't have anything to do with it. Moreover, the studies show that the kids are effectively more impulsive and more prone to risk-taking, and have found zero correlation with their cognitive abilities.

1. https://www.nber.org/papers/w21571.pdf

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#134

Post by mikeleung » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

ChaosDegenerate wrote: post #6

The thing with female workforce participation: isn't it just symptom of the society getting poorer. My wife worked her ass off. I was making about 130k / year. She was making about 60k / year. Then we not only moved from the US to Poland (where live is just so much cheaper). But I also started making about 330k / year. All the willingness to work evaporated on her part :-) Instead we have another kid. She stopped tal…

I'm terrified by the fact that this sexist reply is currently the top comment on this thread, so clearly there are many people voting it up, in addition to the fact that many men(and only men) adding their personal takes about how they know why WOMEN make the choices they do.

No wonder there is so much gender inequality in the workplace.

This does not belong on HN.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#135

Post by Konnstann » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

tathougies wrote: post #108

jedberg wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is essentially what the big tech companies do with their onsite daycare. They have adults who get hired just to watch the kids, and you can pop in and out as your schedule permits. It's hard to get work done when there are kids in the work area , so I can see why most companies don't encourage this. Especially since some people don't like kids. Another even better solution is a remote workforce. Then only you ha…

> Especially since some people don't like kids. Well those people can be shunted off into some sad depressing part of the building? Or work from home. Remote work is great, but it's also very nice and social to bring babies in to the office to meet your friends. What's so wrong with that?

The majority of my office is BL2 Lab space, people who bring their kids in are being incredibly irresponsible. The other aspect is a lot of people who would benefit from workplace daycare don't work in white-collar office spaces. Finally segregating people who don't enjoy distractions at work seems very rude, I like kids but I am overly cautious around them, if someone brought their kid into work I'd be more focused on the kid not killing him/herself than my job.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#136

Post by cortesoft » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #60

cortesoft wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be very careful about making that large a generalization (that all else being equal, women would prefer to stay home over working). Childcare is mind numbing work, especially with young kids. Sure, some women (and men) would prefer that, but a LOT of women prefer office work over raising children. "why not to enjoy life instead of spending 50-60 hours at the office?" is really selling short how much work rais…

> Childcare is mind numbing work > It is NOT enjoying life to stay home with toddlers. > I was so happy to be able to go back to work > the weekends are way more stressful than the weekdays I have to say, this kind of perspective on being a parent puzzles me, even though it's pretty widely held. Honestly, many parents I encounter seem almost as if they'd prefer to be their child's aunt or uncle than their mom or dad.…

Like I said, I LOVE being a dad and wouldn't change it for the world. The overall reward, of having the bond I have with my kids, sharing with them this world I love so much, is absolutely worth it, and is my purpose in life.

That doesn't change the fact that the day to day is hard. Getting my toddler to eat anything healthy is hard. Getting her to sleep is hard. Cleaning up messes they make is hard. Getting them ready when they don't want to go is hard.

Just because something is really hard doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. Raising kids is way up there on both measures; really hard and really worth it. However, the day to day is relentless, and the rewards are not felt with the same relentlessness that the work comes at you. I don't feel rewarded during the moment that I am cleaning my sick kids vomit, but I have to do it anyway.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#137

Post by deogeo » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #18

ChaosDegenerate wrote: post #6

The thing with female workforce participation: isn't it just symptom of the society getting poorer. My wife worked her ass off. I was making about 130k / year. She was making about 60k / year. Then we not only moved from the US to Poland (where live is just so much cheaper). But I also started making about 330k / year. All the willingness to work evaporated on her part :-) Instead we have another kid. She stopped tal…

I would be very careful about making that large a generalization (that all else being equal, women would prefer to stay home over working). Childcare is mind numbing work, especially with young kids. Sure, some women (and men) would prefer that, but a LOT of women prefer office work over raising children. "why not to enjoy life instead of spending 50-60 hours at the office?" is really selling short how much work rais…

> I would be very careful about making that large a generalization

Sure - but then, lets also not generalize in the opposite direction. How many women get to work, versus how many have to work?

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#138

Post by danbolt » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

ChaosDegenerate wrote: post #74

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...assuming that women in Japan can choose at all.

oooopssss... and what do we have here? A little colonizer mentality? ;-)

Japan is a lot more conservative of a society compared to North America and Europe. I've known University-educated women in Japan suddenly halt their careers to entirely cook and clean for a household. I don't think that's a totally un-apt comparison.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#139

Post by cpascal » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 8:16 PM UTC

Anecdotally, the margins can be fairly large. I am aware of one daycare in the NYC metropolitan area with around 100 students that PROFITS nearly $9000/yr/student.

Their teacher pay scale also tops out at $15/hr, but each teacher represents around a $8000/month revenue stream.

The daycare’s rent is about $40,000 a month.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#140

Post by rayiner » Mon, Dec 09, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #60

cortesoft wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be very careful about making that large a generalization (that all else being equal, women would prefer to stay home over working). Childcare is mind numbing work, especially with young kids. Sure, some women (and men) would prefer that, but a LOT of women prefer office work over raising children. "why not to enjoy life instead of spending 50-60 hours at the office?" is really selling short how much work rais…

> Childcare is mind numbing work > It is NOT enjoying life to stay home with toddlers. > I was so happy to be able to go back to work > the weekends are way more stressful than the weekdays I have to say, this kind of perspective on being a parent puzzles me, even though it's pretty widely held. Honestly, many parents I encounter seem almost as if they'd prefer to be their child's aunt or uncle than their mom or dad.…

Raising children is not unlike writing code. It's cool to design the architecture, gin up efficient algorithms, etc. But 90% of your time is spent yak shaving, debugging, responding to mundane feature requests, etc.

It was really cool yesterday to teach my kid long addition. It was a major slog to respond to "dad look at this" or "dad, I have a question" every five minutes because she lacks an internal monologue.