Why Child Care Is So Expensive • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#491

Post by kelnos » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #449

kelnos wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Full disclosure: non-parent here.) I think attitudes toward parenting are completely impossible to rationalize, so your puzzlement isn't at all surprising. Consider that many (most?) people who have kids don't do so out of a 100% independent choice, with 100% foreknowledge as to what it will entail and be like. People have kids because their parents pressure them to give them grandchildren. People have kids because…

I think you've made a very good call-out. Not everyone enters parenthood with the same degree of willingness, and not everyone who was initially excited to be a parent continues that way indefinitely. But I think there's a danger of indifferentism here: > What gives you a sense of purpose could easily be someone else's tedious drudgery. That shouldn't diminish your happiness, or demonize their boredom; it just means…

> But from the point of view of the welfare of the child, I think it's pretty clear that having a loving, stable, attached relationship with an engaged parent is going to be better for that child's overall well-being and future success than a relationship with a parent who loves them but can really only stand being around them in small doses.

Absolutely agree! And from the outside looking in, it makes me really sad to see -- for example -- parents who'd rather be buried in their phone all day than engaging with their kid.

But I think maybe that's where there's a slight disconnect between what you and I are saying... I personally don't feel like it constitutes lack of engagement for a parent to derive no joy out of doing something like cleaning up a kid's messes. I can't imagine a context where I'd have any positive feelings about cleaning up a paint spill on a carpet, even if it had nothing to do with a kid of my own.

Some of the other things that the original poster you replied to are maybe a bit borderline questionable. If it gets to the point where you'd much rather be at work than spending time with your kid, that's really bad for the kid, and the family as a whole. Not saying that poster actually feels that way; obviously we have only a teeny tiny bit of knowledge about their life. But I think if sometimes you just get so tired and drained where you feel like you need a break from being around your kid all the time, and your job is an escape from that feeling, that's just normal human needs and behavior... as long as that's the exception, and not the norm, I don't see anything red-flag-y about that.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#492

Post by kelnos » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #193

kelnos wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes perfect economic sense: it's a simple supply and demand curve. Increasing the number of workers decreases their value. That assumes that the number of available jobs is perfectly-sized and fixed, and that there's no other work that could be done (or no under-employed, existing work that could be done better) if we had more workers. That would seem not to be true.

> That would seem not to be true. How would you explain the stagnant wages of the last 4+ decades compared to the massive economic growth? I don't think there's much evidence that the relationship between labor supply and economic growth is anywhere near one-to-one (e.g. one more person working means their wage is added to the volume of labor demand).

Wages have not been stagnant across all sectors of the economy. Certainly some jobs aren't valued as much, and their value hasn't been growing or even keeping pace, but there are plenty of areas where wages have been increasing quite a lot over the last couple decades. Given that this is generally a tech-focused forum, that shouldn't be news to anyone here ;)

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#493

Post by jbboehr » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 10:20 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #252

bdamm wrote: 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…

Yes, exactly. We traded away strong families and neighbourhoods for women's freedom. And then most of the benefits of that freedom were captured by employers through stagnating wages and landlords through skyrocketing rent and real estate prices. We should be aiming to have fewer people in the workforce, not more. The economy is for the people, not people for the economy.

> And then most of the benefits of that freedom were captured by employers through stagnating wages and landlords through skyrocketing rent and real estate prices.

Don't forget the gub'ment gets its cut too!

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#494

Post by krapht » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 10:30 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #333

Dove wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am convinced the isolated stay at home parent model is not normal human behavior, but a pathology of our particular society which represents an unreasonable expectation derived from an excessive commitment to individualism and independence. It is not psychologically reasonable to expect one person to care for children all day every day. It is not historically or broadly culturally normal. It is not healthy for eith…

> It is not psychologically reasonable to expect one person to care for children all day every day [...] It is normal for children to be cared for by many adults throughout the day I'd argue having the child away from parents so often is harmful as well. Financials aside, that middle ground somewhat exists: stay at home parents that still leverage social environments for their kids. I too don't know how we can get ev…

Literature from twin studies would like to disagree with you. Most people overestimate the effect of parenting and underestimate the effect of genetics in determining child success. Genetics is more than 50% of the game.

