In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All • Hacker News Board

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#361

Post by abustamam » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 9:01 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #302

abustamam wrote: post #272

It takes a village. When I was a kid (youngest of four) growing up in a suburb of a small town, my mom would often drop me off at a neighbor's house to watch me while she ran errands or did stuff for my siblings. No payment, just neighbors being neighborly. Now, I can't fathom something like that being feasible in our increasingly individualistic neighborhood. Regretfully, I don't even know the names of most of my ne…

The main reason I wouldn't enjoy watching my neighbor's kids is that we now have an absolutely paranoid, delusional society that has a mentally ill view of the dangers of children. By signing up to watch kids you incur absolutely massive liability, all it takes is one accusation and your whole life is destroyed and you lose everything, no matter that it was false. You would basically need cameras at every angle at al…

That's a good point, but the model could still work.

I think it comes down to trust. If something bad happens to my kid when my neighbor or friend is taking care of her, am I gonna sue them? Furthermore, if they give me their kid, would they sue me if something bad happened? Is it worth burning the bridge of friendship over a mistake? There's a number of different factors at play of course, but if I trust my neighbor / friend / parent / sibling enough to take care of my kid, I hope they trust me enough to know that I would try to resolve any issues privately and not get courts involved. Maybe the worst thing that happens is that a certain neighbor doesn't get to watch my kid anymore.

Of course if there's actual abuse or something criminal, then yeah by all means get the courts involved. But if it was something minor that blows over quickly then no need to escalate.

As an example, my mother in law was helping out for the first two weeks after my daughter was born. One day, my daughter had hiccups. My MIL said "I'm gonna fill a bottle of water to give to her" and I'm like "you will do no such thing, babies cannot have water. It's formula or breast milk." Later, on a cold night, she put a blanket (not swaddle) on my daughter, and a stuffed animal in her crib, and I'm like "babies cannot have loose stuff in their cribs, it's a choking/suffocation hazard."

My point is that I'm not gonna sue my MIL for being a bad caretaker, I'm just not gonna trust her to be a caretaker unless she took some infant safety courses. But I would trust a neighbor who I know has taken infant safety courses because they recently had a newborn or something, and trust that they'd do their best with my kid as I would theirs.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#362

Post by venturecruelty » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 9:04 PM UTC

frumplestlatz wrote: post #333

ryandrake wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we have to start somewhere that isn't controversial like extending coverage to kids. I don't think anyone is going to be against covering 8 and 9 year olds... Not sure what gives you this idea. The major political party in power in the US today campaigned in large part on cruelty and removing subsidies and social benefits from people. There are a huge number of people who would bitterly fight against provid…

I’m not cruel because I think society operates best — in terms of human outcomes — if incentives and disincentives are tied to decisions in ways that maximize the likelihood and benefit of personal responsibility. Parents need to be responsible for their children. The state should only step in if they fail in their responsibility. How is it folks like yourself can understand these concepts across a myriad of domains,…

>I’m not cruel because I think society operates best — in terms of human outcomes — if incentives and disincentives are tied to decisions in ways that maximize the likelihood and benefit of personal responsibility.

And how did personal responsibility make housing unaffordable?

>Parents need to be responsible for their children. The state should only step in if they fail in their responsibility.

How neat and tidy.

>How is it folks like yourself can understand these concepts across a myriad of domains, including things like wildlife and their rehabilitation, and the importance of fostering self-sufficiency, but not this?

What are you talking about? Everyone who's poor and powerless should be helped. More importantly, though, they shouldn't be taken advantage of by wealthy interests. That includes animals, that includes expectant mothers who don't make enough money to survive because the "money to survive" dial was cranked up to 100 in the last five years. But please, lecture us some more about how that's HER fault.

>It’s not kindness to create people dependent on the state, or to advantage businesses that do not pay a living wage by subsidizing their employees.

It's also not kindness to raise their rent for no other reason than you can.

>Hell, look at what we’ve done to the cost of education by creating government-backed loan programs that simply allow universities to charge as much as students can afford to mortgage from their future.

And we could end it all tomorrow by saying "the US government must fund university education". You know, like they do in Europe, or like we did a few decades ago in the United States. You're pointing to a radically predatory policy decision, designed to benefit rich people, and saying: "See? Government doesn't work!" But that's "conservatism" for you: say government doesn't work and then get elected and prove it.

I don't know if you truly believe that education costs would come down if we stopped shunting students into indentured servitude (guess which loans are the only ones that can't be discharged in bankruptcy? What a curious law of the universe that must be!), but if that's the case, then I have a fabulous bridge I'd be willing to part with for a modest price.

I will never stop fighting against people who wield the power of the state to punch down and then point the finger at those same people and blame them. It's disgusting, it's abhorrent, and it must stop.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#363

Post by coryrc » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 9:05 PM UTC

ivan_gammel wrote: post #255

WalterBright wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a moved to pure individualism built around selfishness The US was founded on individual rights and freedoms, not community sacrifice. Meanwhile, during the 1800s, scores of millions of people moved up from poverty into the middle class and beyond. (Immigrants to the US arrived with nothing more than a suitcase.) > Funny how we keep forgetting the past and reject what benefited us as a whole Oh the irony!

