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On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

nytimes.com

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Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#131

Post by menloparkbum »

comatose_kid wrote: post #122
menloparkbum wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mountain View is indeed expensive but $110K is $50K more than the average household income in the Bay Area. Aside from packing 3 people to a cube, Google pampers its employees above and beyond almost any other company in the area. There is free food, health insurance, free gym, free laundry, free haircuts and so forth. Taking this into account, a Google employee doesn't have to spend much money on anything other than…

Interesting observation, and I agree with much of what you say, except that there are few places where someone smart enough to get through the Google Gauntlet has to settle with renting an apartment for their growing family. And indeed, making ends meet is exactly what happens if they ever try to buy a house (forget about owning > 1400 sq. ft. in a good school district with even double that income).

Yeah, unfortunately this has been reality for engineers in the Bay Area for at least 10 years. Your company either goes public and you're rich, or you're in a bipolar economic limbo where statistically you are upper middle class because of your high income, but really you are lower middle class because you are renting and your job can disappear at any moment.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#132

Post by Tichy »

davidw wrote: post #23
cpr wrote: post #18

I know one shouldn't question orthodoxy, but it seems insane to me to have children and then dump them all day, from a young age, with strangers. What's the point of having them if you're not raising them?

As the parent of a 2 month old, it's a difficult question we're facing right now. Who? How? When? Should my wife, with a doctorate in biochemistry, abandon her career completely and stay home? Should I? I'm not enthusiastic about those options. Should we hire someone? Not wild about that either. I think the best would be to kind of try and switch off, but it's going to require a lot of flexibility, and perhaps earnin…

I imagine it is tough, but on the other hand, is it not only a couple of years (3 to 4 - then kids go to kindergarden and school)? Abandoning one's career might not be what is called for, merely taking a little break?

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#133

Post by MaysonL »

xlnt wrote: post #58
ph0rque wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any kids? Do you realize how unpredictable it is to plan things for your child, for example, how sick the child is going to be, or how well-tempered?

My post is simply about logic and who said what. Nothing more. Why can't you read it rationally? And, BTW, if you and other parents can't read it rationally, why should I believe you handle parenting matters rationally? Parenting matters are more difficult and more emotional than reading a simple forum post.

The thing is - one of the biggest factors in making the decision is the child! And you cannot know what the child is like, until it is there, and even then it takes a while to get to know it. Children are unique, and very different, one from another. What will be best for one will not be for another.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#134

Post by smanek »

gaius wrote: post #29
shimonrura wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it also gives a clear example of out how brittle "don't be evil" truly is, when administered by a "management committee" consisting of people who are mostly multimillionaires. Perhaps a more equitable and user-responsive way to provide day care would be to let local offices or workgroups organize their own childcare groups, with some degree of corporate subsidy and other support.

You know, Marie Antoinette is famous for saying "then let them eat cake" when told that the poor of Paris had no bread. That wasn't her being cruel; she had been raised in such luxury that she simply couldn't comprehend that there was no food at all to be had outside of her cloistered world. The pre-IPO Googlers have all the characteristics of an aristocracy now...

I don't think that's true ...

I believe that the original source of that quote was Rousseau, referring to an unnamed princess, some 20 years before Marie Antoinette was even born.

There is some speculation that he may have been referring to Maria Theresa of Spain, but even that is doubtful.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#135

Post by vlad »

jedberg wrote: post #106
pmorici wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40k seems excessive. say you paid the teacher very well they would get what like 100k a year? So you are saying that 1 teacher can only watch 3 kids? There are entire families with more kids than that.

Heh. If the teacher was REALLY well paid, even for the Bay Area, they would get maybe 80k a year. The starting salary in Palo Alto (the highest in the bay area) is under 50k. A teacher with 10 years of experience will probably be making about 75k. http://www.pausd.org/community/employment/teachers/teacher_s...

A preschool teacher typically makes 18-25K a year across the country; I would guess 30-35K is as high as it gets in even the most expensive parts of California (experienced or not).

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#136

Post by josh »

There are two elephants in the room here:

1. The exorbitant cost of the Bay Area (and other places like NYC, Boston, D.C., etc.) - there's a reason the Bay Area has the lowest ratio of children to overall population in the country. It's just not an affordable place to raise a family. It's essentially a giant suburbs without the traditional cost advantage of a suburb. You can live in Mountain View, Palo Alto, etc. for the price of living in a world class city like Chicago. You make that choice. Good for you.

2. Where are the grandparents? As someone from a more traditional culture, I don't quite understand the desire for couples to go it alone. Why not live near your parents or have them move to live near you? Grandparent-grandchild interaction is extremely valuable. It helps transmit your family values to your children while allowing your parents to stay mentally active and it also keeps them happy. It also significantly reduces childcare costs.

I'm not married yet and probably won't have kids for a few years but I really think this is the correct AND affordable approach:

*Evaluate where you are in life. There's no point waiting for the perfect time. Adversity is good for kids - it prevents them from growing up to be spoiled brats. I grew up in a Third World country and the only things my parents weren't cheap on were my health/nutrition, safety, and education. That's all that really matters. Have kids before you're too old.

A) If you have a lot of capital or high salary, stay where you are, and have one spouse work part time (can alternate), and suck it up till the kids are in school. Mix in a few days of daycare per week to allow for part-time.

B) If you don't have a lot of capital or a high salary, move somewhere cheap. Your spouse and you can both work full-time and afford daycare a few days a week.

In both situations, have the grandparents around! If you're an only child, it's easy - your parents will be there in a heartbeat. If you and your spouse are one of 2 kids, then your parents can alternate. If you and your spouse are one of 3 or more kids, live near your siblings. Raise your kids around your family.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#137

Post by davidw »

Create wrote: post #125
pg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the rational answer you seem to want. (a) This problem is so hard you can probably never solve it satisfactorily, and (b) you can't know what it's going to be like to have kids before you have them, or what your kids will be like. So however much thought you expend on the question before having kids, you're still going to be working on it afterward.

Society has a response to (a) and (b). It is called a social net, based on solidarity: it works like insurance schemes should (not speaking of fraudulent market schemes, e.g. the US health insurance). I think the biggest problem is, that you despise pooling resources into social systems purportedly designed to help in (a) and (b). "Old" Europe has suffered enough in WWII to recognize the importance of it, and erect s…

We live in Europe, and no, handouts not really the answer we're looking for. We're aiming at a flexible schedule for both of us in order to both have time with our daughter. The safety net stuff is nice in some ways, but it's not really what we're after.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#138

Post by dangoldin »

wallflower wrote: post #110
dangoldin wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever read Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir ( http://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Thunderbolt-Kid-Memoir/dp/0... )? He talks a good amount of growing up in Des Moines, Iowa where all the kids used to just go out Saturday morning to a nearby field, meet new kids, and spend the entire day there before coming back home to dinner. Right now it seems the kids are too focused on their…

I agree. I'm scared that societal norms and pressures discourage unscheduled time and/or letting kids do something on their own. Based on my own observations, I think that what the kids spend their time doing is largely a function of the parent's need to have them do something. I fondly recall spending escapist afternoons digging into the dirt underneath a bush with my Star Wars action figures and creating my own wor…

I've been thinking about the same thing. It seems a lot of the younger kids now have so many extracurricular activities that they do not have enough time for themselves.

I don't think it's as much parents are trying to just get the kids to do something so the kids won't be around as the parents trying to improve their kids education and life.

There are numerous articles describing how even pre schools are becoming more and more competitive. In such a world what can you do as a parent?

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