Comments on: Minding the Kids

By: natasha

natasha — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 19:50:15 +0000

jt – “But the food industry is basically a capitalist enterprises (lets leave aside benefits and costs imposed on it by gov’t) and everyone does not pay for it. You can come up with many more examples. In fact, specific industries generally benefit the whole country, yet they are not “socialized.”” I’m sorry. Who is it, exactly, that doesn’t pay money to the food industry when consuming their products? Are there really that many self-sufficient food producers? This analogy leaks like a sieve. “On another topic, the problems of making life easier on parents is that you are not pushing the costs on to the corporation — you are pushing them on single or childless or post-child-rearing co-workers. ” Ooooh. Beware the scary anti-capitalist. I’ve heard an awful lot of religious talk in my life, and if you’ve elevated capitalism to the status of unquestionable dogma, your pro-capitalist arguments are probably a little suspect. Those childless and post-child individuals benefit from child care also. Just like they benefit from education. They benefit because the large majority (no matter what the scare mongers tell you) of people in our society are reasonably well behaved. They benefit because they get competent coworkers and/or employees. They benefit because, unlike Brazil or Somalia, it’s comparatively rare in America to have hordes of roving, lawless youth. They benefit from the lower crime rates. They benefit from the overall increased productivity of a population that by and large will, and is capable of, maintaining gainful employment. The benefit is diffuse. It stretches out over time, and in varying degrees of immediacy over the life of a given individual. Sometimes we are the recipients, sometimes we pay for others. Children can’t pay to be cared for, hence the direct recipient of the service (everybody) is incapable of paying the provider at the point of use. This can’t be fixed, unless we want to go back to having 10 year olds work in factories, and look how those societies run. Once someone has become a desperate societal outcast, it’s usually both too late and heinously expensive to then throw money at reforming them. But we do anyway, so that those whom no one would pony up to care properly for as children create a demand for the incredibly expensive public service of prison. And then everybody pays without complaint, because I haven’t heard anyone ever argue that people in this country should entirely privatize prision and policing. Which would be fairer, by your logic, because then everyone could take responsibility for their own safety from the violent criminals running around the streets.

By: JT

JT — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 18:38:36 +0000

Natasha writes: “But everybody pays for public education, which is strangers teaching kids how to prepare for life. And they should all pay, because everybody benefits. But let’s extend that.” That is not logical. Everyone benefits from the food industry, without which the nation could not survive. But the food industry is basically a capitalist enterprises (lets leave aside benefits and costs imposed on it by gov’t) and everyone does not pay for it. You can come up with many more examples. In fact, specific industries generally benefit the whole country, yet they are not “socialized.” On another topic, the problems of making life easier on parents is that you are not pushing the costs on to the corporation—you are pushing them on single or childless or post-child-rearing co-workers. Suggestions like this, clothed in the vapor of anti-capitalist language, need to be treated very carefully.

By: Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 17:22:35 +0000

“Now they are snarky teenagers who don’t want to be caught dead with their parents. To be fair to you as a parent, no amount of staying at home earlier in your childrens life is known to avoid this sort of behavior later on.” I understand and accept that. The point here is not that we were good or bad parents. We did the best we could. The point is that I did not get to spend enough time with them when they were babies. My friend Kathy is a partner in a law firm and her husband Marvin stays home and takes care of their 3 children. Kathy is not at home with her kids and she misses them. There are no institutional arrangements, short of the abolition of the division of labor and the surrender of industrial civilaization, that will resolve this dilemma. If you are working, you are not at home and that is all there is to that. Its a dilema and you can chose which horn to impail yourself on, but you cannot avoid it ever.

