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Why Child Care Is So Expensive

theatlantic.com

521–522 of 522 posts

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If nothing else, I could never hope to beat them on experience. That's fine. Unless you are emotionally stunted, they could never hope to beat you on love. >There are Nordic countries where a minimum of one day of day care a week is actually government mandated because it's been proven to be good for the kids. Starting at what age? Is this what you're referring to: https://theglobepost.com/2018/12/13/denmark-compuls…

Love is not a quantity linearly dependent on the contact hours I spend with them. Having other people involved in their upbringing does not mean they receive less love. Mandatory day-care is in Sweden [1] (not my country), because interaction with other kids is good for them. [1] https://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/sweden-mandator...

>Love is not a quantity linearly dependent on the contact hours I spend with them. Having other people involved in their upbringing does not mean they receive less love.

OK, I don't know what that means. What I do know is that if you're dropping them off to be raised by people that don't care about them nearly as much as you do, and who aren't going to miss them very much if they never see them again, they're not going to get the kind of love that they get from you during those hours. The longer those hours are, the longer they go without getting that kind of love, and the more they become convinced they aren't worth the full attention of a person that loves them. I don't think that's good for them.

>Mandatory day-care is in Sweden [1] (not my country), because interaction with other kids is good for them.

From your link, it looks like this affects children of age 6. When people in the US talk about day care or child care services, they're taking about children up until the age of 5 at most, and usually actually just up until the age of 3. For children aged 3 and 4 it's usually called pre-school rather than day care or child care service.

In the US, children at the age of 6 are entering their second year of school, which if they attend a public school is free from kindergarten (age 5) to the end of high school (age 18). This article is about the expense of child care in the US. The law you've linked is entirely inapplicable to this discussion.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#522

Women's introduction to the workforce was the right thing to happen but it fundamentally hurt labor and the "middle class". You can't double the supply without changing anything in the system and inflationary effects of dual income are ridiculous.

I'm sure it's more complex than this, and of course equal opportunities for everyone is good, but yes I think it hurt. More people going to university -> Demand outgrows supply, universities can charge more and spend more money on appealing things. More student debt. More workers -> More supply than demand, companies can pay less. Each worker needs a vehicle. More expenses. Both parents working, need to pay someone e…

More people sitting in traffic, more parents that don't get to be with their kids as much, more reliance on public schools to raise kids.
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