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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

#211

Post by DSingularity »

dilap wrote: post #204
maxbond wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Raising children should be regarded as one of the most important things a woman can do because they’re the only ones that can do it. This seems pretty reductionist to me. Men can absolutely raise children. Husbands in heterosexual couples should absolutely be raising their children and not leaving the entire task of raising them to their wives. Gay men can also raise children. I don't think you meant to be disrespe…

If you're breastfeeding, it's gotta be the woman. And ideally, you are breastfeeding. Beyond that, most women strongly want to be with their babies. There was a NYT article a few years back about the boom of internet baby monitors, and it was kind of heartbreaking -- a bunch of women sitting at their desks glued to their baby monitors wishing they could be with their babies. I think we've really fucked up as a societ…

Not only that. We are all ready to go to war to protect the right to abort a pregnancy. But where is the passion wrt rights for mothers to not have to feel like they are abandoning their children after shortly after birthing them because they ran out of (or never had) parental leave?

Our priorities as a society have been inverted in this area.

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

#212

Post by hollywood_court »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #190
hollywood_court wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't have an opinion on that, but I do know that my child hated daycare and I only learned how much he hated it after he quit going.

We drove by his old daycare about a month after I pulled him out and he instantly starting having a breakdown in his car seat. I asked him what was wrong and he said "I don't want to go back to daycare." I told him we were simply driving by en route to the pool, but it took a while to calm him down.

I asked him why he didn't want to return and he said "because the teachers are angry."

And I believed him and it broke my heart. I myself have many negative memories associated with daycare from the 80s. It was not a pleasant experience.

In the US, it seems that we rarely take care of the caregivers to our two most vulnerable groups of citizens. Children and the elderly are cared for by individuals who don't even have the basics to take care of themselves.

Yet the owners of the establishments always make their money. I was seeing red and extremely angry when I learned that I had to pay for daycare when they were closed. Regardless of why they were closed. I had to pay for holidays and I had to pay for 3 entire weeks on 3 occasions when one of the staff members caught covid. Yet none of the employees were paid during those times. That was pure profit for the owners of the establishment.

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

#213

Post by llbeansandrice »

geraldwhen wrote: post #202
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…

There is a lot of self delusion in tech. I’ve known women in their late 30s who were unmarried and “may have kids some day”. Basic human biology is not taught in schools.

It's apparently not because it's entirely possible to have children well into your 30s. Sure risk factors can do things like "increase 10x" but it increases from like 0.02% to 0.2%.

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

#214

Post by vidarh »

rajin444 wrote: post #131
poulsbohemian wrote: post #72

It's election season and I've been out talking to voters, who share their life stories... what I would say is that there are many women who are choosing WFH because they either can't afford or can't find day care, which may lead to deciding that hey, they might as well have another baby if they are now committed to this employment model. I've spoken to several women who were over-qualified for the jobs they had taken…

> 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…

> because they’re the only ones that can do it.

This is massively insulting to men. I'm personally massively insulted by it, having shared custody 50/50 with my ex and certainly done as much to raise my son as she has.

> I’m not sure how western society will continue

Birth rates are below replacement everywhere in the world except sub-Saharan Africa, and declining in sub-Saharan Africa too. Any notion that the low birth rate is a phenomenon that can be ascribed to cultural factors in the west is not supported by data.

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

#215

Post by hollywood_court »

ndriscoll wrote: post #169
hollywood_court wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe I just think we still live in the 90s, but when I was growing up, I know my mom babysat, and I remember one of the neighbors regularly watching us. Liability probably worked about the same way back then, but I don't think anyone ever really asked or thought about it. I doubt anyone was licensed if that even existed. If one of us got hurt, we'd probably get in trouble for doing something we weren't supposed to.…

I don't plan on making any of the mistakes that my own mother made.

At age 5, I was driving my BMX around Montgomery Co, Alabama with a single shot Remington .410 bungee strapped to the handle bars. I was a latch key kid from the day I started kindergarten. I was cooking for myself and dressing myself starting then as well.

I won't allow my own child to experience any of that.

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

#216

Post by poulsbohemian »

ryandrake wrote: post #189
poulsbohemian wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ryan - I'm well-acquainted with the two income trap. My point was intended to be two-fold:

-- That the idea that if they could be SAHMs, every woman would pick that route is utterly misguided. Some women would choose that, others would choose careers, some would do both.