By: zizka

zizka — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 01:34:38 +0000

I’ve heard this all before two different ways. On the one hand, there’s the first-wave feminist idea that work thought of as women’s work is undervalued. By now you could actually cost it out: a nanny plus a housekeeper / cook plus a concubine. Looks like about $80,000-a-year-plus to me. (A surrogate mother? $50—100,000?) So for Jane to give up a career (the opportunity cost) for that really wouldn’t be an enormous sacrifice—if women’s work were valued and paid for. But childraising is not in the cash economy, so a kid is strictly money out, a luxury like an expensive sports car that needs constant mechanic work. And the devout stay-home mothers she admires were rewarded mostly in Heaven. The guy earned money, the parasitic wife-mother spent it and got beaten from time to time. So one problem is that Jane cannot expect to be paid for her off-market childraising work. Or to put it otherwise, if a child is an expensive luxury item, Jane hasn’t earned enough to buy one of those high-maintenance little goodies. This also looks (on the other hand) like the old dual economy, with the colonials producing products in a traditional non-market system, motivated by custom and feudal ties and pious fictions, which are then bought at market price by the colonizers. The market economy always strangles and dominates the traditional system, IIRC, though they can coexist for long periods. So maybe eventually childraising will all be on-market. You will then be able to speak, for example, of a $500,000 soccer-playing Harvard freshman, or equally of a $5,000 high-school-dropout gang member. This will allow class relations to be properly quantified and objectified. You also will be able to think more rationally about your $500,000 Harvard graduate* working in a copy center and hanging out with his buds, perhaps marking him or her down and writing off your losses. One solution to the problem, hired day care, stumbles on the wage question. To get a nanny good enough for her kids, Jane would have to get someone as good as herself and pay her as much as she herself gets. She would then work for nothing and let the nanny have all the money she earns, in return for giving Jane owenership of the kids. (As I said, NOT a rational choice!) Or else she could recognize that childraising is an inferior, femalish activity not worthy of high pay and hire an cheap illegal lady to do it. This is actually a common solution, and I noticed that when she thought of day care she planned to pay the market price rather than (as I suggested) going above market and getting a PhD-level nanny. (Though of course, her survey indicated that most PhD’s are too proud to sink to the nanny level—though probably her friends are successful PhD’s anyway, and not $30,000/ yr. adjuncts.) * The $500,000 college graduate is not the same person as the $500,000 Harvard freshman, who upon graduation should be worth at least $650,000—more if he or she actually studied while in school.

By: natasha

natasha — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 01:24:37 +0000

thomas – Yes, government is free riding, too. So are small businesses, and any other kind of company. I would formerly have agreed with your statement that it was silly to assign value to things by how much ‘the market’ would pay. But the fact of the matter is that unless people are made to pay for something, they seem to believe that it exists in unlimited quantities and has no opportunity cost. But everybody pays for public education, which is strangers teaching kids how to prepare for life. And they should all pay, because everybody benefits. But let’s extend that. Money has, like it or not, become the yardstick of value, the language of worth. What I’m saying is that it’s silly to fight completely against the tide. Instead, force the market value to reflect our ethical and human values. Force childcare to be recognized as a valuable activity by assigning it a proportionally correct market value. If people only know the price of everything, and the value of nothing, then the price should be pushed into line with the value. And I think that line of attack would be useful in many more arenas than childcare.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 21:01:41 +0000

natasha—Well, “corporations” certainly aren’t any different from, say, law firms organized as partnerships in that regard. As for getting something and not paying for it: government, by that logic, is equally free riding, since it gets the benefit of someone else taking care of the kids. Or, really, one could hypothetically assign the duty to care (or pay for the care) for children to anyone, and then assert that they are free riding because they’re not, in this world, actually paying it. And what does it say about our construction of the world that the sole measure of value is the market’s value for a particular activity? While we’re reconstructing the world in our minds, could we take that part out?

By: natasha

natasha — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 17:10:35 +0000

“Is mother care naturally inferior to father care beyond the breastfeeding issue?” That should have read: Is father care naturally inferior to mother care… thomas – “Why is it that “corporations” are the ones doing the free-riding? Is that just another word for capitalist?” Corporations are the ones doing the free-riding because they’re getting a benefit (care for their employees children, and the work of raising their employees in the first place) they haven’t paid for. And this is another problem, the issue of pay. There is no reimbursement for being a stay at home parent. No tax break, no social security, nothing. This is always touted as the most valuable activity under the sun, but no one wants to put their money where their mouths are. And indeed, the only subsidy given to poor mothers who want to stay home with their kids is constantly derided as immoral, possibly the first small step towards a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. And it’s overwhelmingly done by women, who are raised with the perverse mindset that leaves them feeling guilty for asking people to pay them adequately for any valuable work they provide. (Which, imo, is at least part of the reason why our salaries tend to be lower. The not asking for it part.) Our whole society free-rides on womens’ willingness (and often a guilt-ridden insistence) to do for free the work of making sure that the next generation of people grows up adequately well. It’s a long-term benefit that our usual short-term planning stubbornly refuses to recognize. And if nothing else, this could be a major reason why having more stay-home dads will change things. Men aren’t raised with the idea in their heads that they shouldn’t be compensated for their work. Labors of love are great and all, but to paraphrase Heinlein, when a man speaks of honor you should make him pay cash.

