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 have a problem with either generalization. I think we, as a society, need to support all choices a family makes (both parents working, or either parent staying home with the kid), and not judge parents for making any choice that works for their family. I find it very troublesome that you keep referring to women staying home to care for the kids as 'following their maternal instinct' and men working outside at an of…
Why Child Care Is So Expensive
181–190 of 522 posts
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Social mores have dictated the man be the provider for centuries, if not millenia. That is kind of not true. 1.) That is what happens when there is no war, country is rich and when industrial revolutions take people to factories. When they worked on small family farm, both genders had to tend animals, do crafts and so on. Most of things had to be made. The work was gendered, physical strength mattered, but it was n…
Those are all valid points, but aren't those all (edit: mostly) examples of women being forced to work instead of choosing to work? Also I'd say those are exceptions to the rule, not the norm. If anything I'd say you bolstered the top comment's argument (I do not know your stance and am not trying to be combative).
Aren't majority of men forced to work instead of choosing by that definition? These are examples women people living real lives. Wast populations. There was such a thing as idle lifestyle of aristocracy in places where the situation allowed that to male aristocrats. Spending most of their time socializing with each other.
Also, overall they easily make majority of population. Combination of family farms, non-aristocracy, poor people, war situations, dangerous or far away occupations for males, pre-industrial are largely majority of "centuries if not millenia". Can I add former slaves who would be significant part of population here?
The "we expect the half of population to be mostly idle and mostly unused" is unnatural exceptional situation. And in case of muslim countries considerable physical violence is used to keep it that way.
When you talk about what was happening and was feasible for centuries, you cant skip over such was populations. They did not had power, had less control over own lives, but they did existed and count.
Also, most of those feminists marches were middle class or rich women. Poor women worked already, they however had sucky jobs and had completely different needs. Turns out that when women are actually in that supposedly great optimal situation, they want to get out, significant percentage is discontent and unhappy.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#183Sometimes I think childcare isn't expensive at all. There are these creatures I've nearly sacrificed my sanity for during their infant years, maybe got diminished mental capacity due to lack of sleep, given blood, sweat, tears, would risk life and limb for them...and here I go giving a total stranger $20/hour to (hopefully) do that in my stead for a short while.
I agree... we pay a dayhome (a licensed childcare in someone's home) $875/month which includes 9 hours of care per day and 3'ish meals per day. That's like $40/day or like $4/hour. Where else are you going to get that value?!
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#184If child care is so expensive, wouldn't the income loss of one parent staying at home be irrelevant? Plus, the parent could find some simple side gigs that fit into at home childcare, or even do paid childcare themselves. I think the real problem is people don't like taking care of kids, and would rather have a stranger do the job. Understandable since kids are noisy, disobedient, stinky little things, but we were al…
> Parent could find some simple side gigs Highly unlikely! Maybe for a 4 year old there could be some time during the day. Let's say 1 hour. The type of gig where you can do an hour of work and be paid for it ... won't pay much. Let's say $20. It is hardly worth it. Now compare that to being at work. > I think the real problem is people don't like taking care of kids, and would rather have a stranger do the job. I do…
Not so. Child care costs is artificial. In Texas child care was quite cheap. In Maryland costs are extraordinary. People know the demand is there, because there are a whole bunch of type A career minded people who want to climb the corporate ladder rather than look after their little food grubbers. Plus, legislation that forces corporations and government to pay for childcare just makes it all even more expensive, as always happens when you dump public money on some issue.
Also, I suspect the modern feminism that denigrates women unless they have a corporate career is also to blame. Women just have a better instinct for taking care of children than men, and modern culture has told they are worthless if they are a stay at home mom. So neither the male nor female in a modern upwardly mobile marriage want to stay at home with the kids. Thus, they want to stick the kid (usually just one nowadays) in childcare.
And finally, why do people think raising kids is so expensive? It is because of a bunch of extra BS that is unnecessary. They think they need to stick their kid in every program and every possibility of advancement so they can secure a few special spot at top colleges for a few jobs requiring extra special degrees. Meanwhile, such jobs are outsourced, automated, or plain made irrelevant, at the same time there are many blue collar jobs that pay very decently (especially minus college debt) for the taking. Or, if college is truly important, the kid can work their way through, start at community college, get scholarships, join ROTC, etc.
All of these problems are of our own making due to our own expectations, not due to the reality of what it takes to raise successful kids.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#185It 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…
“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…
You're completely missing the point of the parent comment and misunderstanding the concept of what the workforce is.
Being a part of the workforce in this context means you are contributing income taxes. A full time parent contributes $0 in income taxes from their labor and hence is not a part of the workforce.
