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Why Child Care Is So Expensive

theatlantic.com

471–480 of 522 posts

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#471
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm totally ignorant in all of that, but for me it just looks like out of sudden (historically) we have way too many males. They used to be killed during hunting, wars, competition with other males. Since 1945 we haven't had that. Men became not as hot commodity. This is the motor of the current social changes, isn't it? For example: only 40% of all Homo Sapiens Sapiens males that have ever lived were able to have of…

Your statistics would have 2 women to 1 male making the "norm is one male one female in marriage with children" completely impossible absurd standard.

[dead]

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But, in terms of pure economics, let's put it at an extreme. >Child-care is too expensive, a woman who would otherwise go on to make breakthroughs in medical science stays at home. This sounds like a fun game. Child-care is subsidized. A child who would otherwise have been raised by a loving parent is raised by minimum wage daycare workers who don't care about the child. The child consequently develops antisocial be…

> The child consequently develops antisocial behavior disorders and shoots up a classroom full of children School-shootings are such a big problem in Quebec and Scandinavian countries where childcare is subsidized. They must be caused by the evils of subsidized childcare.

Substitute whatever antisocial behavior you want, it's beside the point.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please keep in mind, I said socio-economic status. But, homeless looking, constantly drank, smelling of urine Charles Bukowski had plenty of young, attractive and willing lovers. My point being exactly his high socio-economic status. We're talking about one of the best American poets. How many of these you get to meet? Hey, he might even write a poem about feeling he has for you if he likes you. That's what was so da…

Right, but what you are saying now borders on tautological: women like those with high socioeconomic status. But socioeconomic status is just the combination of all things which makes people like you.

No, socioeconomic status is not the combination of all things which makes people like you. It's combination of all things which makes people's endocrine and nervous system react to you in a way where they feel and act submissive to you in the group setting.

Literally, on the basic biological level, without concious thoughts behind it. If you were to enter the meeting room full of guys who are better at work than you, your body automatically adjusts into submissivness. It's visible you're the one at the low end of the social order there. That's especially visible to the females. They don't want any of that guy. They want the one who makes them and everybody around feel and act like that.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While it's not impossible to recover from that, it's extremely difficult On the other hand, it's impossible for your children to get back the time they could have spent in their most formative and vulnerable years around people that love them, rather than minimum wage daycare workers.

> it's impossible for your children to get back the time they could have spent in their most formative and vulnerable years around people that love them, rather than minimum wage daycare workers Professionally trained, well rested, day care professionals probably do that job just as well as me, or better. Also, there are 168 hours in a week and the kids still spend a large part of that with their parents.

>Professionally trained

Minimum wage. High school diploma.

>day care professionals probably do that job just as well as me, or better.

If you are truly so terrible at taking care of children that you cannot care for your own flesh and blood better than minimum wage workers can simultaneously care for multiple children to which they have no personal emotional attachment, then please, get your children away from yourself as often as possible.

>Also, there are 168 hours in a week and the kids still spend a large part of that with their parents.

70+ are lost to sleeping, and more for younger children, so no, they don't spend a large part of that time with their parents in any meaningful way.

If both parents are working, the rest of the non-work hours are going to be consumed by cooking (if there is time for that, or else expensive prepared meals), cleaning, household chores, errands, and everything else people need to do to keep functioning.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#475
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm totally ignorant in all of that, but for me it just looks like out of sudden (historically) we have way too many males. They used to be killed during hunting, wars, competition with other males. Since 1945 we haven't had that. Men became not as hot commodity. This is the motor of the current social changes, isn't it? For example: only 40% of all Homo Sapiens Sapiens males that have ever lived were able to have of…

Your statistics would have 2 women to 1 male making the "norm is one male one female in marriage with children" completely impossible absurd standard.

Yes, we have known it since human genome was decoded. The DNA tests always indicate that a person who took the test had twice as many female ancestors than male ancestors. There is no other way than twice as many females procreating than males for it to be true. I hope you are not one of the "DNA deniers"... leftists/marxists are capable of dismissing all types of knowledge to still believe in their rel... err... ideology.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#476

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…

> The dirty secret is that most women work because they HAVE TO. It's not a choice. If you can have a house, nice car, four kids, vacation home, 40 hour week, no credit card debt, no school debt, and all of that on carpenter salary -- why not to enjoy life instead of spending 50-60 hours at the office? I think you can replace "women" with people and make this statement more accurate. I don't see why this would be uni…

Male psychology is to do pretty much anything to get as high in the socio-economic ladder as possible. To achieve as high status as one can. Starting with lobsters about 300 milion years ago. Deeply encoded in our bodies in all types of weird places like for example endocrine system. Females don't have that. They are rather wired to find males who posses high status as attractive partners. So they are wired differently to males in this regard. And of course, you see the difference, it's just that it is not this comfortable talking about obvious truths nowadays. Even when these basic truths are backed by hard science.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's impossible for your children to get back the time they could have spent in their most formative and vulnerable years around people that love them, rather than minimum wage daycare workers Professionally trained, well rested, day care professionals probably do that job just as well as me, or better. Also, there are 168 hours in a week and the kids still spend a large part of that with their parents.

