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The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

phys.org

181–190 of 325 posts

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah maybe that’s why women live longer in order to help with the exhausting process of raising their grandchildren [1]. We love to take care of babies, regardless of (or maybe because of) how clingy and dependent they are. From an Evolutionary point of view, This relationship between needy babies and abnegated caregivers might have given rise to a complementary schimogenesis according to Gregory Bateson, in which ba…

> Yeah maybe that’s why women live longer in order to help with the exhausting process of raising their grandchildren. Except that men become more important, especially for boys, but also as exemplars for girls, the older children get. Nurturing is more important earlier on, which is also the specialty of women. Men are generally terrible at it and generally hate it, while women tend to have a much greater affinity.…

> hence the self-centeredness of thinking one is entitled to having children, resorting to all sorts of immoral technologies to have them

Huh? I'm confused how you reconcile this (seeming) attack on fertility treatment with the pro-natalist sentiment expressed later in your comment. Who or what principle is transgressed by what technologies?

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#182

The book Hunt, Gather, Parent touches on this a bit. It takes 3-4 humans, not necessarily adults but cousins and whatnot, to take care of a child. Two? 6-8. Since western societies broke up tight knit communities, the support system for this in the west has been lacking and jerry rigged with tired parents and nannies etc ever since. The reason for the breakup is fun - https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/ro…

The linked article is pretty ridiculous. I am pretty sure it leaves out a lot of nuance from the underlying work - as these types of press releases normally do - but there is a bunch of stuff in there that just does not make sense. First the taboo against consanguineous marriages was most likely because of genetic diseases. Biology may not have been very advanced, but people were smart enough to pick up on patterns.…

The hero usually has companions and almost always has a mentor. The hero must be of strong mind and body, certainly, but that doesn't necessarily suggest individualism.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah maybe that’s why women live longer in order to help with the exhausting process of raising their grandchildren [1]. We love to take care of babies, regardless of (or maybe because of) how clingy and dependent they are. From an Evolutionary point of view, This relationship between needy babies and abnegated caregivers might have given rise to a complementary schimogenesis according to Gregory Bateson, in which ba…

> I cannot understand how come there are so many parents bearing children worldwide. Because the best thing you can do for the world is to raise children well. If they raise theirs, etc. its a cycle of good over thousands of years, that will have more positive impact than anything you could do in your life as an individual.

> Because the best thing you can do for the world

Is to not have any children so the population gets back down to sustainable levels

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#184
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no parent who's problem is a child who thinks "I need to eat right now".

Of course there are. That's one of the three states of infants (asleep, hungry, soiled). It's one of the major causes of upset and bad behavior in toddlers. It's obviously the case for children who don't get enough to eat due to deprivation. That doesn't mean my toddler wouldn't prefer ice cream over whatever is for dinner, though.

You're forgetting the fourth state: too hot/too cold.

I only mention it because, as any parent knows, infants are effectively small finite state machines, and you can deal with their crying even half-awake, if you go through a mental checklist. But you'd better not miss a state to check :).

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#185
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t think it has to do with class. Surgeons and dentists still need to show up to work. Even in tech, the higher up you are, the more likely you will want to be in the office.

The upper class at least gets the choice. The lower class does not.

If you don't show up to work, you will be fired. If you are fired for not showing up to work, finding your next income source will be more difficult. This is true regardless of whether you're making $7.50/hr or $350k/yr.

Yes, the doctor making $350k/yr can arrange his life in such a way to be more flexible in the face of diversity, but he's just as likely to have $150k worth of school debt and a house/car/etc. he couldn't afford if he had to switch careers. At $7.50/hr, you can probably walk down the street and find a better paying job.

Edit in reply due to depth restrictions: I'm not suggesting this is about ease of switching careers. I'm suggesting that you will be forced to switch careers if you don't show up to work, and it's probably easier to switch between jobs with no prerequisites than careers with 8 years of intensive prerequisites and $150k in university.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#186
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, parenthood is intense, both both ways. It intensifies the highs and the lows. There's more strain and there's more joy. And there's a lot less strain when moving out of nuclear family structures. It all becomes easier for the children and the parents.

Can you elaborate? Curious how the stress profile differs in alternative family structures.

It’s in TFA but pretty self-evident: in traditional non-nuclear families, extended kin (especially grandparents) help with childcare, reducing the burden.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#187
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked remote most of my kids' lives, I'd say there are other challenges. Parents need time away from their kids too, and if every parent in society is working then how are kids supposed to get the adult attention and allow the parents some child-free time? When I was younger kids played with others in the neighborhood, and there was always a homemaker parent in every household. Now every adult has at least a…

how are kids supposed to get the adult attention and allow the parents some child-free time not everyone is going to work all the time. obviously someone has to be available for the kids but not all the time either. the point is that life improvements, technology and flexibility makes this more easy.

Not if the cost is both parents having to work a day job.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The upper class at least gets the choice. The lower class does not.

If you don't show up to work, you will be fired. If you are fired for not showing up to work, finding your next income source will be more difficult. This is true regardless of whether you're making $7.50/hr or $350k/yr. Yes, the doctor making $350k/yr can arrange his life in such a way to be more flexible in the face of diversity, but he's just as likely to have $150k worth of school debt and a house/car/etc. he cou…

I didn't mean "choice to easily switch to whatever job they want at their convenience" and the notion that I did mean that is so absurd that I find it to be a bad faith read of my comment. I encourage you to first steel-man my position. Or don't, that's fine too. Just don't respond with such a technical and self-assured response that is in fact arguing against a point you yourself imagined (and is not rooted in reality). It is exhausting to debate against, especially on the internet.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#189
post #108
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We decry "demands" when we should acknowledge "dependencies;" kids won't properly compile without their needs met.

The question here is one of alignment. I child may think "I need to eat right now" but that doesn't necessarily mean the "right now" part is correct. Open world problems are difficult to define, even the word 'properly' you use has a vast amount of interpretability as to what you believe the 'proper' outcome should be.

I don't know what your point is. That children can't articulate their needs? That we should consult adult peers and experts rather than taking children at their word? Of course we should. Children do not teach courses on child development.

It goes without saying that children exaggerate, eg crying over spilt milk. To repudiate children's complaints seems cruelly unnecessary.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#190
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We decry "demands" when we should acknowledge "dependencies;" kids won't properly compile without their needs met.

We have brainwashed our western minds to make women leave their kids in daycare sometimes weeks after being born. Then we are brainwashed to let kids sleep in a separate room so that mommy can get a good night's rest and be productive at work. We need a minimum of 3 years of maternity leave in our country to being with. It is insane as one of the best countries in the world we don't let people have kids naturally.

Families with "women in the workplace" are not brainwashed, they are wielding hard earned rights and freedoms against violently indifferent economic structures.

Under capitalism, we are not free unless we draw a wage, and women have learned there are no wages for housework.

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