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On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

nytimes.com

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Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#41

Post by mynameishere »

Parents who had been paying $1,425 a month for infant care would see their costs rise to nearly $2,500

"$1,425" was the subsidized price? If someone told me day care cost that much, I'd fall on the floor, but that's the good price. A woman where I work pays 30 dollars a day, and that's far, far too much. Unbelievable waste. Absolutely unbelievable. $1,425 is more than my total monthly expenses. I could theoretically make my living by watching one child. Clearly, this is an industry just waiting for its Sam Walton.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#42

Post by pmorici »

diego wrote: post #5
robg wrote: post #3

I'm saddened, but not shocked, that very smart people think you need to spend $40k/year in daycare for children. Misplaced parental guilt?

If you are a young couple with an infant in the Bay Area you don't have much of a choice. A friend of mine and his wife decided that they would be better off if she quit her job and took care of their two kids for a few years, as her take-home salary wasn't enough to pay for day care.

40k seems excessive. say you paid the teacher very well they would get what like 100k a year? So you are saying that 1 teacher can only watch 3 kids? There are entire families with more kids than that.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#43

Post by e40 »

cpr wrote: post #18

I know one shouldn't question orthodoxy, but it seems insane to me to have children and then dump them all day, from a young age, with strangers. What's the point of having them if you're not raising them?

I'm guessing you don't have children.

Children being alone at home vs. being with lots of other children in daycare has many benefits.

First, over the years I've seen a lot of kids that stayed at home with mom that were not socialized well at all. Being in a group is how we evolved. It's natural and normal. Being at home with one parent all day is not normal at all.

Aside from socialization, being in the "home bubble" doesn't do a child's immune system any good. They need to be exposed to lots of stuff early in childhood to develop a strong immune system.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#44

Post by ArcticCelt »

timr wrote: post #37
davidw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I don't think I've ever been so offended by something on this site. Your implication that I haven't thought about the future of my daughter is... something I hope you never say to any other parent. We've done our best to think about the future, but it's unknowable.

His tone was harsh, but I don't think that indignation is a fair response to the question. Did something change in your lives that made this problem unpredictable? Were one of you planning on staying home with the children, only to have finances shift such that you both have to work? Obviously, you don't have to answer him in detail, but you could do more than simply scold the guy for asking. I know plenty of couples…

He wasn't really asking it was a rhetorical question and he was the one "scolding". I don't think he is "entitled" to an answer and think "davidw" was extremely polite in response to the tone of the previous comment.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#45

Post by gaius »

Tichy wrote: post #31

Why is daycare so expensive? Seems to me you need a room and two to three people to watch over the children. If you have 10 children in the room, and everyone costs 40000$, that would mean it costs 400000$ per year to rent a room and pay the salary for three people? It seems child nurses earn a LOT more than the average IT person?

Consider any school. They have teachers, sure. And they have caterers, and cleaners, and contractors to maintain the infrastructure... There are a lot more people involved than just the direct service providers.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#46

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #38
davidw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I don't think I've ever been so offended by something on this site. Your implication that I haven't thought about the future of my daughter is... something I hope you never say to any other parent. We've done our best to think about the future, but it's unknowable.

I don't think he meant to be so offensive. He may just not realize how hard this problem is. The fact is, finding a perfect solution for taking care of small children in an industrial society is probably an insoluble problem. And if so it's not one you can solve before having kids, or after them.

[deleted]

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#47

Post by ardit33 »

lisper wrote: post #25
davidw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the parent of a 2 month old, it's a difficult question we're facing right now. Who? How? When? Should my wife, with a doctorate in biochemistry, abandon her career completely and stay home? Should I? I'm not enthusiastic about those options. Should we hire someone? Not wild about that either. I think the best would be to kind of try and switch off, but it's going to require a lot of flexibility, and perhaps earnin…

With all due respect, did it never occur to you to get this all figured out BEFORE you had kids?

lisper, I hope you must be 21 or something. Maybe when you have kids, you will understand the difficulty of raising them, while trying to have some kind of career.

There are a lot of difficulties when raising kids, and both parents are well educated, and can have potential good careers. I don't have kids, but my sister has, and she decided to stay for half a year home, then they got a nanny. She had to find a job that had flexible hours, so she could be home early enough, and she works hard. She has a masters in finance, and an MBA, and she decided to get a job that pays less, but that has better hours, and a lot of her salary goes to the nanny.

Before having kids, their planning was different, that they were going to send the kids in day-care, but the local options were not that good at all, and my niece was getting sick very frequently, so they had to change the plans, and for a month or so they were in a dilema on what to do.

Your comment had a very arrogant tone, and it came out preachy and self righteous. Maybe you didn't mean it, but that's how it came.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#48

Post by davidw »

pg wrote: post #38
davidw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I don't think I've ever been so offended by something on this site. Your implication that I haven't thought about the future of my daughter is... something I hope you never say to any other parent. We've done our best to think about the future, but it's unknowable.

I don't think he meant to be so offensive. He may just not realize how hard this problem is. The fact is, finding a perfect solution for taking care of small children in an industrial society is probably an insoluble problem. And if so it's not one you can solve before having kids, or after them.

> I don't think he meant to be so offensive.

Looking at it again, I hope that he wrote quickly without really thinking about what his words meant.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#49

Post by parenthesis »

davidw wrote: post #23
cpr wrote: post #18

I know one shouldn't question orthodoxy, but it seems insane to me to have children and then dump them all day, from a young age, with strangers. What's the point of having them if you're not raising them?

As the parent of a 2 month old, it's a difficult question we're facing right now. Who? How? When? Should my wife, with a doctorate in biochemistry, abandon her career completely and stay home? Should I? I'm not enthusiastic about those options. Should we hire someone? Not wild about that either. I think the best would be to kind of try and switch off, but it's going to require a lot of flexibility, and perhaps earnin…

In my utopia it would be very much usual to be able to pursue a career part time/job-sharing while your children are young (or if you just prefer to be able to do other things outside your job). So each parent could work half- or three-quarters- time and thus share child care (with a moderate amount of external help), whilst still both pursuing their careers.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#50

Post by davidw »

timr wrote: post #37
davidw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I don't think I've ever been so offended by something on this site. Your implication that I haven't thought about the future of my daughter is... something I hope you never say to any other parent. We've done our best to think about the future, but it's unknowable.

His tone was harsh, but I don't think that indignation is a fair response to the question. Did something change in your lives that made this problem unpredictable? Were one of you planning on staying home with the children, only to have finances shift such that you both have to work? Obviously, you don't have to answer him in detail, but you could do more than simply scold the guy for asking. I know plenty of couples…

> Obviously, you don't have to answer him in detail

I don't mind talking about my own job situation, but don't really feel comfortable talking about my wife's.

To keep it brief, my wife and I could live in any number of countries and both of us could find jobs in most of them. With choice comes a lot of thinking and a great weight of responsibility. Live in Italy, make less money, and have the grandparents nearby to help out? Live in the US, make more money at better jobs and pay someone? Stay in Austria with a nice social welfare system, and reasonable jobs? All of those have further variables and derivatives and basically end up being very much impossible to calculate a priori (and there are elements that are private and I don't wish to share publicly).

In any case, I think most parents would respond with some indignation if their commitment to their children were questioned. It's just something that's probably not very polite to do outside of a small circle of friends and family.

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