Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 432 posts

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

#391

Post by c22 »

mcguire wrote: post #311
purpleblue wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ra…

I have friends in North Carolina who had a daughter a couple of years ago. While they were in the hospital, a woman came by their room wearing scrubs and with the usual lanyard of cards around her neck. She told them that she was a lactation consultant and impressed on them that it was vitally important that the mother breastfeed. Unfortunately, they had a hard time getting their daughter to cooperate. At their first…

I find it hard to swallow the idea that rogue agents pretending to be 'lactation consultants' are infiltrating U.S. hospitals (with no affiliation in any way) and tricking new mothers into underfeeding their babies.

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

#392

Post by CalRobert »

namecheapTA wrote: post #286
CalRobert wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus this alone is enough to make me want to buy a Tesla.

You can buy any car in America using the Tesla model. Just call them, tell them you'll pay asking price (just like Tesla requires) and tell them you want it delivered to your house with the paperwork. I have done this countless times, even for people negotiating a discount.

This might be why every single car I have ever bought has been from Craigslist (or a local equivalent), private-party, cash or cashier's check. Except for the one I bought from ebay which wasn't too different. But I've never had a new car.

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

#393

Post by Auracle »

dilap wrote: post #249
purpleblue wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ra…

Without a doubt, a baby can be formula-fed and thrive. It also seems certain that there are advantages to being breast-fed. Exactly how strong these are is hard to stay -- as far as I know, all the research is observational, and so it becomes hard to tease out what is the effect of breast-feeding and what is just coming along for the ride (correlated w/ the type of person that prioritizes breast-feeding). It's still…

There absolutely are RCTs out there for breast milk vs formula- here’s one example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939272/

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

#394

Post by mcv »

dilap wrote: post #243
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We breastfed our daughter. Her mother pumped to cover times when she was working, and I fed our daughter. The only time this was an issue was when her mother left for a week-long conference. Accumulating supply for that period (and her dealing with the unused supply while away) was mildly challenging but we managed just fine. I then went on to quit work and stayed home to raise our daughter (she's now nearing 28 year…

We could go even further: You don't need the mother at all; you can always just raise the baby on formula. But that doesn't change that the mother-child bond is a unique and special thing, and that there are real benefits to breast-feeding, straight from the breast. And beyond, the simple fact is that many women really want to be with their babies. It's misguided to pretend that there aren't biological realities unde…

There are absolutely benefits to breast milk over formula, but that doesn't mean that it's the only option or that women need to do all of the child-raising on their own.

Ideally, mothers would receive ample maternity leave to cover the breastfeeding period, fathers would receive ample paternity leave to cover the weeks immediately after birth and the period after the breastfeeding period ends, and both parents would be working part-time most of their careers.

Ultimately, dual-income has turned out to be an ugly bait-and-switch. The point was that women were more free, more independent, more able to develop themselves professionally, and families would be able to live more comfortably with the added income. Instead, it has often lead to families requiring two incomes to even be able to afford a house, mothers having to mix raising children while working while fathers still didn't do their part.

We should all be working a maximum of 24 hours a week by now. We were screwed out of these benefits and all the benefits of this increased productivity has gone to the rich instead of to working families.

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

#395

Post by kalleboo »

schredder wrote: post #314
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evidence for the benefits of breast milk is overwhelming at this point, and vastly outweighs the evidence for specifically breastfeeding-induced bonding as a factor in a child's early life. So no, there is no reason to advocate for formula and several reasons not to. We should be adovcating for more parent-child bonding, however that happens; for more opportunities for parents to make whatever choices they wish t…

Yes we absolutely should encourage bonding and normalize public breastfeeding. But cut out the other breastfeeding nonsense. The evidence is not at all overwhelming, and flies in the face of a couple of generations of formula fed people who turned out fine. All anyone does by repeating that line is make people feel bad when they can’t or don’t want to breastfeed. Especially women.

