
Why Child Care Is So Expensive - jseliger
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/why-child-care-so-expensive/602599
======
jperras
It doesn't have to be this way.

Québec has had subsidized daycare for almost 25 years, and the program
literally pays for itself (and more!) via increased income taxes from parents
that would have otherwise chosen to stay at home.

[https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/12/affordable-daycare-
su...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/12/affordable-daycare-subsidized-
child-care-working-mom-quebec/579193/)

> In Montreal, Quebec’s largest city, a day of child care cost on average $10
> in 2016

> Quebec’s program, which introduced low-fee, universal child care in the
> province in 1996, centered on a few core premises: that if the government
> helped make child care accessible and affordable, it would allow more women
> to join the workforce, increase childhood development and social skills, and
> ultimately raise revenue for the government through increased payroll taxes.
> In at least two of those objectives, the scheme has been widely successful,
> says Pierre Fortin, an economist at the University of Quebec at Montreal,
> and the country’s leading expert in the economics of subsidized child care:
> It’s increased participation of women in the workforce, and cost efficiency.

> Since beginning the program more than two decades ago, Quebec has seen the
> rate of women age 26 to 44 in the workforce reach 85 percent, the highest in
> the world.

> Early estimates anticipated the program would generate 40 percent of its
> costs via increased income taxes from working parents. Instead, it generated
> income taxes to cover more than 100 percent of the cost. “In other words, it
> costs zero, or the cost is negative,” Fortin said. “The governments are
> making money out of the program.”

The program isn't perfect; there are a variety of issues that have popped up
over the years, but since we were literally the first in the world to offer
such a comprehensive, sweeping, subsidized plan for the entire provincial
population of ~7.1MM in 1996 that was then used as a model in various
Scandinavian countries, I'd call it a rousing success.

~~~
pfortuny
“It would allow more women to enter the workforce”.

I understand what the quote means but, honestly, this is one of the big wrong
points of our society: that caring for the children full-time is NOT being
part of the workforce.

This is one of those cultural ideas embedded in XXI Century logic which only
does harm and transmits the wrong message: people’s life is as valuable as the
money the work or the “job” they have, and of course, caring for the family is
not a proper job.

That is so wrong on so many levels.

I am not claiming that it is easy, the best or the most engaging or whatever.
I only claim that society has given up on valuing raising one’s children and
keeping the household together, and this is terrible.

~~~
darawk
I think you're missing the point of the "childcare is not part of the
workforce" argument. It's not that it isn't work, and it's not that it isn't
important. It's that, in many cases, the economic comparative advantage for
the (often) female caretaker of those children is not being fully utilized.

That is to say, caring for a child is a service that costs X. But it is being
performed by a person who's skills are valued at Y, where Y > X. That
represents an economic loss that doesn't have to happen, if instead you
substitute someone who's most highly valued skill is worth X for that
caretaker.

Now, that ignores the benefit of having a child's own parents care for them,
which may or may not change how you evaluate the question depending on your
perspective on these things.

~~~
klipt
Why is _subsidized_ daycare necessary in these cases though? In America if
daycare costs X and you earn Y much greater than X, then obviously you'll make
more money going to work and sending your kid to daycare than being a stay at
home parent.

The people who choose to stay at home often either have multiple kids (higher
X) or earn little enough (lower Y) that it's not an economic advantage for
them to work. But those people would be a net loss (to the government) in the
Quebec system too.

~~~
tharne
100%. We shouldn't be creating perverse incentives. Subsidizing a low-wage job
is a net loss for everyone. For taxpayers, it's just more money out of their
pocket and for the parents, you're being encouraged to leave your children
with strangers so you can go and work a job that doesn't pay enough to cover
the cost of paying those strangers.

We need to get past the ridiculous idea that staying home with one's children
while their young is some sort of failure. It's not. It's valuable work, which
coincidentally is why childcare is as expensive as it is. Frankly, given the
importance of the work, I'm surprised childcare doesn't cost more.

~~~
tristanstcyr
It's not that it's a failure, it's that being taken out of the workforce for
many years is damaging to careers. It's more than a matter of perception.
Public school starts when kids are 5. If you have several kids, it could then
take someone out of the workforce for a decade. While it's not impossible to
recover from that, it's extremely difficult, especially at a point where
you're past your prime years such as your 20 or 30s.

~~~
HBKXNCUO
>While it's not impossible to recover from that, it's extremely difficult

On the other hand, it's impossible for your children to get back the time they
could have spent in their most formative and vulnerable years around people
that love them, rather than minimum wage daycare workers.

~~~
crashedsnow
It's extremely difficult to correlate this to long-term happiness or well-
being. If parents can accelerate their time to retirement they get to spend
more time with children as teenagers or young adults. Is that better or worse?
More or less memorable? I don't remember much before I was 5-ish. Do we really
know that having stay-at-home parents during that time alters a lot? Does
having the extra money for "better" college outweigh time in "formative"
years? How about having more wealth to transfer to children when you're gone?
What if the stay-at-home parent is desperately unhappy with staying at home?
Is it better to have a happy, harmonious environment?

It's complicated, and just saying it's better to have a stay-at-home parent
versus "minimum wage daycare workers" (who in my experience are actually often
highly qualified), is an incomplete perspective (IMO).

~~~
tomatocracy
Whilst none of those points are necessarily wrong, I think you have implicitly
ignored the happiness of the parents in your arguments. Many parents who feel
they have to work and then pay for childcare and not see their children in
order to make ends meet are definitely not happy about that at all. That
shouldn't be forgotten.

------
abbadadda
A lot of really good discussion in this article. I just wanted to add a couple
of things:

It is a true blessing if a mother or father can stay at home to raise their
children. However, over time being a stay at home parent is incredibly
isolating. Men are suseptible to depression, but women especially so post-
partum. Also, many parents do eventually want to work either part time or full
time. The longer one stays out of the work force the bigger the gap on the
resume and the harder it is to find work as children grow up. I agree the
lowest paying jobs should not be subsidized, but I think the benefits of
taxpayer subsidized childcare would be overwhelmingly positive. The quality of
childcare makes a big difference in the equation, but parents, especially
mothers, should be encouraged to re-enter the workforce if they so choose.
Every policy creates incentives and I have no qualms with the ones created by
subsidized childcare.

~~~
Dove
I am convinced the isolated stay at home parent model is not normal human
behavior, but a pathology of our particular society which represents an
unreasonable expectation derived from an excessive commitment to individualism
and independence. It is not psychologically reasonable to expect one person to
care for children all day every day. It is not historically or broadly
culturally normal. It is not healthy for either the parent or the children to
isolate them together like this.

It is normal for children to be cared for by many adults throughout the day,
from birth - be they older relatives or simply members of the community. It is
abnormal for one person to have to deal with all of their energy and issues.
It is normal for children to wander and play and experience a wide and varied
world. It is abnormal for them to be kept in a small, unchanging indoor space.
It is normal for new parents, especially new mothers, to be intensely
supported by their community. It is abnormal for them to be left alone
unsupported. It is normal for homemakers to accomplish their daily tasks
communally and to be active in their communities. It is abnormal for them to
endure years of social isolation, primarily spending time with their children.

I am not sure what a healthy pattern for family support and child rearing
looks like in this society, but I think public support for young child care,
better connections with older relatives and neighbors for light child care,
and light or part time but potentially meaningful work and social connections
for parents is a lot closer to normalcy than the current locked together in
isolation suffering silently pretending to be happy wondering why you're the
only one struggling model we have now. The current model is insane and it is a
testament to our toughness as human beings that we all try so hard to make it
work and survive as well as we do.