By: Jonas Cord

Jonas Cord — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 17:08:03 +0000

Now they are snarky teenagers who don‰?ªt want to be caught dead with their parents.

To be fair to you as a parent, no amount of staying at home earlier in your childrens life is known to avoid this sort of behavior later on.

By: Anders

Anders — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 14:08:20 +0000

Oops, I meant to say, “I said utopian answers don’t count because I do think we need to fight for reforms.”

By: Anders

Anders — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 14:06:43 +0000

It always surprises me that we’re at a point where anyone who argues that we need some kind of institutional reform is put in the “barking socialist utopian” box. Kieran, sorry I wasn’t clear enough. I’m all for institutional reforms—that’s why I asked, what would you tell Dean’s campaign. I said utopian answers because I do think we need to fight for reforms. The problem I have with, for ex, Carla’s excellent suggestion of “provide more incentives for onsite childcare, of the type that even takes sick kids, and provide more funding for child care for low-income parents” isn’t that it’s not a good idea, but that if we fight for it & win it, we’re still in pretty bad shape. My niece is 4 years old. When she’s old enough to have kids, I don’t want her to face the same no-win choices that her mom and women of my generation did. I want to fight for my niece’s future, I’m just not sure what to fight for.

By: Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 06:08:25 +0000

“Hiring an expensive nanny doesn’t get around the fact that at that point, someone else is essentially raising your children; someone with different goals and desires for your child. Imparting values and life experiences to your child is simply not susceptible to effective delegation.” Sounds like this is a real dilema. The cake can sit on the cake stand or it can lie in your stomach, but it cannot be in both places at once. You may feel better about working if your significant other is home taking care of the kid, but you will still be at work and not at home with your kid. In my life I worked full time and a half and my wife worked about 30%. I still regret every minute I spent in some windowless conference room arguing with some ninny about the wording of a document that no one would ever read agian, it was one less minute that I spent with my kids when they were babies. Now they are snarky teenagers who don’t want to be caught dead with their parents. Choices. its all choices.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 05:03:18 +0000

Why is it that “corporations” are the ones doing the free-riding? Is that just another word for capitalist? In a world where some men and some women prefer the current state of affairs, with its division of labor falling in somewhat predictable gendered patterns, why is the task automatically one of recasting the problem? Shouldn’t we ascertain first whether most people think there’s a problem, and if there is, shouldn’t we be careful that the solutions don’t inflict needless harm on those who’d make different choices?

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 04:43:22 +0000

I totally agree with Sue’s comment above. Lately I’ve been shocked watching my friends fretting over how much their babies need them. “I feel like what I need to do right now is be a better mother,” says a friend about to come up for tenure. Mind you, her husband works from home, she herself is home more than most working mothers, and the toddler in question is completely thrilled with his life. It would seem to be an ideal childraising situation, but she clearly feels pressure to be the one who’s there all the time. In fact, when she and her husband are together, she tends to act as if he doesn’t know how to change a diaper, despite the fact that he does so more often than she does. I’m sure you could draw more than one lesson from that, but what jumps out at me is the extent to which the problem is in how we think about this, in just the ways I see Jane doing in this discussion. Fathers are useful too. Daycare has advantages over even the most happy-with-her-lot stay-at-home mother, never mind over one who is frustrated that she has a PhD and never even gets to talk to adults. Policy change is indisputably important. But professional women also have to get the hell over this idea that it’s all up to them. I intend that as both a sociological argument—we need some change in our culture’s understandings about childcare—and as an expression of deep frustration that may well turn to minor violence if I watch one more of my friends actively prevent her husband from parenting and then talk about how you just can’t be a mother and get ahead professionally.

