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Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

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Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#181

Post by chiefalchemist »

> long-term issue of falling birth rates — a possible driver of declining economic growth

Pardon the slightly off-topic comment but statements like these are misleading. It's economic growth in the true sense of having X and growing it into X+Y. At best, it's more like economic expansion.

The truth is, it's population growth. Instead of the abstraction why not simply report the population growth knowing that eventually the economy will expand to that population?

There's a difference between "the economy grew" and "more births." Maybe it's because politicians can't really take credit for the latter?

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#182

Post by fallingfrog »

chatterhead wrote: post #63
jimbob45 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get $3,600 yearly for having a kid. That’s just not nearly enough to adequately raise a child, let alone fund the changes in your own life from getting to raise a child. It should be no surprise that women need some extra financial assistance when it comes to raising children.

Where did you get that number from? You get $4800 here just for being unemployed and on welfare; and it goes up with each kid up to 4. Plus, free lunches. Plus, a new political push to make childcare supplements people received during the pandemic permanent. People without children already supplement education with property tax they shouldn't be paying. Why in the hell should the childless be supporting your breeding…

Why should people who are young and healthy support people on social security?

Why should adults not just turn children loose in the streets? They're not doing anything useful.

Why should the insurance premiums of healthy people pay for those who have cancer?

Because we live in a society, there is a social contract, and we are not evolved to be solitary animals, that's why. There are a myriad of ways that we scratch each other's backs. You live in a world in which there are other people and you have parents to thank for it. Go live on a desert island if you really want to see what life is like without children.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#183

Post by abnry »

nineplay wrote: post #173
citilife wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overlooking the way women have stepped up for their families often to the detriment of their own careers. My favorite question to ask is: "why you want a career?" to pretty much anyone who speaks in this manner. Serious question to people, I don't get it. I love learning, I'm highly qualified in the academic space and enjoy picking at problems. I've written papers, patents, well paid, etc. Highly successful by most…

>"why you want a career?" Financial independence. Anyone who thinks SAH parents can free themselves of this worry is naive. You never get the time back, you never get the experience back, you never get the training or the raises or the bonuses. You never get the retirement savings. If you are unfortunate enough to live in the US you are entirely dependent on your spouse for healthcare. It's an unfathomably vulnerable…

> A SAH spouse is not an equal partner with a 50% contribution. More of an oldest child with extra responsibilities and a higher allowance.

This is a really depressing way of looking at things.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#184

Post by uoaei »

rs999gti wrote: post #101
dxbydt wrote: post #77

"If the lights and the T.V. are out, it kind of sets the table for romance . . . But, if you're running for your life, you can't make babies." - https://www.cargenerator.com/blogs/news/is-the-blackout-baby... Baby booms have previously been positively correlated with blackouts, snowstorms, hurricanes and power outages. Now, remote work is a covariate as well. We're heading into a prolonged 2023 recession, coupled wit…

> huge baby boom in 2024 Good. The US needs the new tax base.

Nothing gets me in the mood like the words "human capital stock"

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#185

Post by jimbokun »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #167
citilife wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overlooking the way women have stepped up for their families often to the detriment of their own careers. My favorite question to ask is: "why you want a career?" to pretty much anyone who speaks in this manner. Serious question to people, I don't get it. I love learning, I'm highly qualified in the academic space and enjoy picking at problems. I've written papers, patents, well paid, etc. Highly successful by most…

>I love learning, I'm highly qualified in the academic space and enjoy picking at problems. I've written papers, patents, well paid, etc. Highly successful by most metrics. Right - so imagine that you didn't have that opportunity to do that academic work because you have an elderly parent at home who needs care. You've got two little kids at home who aren't yet school age and thus needs care. You wouldn't be content…

Women can get pregnant and breast feed. Men can't. That is the primary reason women end up making more tradeoffs in terms of career vs. family. Sure, there are some cultural and political things that can be changed. But there are some fundamental biological realities that cannot.

> Right - so imagine that you didn't have that opportunity to do that academic work because you have an elderly parent at home who needs care. You've got two little kids at home who aren't yet school age and thus needs care.

Many people will choose the elderly parents and little kids over academic work and promotions, given they have enough money to support themselves.

The academic work and promotions are just a means to an end, which for many is the ability to support and raise a family.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#186

Post by [deleted] »

hollywood_court wrote: post #115
ndriscoll wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's a matter of social networking, but I would think essentially any stay-at-home mom could still take in a few kids. It wouldn't even occur to me to check whether that's "allowed".

In addition to taking “in a few kids” they would also take on a great amount of liability and risk. I’m a stay at home dad or at least I was until my son started pre-k a few months ago. There’s no amount of money that would make me feel comfortable also taking care of someone else’s children in my home. Just not worth the trouble or the risk.