~~~
giggles_giggles
This is a weird comment that, in my experience, doesn't represent the reality
of today's stay-at-home parents. I'd love to see hard data on this, but let me
share my anecdotes in response to the middle paragraph here. My older sister
has been a stay at home mother for almost a decade, so I'll share my
observations from being an uncle:

> It is normal for children to be cared for by many adults throughout the day,
> from birth - be they older relatives or simply members of the community.

My sister engages in a community of stay-at-home parents and homeschooling
parents (there is a lot of overlap and she also homeschools) to provide her
children with socialization and to also share the burden of parenting all the
small ones.

By contrast, in daycare, where my sister and mother both worked professionally
at different times, it is common for adults to be split between many children,
usually as many as seven or eight per adult (by regulation).

> It is abnormal for one person to have to deal with all of their energy and
> issues.

See above

> It is normal for children to wander and play and experience a wide and
> varied world. It is abnormal for them to be kept in a small, unchanging
> indoor space.

Funny that this is an example! Many daycares are inside only or maybe have a
small playground. By the time the child is 5, they're expected to sit still in
actual school all day! My nephew and nieces get the pleasure of participating
in something called "Forest School" where they're able to socialize with other
children their age and learn about nature, shockingly, outside in nature.
They're also always allowed in the backyard and have friends in their
neighborhood as well. So actually from what I've seen, homeschooled kids and
kids with a stay at home parent actually get _more_ outside time. It's the
poor kids in day care and school that don't get to go outside.

> It is normal for new parents, especially new mothers, to be intensely
> supported by their community. It is abnormal for them to be left alone
> unsupported. It is normal for homemakers to accomplish their daily tasks
> communally and to be active in their communities. It is abnormal for them to
> endure years of social isolation, primarily spending time with their
> children.

Again, see above. Maybe this varies a lot by locale, but here in Texas, none
of your criticisms actually apply to the community of stay at home moms and
homeschoolers that I have observed in my community.

~~~
logjammin
Not sure why this is greyed out, but I appreciated your comment. Is Forest
School a thing beyond where you live, do you know?

~~~
giggles_giggles
I believe it is and in fact I think I read an article here on HN not too long
ago that talked about it. There seems to be an associated organization:

[https://www.forestschoolassociation.org/what-is-forest-
schoo...](https://www.forestschoolassociation.org/what-is-forest-school/)

------
legitster
It really comes down to the ratio. Our state has a 4-1 ratio for infants
(which is entirely reasonable). You are basically paying for 1/4 of a person's
time. If you want to put them into a daycare where the worker is adequately
paid, that's $6000 a year alone, let alone overhead costs for
facilities/admin.

No matter who pays for it, raising children is time consuming. And time is
becoming more valuable.

~~~
snarf21
Exactly right. People also forget that while the _parent_ works 8 hours a day,
the kid is dropped off before and after commute time which means the kid may
be in daycare for 9 or 10 hours. So if you get infant care at $175/week for
four infants divided by 50 hours, you get $14/hour and that is gross revenue
to the business. If you happen to lose an infant to a parental move, now you
are losing money for that class. You can do better on the 10+ kids because the
ratios are much better.

As you said, we are valuing time more and more. I can't imagine what childcare
would costs with a $15/hour minimum wage. A lot of mothers would probably be
forced to give up their job.

~~~
anon4lol
We just went through the process of finding childcare for our infant.
Originally, we were going to have my wife's parents move in to help, but her
father was suddenly diagnosed with lung cancer, forcing us to scramble for
child care. With my wife's student loans, it wouldn't be prudent for her to
not work.

Childcare costs more than twice as much as our mortgage. We live in a blue
state where many businesses feel compelled to pay $15/hour for unskilled
labor. We interviewed child care providers who wanted $18-$22 per hour with no
certifications, degrees, or training. We looked at au pairs, but the agencies
all wanted $8k-$10k up front with no guarantees.

~~~
secabeen
The idea of paying minimum wage to a child care provider also seems wrong too.
Your child is spending more time with this person each week than they are with
you. I'd think you'd want to pay more than minimum wage, to get quality
caregivers.

~~~
jimbokun
Right, but how do you pay more than that, but still make it worthwhile for the
parent to work after the cost of child care is deducted from their pay check?

------
umvi
Unpopular opinion - but I think farming out the majority of the raising of
children to daycares is a bad idea in the long term. Obviously some times you
don't have a choice, but I think stay-at-home moms (or dads) are _extremely_
valuable for the development of the child and potentially worth more than any
monetary gains to be had from dual-income.

Yeah, you might not be able to afford a nice house or car as quickly, but you
get absolute control over how much love, attention, and correction your
developing kids receive.

~~~
AYBABTME
I'm not sure that having a child growing up in an isolated environment,
interacting with mostly one person, is good or healthy. I have a hunch that
exposure to many people, situations and environments is better for the child,
as long as the overall exposure is positive. Not only that, but the isolation
of the caregiver probably makes the caregiver less fit (depression,
imagination-killing-routine) to provide quality education. In that lense, I
think there's solid arguments for why "farming out" might be better for
everyone, child and parents.

~~~
hereme888
I don't think the argument had anything to do with isolation. Your reply
sounds stereotypical. Stay-at-home parents - and similarly, home-schooled
children - usually have a richer and more vibrant community than schooled
children and the average 9-5 working parent.

I've met hundreds, and it always strikes me as a more ideal life, because it's
steeped in strong community.

Of course there are the isolation exceptions that make headlines in news
media.

------
SkyBelow
So the three reasons given by the article.

* Primarily labor driven. You can't automate, you can't reduce hours, you squeeze 9 hours of child care out of an 8 hour workday.

* Regulation. This prevents the one way to lower labor cost: increasing child to adult ratio. Laws prevent this.

* Real estate costs. Child care can't be moved to cheaper cities and there is even limits on the extent it can be moved within a city before it becomes to costly (in time) for parents to utilize it.