As for the other 50%, the absence of parenting is bad for a child, since much of development is based on receiving adequate amounts of care and nutrition. However, this amount is satisfiable by engaged parents interacting with kids after work. The relationship between outcomes and sheer volume of hours of care provided by the mother is only weakly correlated after a certain threshold.

tl;dr: Daycare is fine for your kid, don't overthink it. If you're the kind of person who worries about this sort of thing, you're already ahead of the game.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#495

Post by stevenicr » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

stevenicr wrote: post #259

jperras wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it was about as vague as could possibly be: > But young Canadians who were eligible for the program experienced, as teenagers, “a significant worsening in self-reported health and in life satisfaction” relative to Canadians from other provinces. So, did the Quebec child-care experiment “work”? Yes, for parents and public financing. Perhaps not for the kids. The paper itself expands on it a little bit more: > A re…

I've been taking an interest in issues around this: "child care in general does not affect test scores, but has a negative effect on non-cognitive outcomes, such as impulsivity and risk-taking (Vandell et al., 2010)." Lately. I believe this is serious factor in the seemingly exponential rise in juvenile crimes in our city lately. I have also been exploring bad learning / testing in the schools along with lots of othe…

strangely, a day after posting this comment, I see Harvard Business Journal does an article relating... https://hbr.org/2018/11/how-our-careers-affect-our-children

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#496

Post by frandroid » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

bdamm wrote: post #172

xamuel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's as if they read in "Brave New World" about the abolition of the family unit and they took that as an instruction guide.

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…

Canadian parental leave policy is now granting an amount of parental leave for the mother who carried the pregnancy, an amount of parental leave to be shared between the two parents, and an amount of parental leave for the second parent. So basically the second parent is strongly encouraged to take time off to spend time with the child, so that they too, not just the carrying mother, partake in early parenting...

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#497

Post by loco5niner » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 12:51 AM UTC

pergadad wrote: post #489

pfortuny wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“It would allow more women to enter the workforce”. I understand what the quote means but, honestly, this is one of the big wrong points of our society: that caring for the children full-time is NOT being part of the workforce. This is one of those cultural ideas embedded in XXI Century logic which only does harm and transmits the wrong message: people’s life is as valuable as the money the work or the “job” they hav…

Ask yourself: is caring for my 2-3 kids at home, cleaning the house, cooking, laundry, ... Really the most interesting way I want to spend my life? There are some (mostly women) who choose this. There are many many more (mostly women) who do this because they don't see any other choice, either due to cultural pressure or due to financials. There are also studies that show it's good for the kids to be with other kids…

> is caring for my 2-3 kids at home, cleaning the house, cooking, laundry, ... Really the most interesting way I want to spend my life?

I would absolutely chose that over punching a clock everyday.

You have to do the cooking and cleaning and laundry anyway and you're also leaving an aweful lot out of the good stuff out in your description.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#498

Post by loco5niner » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 12:56 AM UTC

tristanstcyr wrote: post #299

cjmcqueen wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Child rearing produces children that are adults and had the attention of a fully invested parent. Are you sure you're measuring the right thing?

The reality is that the atomic family model is antiquated. In our society, the individual is the unit We must therefore make the individual strong, meaning that we need to support both parents independent all the while having children. We can observe that the old model was better in terms of a certain metric, but that's not going to help. We need to invest in making child rearing effective in today's world.

> In our society, the individual is the unit

This is definitely the wrong mindset.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#499

Post by objektif » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 1:06 AM UTC

aceofspades19 wrote: post #390

bonoboTP wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone grew up in an as money-centered society as the US. A middle class Swedish lifestyle is plentiful and way beyond the reach of most people in most countries, including most Europeans. Whether you believe it or not, making 1.5x as much (or twice) in America is not that attractive for many people, especially because of how social issues are handled there. Not to mention family, friends etc. People aren't som…

That may be true, my perspective as a Canadian which is a fairly socialistic country compared to the US is a bit different. We have a massive problem with the brain drain as a lot of people who are college educated go to the US to earn higher salaries, especially in but not limited to tech. But its possible that the proximity to the US is a factor as you can still easily visit your friends and family in Canada while…

I dont think people are leaving Canada because they have to pay higher taxes or because they hate the healthcare system.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#500

Post by satyrnein » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 1:29 AM UTC

HBKXNCUO wrote: post #479

satyrnein wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Some women are happy being homemakers today, and some are happy in the workforce. (Same with men.)

I'm not sure how we are currently catering to women in the workforce. If anything, it seems quite the opposite.