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New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

governor.state.nm.us

431–440 of 695 posts

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody said homesteading is the solution. Allowing a parent of young children to care for them is not a radical idea though. It should not be hard to imagine a society that is more flexible to childcare being performed by parents, because that was the norm for all of human history prior to industrialization. People should seriously consider the ways in which their imaginations on this subject (and others!) are constr…

Indeed, this only occurs with unions and rising wages, where a single income from a secure job can support a family while a parent stays home to perform childrearing. Are we there? When will we get there? These are important questions to ask if this is a dependency to improving household financials to encourage the outcome in this context (a stay at home parent). If jobs are tenuous or insecure, long term financial o…

Regulation, my man. Doesn't require fitting into the existing framework that was invented to as a stopgap for dangerous factory working conditions. The barrier is people's preconceived notions on what work day, weeks, and lives have to look like.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally get the reasoning behind that, but the majority of women are not stay at home moms, and most families don’t have the resources to make it happen. Society is just not oriented to family creation, and both women and men (to a lesser extent) take a hit when they decide to start a family. The entire world is in a fertility crisis now that could easily endanger the very society we live in, with all the ideals an…

I agree with you except the part about the policy making a dent. Scandinavian countries have all sorts of "universal childcare" and benefits, and their TFR is still going straight into the shitter. All this talk about expanding the GDP and going towards total workforce participation IMO is why family formation is slowing to a crawl (I mean look at South Korea, where it's all about being a workaholic and they basicall…

You don’t want just kids, you want well raised kids. Badly raised kids are easily a net negative, so just paying people to be parents isn’t going to work.

The only thing that might incentivize people to think about the long term is getting rid of all old age benefits (including continuous bail outs of broad market assets by the federal government by sacrificing the purchasing power of the currency).

Right now, we take productivity from people who sacrifice to raise kids well and give it to those who don’t raise kids well, or not have them at all.

This obviously leads to an arbitrage opportunity (as evidenced by DINK lifestyles).

I do not see any other way other than to remove this arbitrage opportunity. Which probably will not happen in any democracy due to old people’s voting power.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you’re stay at home unemployed person, a daycare will do more for your child’s development than you would be able to. Kids need socialization, they learn from their peers as much as they learn from adults.

You can also take them to events at the public libraries and other places, at least in my area. They're often called "Library Story Times" and they're free where we live. That's what my spouse does. There's a very wide spectrum of social activities available even for kids of stay-at-home parents. She will often get together with other parents and let our son socialize with their children too.

That’s fair and I’m sure your spouse covers the need for socialization, however these options aren’t available everywhere and not all parents are going to take their kids for these events every day. Having a venue that you don’t need to plan for 5x times a week is always going to be a great default.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#434
post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very convenient that it is greed when the stay at home mom wants an equal voucher, but not greed when a mom joins a capitalist for-profit enterprise for whatever wage she can avail herself of with the childcare bill footed by everyone else. Which is precisely what we are discussing.

Make it a progressive tax then? The point was many people can afford to help others to make society better for all. But you only want to pay taxes for what you're personally interested in? If you think stay at home needs to be prioritized in some way, as another comment mentioned, that's a separate argument. You are also relying on scenarios that don't even sound plausible. If someone can barely afford stay at home a…

I'm not talking about "prioritizing" stay at homes, I'm talking about just giving them the same thing the company/entity that would be taking care of their kid would get paid for doing it. I'm speaking of removing the prioritization for commercial childcare.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has not at all. 20% of high school graduates are reading at a 5th grade level, which when you consider the billions of dollars poured into public schools every year is just asinine https://www.abtaba.com/blog/us-literacy-statistics

US school outcomes vary drastically. It really works out well in nice neighborhoods, and doesn't work out in some bad neighborhoods. Its down to cultural and familial expectations. Why does the same curriculum in say Scarsdale not have the same success in the Bronx? They are only like 15 miles apart in the same state.

The nice neighborhoods have parents that prioritize spending with their children, reading with them and helping them work through things they are struggling with and due to that they then score better on the standardized tests.

