Why Child Care Is So Expensive

Re:Why Child Care Is So Expensive by novok on Monday December 09, 2019 @05:15PM (#21747231)

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.

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Re:Why Child Care Is So Expensive by jedberg on Monday December 09, 2019 @05:18PM (#21747255)

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.

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Re:Why Child Care Is So Expensive by kelnos on Monday December 09, 2019 @05:42PM (#21747454)

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.

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Re:Why Child Care Is So Expensive by xyzzyz on Monday December 09, 2019 @06:39PM (#21747927)

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

I think you’re right: in the past, each kid was much less work than they are today. The difference is that you also used to have 6 of them, and used to expect that not all of them might survive to adulthood. This is clearly not acceptable approach in today’s society.

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Re:Why Child Care Is So Expensive by novok on Monday December 09, 2019 @08:33PM (#21748774)

Kids could play outside alone in the 40s, 50s and 60s too, and child mortality wasn't 1800s they might all die levels. And in some developed countries like germany and japan it still is possible today [0]. Everything that jedberg described wouldn't probably happen.

Around the 70s the workload ratchet started going up, with each decade adding more and more restrictions. Look at stranger things, today it's a bit iffy to let 12 year olds go out biking by themselves to see their friends. In the 80s you could!

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/reader-center/free-range-...

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Re:Why Child Care Is So Expensive by tptacek on Monday December 09, 2019 @07:40PM (#21748435)

Virtually none of the labor Rayiner is describing is a consequence of his kids not being able to go out and play. As he related, and as anyone who's parented a 15-month-old knows in their bones, keeping them from killing themselves or destroying the house is indeed a full-time job.

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Re:Why Child Care Is So Expensive by novok on Monday December 09, 2019 @08:35PM (#21748791)

I was talking more about the 7 year old than the 1 year old. Also grandparents, the village, other house spouses, etc helped with that early workload too.

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Re:Why Child Care Is So Expensive by tptacek on Monday December 09, 2019 @08:47PM (#21748855)

That begs the question of the thread, whose premise is that the labor those grandparents or "the village" put in has a price, and it is surprisingly high.

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