-- That every family will make the choice of who is employed outside the home on their own. My ex-wife didn't work outside the home for many years (by her choice not mine). I know many couples with only a single breadwinner. So yes - the two-income trap is a real thing, but it isn't like it was suddenly law that every able-bodied adult had to enter the workforce.

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

#217

Post by jimbokun »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #164
martythemaniak wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

As a dad of three who made serious career sacrifices in order to raise my kids... you are spot on, and I've concluded that the best scenario is when both partners have some life outside the home, whether it is career, volunteerism, etc, and both partners have equal responsibilities inside the home (kids, cooking, cleaning, bill paying, whatever ). The roles may be different and at times we might each be carrying more…

You bounce back and forth between a maximalist, fundamentalist position on this topic and one that's more moderate and common sense.

> and both partners have equal responsibilities inside the home (kids, cooking, cleaning, bill paying, whatever)

So each task has to be split completely equally between each partner, to the hour? To the minute?

Can one spouse have a full time 40 hour / week job and the other a part time 20 hour / week job?

What about a high paying high stress 60 hour / week job and a 40 hour / week job?

Are you going to dictate the morally acceptable parameters of everyones relationship?

> That person needs a social outlet, a part-time job, something, whether they realize it or not.

This is a much less extreme position and I think hard to disagree with. I think the mythical era of the Homemaking Wife and Mother of the 1950s, the wives staying at home still had a lot of social outlets and interactions with people than they do today. Which speaks to the endemic isolation of our current culture.

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

#218

Post by willcipriano »

matthewowen wrote: post #107
foobarian wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wrap my head around this insane US model that takes grandparents out of the picture. Maybe it's because moving is so easy? But grandparents love grandkids and they do it for free - it's a win-win.

I would suggest that most grandparents don't want to look after their grandkids for 40 hours a week. And for that matter, many grandparents have jobs of their own – the average age of a first time grandparent in the USA is 50.

Their parents looked after their kids, it's just the most recent crop of grandparents that decided that it isn't their role anymore.

They'll nag you endlessly about when you'll be having more kids though.

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

#219

Post by jerkstate »

ryandrake wrote: post #197
ethbr0 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been amazing to me that developed countries have bemoaned birth rates... and then done nothing effective about it. You know what says "This country values parents who choose to have children?" Actual replacement of lost income potential and career progression. Yes, in the US there are tax credits, SNAP, etc. None of these even come close to replacing the life income changes. If we were serious about it, we'd hav…

> It's been amazing to me that developed countries have bemoaned birth rates... and then done nothing effective about it. I always thought a low birth rate was a net-good: Something all countries are striving for. Like when your country drops below 2 births per woman, it has "made it" into the ranks of Developed Countries. Lower birth rate means fewer bodies to feed and a smaller environmental footprint. Sure, I gues…

>Lower birth rate means fewer bodies to feed and a smaller environmental footprint.

without placing a value judgement on the outcomes, this assertion is only true if the population decreases overall, which doesn't happen in the countries with permissive immigration policies. other countries with low birth rates and strict immigration policies have different problems, like declining property values, difficulty paying for pension/retirement obligations, shrinking gdp (even if gdp per capita is increasing), etc.

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

#220

Post by ryandrake »

ndriscoll wrote: post #169
hollywood_court wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe I just think we still live in the 90s, but when I was growing up, I know my mom babysat, and I remember one of the neighbors regularly watching us. Liability probably worked about the same way back then, but I don't think anyone ever really asked or thought about it. I doubt anyone was licensed if that even existed. If one of us got hurt, we'd probably get in trouble for doing something we weren't supposed to.…

> Maybe I just think we still live in the 90s, but when I was growing up, I know my mom babysat, and I remember one of the neighbors regularly watching us.

Like a lot of things, informal, regular babysitting got ruined by a few people trying to hustle it into a business. This seems to be happening to everything that can be gig-ified:

1. People once did X informally for friends

2. Someone realized they could charge for X

3. People start doing X over and over for strangers, turning it into a business

4. Some disaster happens because X is now a hazardous unregulated business

5. Finally, the government steps in with heavy handed regulation, and now only licensed businesses are technically allowed do X.

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