The value of raising a child full time is not at issue here and you're attacking a straw-man. A subsidized day care gives a parent the option of returning to the work force if they wish. This could be because they want to work, or because they have to to feed their family. The parent comment was pointing out that this choice does not result in a deficit to society but rather in a net surplus which makes it worth it to implement and offer regardless of how parents choose to raise their children.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#186It 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…
“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…
I think you're missing the point of the "childcare is not part of the workforce" argument. It's not that it isn't work, and it's not that it isn't important. It's that, in many cases, the economic comparative advantage for the (often) female caretaker of those children is not being fully utilized.
That is to say, caring for a child is a service that costs X. But it is being performed by a person who's skills are valued at Y, where Y > X. That represents an economic loss that doesn't have to happen, if instead you substitute someone who's most highly valued skill is worth X for that caretaker.
Now, that ignores the benefit of having a child's own parents care for them, which may or may not change how you evaluate the question depending on your perspective on these things.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#187Goodhart: When the metric becomes the goal, it ceases to be a good measure... (paraphrase) Seems like we've been moving all domestic productivity into the realm of Taxable GDP. Some say it's a conspiracy, for me it's just an observation. Home cooked meals has become meal prep kits, home delivery. ChildCare has been outsourced (out of the home or a small community of cooperating parents). Household cleaning to cleanin…
Unfortunately I think you just have to frame thing in terms of economic measures in order to get certain policymakers to take you seriously. While some will recognize that having well-adjusted, well-educated, well-taken-care-of young children is something the government should help fund, others will take the attitude that the parents are solely responsible for that, and we shouldn't be "wasting" money on doing something the parents should be doing already. You'll also get arguments against "interfering" in parenting.
But many policymakers will react positively if you relate new policies in terms of the economic growth they promise. It's difficult to do, in this case, though, but I get why they're trying.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's a "nit pick" for sure, but in my understanding, something that "pays for itself" is not dependent on government subsidies. Quebec has some of the highest income taxes in the country - you pay for such services one way or another. The subsidies that are required are offset by the increased labour force participation that occurs as a direct result of said subsidies. Conversely, if the subsidies disappeared, then…
> do I remain in the workforce and pay $1-2k/month for childcare, or do I quit my job and raise my child/children? That the program "pays for itself" in increased taxes implies that the additional tax burden is at least the $1-2k/month required to pay for the childcare. So if you just cancelled the childcare and reduced the taxes you'd end up at the same place on average, except you wouldn't have non-parents subsidis…
I understood it as it would "pay for itself" in increased tax revenue in the future as the children who had access to better child care become more productive citizens. That sounds like how any other investment works, you pay now for a better situation in the future.
If you argue that you don't want to pay now because you won't benefit in the future because you'll be dead, I assume you're not willing to support any other investments either. That sounds like you're just freeloading on the investments that our ancestors made.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#189As the article notes, the reason is regulation and women entering the workforce. Honestly I don’t see a problem. We as a society have decided that we would rather be 100% safe rather than accept risk for lower cost, so we enforce strict ratios on children to caretaker ratios, license people, make in-home sprinklers mandatory, etc. $16k per child per year in Massachusetts is that cost. For what it’s worth, none of my…
> For what it’s worth, none of my friends put infants in daycare due to the cost. They either got foreign au pairs or hired someone under the table for cash (very common in immigrant communities) I'm hoping your friends are libertarians who disagree with the current political zeitgeist in Massachusetts. It would be very depressing to hear that your friends are Liberals who publicly support these daycare laws and then…
Unfortunately I think that kind of cognitive dissonance is quite common. People feel the need to make sure "everyone is safe", but then believe their ability to judge how to best do that supersedes the law. Those laws are for "other people", not us.
Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is pretty well accepted fact in economics that a growing workforce is a good thing for economic growth. > it's a simple supply and demand curve. Increasing the number of workers decreases their value. You are leaving out a crucial factor - the wages that the 'new' workers earn are going to be spent in the economy, growing the economy as a whole. This is increasing the 'demand' side of that supply and demand curve.…
Counter-point: my anecdotal observations suggest that folks are so intent on competing for housing that in the decades since dual incomes became commonplace the main effect has been to simply dramatically inflate the price of housing. In other words, the extra money may not be making it into the general economy much and it may instead just be supporting higher home prices. Of course, home prices are not completely is…
> In other words, the extra money may not be making it into the general economy much and it may instead just be supporting higher home prices.
This was the topic of conversation this weekend between my wife and I and 4 other couples that we are friends with, each of us with young children. We live in SoCal. We have young kids. We basically can afford to live here, despite having high-paying, dual-income households. That's it, we can afford living. We can't afford to go to Disney very often. We can't afford to go to the San Diego Zoo very often. We're keeping pace with house and car payments (this was a big one for my wife and I, we no longer have car payments and are doing everything we can to make our situation work with the automobiles that we have), with childcare, and trying to put away money for our kids at the expense of the local economy.
I somehow don't feel any more financially secure or independent; I don't feel like I have more discretionary income than when I first moved to California and was making $10/hour. My own conclusion is that it's a feature of our economy, it's by design.