Gambit on 29/9/2008 at 20:56
Before women conquered the right to work they were confined by their mother roles. They would mostly stay at home and take care of their children and of the house.
Now they are working too, which is great. And althought we have better working conditions than the beggining of industrial revolution (wages of 12 hours, child labour, not many working rights) the level of competition in the market is big and you must be very dedicated to work.
That dedication means less time dedicated to children. A role that BOTH man and woman should be present (father role is not just "I make the baby and you take care of it").
So in order to have a better presence at a child´s life (since everyone complains that parents never dedicate themselves to their child education) how would it be feasible to give father´s and mother´s the right to have less hours in wages ?
Impossible ? Would it mean only profit for no-children employees ?
Chade on 29/9/2008 at 21:32
Resign yourself to having less money? It's possible in a modern society to live quite comfortably on very low amounts of money. Of course, sooner or later you want to start saving ...
Also, people already get "paid" a low amount of money for being at home and taking care of their children, at least in the sense that they are not paying child care fees, which are usually a substantial fraction of the second income.
Turtle on 30/9/2008 at 15:39
That's as ridiculous as saying I'm being paid $4 million because I'm not buying a jet.
Thief13x on 30/9/2008 at 17:14
Quote Posted by Gambit
how would it be feasible to give father´s and mother´s the right to have less hours in wages ?
I would think this would be beneficial to a select few. Most of the 'parents' I know would probably spend the extra time playing World of Warcraft or in the bar.
BEAR on 30/9/2008 at 18:02
Are these just shitty parents or people too young to have had children?
I think that America as a culture has some way to go in terms of quality of life. There is very little focus on such issues for a large part, its kind of every man/woman for themselves.
I would like to think that a civilized society would place more importance on such things, rather than the overextending grind for money and status.
I've known a lot of people who have a baby and spend a couple months with it, until its old enough for daycare, and after that its an evenings/weekend kind of deal, which to me is sad. I think that sort of thing degrades the connection between parents and their children, and I've seen it have an effect in later life.
I would hope there could be a common ground between less hours and more in-house daycare, where parents could be near their children at work (though I fear that in the US this will be almost entirely in only high paying workplaces like google). I personally would be OK taking a hit (as a single male), as I would think it would improve society as a whole and therefore benefit me in the long run (in that hopefully it would decrease the amount of pieces-of-shit-kids that I have to deal with).
BEAR on 30/9/2008 at 18:59
Yeah, I remember reading that a while back (thought of mentioning it but I was too fucking lazy to look it up again).
Its a shame that it is the case when we could fairly easily provide good care to everyone in the country, but I guess thats the way of humanity (and I can't really make a claim that it should be any other way).
Chade on 30/9/2008 at 21:30
Quote Posted by Turtle
That's as ridiculous as saying I'm being paid $4 million because I'm not buying a jet.
Being paid and not having to spend money are two sides of the same coin. Either way, you are better off by the same amount.
Your jet analogy is flawed, because the buyer presumably believes the jet is worth it. The jet owner is actually gaining "value", at least according to his priorities. Child care, on the other hand, is simply an expense required of parents who both work full time.
Chade on 30/9/2008 at 22:17
Childcare, btw, has a fairly screwed business model.
On the one hand, they need to compete in costs with the minimum wage the majority of mums would receive going back into the workforce. To do this they need to offer low wages to their workers and get them looking after as many kids as they can.
On the other hand, they are required to provide good care for children. To do this they need to attract good workers and get them looking after as few kids as they can.
Balancing these two extremes is difficult. It is basically impossible to provide high quality care to children in an economically feasible way. Most child care centres spend a lot of time faking records before accreditation so it looks like they provide better care then they really do. And they still find it hard to avoid going under. Witness the rapid expansion of ABC centres in Australia, for example ...
High quality cheap child care really requires heavy government subsidies to be feasible.
But this finally takes us back to the OP of this thread. There is something ironic about bemoaning the lack of childcare in a thread about encouraging parents to spend more time with their children. Cheap child care is ultimately a device which encourages parents to go back to work, and means less stay-at-home mums. If the objective is to make parents life easier, no matter what option they choose, you'd be better off just chanelling more tax money to parents.
