Why Child Care Is So Expensive

I'm just recognizing the realities of incentivizing anything. There's a difference between a work requirement for both parents and attendance requirement for children and maybe, in some cases, a portion of your income tax would go to a program you don't take advantage of.

> You don't have to dump your children off to be raised by minimum wage daycare workers in order to put them in a group setting.

Where did I say this should be mandatory or that full-time childcare was the best and only option? You're grossly mischaracterizing my position here and the realities of daycare. Part of the reason daycare is expensive, as mentioned in the article, is because of the regulations in place around the environment and staff. I've found group daycare staff are often more qualified than individual nannies.

I would love to see studies because the issues I've seen caught and missed are all anecdotal and do involve tight-knit communities--which not everybody has. The situations I've seen caught did not "rely on the judgment and interest of minimum wage daycare workers" but were done through communication. After discussing an issue between the daycare and parent it would be presented to a pediatrician or other specialist to see if intervention was needed.

> you and your friends and family members can observe the behavior yourselves

Kids act very differently when around primary caretakers and others. Like I said, part of something like daycare would be communicating what you've observed and what they've observed. A select few motivated parents read books and seek out information (often only for their first child), I see a lot of "bad advice" from previous generations. One thing I've seen come up a lot is older generations either don't know, or dismiss, "back to sleep" as a way to minimize SIDS. I also notice that knowledge about children atrophies very quickly. I constantly have to give milestones for my kid; birth weight, when they rolled over, crawled, walked, first word, first sentence. As years pass I have a rougher idea about what's normal and completely forgot about more minor milestones like; parallel play, object permanence, when pronouns should be understood, etc. even when I'm close to other families kids hitting those milestones.

> It is normal for children to be cared for by many adults throughout the day, from birth - be they older relatives or simply members of the community.

My sister engages in a community of stay-at-home parents and homeschooling parents (there is a lot of overlap and she also homeschools) to provide her children with socialization and to also share the burden of parenting all the small ones.

By contrast, in daycare, where my sister and mother both worked professionally at different times, it is common for adults to be split between many children, usually as many as seven or eight per adult (by regulation).

> It is abnormal for one person to have to deal with all of their energy and issues.

See above

> It is normal for children to wander and play and experience a wide and varied world. It is abnormal for them to be kept in a small, unchanging indoor space.

Funny that this is an example! Many daycares are inside only or maybe have a small playground. By the time the child is 5, they're expected to sit still in actual school all day! My nephew and nieces get the pleasure of participating in something called "Forest School" where they're able to socialize with other children their age and learn about nature, shockingly, outside in nature. They're also always allowed in the backyard and have friends in their neighborhood as well. So actually from what I've seen, homeschooled kids and kids with a stay at home parent actually get _more_ outside time. It's the poor kids in day care and school that don't get to go outside.

> It is normal for new parents, especially new mothers, to be intensely supported by their community. It is abnormal for them to be left alone unsupported. It is normal for homemakers to accomplish their daily tasks communally and to be active in their communities. It is abnormal for them to endure years of social isolation, primarily spending time with their children.

Again, see above. Maybe this varies a lot by locale, but here in Texas, none of your criticisms actually apply to the community of stay at home moms and homeschoolers that I have observed in my community.

There is historical precedent for it, see 14th-century Italy after the Black Death halved the population.

https://dailyhistory.org/How_did_the_Bubonic_Plague_make_the...

I think you’re right: in the past, each kid was much less work than they are today. The difference is that you also used to have 6 of them, and used to expect that not all of them might survive to adulthood. This is clearly not acceptable approach in today’s society.

I’m making a great deal of assumptions but not being able to go to Disney land at the drop of a hat seems awfully trite.