Overall... I think the second reason can be wrapped up into the first one.
While legally mandated insurance and such do have an impact, the biggest
impact is the limit on child to adult ratio which has the largest impact on
costs and that is because it limits the efficiency a single worker can have.
If the ratio is 4 kids to 1 adult, the cost will never be below 1/4 the
adult's salary. If you expect the adult to be paid a living wage, then in
terms of others earning a living wage, 25% of their income will have to go to
child care, and that is before counting any taxes or other costs.

~~~
namdnay
That’s also before subsidies. You can subsidise so it never exceeds X% of the
household income, which is what they do in France

~~~
SkyBelow
The end result is still the same when you average it out. If your ratio is 4
to 1, the average wage of 1 child care worker has to be split between 4
adults, meaning that if they are being paid equal amounts, 25% of net income
has to go to child care.

Even if that money actually comes mostly from the top 1%, the average money
per person works out to the same. This explains why the cost is so high. With
regards to explain why the cost is so high, if that cost is being paid by the
parents directly or by the rich via taxes and subsidies is not a factor in
that cost, only in how it is paid.

------
vturner
This may be somewhat off-topic, but I'm often surprised that leftist policies
like the article advocates are often proposed at a national level? Why is
this? Why not propose a state-sponsored child-care system in a leftist state -
California, Washington, Massachusetts, etc. I'm not trying to start a war
here, simply genuinely interested why people on the left push national social
programs versus propose them in very wealthy left-leaning states?

~~~
wklauss
They are, even at a more local level. New York City, for example, has a free
pre-k (4yo) program. But in order to be effective, some of these policies need
to be applied nationwide. In other cases, state budgets are simply too
constrained for them. Like someone said in the comments, this is a program
that could paid itself with the income tax from both parents working, but in
the US the majority of income tax goes to the federal government, I think.

~~~
kelnos
> _Like someone said in the comments, this is a program that could paid itself
> with the income tax from both parents working_

That's a bit of a weird point to make, though. That income tax is already
going toward paying for government programs. If you divert some of that to pay
for early child care, some other programs will be left under- or unfunded.

~~~
simoom22
The reality is that currency-issuing federal governments everywhere run
perpetual deficits (and some economists argue they have no revenue constraints
at all.) States can't do this.

------
ben7799
I live in Massachusetts.. mentioned in the article as averaging $16k.

I have a child who stopped going to private day care a year and a half ago.
For us it was more like $20-24k/yr for child care. There were centers near one
of my workplaces that were more like $35-40k/yr/child. Anything near the
trendy high tech office spaces in Boston/Cambridge is going to be in that >
$30k/yr/child range.

I think there are nice profits being made because:

\- The teachers/caretakers make 50% at best of what public school teachers
make

\- They just in time schedule the living daylights out of everything

\- You can easily figure out the gross income of the "school" because the
tuition figures are public and you can see the # of rooms in the school and
calculate from regulation how many kids are there. They were always 95% full
in my experience

\- The expensive/fancy ones tend to be owned by big chains & franchises, those
are not operations that exist without someone getting rich.

One of the biggest day care chains in the country is owned by Bain Capital..
they've made a lot of money on it. They don't get into stuff that isn't
profitable.

My experience was even at the upper end of the market the product is pretty
darn bad compared to public school systems in our area. The public school
staff is amazing and incredibly professional compared to the private day care
staff. Not even close. And the ratios for elementary school are better than
pre-school/pre-K at expensive day cares in our area. And even if you took all
our local & state taxes and gave 100% to the school it does not match what day
care costs. And obviously the state & town do not give 100% of the money to
the school system.

~~~
yanslookup
For another data point, my wife and I live in Cambridge, MA we just hired a
nanny for our 6 month old son at a rate of 23/hr for 30 hours per week
(~35k/yr)... This was competitive with nearby day care center rates.

~~~
ben7799
Yes I was referring to Kendall Sq. day cares when thinking of $36-40k/yr. I
worked there when my child was born.

~~~
DrAwdeOccarim
We had our kid in the infant class at a chain daycare in Central, $3400/mo.
His older sibling was $2900/mo. And the care wasn't even that great...We moved
them to a daycare closer to our house, a little further out. The costs went
down 25% and the quality went up dramatically. It's really amazing how hit or
miss the quality of the day care options are in the area, and how obscenely
expensive it all is. But it's an easy equation for them--you simply look at
the after-tax income of a biopharm mid-career professional and you make it
cost that. The families are willing to pay that amount of money for 3-4 years
because leaving a parent out of the workforce causes a loss of career
trajectory and a subsequent loss of future income. Basically you sacrifice a
few years of current earning to not lose out on the time in role.

------
lordgrenville
Emily Oster mentioned on a podcast [1] that although she enjoys spending time
with her kids much more than she enjoys working, the marginal value of kid
time declines while the marginal value of work remains steady. In my
experience a lot of parents feel this way. We may agree that the intrinsic
value of family is much higher than that of work or the economy, but spending
too much time with one's kids can feel like a drain at a certain point, even
for very loving parents. At that point, the parent probably isn't doing
anything great for the kids. It's good to have another outlet.

[1] [https://newbooksnetwork.com/emily-oster-cribsheet-a-data-
dri...](https://newbooksnetwork.com/emily-oster-cribsheet-a-data-driven-guide-
to-better-more-relaxed-parenting-from-birth-to-preschool-penguin-2019/)

~~~
WomanCanCode
Spending time with kids can be very draining and exhausting. Not all the time
that you are spending with them is quality time. Also, since parents don't
need a degree or a whole lot of experience, this is an indication that
childcare is only a minimum wage job unfortunately. Also, kids really like to
spend time with their own peers and doing group activities.They don't care if
you are not with them all the time

------
tick_tock_tick
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.

~~~
PaulHoule
See this Liz Warren book:

[https://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-
Parents-...](https://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Parents-
Going/dp/0465090907)

Henry Ford realized that the automobile was not going to change the world
unless auto workers were so productive that they could easily afford the cars
they made.

That kind of productivity increase is not possible w/ Childcare. I remember a
Z Magazine cartoon more than 20 years ago where two women were pondering the
mystery of why a child care worker can't afford child care and the unspoken
punch line was that it was the perversity of capitalism but, no, it's not that
economically efficient to pay somebody else to watch your kid for you. It
makes money for the day care center, it makes money for your employer if you
go to work, you pay taxes on the money you earn -- it makes money for a whole
lot of people who aren't you.

You, not so much.

Universal child care is currently reeling from the discovery that recipients
of universal child care in Montreal have turned into DQN adolescents. Maybe
"the kids will be alright" in the end, but it is not looking like a program
that pays for itself like Head Start.

~~~
bluedino
In my state, a single childcare worker can watch up to 6 children. If they are
infants I belive the number goes down to 4.

~~~
PaulHoule
That is not a lot to work with.

If there wasn't any overhead, the childcare worker with one infant would pay
1/4 of their wages on childcare, which doesn't leave a lot for housing, food,
transportation, student loans, etc. They are only infants so long however...

Actually there is overhead, the child care center has to pay for a building,
administrators, marketing, and possibly taxes.

Contrast that to the auto worker, who probably gets a new car relatively
often, let's say it works out like a $300 a month, or $3600 a year.

I think auto workers are relatively well paid, so the cost of that car is 5%
of their wages as opposed to 20% or more.