>Professionally trained Minimum wage. High school diploma. >day care professionals probably do that job just as well as me, or better. If you are truly so terrible at taking care of children that you cannot care for your own flesh and blood better than minimum wage workers can simultaneously care for multiple children to which they have no personal emotional attachment, then please, get your children away from yourse…

> Minimum wage. High school diploma.

No way! The training after high school for day care professionals in my country takes 4 years and is much better paid than minimum wage.

If nothing else, I could never hope to beat them on experience.

There are Nordic countries where a minimum of one day of day care a week is actually government mandated because it's been proven to be good for the kids.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#478
post #65

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…

> The dirty secret is that most women work because they HAVE TO. It's not a choice. It's sold to the society at large as something glamorous because -- what? They're going to tell the truth? Yeah, you need to work your ass off 50-60 hours a week, with credit card debt, student loan debt, two cars loan, etc, etc. just to be able barely make it to have two kids at 35 ? Because before that you need advanced degree or tw…

> We live in an economic system in which we all need to pull our weight.

I love this comment, so I'm going to start here. This very sentence: "We live in an economic system in which we all need to pull our weight". By all you mean which class? Poor? Middle class? Middle-upper class? Rich? Wealthy?

Don't you see how we're tricking ourselves by believing in this false male/female dychotomy? Let's look at it from Marxist perpective: Poor -- male and female work Middle Class -- male and female work Middle Upper Class -- sometimes one of the partners male OR female will work, while the other will not. Upper Class -- both men and women don't work. They earn passive income on their investments, business onwership, real estate ownership, stocks and bonds profits.

So, while we here are arguing if women "should" work or not, the healthy attitude seems to be to do anything possible to be as high on the ladder above as possible. Because the reasons if we work or we don't work have nothing to do with what we believe or want. But they have everything to do with our social status, or as Marx would call it "class". If you are poor you and your partner work. If you are wealthy you and your partner don't work. If you're in one of the middle classes it's a combination. Talking about "women rights" in this scenario is just side-tracking and being blinded by the reality of social classes and social status.

This being said, there is bunch, really a lot of research in psychology strongly suggesting that women are attracted to males who are highly successful. Basically poor woman (low class) will be definitely attracted to a guy in higher class. Based on his class / social status alone. This is basic science of psychology backed by a lot of research. Declining simple biology for signaling reasons just looks so... desperate? (sorry, couldn't resist myself)

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#479
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That happened some time ago. In fact, one of the issues with so many women in the workforce is that in the 50's that same class of women were providing community networking functions, allowing for local problem solving and support that is somewhat extinct now. Frankly I am unsold on the benefit to society of women in the workforce. Did we gain women's freedom at the cost of strong and good families? It's a taboo, now…

The benefit is that the other half of the population also deserved life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Likewise, we didn't abolish slavery because it would be good for cotton prices.

Do you have reason to believe that most women throughout history were not happy being homemakers and mothers? Do you believe women are happier now that they are having few or no children and are instead working to support a corporation that will kick them to the curb when they are no longer of use to it, rather than giving love and care to the most cherished people in their lives?

Some women will prefer that sort of corporate lifestyle, for sure, and I don't think anyone is advocating for making it illegal for women to work. But you don't get a successful and happy society by catering to small minorities at the expense of the success and happiness of the overwhelming majority.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#480
post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My view is that 99% of jobs are either unnecessary or replacable. I think this is a very upper middle class white collar view. Over 2.1% of Americans work as cooks (!!)[1] and another 3.6% work as grounds cleaning. Just keeping buildings somewhat functional is a lot of work. Then you have all the people working on sales floors, not everyone wants to buy from Amazon! 3.5% in construction. 7.8% spread across all main…

Some of those jobs are important(1), but most replacable - many people can do that job. And I'm not saying thry don't carry done value , just that raising your kids well, in my view, is much more important. (1)are all cooks and restaurant that necessary ?

> (1)are all cooks and restaurant that necessary ?

The idea seems pretty ubiquitous, as soon as a society gets any amount of wealth you'll find people being paid to cook food at scale.

And cooking is one of those things that scales up very well, it doesn't have to mean fancy sit down restaurants. There are still a few places I can grab food for cheaper than what I'd be able to prepare it myself at that quality level, though sadly those types of venues have seemingly been on a decline for decades.

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