By: cafl

cafl — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 04:41:35 +0000

From the vantage point of a professional woman whose two happy, well-adjusted kids are leaving for college (or nearly so), let me disagree with Jane Galt about in home and out of home child care vs. staying at home with the kids. You’ll find that your kids go through different stages where all these options rise to the top as best. Babies and toddlers, I think, probably do best at home, and I think mom’s regrets at not being there for that rapid development make that stage a perfect time to stay at home or cut back work if possible. But gradually increasing outside care in a good preschool works well. Kids from K-5th grade (5-10) are very happy spending lots of time playing with their peers, and if you “stay home with your kids” you’ll actually spend your time carpooling them to sports and friends homes after school. Better to arrange things to have one day a week to do your share of carpooling and soccer watching, and arrange after school care where the kids are with their friends but with adequate provision for supervised homework if needed. At 6th or 7th grade, kids don’t like being treated like babies, and don’t do well in day care. Great time to see if one parent can adjust his or her schedule to be home early, or part time reliable supervision that comes to your home daily in the afternoon to inconspicuously be around to supervise their time with peers on the days they are not playing sports or doing after school activities. You’ll still have carpools. If a parent can do it, it also facilitates being around to hear about school events, listen to worries about peers, and to have that propinquitous discussion about sex. When they hit high school, they have more mobility, and a parent can move his homecoming later. If your values haven’t been transmitted by age 16 or so, you’re a failed parent. They’ll be out of the house by 18 anyway. Thus speaks the voice of experience. Not easy and does require some sacrifices but this can be combined with career with juggling.

By: Sue

Sue — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 03:44:38 +0000

If we, as a society, value that group of people having children, as we presumably do, than we, as a society, should be concerned about about structural problems that might discourage it. Jane, glad you’re raising the question, and sensitive to the short term dilemma individuals face while we’re working on society (or not). But. One very big part of the problem here in the US (and in Germany) is that large segments of the population don’t value having “high SES educated women” having children, because they don’t particularly value such women. They like the idea of upper-middle-class women deciding that it is wrong, somehow, to do anything besides stay at home and raise children full-time. It is a morality play, and a rather offensive one at that. I fear you are buying into their argument, unintentionally, even though you think you are merely giving the claim some dispassionate attention. Here’s why. Children are different, from adults, from each other. My son wanted nothing to do with staying home alone with me all day, and liked the nanny idea less. He was happiest when we found him a family day care setting, licensed and deeply trusted. He’d be happier if I stayed there all day too, but not much. Yes, we are very lucky to have found such a wonderful setting, but not ridiculously so – neighbord found a provider they love just as much. I too worried that he would spend 8.5 hours a day with someone, less time awake than with me, surely she would claim his loyalty. But of course, that’s silly. First of all, there are naps, making the hours awake more compatible. Second, there are weekends, holidays, and the rest of his life. After all, Daddy is just as special, despite a much less flexible work schedule. A child’s affection is not zero-sum. Love for others doesn’t cime out of Mommy’s share, and being loved by others doesn’t make Mommy’s love any less. Child-care providers are also different. Depending on where one lives and the constraints of jobs and price, some poeple don’t have good care options. That doesn’t make it wrong for folks who have more choice. Parents are different. Whether one haws the temperament to devote oneself to child-care varies. Some of us bought into the independent, career-driven ethos, to the point where it would feel more “right” or productive to work for a paycheck in day care than to stay at home for no pay. Self-awareness doesn’t make this less emotionally compelling. Some people need time alone, or the comfort of books and solitude, or the challenge of conversation with someone over the age of three. Some people are more able to work in bits, while a child naps or plays. Others aren’t. No one is well-served by guilt-tripping such a person into full-time child-care. The opening question, and analysis, assuming that all things equal, children are “better off” when a parent is supervising 24 hours a day, is rigid and unrealistic for all the reasons other people have mentioned. Mothers beat themselves up in this way all the time. I have a friend who was wracked with guilt because when her premature infant came along, her two-year-old would only have Mom’s undivided attention for maybe four hours a day, and had to share her the rest of the time. When you consider the plight of potential mothers, try not to reinforce their already-extreme sense of guilt and imperfection. Otherwise you replicate the problem while under the illusion that you’re questioning it. That is, the only practical impact will be making individual women feel worse, perhaps with company, whether or not they have children or stay home. That’s why so many of the comments here have focused on the other agents – employers, fathers, etc.