------
jandrese
We definitely felt this. My wife ended up quitting her job when we had our
first because all of the child care options we investigated were going to
require basically her entire after-tax income to support.

It only made sense if she was planning to grow her career and just ride out
the daycare for 5 years until the kid went to school, but even then it's
contingent on not having another kid during that time.

At the end of the day being a stay-at-home mom made a lot more sense.

~~~
cortesoft
If she did have a career she wanted to continue, the calculation is pretty
strong on the 'riding it out until school'. You have to count ALL the salary
you are going to make for the next 30-40 years of working, because sitting out
for 5 years will have an effect on your income your entire career.

~~~
mirekrusin
Unless she gets the job a the daycare - I hear they have money to pay well?

~~~
jandrese
The article actually says that the salaries are pretty terrible, but
insurance, facilities, and regulations make it expensive to the parents.

------
maerF0x0
Goodhart: When the metric becomes the goal, it ceases to be a good measure...
(paraphrase)

Seems like we've been moving all domestic productivity into the realm of
Taxable GDP. Some say it's a conspiracy, for me it's just an observation.

Home cooked meals has become meal prep kits, home delivery. ChildCare has been
outsourced (out of the home or a small community of cooperating parents).
Household cleaning to cleaning services etc.

~~~
strbean
On the other hand, there are huge advantages to specialization. Professional
cooks are less likely to cause food-borne illness, and can generally cook
tastier, more varied meals.

Same goes for any other domestic work. Someone who cleans professionally can
clean a house faster and better than someone who works in an office 8 hours a
day. In fact, I'd bet a professional cleaner typically is faster and does a
better job than a stay-at-home spouse who divides their time between every
conceivable domestic task.

~~~
intrepidhero
What if I don't want to follow the specialization trend to it's logical
conclusion? I think there is a cost to personal well being that's not being
considered here.

------
georgeburdell
As the article notes, the reason is regulation and women entering the
workforce.

Honestly I don’t see a problem. We as a society have decided that we would
rather be 100% safe rather than accept risk for lower cost, so we enforce
strict ratios on children to caretaker ratios, license people, make in-home
sprinklers mandatory, etc. $16k per child per year in Massachusetts is that
cost.

For what it’s worth, none of my friends put infants in daycare due to the
cost. They either got foreign au pairs or hired someone under the table for
cash (very common in immigrant communities)

~~~
sol_remmy2
> For what it’s worth, none of my friends put infants in daycare due to the
> cost. They either got foreign au pairs or hired someone under the table for
> cash (very common in immigrant communities)

I'm hoping your friends are libertarians who disagree with the current
political zeitgeist in Massachusetts.

It would be very depressing to hear that your friends are Liberals who
publicly support these daycare laws and then privately flaunt them by 1)
favoring non-American workers and 2) paying them in cash to avoid taxes

~~~
kelnos
Unfortunately I think that kind of cognitive dissonance is quite common.
People feel the need to make sure "everyone is safe", but then believe their
ability to judge how to best do that supersedes the law. Those laws are for
"other people", not us.

------
briandear
> Most of the achievement gap between black and white American students is in
> place by kindergarten. Meanwhile, dozens of studies of preschool programs
> since the 1960s have shown that early-childhood education can slash the
> black-white kindergarten achievement gap in half.

The common orthodoxy is that the achievement gap is caused by and solvable
through the schools, but the reality is much different.

Interestingly, the achievement gap between black kids from two-parent
households is almost non-existent, however since 70% of black kids are in
single-parent homes, the effects of those homes is borne out in the statistics
— but the cause is misattributed. “Black” students are treated as a
homogeneous group, but really the gap is between “black students from single
(or no) parent homes” and white students (of which the majority are from two-
parent households.)

The destruction of the black family is what is really behind this so-called
achievement gap. The origin of that destruction is a discussion for another
time, but the Moynihan Report foretold this back in 1965. The Coleman Report
from the same period, also described the achievement gap as being primarily
originated from the family, rather than schools. [1]

This article is long, but it relevant: [https://www.city-
journal.org/html/black-family-40-years-lies...](https://www.city-
journal.org/html/black-family-40-years-lies-12872.html)

[1] [https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2016/07/13/50-years-
ago-t...](https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2016/07/13/50-years-ago-the-
coleman-report-revealed-the-black-white-achievement-gap-in-america-heres-what-
weve-learned-since/)

~~~
strenholme
I encourage healthy debate about controversial issues like this. When I opened
up my New York Times today, I found this article, which questions how
important two-parent households are for childhood success, especially among
Afro-American youth:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/opinion/two-parent-
family...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/opinion/two-parent-family.html)

Some quotes:

“living in a two-parent family does not increase the chances of finishing high
school as much for black students as for their white peers”

“Greater involvement in extended family networks may protect against some of
the negative effects associated with parental absence from the home”

The conclusion of this New York Times opinion piece is that structural racism
has more impact on the success of young Afro-American kids than single parent
households.

~~~
danteembermage
If you follow Raj Chetty's work on income mobility it appears that single
parents in the neighborhood matter a lot more than single parents themselves.
Since single parenthood is much more common for black families and our cities
tend to be segregated, black kids tend to grow up around single parented kids
which is a disadvantage. Basically having two awesome parents doesn't make up
for having your entire world be not that. And having a single parent doesn't
ruin an upbringing surrounded by people with two parent families. I think it's
as much about shared culture as anything, the social norms get established by
majority rule basically.

------
pseudobry
Sometimes I think childcare isn't expensive at all. There are these creatures
I've nearly sacrificed my sanity for during their infant years, maybe got
diminished mental capacity due to lack of sleep, given blood, sweat, tears,
would risk life and limb for them...and here I go giving a total stranger
$20/hour to (hopefully) do that in my stead for a short while.

~~~
giarc
I agree... we pay a dayhome (a licensed childcare in someone's home)
$875/month which includes 9 hours of care per day and 3'ish meals per day.
That's like $40/day or like $4/hour. Where else are you going to get that
value?!

~~~
JustSomeNobody
The median household income in the US is $59K. Paying $875/month isn't easy by
any stretch of the imagination.

What value.

~~~
kelnos
No one is claiming that paying that is _easy_ for everyone, merely that taking
care of someone for 9 hours a day, including meals, for $40/day is actually
ridiculously cheap. I can't think of many (any?) services I could pay for that
would cost a mere $4/hr for labor+materials.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Shame the person earning that can’t afford their own childcare.

~~~
giarc
You'd actually be surprised that most at home daycare providers choose that
profession. Most typically have their own child and decide to also take in a
few other children to make extra money. I ran a startup in this field and
worked with many dayhome providers. Some do it as their career, some do it for
a few years while their children are young and they would like to stay home
and be with them.

------
strenholme
Here in California, once a kid is four or five years old (ready to go to
elementary school), we provide subsidized care at public schools in the form
of ESS (Extended Student Services). It costs under $5000 a year to have the
kid cared for from 6:30am to 6pm (usually, parents drop off their kids later
and pick them up earlier). The staff are very professional and kind people.

Yes, there are issues with more parents who want their kids to be in it than
slots available, and there are about four or five weeks a year when it’s not
available, but it does provide excellent child care for kids.

------
arbuge
"One side effect of “the end of babies”—or, less dramatically, the steady
decline in fertility rates around the world—is that today’s parents spend more
time and money on the few kids they do have."

Might that be a cause of declining fertility rates rather than a side-effect
of it?

To me it seems pretty logical that some parents in a position to use birth-
control to limit the size of their families would decide to do so, given the
costs of child care.

------
nine_zeros
How about going to Asian style societies where the caregivers are grandparents
or older people? Most people close to retirement (or already retired) don't
need as much money since medicare already takes care of them.