> The US was founded on individual rights Excluding those whose land was stolen and redistributed by government. > not community sacrifice Excluding government-funded infrastructure projects like canals that enabled growth. And support that immigrants received from ethnic communities. > Meanwhile, during the 1800s, scores of millions of people moved up from poverty Yes, fifteen tons, we know that song.

> Yes, fifteen tons, we know that song.

What society mass-moved individuals from menial work to better work?

Many societies have made generational improvements: children raised with more opportunity, but I'm not aware (hey, I'm ignorant of a lot) of any that moved significant numbers of menial laborers themselves up significantly in standard of living besides the USA post-WWII or new technology (electricity, plumbing).

Parents usually sacrificed so their children have better lives, not themselves. The USA is currently an interesting example of the opposite.

I haven't heard of mass movements of farmers into professional work late in life. The immigrant story of America is the parents sacrificed for their children to do better. Why would existing citizens want to bring in large number of unskilled people and give them better jobs than themselves? I'm not aware of such generous circumstances working out.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#364

Post by monero-xmr » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 9:05 PM UTC

trollbridge wrote: post #354

monero-xmr wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not, because productivity can increase. You have a very common misunderstanding

Doesn’t work if all of the productivity gains are captured by the wealthy owners of most of the capital though.

If more of society’s desires can be delivered with fewer people at lower cost, all of society benefits

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#365

Post by selimthegrim » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 9:07 PM UTC

sdsd wrote: post #218

selimthegrim wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US was founded on individual rights and freedoms, not community sacrifice. You clearly didn’t grow up in an immigrant neighborhood in the city

I disagree with Walter here but the US wasn't founded by urban immigrants. There's a difference between pioneers, like the Mennonites in Mexico, and immigrants, like digital nomads in Mexico. The former are almost always more popular than the latter.

Even so, do you think the Mennonites or Mormons in Mexico would agree with no community sacrifice as as part of their narrative?

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#366

Post by selimthegrim » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 9:08 PM UTC

loeg wrote: post #228

selimthegrim wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have more references about this?

It's a very recent story, but for example: https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/first-defendant-charged-a... The fraudulent provider(s) bribed parents to get their kids diagnosed autistic. As, a result, autism diagnoses of children in this community are ~3x the background rate: https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2024/10/10/research-finds-1-... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/researchers-find-alarming-...

Interesting, my understanding was that the Somali parents were mad that their children’s autism, which wasn’t presenting the same way as the kind of standard Rain Man type of autism wasn’t being characterized correctly.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#367

Post by venturecruelty » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 9:09 PM UTC

Braxton1980 wrote: post #339

abustamam wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that that's the wrong goal. Ideally, families can afford to live off of one salary so that mothers could choose to continue to care for their children if they wanted to do so. Currently, very few families are privileged enough to live off of one salary. Both parents need to work in order to make ends meet. I'm not saying it's an easy problem to solve, or that free childcare isn't a good interim solution. Bu…

The government can set up free child care as it has already set up other similar programs. How would the government make it so that a single salary can provide for a family? Wouldn't this require massive interference with the economy?

I mean, a lack of cheap housing is also a policy failure.

Also, there's already massive interference with the economy, all the time, every day. It's just hard to see, and the working class doesn't benefit from it. Housing isn't just magically expensive by some law of nature.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#368

Post by Tade0 » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 9:09 PM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #252

Tade0 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My SO spent a few months collecting the neighbour's daughter along with our own from kindergarten and in exchange the neighbour would make dinner for us. This arrangement started because the neighbours' shifts didn't align with kindergarten hours. At some point it struck me that this is all labour, but there was no money exchanged for the services rendered and certainly no taxes collected. Even worse - without this o…

> At some point it struck me that this is all labour, but there was no money exchanged for the services rendered and certainly no taxes collected. Even worse - without this our neighbours would have to take an inordinate amount of time off, as getting a babysitter was too expensive. How is this bad? Both your and their family benefited directly in terms of trading responsibilities and indirectly in building relations…

What I meant to say is that not only is this labour completely unrecognised as contributing to the overall economy, it's essential labour, without which other, measurable work could not be performed.

Bottom line is that the ways we measure economic output are deeply flawed.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#369

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 9:10 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #302

abustamam wrote: post #272

It takes a village. When I was a kid (youngest of four) growing up in a suburb of a small town, my mom would often drop me off at a neighbor's house to watch me while she ran errands or did stuff for my siblings. No payment, just neighbors being neighborly. Now, I can't fathom something like that being feasible in our increasingly individualistic neighborhood. Regretfully, I don't even know the names of most of my ne…

The main reason I wouldn't enjoy watching my neighbor's kids is that we now have an absolutely paranoid, delusional society that has a mentally ill view of the dangers of children. By signing up to watch kids you incur absolutely massive liability, all it takes is one accusation and your whole life is destroyed and you lose everything, no matter that it was false. You would basically need cameras at every angle at al…

[deleted]

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#370

Post by venturecruelty » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 9:11 PM UTC

terminalshort wrote: post #76

sudosteph wrote: post #25

Can't read the whole article, but am curious about how it will impact unlicensed childcare operations. I imagine that the number of parents using these is much higher than many people realize. Will be interesting to see how many parents end up using the state program.

Until very recently in human history 100% of childcare operations were unlicensed, and this was better in every way than a government bureaucracy run system.

Yes, let's go back to the 1300s, when we didn't need no stinkin' government licensure! Or flush toilets.