The curriculum is just a net zero, and could be argued that it's a net negative because it wastes the kids time with useless knowledge that they will never need or use.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#436
post #12

This is fantastic! I hope they succeed and there is no abuse or other issues, because it will show how much an economy can grow when women are allowed to work to their full potential. Families who were previously in poverty because the mom would struggle to pay for childcare to work can now have assurance kids are ok while the mom can pursue jobs, start her own small business (huge chunk of businesses are small busin…

Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare. Stay at home moms do not provide a less valuable service than childcare providers. This policy appears to disincentives children staying with their mother even when it is preferred.

In Sweden we value equality and everyone working. If someone is wealthy enough to have a stay-at-home parent it's their choice to do so, we shouldn't subsidize the rich.

It is good for children to go to a place where they learn to interact with others early. We give 480 days off to the parents to share (90 "mandatory" per parent), then they go to childcare.

Individualism breeds privileged shits, if you want your kid to be one of those then you pay out of your own pocket. We subsidize childcare so everyone can afford to work.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you except the part about the policy making a dent. Scandinavian countries have all sorts of "universal childcare" and benefits, and their TFR is still going straight into the shitter. All this talk about expanding the GDP and going towards total workforce participation IMO is why family formation is slowing to a crawl (I mean look at South Korea, where it's all about being a workaholic and they basicall…

You don’t want just kids, you want well raised kids. Badly raised kids are easily a net negative, so just paying people to be parents isn’t going to work. The only thing that might incentivize people to think about the long term is getting rid of all old age benefits (including continuous bail outs of broad market assets by the federal government by sacrificing the purchasing power of the currency). Right now, we tak…

I beg to disagree. In Switzerland, a lot of emphasis is put on assimilation to a Swiss identity via pre-school and school. Now this eventually raises the bar for parents to raise their kids, but it also acts to Swissify immigrant kids quickly as well (and 25% of the residents in Switzerland are not born as swiss, many of those are refugees from African countries that America has problems dealing with). America's DIY hands off parent-focused system consistently has the worse results of all the world's developed countries, and is proving to be worse than even developing country systems.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my neighbor already gets a $5000 tax credit remodeling his bathroom or installing a new/greener boiler. Should I get $5000 for not remodeling?

You have demonstrated the point of the policy. What is it that is being incentivized here? Leaving your children and working all day.

If I'm already benefiting from a new boiler, I don't need another new boiler just to get the $5000 tax credit. This is silly. There are benefits to being a working parent vs a stay at home parent and if you have access to stay at home care you simply don't need it.

This is like getting mad that my workplace offers pet insurance when I have no pets so I demand the money anyway. Or demanding a trophy for not participating in a competitive sport.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in rural New Mexico and medical services are very bad here. I took my GF to the emergency room once with chest pains (turned out to be a lung infection). After an hours long wait we got to see the "doctor". The doctor came in in street clothes which were wrinkled jeans and a frumpy polo. He was not smart and from appearance, speech and thinking patterns easily could have been the janitorial mid level manager (…

>and in fact they do airlift most serious cases directly to Lubbock. Just to be clear for those not familiar with the relative position of cities in Texas, imagine getting hurt in Illinois and the EMT's being like "the hospitals around here are shit, we're going to Gary".

I mean... as someone living in rural-lite, the hospitals in my county are crap; going to a big city nearby is a better choice. I don't know about hospitals in Chicago, and I wouldn't think Gary is big enough to be a hospital magnet, but it doesn't seem that out of the norm. Of course, Mr. Willson ruined Gary for me; I'd die if I went to a hospital there.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare. Stay at home moms do not provide a less valuable service than childcare providers. This policy appears to disincentives children staying with their mother even when it is preferred.

In Sweden we value equality and everyone working. If someone is wealthy enough to have a stay-at-home parent it's their choice to do so, we shouldn't subsidize the rich. It is good for children to go to a place where they learn to interact with others early. We give 480 days off to the parents to share (90 "mandatory" per parent), then they go to childcare. Individualism breeds privileged shits, if you want your kid…

You don't subsidize the rich, yet you subsidize rich child care corporations (or high-level bureaucrats in the event it is public) at the expense of not subsidizing stay at home moms.

You don't want people paid for taking care of their children, but it's OK if other people are paid for taking care of their chidlren.

None of this makes sense. Especially not this false dichotomy that either you send your kids to daycare or they don't learn to interact with others early.

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