~~~
mrlala
That would be great be apparently current older generations have been
brainwashed into thinking that your entire goal for your life is to save for a
lavish retirement where you will finally get to enjoy yourself every day after
you retire and should have no responsibilities. Which basically equates to-
don't enjoy any day until you retire because you are so busy focused on
retirement.

My parents are like that.. my mom even moved to live close to one of my
siblings and the grandchildren.. but complains every single time she has to
watch them because it takes up her valuable retired time... ok.

~~~
factsaresacred
The deal works both ways in most Asian societies. Grandparents take care of
the grandchildren, children take care of the grandparents.

But in the West many children shuffle their folks off to a home. Kind of
tragic all around.

~~~
kelnos
I think there are a lot of crappy attitudes around both child care and elder
care, but I reject the notion that a child has an obligation to care for their
parents. Children don't choose to be born, and any parent that chooses to have
kids in part because they want someone to take care of them when they get old
is incredibly selfish.

------
buboard
Why then don't one of the parents choose to stay at home or work at home
(excluding single parents of course)? Either childcare is not a big expense ,
or there's some kind of societal taboo against raising your own kids at home?
Is this part of the bigger bubble that makes raising kids so effortful and
costly in time, that people just end up not having them?

~~~
pwthornton
This logic could be applied to k-12 education, which would be rather expensive
if not government-subsidized.

Pre-school in particular benefits both the children who receive it and the
parents who are able to work. A lack of affordable childcare disproportionally
falls on women as well, which is something worth tackling.

The other issue not even mentioned here is that childcare and pre-school are
expensive but they don't pay well. A larger role from the government would pay
these people more and provide more stability for pre-school teachers and
children alike.

~~~
buboard
> This logic could be applied to k-12 education, which would be rather
> expensive if not government-subsidized.

No, because most parents aren't good at teach their kids basic knowledge.

> Pre-school in particular benefits both the children?

Disagree, it's a virus-fest and a herdish, artificial beginning in life.
People who are lucky enough to grow their kids in rural/family/small town
settings have it much better.

> A lack of affordable childcare disproportionally falls on women

agreed, but that can easily be worked on

------
yters
If child care is so expensive, wouldn't the income loss of one parent staying
at home be irrelevant? Plus, the parent could find some simple side gigs that
fit into at home childcare, or even do paid childcare themselves.

I think the real problem is people don't like taking care of kids, and would
rather have a stranger do the job. Understandable since kids are noisy,
disobedient, stinky little things, but we were all that at some point
(probably still are) and someone took care of us.

Then there are all the single parent families, but why are there so many
single parent families? Again, I think it is because people aren't willing to
put up with each other's imperfections. Yes, sometimes there is real abuse
going on that means staying together is actual a danger to life. But, is that
the majority of cases? I am doubtful.

So, the real reason child care is so expensive is because we aren't willing to
suck up and stick out with the imperfections of other human beings without a
paycheck.

~~~
mc3
> Parent could find some simple side gigs

Highly unlikely! Maybe for a 4 year old there could be some time during the
day. Let's say 1 hour. The type of gig where you can do an hour of work and be
paid for it ... won't pay much. Let's say $20. It is hardly worth it. Now
compare that to being at work.

> I think the real problem is people don't like taking care of kids, and would
> rather have a stranger do the job.

I don't think so. Taking care of your own kids is much more rewarding than
going to work. If work is better it's because the job is great, not because
the kids are annoying. Staying at home looking after kids is a lot easier. If
you work you have a limited window to get them ready for care, it's a rush,
then you have to commute to work, rush back to childcare after work, and then
take them home and get them ready super quick for bed. It is not ideal, and
not really a choice based on laziness.

> Understandable since kids are noisy, disobedient, stinky little things.

Ok..... That's one way to characterize them I guess. Seems a bit harsh.

> So, the real reason child care is so expensive is because we aren't willing
> to suck up and stick out with the imperfections of other human beings
> without a paycheck.

The real reason is it takes a lot of labour to look after the kids, administer
the centre, cook, and also real estate and maintenance of property etc. And
people pay for it because they need to work to afford to raise kids.

~~~
kelnos
> _Taking care of your own kids is much more rewarding than going to work. If
> work is better it 's because the job is great, not because the kids are
> annoying._

Be careful; you're stating as fact something that is incredibly subjective.

Regardless, "taking care of your own kids" encompasses a lot of things that
are not at all like one another. Teaching a kid how to do math: rewarding.
Cleaning up after your kid accidentally dumps paint onto the carpet: tedious
and frustrating. In part, kids _are_ noisy, disobedient, stinky little things
(as well as many other things, some of them not so negative), and I would not
consider dealing with that aspect of them at all fun.

(Your opinion on all that might differ, which is kinda the point I'm trying to
make here.)

~~~
yters
Yes kids do many horrible nasty disgusting things. We romanticize children to
their detriment, making us unable and unwilling to stare into the abyss that
is toddlerhood and deal with it head on.

------
Coffeewine
The listed reasons:

> First, although child-care workers aren’t expensive on an hourly basis—their
> median hourly wage is less than that of non-farm-animal caretakers and
> janitors—labor is the biggest line item for child-care facilities. Unlike,
> say, car companies, they can’t cut spending by moving labor to poorer
> countries or by replacing human workers with machines.

> The industry is highly regulated, perhaps reasonably so, given the
> vulnerability of the clientele ... Other costs include insurance to cover
> damage to the property and worker injuries, as well as legal fees to deal
> with inevitable parent lawsuits.

> Finally, there’s the real estate. The most expensive child-care facilities
> tend to be situated near high-income neighborhoods or in commercial
> districts, where the rents are high. And they can’t downsize in a pinch,
> because most states require them to have ample square footage for each kid.

~~~
seiferteric
You forgot mandatory ratios. This sets the limit on how low costs can be.

------
cpascal
Anecdotally, the margins can be fairly large. I am aware of one daycare in the
NYC metropolitan area with around 100 students that PROFITS nearly
$9000/yr/student.

Their teacher pay scale also tops out at $15/hr, but each teacher represents
around a $8000/month revenue stream.

The daycare’s rent is about $40,000 a month.

------
2ion
And the root cause: "I'd let my wife stay home but the returns on my labour
have diminished so much in the past 50 years that she has to work too."