The generations who were raised in the fumes of leaded gasoline also seemed "fine" but the long term statistics after we switched to unleaded gasoline show that we're way better off now.

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

#396

Post by mcv »

enra wrote: post #384
dilap wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No disagreement about any of those things. I would just add: It should be easy for women who wish to be with their babies and breast-feed them to do so. It should also be easy for dads! BTW, I'm about two weeks out from becoming a father. I only get 2 months paternity leave, but if I were the mother, I'd get 4! This seems unfair to me, but it's certainly better than if the policy were reversed . It seems like there's…

Congrats! I have 2-month old and before he was born lot of people said to me that "dads can't do much in the first 6 months". I was like ok, we'll see how it goes. After he was born, I quickly realize dads can absolutely do everything except feed the baby directly from the breast. Breastfeeding itself, depends on the baby and mom, is fairly quick, maybe like takes 15mins every few hours. That leaves about ~22 hours e…

Absolutely! There's a lot that dads can do, and what's more, I think dads are absolutely essential during the first two weeks, when mom is still recovering from having just pooped an entire baby out of their system.

Society is making way too many excuses for men to avoid raising their children, and it really needs to stop.

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

#397

Post by mcv »

gammarator wrote: post #278
dilap wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could go even further: You don't need the mother at all; you can always just raise the baby on formula. But that doesn't change that the mother-child bond is a unique and special thing, and that there are real benefits to breast-feeding, straight from the breast. And beyond, the simple fact is that many women really want to be with their babies. It's misguided to pretend that there aren't biological realities unde…

The benefits of both breast milk and breast feeding are nonzero but are often overstated. Many of the studies are not very good. The book “Lactivism” provides an entertaining account of recent history: https://www.amazon.com/Lactivism-Fundamentalists-Physicians-...

I think in general, it's best to breastfeed if you have the opportunity to do so, but it's not that big a deal if it doesn't work for you and you rely on formula instead. Both work. It's great that both options exist, so you can pick which one works best for you. People get way too uptight about this sort of thing.

Not to mention that society is really hypocritical about it; demanding that women breastfeed, but also criticising them when they actually do so. Can't we give each other a bit more freedom to make our own decisions and trust that most people will be doing a pretty good job at it? Provide info, not judgement.

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

#398

Post by mcv »

ethbr0 wrote: post #153
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…

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.

A lot of developed countries have done a lot of things about it. A long time ago. It's mostly just the US that doesn't really seem to care about families, as far as I can tell. It's one of only 3 countries in the world that doesn't even guarantee paid maternity leave.

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

#399

Post by mcv »

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…

Sad to see this downvoted, because it's a good point. Not so long ago, all the talk was about preventing overpopulation and reducing birth rates. China had their one-child policy, which was very heavy handed and lead to a ton of problems, including gender-based abortion (or even child murder), but nobody disagreed that a reduction of population growth was necessary. It's just that everybody in western countries felt that education and access to birth control were the better option.

Now that some countries actually have shrinking populations, everybody switched from panicking about overpopulation to panicking about having not enough working population to support too many elderly people. Immigration is the popular way out, but somehow I'd expect this shouldn't have been such a big problem in the first place. A couple of decades ago, women barely worked (paid, that is; they were probably overrepresented in unpaid elderly care).

I don't think a shrinking population should be this big a problem for a country. Sure, it probably requires some economic choices, just like everything does. But especially for densely populated countries dealing with housing shortages, a lower birth rate shouldn't have to be a bad thing.

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

#400

Post by MisterSandman »

Supermancho wrote: post #246
planetsprite wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People's role in society shouldn't be determined by their biology, but the manner in which their biology manifests in their life outcomes is determined by their biology.

> People's role in society shouldn't be determined by their biology, Why not (even if only partially)? Biology at the individual level has physical consequences, which necessarily affects the available roles and roles chosen. It makes no sense to expect that this relationship is different in aggregate.

You're seriously saying that in a forum dedicated to software engineering and technology?
Post reply on HN