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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

#231

Post by jimbokun »

llbeansandrice wrote: post #222
poulsbohemian wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Women can get pregnant and breast feed. Men can't. So that's 9 months + some amount of months breast feeding. What's the excuse after that? Couples of all types need to find the balance that is right for them, but the comments in this thread trying to use biology as an excuse to make 18 years (or life, as I see it) worth of child-rearing strictly a "women's issue" are living in the past. >Many people will choose the…

Yeah I'm floored by these takes. God forbid society rewards child rearing with decent parental leave and accepting small resume gaps. Can't even consider things like government or job sponsored child-care or benefits to make things like breastfeeding easier while working. Changing to part-time for a period of time with a newborn, etc. The possibilities are endless to make having a child easier for both mothers and fa…

Except for surrogates and wet nurses, you cannot delegate pregnancy and breast feeding.

You can make things more equal between men and women. But some unescapable biological realities still exist.

> Why not something like a GI-bills structure to reward having children? Blows my damn mind people think sacrifice is a necessary part of having a child from society's point of view.

Sounds something that Mitt Romney and moderate Republicans (if there are any other ones left) would be all in favor of. Would be a popular bi-partisan policy proposal in a sane US political environment.

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

#232

Post by notch656a »

fallingfrog wrote: post #182
chatterhead wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Obviously if something is a good idea, then that's the evidence we need to force others to fund it at gunpoint of the tax man.

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

#233

Post by purpleblue »

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…

Breastfeeding is overhyped.

Both my sibling and I, along with my wife and her siblings were formula fed. My kids were 100% formula-fed as well, because my wife decided she didn't want to waste her time pumping. Both generations are perfectly normal and healthy. We all caught COVID with only minimal symptoms.

Not having to breastfeed took an enormous amount of stress off my wife, and allowed us to split the work of raising our kids more efficiently

In Canada, I've heard that breastfeeding has been taken to a religious morality war, where some parents had to sneak in formula into the hospital because the mother couldn't either breastfeed properly or weren't producing enough, or simply didn't want to.

There are some advantages to breastfeeding and some disadvantages. I think the narrative of companies in the 3rd world trying to hook low-income families on formula should be considered a crime. But there's nothing inherently wrong with formula and it raises perfectly healthy children.

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

#234

Post by chasd00 »

abnry wrote: post #183
nineplay wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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.

>> 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.

No, it's not depressing, it's total BS. Anyone who's ever been in a remotely serious relationship knows keeping score like "percent contribution" leads to the end of that relationship.

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

#235

Post by [deleted] »

jimbokun wrote: post #193
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…

Men can raise children, but cannot get pregnant or breast feed. Going through that cycle with potentially multiple children is a big time investment that cannot be delegated to men. Beyond that, yes, men are perfectly capable of performing child rearing tasks. Note, of course, this does not negate the argument against a two income family. Having a society where one income can support a family means fathers can devote…

[deleted]

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

#236

Post by PuppyTailWags »

chasd00 wrote: post #223
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…

The last 30 years women have had it drilled into their minds that if they don't have a powerful career then they're a failure. The reply to a woman saying they want to be a mother instead of a CEO starts with "oh you poor dear..."

Among women I know, I don't see this attitude. Women I know who want careers actually want it because they don't want to be dependent on other people. Every woman I know either has personal experience or knows another woman with personal experience of being in an abusive domestic household and being unable to leave because of no personal income. That's a huge motivator not to be SAH.

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

#237

Post by eli_gottlieb »

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.

Only if you're willing to starve the elderly.

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

#238

Post by chasd00 »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #236
chasd00 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last 30 years women have had it drilled into their minds that if they don't have a powerful career then they're a failure. The reply to a woman saying they want to be a mother instead of a CEO starts with "oh you poor dear..."

Among women I know, I don't see this attitude. Women I know who want careers actually want it because they don't want to be dependent on other people. Every woman I know either has personal experience or knows another woman with personal experience of being in an abusive domestic household and being unable to leave because of no personal income. That's a huge motivator not to be SAH.

my point still stands that a woman saying they want to be a "mom" and not have a career is looked down on by their peers due to the last 30 years of career propaganda. Fear of being abused is something else entirely.

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

#239

Post by [deleted] »

martythemaniak wrote: post #157
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…

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#240

Post by dsfyu404ed »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #54
BWStearns wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's apparently one big driver in the labor shortage. Childcare costs were so high that when everyone was home people realized the second job wasn't actually that useful and now there's one stay-at-home parent (seems weighted towards mothers[0]). [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/01/14/some-gender...

Not having kids I didn't realize how insane childcare costs had gotten. Someone posted an article to a local reddit that says people are pre-registering unborn children for childcare because there are so few slots available. Others responses indicated that it's running around $1500 to $2000/month for childcare. Add in housing costs and no wonder people are hesitant to have kids now.

The average is going to be skewed up because the people who take their kids to the cash only daycare where the toddlers learn a second language for free have long since realized that mentioning such an arrangement except to hand wring about it's existence is not the kind of commentary welcome on places like Reddit.

But yes, above the table daycare is ungodly expensive.

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