------
buzzy_hacker
I don't understand the argument this article is making. It goes from
establishing that the cost of child care has increased much faster than other
goods/services, to advocating that the government pay for it. Where's the
connection? Simply moving the costs from new parents to the US tax-base won't
do anything to address the underlying causes of the high costs.

It seems to me that we need solutions to address the high cost in any case,
and the question of whether the government should be more involved is an
orthogonal concern.

Unless the argument is that there's not an effective way to control the costs,
so the government should help pay for it to not overly burden new parents.
But, I didn't see that point explicitly made in the article.

------
simscitizen
Surprised that there wasn't any mention of Baumol's cost disease:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease).

------
kauffj
Child care is likely expensive for at least two reasons:

\- Child care is a superior good (in the economics sense). As we get richer,
we almost certainly spend more of our money on it, as we do in other areas
that are substantially driven by signalling (see health care, education).

\- It is absurdly regulated and there is nothing close to a free market. My
family participates in a child care sharing arrangement that results in
several families regularly breaking the law. That is because it is illegal to
watch more than 4 children (if at least one of them is not yours) without
state licensing.

------
ouid
>"In Massachusetts, which requires one caregiver for every three infants, the
average annual cost is more than $16,000. In Mississippi, which allows a one-
to-five ratio, the cost is less than $5,000."

Even if the workers were making 100% of the costs of childcare, This means
that the Mississippi employee is being paid half as much as the Massachusetts
employee. Mississippi's economy is _clearly_ not comparable to Massachusetts's
economy. Why is the Atlantic treating this comparison as valid?

~~~
ben7799
On top of that the MA regulations are different in other ways. Any day care
center in MA that is $16k+ you will find that 90%+ of the staff have at least
a Bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education. Probably not the case in a
place where the average cost is less than $5000.

------
kube-system
My mother always said raising kids was a full time job.

The difference today is that we measure it.

~~~
WhompingWindows
And the difference is that other the economy's full time jobs pay a lot less
than they used to, relative to costs like housing, education, and healthcare,
which have all vastly outstripped wage growth.

~~~
kube-system
I understand your point, but I'm not sure those are accurate measuring sticks,
as people's expectations of housing, education, and healthcare have changed
drastically since the boomers' generation.

Regardless, it's easy to be an economic powerhouse when most of Asia had yet
to undergo industrial revolution, and the rest of the developed world was
rebuilding from war. I don't think it's surprising that wages are stagnant --
our economic output has competition now.

------
imbusy111
When women work, their hours are actually evaluated in monetary terms and the
cost is added to the cost of childcare instead of ignoring their unpaid
working hours. That's just better accounting.

------
meerita
What is increasing the childcare so much? Other countries with less resources
than 1st world countries have inmense amount of childs and I don't understand
why everything became so expensive.

~~~
josephpmay
In most countries, people generally live with or near their extended families,
and grandparents/aunts/cousins watch over the children if the mother works.
This is much less common in America.

------
virmundi
Why not look at the macro issues here? The environment is overtaxed. The
future is doomed anyway. Why not return to the Roman system where the father
has the right to kill the child up until a certain age? Incentives this with a
cash payment for every child put down coupled with a requirement to be
sterilized for five years. Say a one time payment of $10k per child and a tax
deduction of $2k per year of the five years sterile. You can solve global
warming, cost of child take, and student debt.

------
readhn
according to this [https://www.care.com/c/stories/15167/what-is-home-daycare-
an...](https://www.care.com/c/stories/15167/what-is-home-daycare-and-how-much-
will-it-cost/)

in MA the cost of family daycare is still $6 per hour. This is below min wage
and is dirt cheap!!!

Imagine if we paid daycare $25-50/hr ? then the daycare would be truly
unaffordable ... how about $103,000/year daycare cost ($50/hr) ???

------
homerhomer
Our daycare used the State's regulated rate. I live in zip 97201 and it's
$1,415 a day for infant care. This is the basic licensed daycare rate. I found
that childcare would use this a base and go up there there.

[https://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ASSISTANCE/CHILD-
CARE/Pages/Rates...](https://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ASSISTANCE/CHILD-
CARE/Pages/Rates.aspx)

------
noetic_techy
It seems to me this is another case of government interference causing vast
increases in cost, especially the caretaker to child ratio: 1:3 = $15,000 1:5
= $5,000. And what does the author advocate? More government meddling! Higher
standards! Good intention policies with bad economic outcomes / unintended
consequences needs to stop. Yes we know if every child had 1:1 care from
someone with a Ivy league child psych degree we would all be better off.
Unfortunately that's not the society we can afford even in the affluent west.
Save it for the elite who have the cash to burn. Don't force lower income folk
into your preferred world view. You cripple them economically and then cry for
more intervention because you crippled them. Sure, its one thing to enforce
safety standards, its another thing entirely to enforce that every 3 children
has a surrogate "parent" of the highest standard. Imagine if they imposed this
ratio on grade school education. And no I'm not saying 1:100 is fine.
Obviously not. But I knew people who watched 1:10 kids growing up in their own
home, a mix of low income and middle class. While not ideal they all lived
normal lives and everything turned out just fine for those children in the
end.

------
WomanCanCode
Child care is expensive but I rather pay for someone to watch and look after
my child at a daycare center then doing it 24 X7. Taking care of the house and
children is just mindless, time consuming and exhausting, It doesn't give me
the satisfaction that I get when working with something that requires a degree
and talent.

------
readhn
Quality care SHOULD cost a lot of money because hard educational labor (child
care) should be well compensated!

Great quality teachers (early childhood) SHOULD be able to earn $75-100K +
Which means that really daycare should be at least somewhere around
$50-75K/year.

------
zeveb
> While it’s admirable for companies to fill the day-care vacuum, the absence
> of a national solution is an indictment of American policy.

California is very different from Vermont which is very different from
Mississippi. It doesn't make any more sense for the three to have identical
child-care systems than it does for Denmark, Italy and Lithuania.

I don't find his argument that only the federal government is large enough to
capture the upside particularly compelling, and his straw-man counterarguments
are … strawmen.

Moreover, it's _also_ important to understand what the second-order results of
any state child-care policy are. While parents do mistreat their children, I
am reasonably sure that child-care workers mistreat children more often. If
so, a child-care policy which substitutes non-parent care for parent care will
likely result in increased rates of mistreatment.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> While parents do mistreat their children, I am reasonably sure that child-
> care workers mistreat children more often.