[deleted]

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#187

Post by bombcar »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #61
dleslie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent of, IMHO the first six months are when they need the most attention, not when they're the easiest. Infants desire constant affection, feeding, cleaning, and some never stop crying. Once they can crawl it's off to the races. Basically anything can hold their attention for half an hour while you take a short meeting. I've worked from home with two infants, then toddlers, and now kids. Infants were the harde…

In my experience, once they start crawling, they are putting things in their mouth, or falling, or getting a finger stuck, or making a mess, or wanting to feed…and confining them to a kid safe zone just makes them want to be out of the zone.

The trick I've used is make a kid safe zone inside another kid safe zone, and they'll spend inordinate amounts of time trying to get out of the first into the second.

Note that "kid safe" and "kid unchangeable" are not the same, be sure to leave things that they can safely mess up (boxes of Duplo are great for this). It helps even more if you've told them not to touch the Duplo, heh.

And if they have visual line-of-sight to you, they'll often stay calmer, but if you move out of line of sight then the howling starts.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#188

Post by Arainach »

jimbokun wrote: post #185
poulsbohemian wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I love learning, I'm highly qualified in the academic space and enjoy picking at problems. I've written papers, patents, well paid, etc. Highly successful by most metrics. Right - so imagine that you didn't have that opportunity to do that academic work because you have an elderly parent at home who needs care. You've got two little kids at home who aren't yet school age and thus needs care. You wouldn't be content…

Women can get pregnant and breast feed. Men can't. That is the primary reason women end up making more tradeoffs in terms of career vs. family. Sure, there are some cultural and political things that can be changed. But there are some fundamental biological realities that cannot. > Right - so imagine that you didn't have that opportunity to do that academic work because you have an elderly parent at home who needs ca…

Making that choice doesn't mean that they have to be completely happy with the choice. If someone's partner became sick/disabled, many people would adjust their life to care for them rather than abandoning them, but many of those people would becomes resentful and ponder what their life would be without that situation - whether they voice that resentment or not.

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#189

Post by ryandrake »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #159
rajin444 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> women have stepped up for their families often to the detriment of their own careers Forcing 2 household incomes was/is awful for a healthy society. Women are the only humans that can produce children and they have to do it during a relatively short time window - especially if we want to reproduce at replacement level. Raising children should be regarded as one of the most important things a woman can do because th…

I get the sense that you are trying to be needlessly provocative... >Forcing 2 household incomes was/is awful for a healthy society Who is doing the forcing here? Many women wanted to enter the workforce. Some didn't want to enter the workforce. Some were forced by their situation or by economic changes, but it isn't like someone on HN was holding a gun to their head telling them to get a job, so I'm a little unclear…

>> Forcing 2 household incomes was/is awful for a healthy society

> Who is doing the forcing here?

It's called the two income trap[1]. Back when it was traditional that one person worked, the market recognized this reality and prices of everything made it possible to live off of one income. Then, slowly we started seeing more and more two-income families. Two-income families could bear to spend more on everything, so the market responded by adjusting costs higher. Soon, it became difficult, then impossible for a family to survive on one income, so then everyone had to go two-income. Now, the same standard of living we once could achieve on one income, requires two incomes. We've doubled the workforce but gained nothing in terms of standard of living.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two-Income_Trap

Re: Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women

#190

Post by BitwiseFool »

hollywood_court wrote: post #118
lotsofpulp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically, infants are at 1:4 ratio and toddlers 1:7 and at 3 year olds, 1:10. (Massachusetts has a 2:7 infant ratio). Having managed 1 infant myself, even 1:4 seems like a lot of responsibility. I would not want my infant or toddler to be watched over by more lenient ratios.

The ratio is part of the reason we pulled our son from daycare so early and kept him at home until he was the proper age for pre-k. In his daycare class there was one adult looking after up to 9 children. One adult that didn’t earn a living wage and didn’t have any kind of benefits. There is no way a reasonable person could possibly trust that adult to be both content and provide a decent quality of care. The adults…

I've heard speculation that when caregivers are overloaded, there is a tendency for children to internalize that to get attention they must show elevated distress and act emotionally. Sometimes this manifests in temper tantrums, other times it manifests in breakdowns. I suspect the increasing trend of over-the-top emotional responses we see on social media and in our political discourse has roots in this. The younger generations certainly seem a lot more prone to being overwhelmed emotionally, and perhaps it is because they were inadvertently conditioned to respond this way. I have no way of proving this, however. But if there is some element of truth to this, having more parental attention could go a long way with how the future generations react to stress.
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