Why would you think this? I’m pretty sure there are way more cases of child
abuse by parents than child abuse by day care workers. Day care workers don’t
deal with children with much privacy, there are other kids and day care
workers, whereas parents have none of those constraints. Also, for day care
workers, it’s just a job, vs. parents who are more emotionally caught up in
taking care of their kids (and could make more mistakes due to emotions).

~~~
kcolford
Furthermore, there are significant screenings that happen before a child care
worker can become one while there's virtually none before someone becomes a
parent. It's only after the fact that an abuser is caught.

------
pnathan
The solution is simple: extend the public school system to the newborn. It's
widespread, the background check system is in place, the logistics are in
place. The only question is funding and the legislation mandating it.

------
hestefisk
In Sydney average cost of daycare per childcare is very high — about USD 90.
Denmark is half the cost. Often what drives up the cost is heavy regulation of
‘quality standards’.

------
purplezooey
The article gives only nominal growth rates and does not mention if adjusted
for inflation.

------
whb07
next they should make an article titled “Why getting into great physical shape
requires a lot of effort”.

Is anyone really learning anything from this article? Or is this just a
general complaint looking for a boogeyman.

------
ChaosDegenerate
The thing with female workforce participation: isn't it just symptom of the
society getting poorer. My wife worked her ass off. I was making about 130k /
year. She was making about 60k / year. Then we not only moved from the US to
Poland (where live is just so much cheaper). But I also started making about
330k / year. All the willingness to work evaporated on her part :-) Instead we
have another kid. She stopped talking about work and started talking about
having more kids. Of course, that's anectodal, but also common sense, isn't
it?

My little theory is that while men still made enough money to support good
life in the US (50s, 60s) most women just didn't want to work. If you can have
a house, nice car, four kids, vacation home, 40 hour week, no credit card
debt, no school debt, and all of that on carpenter salary -- why not to enjoy
life instead of spending 50-60 hours at the office?

The dirty secret is that most women work because they HAVE TO. It's not a
choice. It's sold to the society at large as something glamorous because --
what? They're going to tell the truth? Yeah, you need to work your ass off
50-60 hours a week, with credit card debt, student loan debt, two cars loan,
etc, etc. just to be able barely make it to have two kids at 35 ? Because
before that you need advanced degree or two. Actually both of you do... I mean
how is that a better deal?

I can see that also from the reaction of my wife friends who stayed in the US
working to basically help their husbands as one salary won't cut it. It's not
like they wouldn't prefer to stay at home with kids. But, again, it's not like
they have a choice.

~~~
cortesoft
I would be very careful about making that large a generalization (that all
else being equal, women would prefer to stay home over working).

Childcare is mind numbing work, especially with young kids. Sure, some women
(and men) would prefer that, but a LOT of women prefer office work over
raising children.

"why not to enjoy life instead of spending 50-60 hours at the office?" is
really selling short how much work raising young kids is. It is NOT enjoying
life to stay home with toddlers. Maybe once they start school and you get
hours to yourself, but before that it is way more time consuming than working
at an office.

I know, I have done both. I took long paternity leaves to care for both of my
kids, and while I love being able to bond with the kids, I was so happy to be
able to go back to work. The freedom I have at the office compared to being
home with the kids was night and day. Just being able to go to the bathroom
when I need to, to get food when I want..... young kids are non-stop work.

I LOVE being a dad, but the weekends are way more stressful than the weekdays.
Wrangling kids is way harder than programming computers.

~~~
jawns
> Childcare is mind numbing work

> It is NOT enjoying life to stay home with toddlers.

> I was so happy to be able to go back to work

> the weekends are way more stressful than the weekdays

I have to say, this kind of perspective on being a parent puzzles me, even
though it's pretty widely held. Honestly, many parents I encounter seem almost
as if they'd prefer to be their child's aunt or uncle than their mom or dad.
Certainly not in title, but possibly in terms of responsibilities.

I get it, raising kids is HARD. But the sense of purpose I feel about writing
code that helps my company's investors become slightly richer is totally
unlike the sense of purpose I feel about teaching my child about the alphabet,
even if many days it feels like a slog.

I like this quote from G.K. Chesterton about the importance of this work.
Chesterton is talking specifically about a mother, but I think it holds true
whether the primary caregiver is a father or a mother:

> To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets,
> labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys,
> boots, sheets, cakes. and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area,
> teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this
> might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can
> it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of
> Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How
> can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be
> everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it
> is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the
> hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

~~~
jedberg
Think of it this way. Imagine if when you went to work, you only got to do the
"fun stuff" for a hour a day, and the rest of the day you just filled out
paperwork and moved things back and forth in a predetermined pattern. And work
lasted from the time you woke up to the time you slept.

Being a parent is the greatest joy I've ever known, but the joyful parts are
the punctuation on the mind-numbing toil. That toil is only bearable because
of the fun bits, but it's still there.

Being a parent is very important work, and can bring great joy, but it's
possible to both love the joy and hate the toil in between.

~~~
josinalvo
Can you be more specific?

What is the nature of this toil?

~~~
rayiner
I've got two kids: 15 month old boy, 7 year old girl. With the boy, the toil
is literally keeping him from killing himself. If you put him downstairs,
he'll try to climb up the stairs. He'll climb on the couch and fall off the
other side. He'll drop things in the toilet. He'll try to pull stuff off
shelves. He'll climb up the chair onto the dining room table. He is not
content to sit and eat. I gave him cornbread yesterday, and he insisted on
eating with a fork. (Basically just crumbling up cornbread to go everwhere.)
If you take the fork away from him he cries. He does this 16 hours a day non-
stop. He doesn't nap, he doesn't watch TV, etc.

The girl has no internal monologue. She has to run every thought in her head
by you. Most of them are pointless and incoherent, but you have to humor her.
She will say "um..." just to keep warmed up for the next thing she might want
to say. She requires constant attention and affirmation. She wants you to
watch her do a cartwheel--identical the previous million cartwheels--and
respond enthusiastically. She won't eat her vegetables. We have a rule that we
eat vegetables before we eat the rest of the meal. Every meal becomes a bitter
war of attrition where she fights to eat green beans as slowly as possible,
hoping you will give up. (Between boy and girl, eating a meal peacefully is
impossible.)

Meals--when I was single I once went three months eating a turkey sandwich
every day for lunch. Your kids will not put up with this.

Getting them ready to go out is a huge effort. They have a million accessories
(bottles, diapers, toys, etc.). They have no sense of urgency. You are trying
to get to church on time while girl is starting a craft project.

They generate huge amounts of clutter. Markers, crayons, paper, toys, etc.
Taking a hard line on toys is little help, because their school sends them
home with piles of art, crafts projects, etc.

They are _very rewarding._ When they're sleepy and both snuggling on the
couch, I hug them and think "I will never do anything better than this." My
wife and I will look at the older one playing with the younger one and say:
"this is the best part of life, it'll just go downhill from here." The only
reason we don't have a third yet is accounting for private school tuition. At
the same time, my wife and I relish going to work every Monday so we can deal
with angry opposing counsel instead of picking up after the kids.

~~~
novok
I feel like a lot of this labor is generated by the fact that most kids in
america can't go run out and play with other kids in the neighbourhood
anymore.

Your 7 year old would not be asking for you to endlessly watch her cartwheel
and interact with her out of bordem. They would be out playing 24/7 in the
local forest, come back for food and boo-boos, be back before dark and be in
bed a couple of hours after dinner / night time with an 8 or 9pm sleep time
and a 6am wake time.

Kids were not meant to be a lot of work, our society makes them a lot of work.

~~~
jedberg
Unfortunately for those of us who want to parent this way, we risk having the
authorities called on us, because the other parents watch too much local news.

It's much safer to be a kid now than when I was growing up, but the news makes
it seem like it isn't. I would let my seven year old walk to the park by
herself, 1/2 a mile away, if I wasn't afraid of having the cops show up.

When I take her to the park now, I let her play on the structure about 100
yards away, _within my line of sight_. And still adults will come up to her
and ask her where her mommy and daddy are.

~~~
kelnos
That is really the saddest thing to me. I remember with great amounts of
happiness when I was between 5 and 10 years old and would ride my bicycle
around the neighborhood with my friends, go traipsing around the woods, and
exercise my imagination. (Getting home and having to sit still while my mother
dug through my hair and scalp for ticks was torture, but was worth it.)

My nephew is not yet four years old, so he's probably still too young to be
outside playing on his own, but I fear he'll be in the same boat as your
daughter in a few years, unable to do anything outside of his parents' line of
sight.

------
quantumfoam
Because they don’t want you to reproduce you dumb fuck.

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. Could
you please not create accounts to do that with?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
ecoled_ame
I'm glad the population is mind-bogglingly large so I don't feel obligated to
have kids. I can save a lot of money and enjoy peace & quiet while I get
better at skateboarding and science and playing video games. Plus, no wife. I
never have to do things I don't want to. I never have to please anybody. It
rocks.

~~~
ngngngng
You should feel obligated.

I believe your opinion is similar to climate change denial since all the
experts on the subject disagree with you.

~~~
ecoled_ame
Sounds like extra work and and an unwanted nuisance to my life of leisure.
Plus I love alone time, I could never live with a woman long enough to breed
with her.

Whenever I walk in public, all I can think is jeez ... there are so many
random people. Seems like we need better planning. People just have kids on
whim, to satisfy themselves, like a life goal. It doesn't make much sense to
me. I think mostly ladies want children.

~~~
glofish
There is nothing wrong with not wanting kids. Makes sense.

That being said I would recommend toning down the rhetoric of how much better
you're off for not having kids - it rings fake and forced as if you needed to
convince yourself repeatedly and it is needlessly antagonistic.

The analogy is that of having a dog. I'd like to have a dog. I think it is fun
to have a dog. Alas, dogs are not for me, they feel the kind of work and
responsibility that I am not ready for. But I respect and admire people that
have dogs! I am not going to say that I am so much better off for not having a
dog.

~~~
buboard
> That being said I would recommend toning down the rhetoric of how much
> better you're off for not having kids

We could also entertain the reverse: that too much emphasis and pressure is
being put on someone being a parent. There is a very widespread self-
congratulatory element to being a parent (to the point that many people list
it as a job title). But having children is something that people have been
doing quite easily and nonchalantly from the beginning of time until these
last 2 generations, which spend twice as much as before with their kids
([https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2017/11/27/parents-...](https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2017/11/27/parents-now-spend-twice-as-much-time-with-their-children-
as-50-years-ago)). There is a parenting bubble that is scaring people away
from having children, and maybe it should be addressed as a problem.

Edit: Also, i feel a lot of people have dogs because there are no societal
expectations about how to raise your dog. They are much easier to have than
children.

~~~
kelnos
I'd like to chime in and agree with this, but perhaps with a bit of a
different twist. There are tons of reasons why people are pressured into
having kids, and very few people reminding others that having children is a
choice, not to mention a huge responsibility. I think we'd have a much
happier, safer world if the only people who had kids were those who truly
wanted them. Parental, spousal, and peer pressure to have children is very
real and very strong, but IMO has no place in being a part of that decision.

~~~
buboard
> is a choice, not to mention a huge responsibility.

Actually, i think these two are inversely correlated. The demands from parents
have become crazy for no apparent benefit. It's illegal to raise kids as they
did 2 generations ago. It would become more of a choice if people at large
relaxed a bit and let kids be kids or learn by themselves, or in tiny
neighborhood groups.

~~~
kelnos
Not sure I follow. I don't see how the changing legality of parenting style
has anything to do with whether or not it's a choice to have a kid or not.

------
tathougies
The easiest solution to 'child care' \-- allow children to come to the office.
Most people have cushy office jobs. Kids 0 - 5 do not take up much space.

Parents can take staggered lunch breaks to watch the children. Children would
be in a common area that'd be appropriately gated off. In dual-income
families, either mom or dad can take the child to their office.

Benefits:

(1) Both parents can work and be with their child

(2) Children see adults working, not just playing. This is good as children
want to be like adults

(3) Non-parents get to spend time with babies and children, which is
wonderful!

(4) For nursing working mothers, having the baby there would make nursing much
easier than pumping. Babies could even be given little bassinets to sleep and
wiggle around in near mom and dad, if they want that.

(5) The child/children can share in mom and dad's lunch.

(6) Cute babies in offices!!! How great is that!?

Speaking from personal experience, when my colleagues have been forced due to
circumstance to bring their young children in to the office, the experience
has always been positive. However, my colleagues seem worried that one of us
may be offended and apologize incessantly. We should stop this and just make
it a policy that children are allowed in-office. I mean, a lot of companies
I've worked at have allowed dogs, which can't be potty trained, don't wear
diapers, and sometimes bite people. Why are children treated worse than dogs?

EDIT: responses to this thread are the #1 reason why we will never have
affordable childcare. Americans, as a group, highly highly dislike children,
even if they won't admit it out of fear of sounding like a misanthrope.

~~~
jedberg
This is essentially what the big tech companies do with their onsite daycare.
They have adults who get hired just to watch the kids, and you can pop in and
out as your schedule permits.

It's hard to get work done when there are kids _in the work area_ , so I can
see why most companies don't encourage this. Especially since some people
don't like kids.

Another even better solution is a remote workforce. Then only you have to deal
with the distractions of your kid, except during meetings. As long as you can
find something to do with the kid, or people are ok with kids on the
conference call, it works out.

My employees are used to seeing my kid pop into the frame during video calls,
and it's not really a problem.

~~~
tathougies
> Especially since some people don't like kids.

Well those people can be shunted off into some sad depressing part of the
building? Or work from home.

Remote work is great, but it's also very nice and social to bring babies in to
the office to meet your friends. What's so wrong with that?

~~~
Konnstann
The majority of my office is BL2 Lab space, people who bring their kids in are
being incredibly irresponsible. The other aspect is a lot of people who would
benefit from workplace daycare don't work in white-collar office spaces.
Finally segregating people who don't enjoy distractions at work seems very
rude, I like kids but I am overly cautious around them, if someone brought
their kid into work I'd be more focused on the kid not killing him/herself
than my job.

~~~
tathougies
Most people do not work in BL2 lab space. Most office people have desk jobs,
where they sit at a desk and type all day.

