Could someone explain to me why population growth being based on immigration is a bad thing? Seems like it's all positives to me: more diversity, and more people getting a better life. I don't see any downsides, honestly.
Child rearing is a project, no more respectable or societally valuable than the coding project I work on. In fact, if I finish the security I'm working on, it will potentially have a greater net positive effect on the earth than the average of any given person's child, which generally turns out to be a net negative for the planet.
I support giving people more freedom to choose how to spend their time and support their interests, but having children is no more intrinsically valuable than a variety of other projects.
Edit: Good education of children is intrinsically valuable, but on the average we'd do better if individuals didn't choose it. Instead we should have state sponsored creches.
this is amazing to me as a concept. Aren't you, the child of any given person, supposedly creating something of great value to The Earth?
Are we to suppose that you're the outlier and the rest of us, and our kids of course, will generally turn out to be a net negative?
Having a child in the US or Canada is probably the single worst thing you could do from a climate impact perspective (slightly less bad elsewhere). We consume way too much per capita. At least bringing immigrants in both raises consumption and pollution less and raises average living standards more
Have children if you want them, just recognize the impact. But presumably we can talk about just how pro-natalist society should be. I'm not aware of anywhere where having and raising a child is literally free of all costs so we are already okay with accepting some costs being borne solely by the parents
I am effectively creating no real value for society aside from paying lots of taxes and if all goes according to plan soon I will probably create no value and pay (almost) no taxes and so provide a definitely negative overall value
*pounds fist on desk*
The problem is First-World consumption and pollution, not population. And so attempting to address the problem via the proxy of "have fewer children" is, again, missing the point.
Could someone explain to me why population growth being based on immigration is a bad thing? Seems like it's all positives to me: more diversity, and more people getting a better life. I don't see any downsides, honestly.
It's not a bad thing at all. Saying no one should have biological children and that population growth should only be via immigration is a bad thing. Because that robs people of access to part of the human condition. Choice should remain paramount.
I'm not sure there's anything useful in the concept of "breeding new humans increases global climate change"
It's not going to stop new humans being born, and no, it's probably not the single worst thing that can happen to induce climate change. There are a lot of secondary and tertiary considerations there and an "average" doesn't and shouldn't work like that (this is where you'd want the median instead of the average).
But that's neither here nor there, it's a dumb topic and not even appropriate for this topic at hand.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Could someone explain to me why population growth being based on immigration is a bad thing? Seems like it's all positives to me: more diversity, and more people getting a better life. I don't see any downsides, honestly.
It's not a bad thing at all. Saying no one should have biological children and that population growth should only be via immigration is a bad thing. Because that robs people of access to part of the human condition. Choice should remain paramount.
You might want to think very, very carefully about the implications of what you are saying there.
Since it's been pointed out that we have a thread for population growth, can we take discussion of that topic there? There's some really good stuff in that thread, and I think it's fair to say that in a thread about how we address sexism and the burdens of child-rearing, saying "just don't have kids" is off-topic and unhelpful.
My climate change worldview is a bit more nihilistic - it's going to be screwed no matter how many kids anybody has - so it doesn't even factor for me.
The idea of wanting to have kids is foreign to me, but I don't begrudge anybody who does. I used to think I would be a good parent and was making preparations on the lessons I would teach them, planning out scenarios on how to share with them the wisdom I've learned to deal with the suffering I had when growing up.
But my life never evolved to the point where I thought it would be safe to have a family. Even with substantial protections like leave and homemaker salary, there are plenty of barriers not addressed that will ensure this Avenue stays closed to me until as the window nears its end.
And you know, I've found a new calling I can actually do. Almost all my co-workers are married and having kids. They need people to pick up the slack at work, cover call, and generally keep the company / program competitive while they take care of their families. This is a job for childless people. Once I accept this role, I accept being childless forever, but I've made my peace with that - it is going to happen anyway, and nothing currently being proposed can prevent this. It must happen in this climate.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do non-parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
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Could someone explain to me why population growth being based on immigration is a bad thing? Seems like it's all positives to me: more diversity, and more people getting a better life. I don't see any downsides, honestly.
It's not a bad thing at all. Saying no one should have biological children and that population growth should only be via immigration is a bad thing. Because that robs people of access to part of the human condition. Choice should remain paramount.
You might want to think very, very carefully about the implications of what you are saying there.
I have said:
Population growth by immigration in the US is fine. It's been that way since the 1950s and hasn't really impacted the economy or required us to limit births in any legistlative way for our population.
I think parents should be able to decide if they want to have kids, rather than have someone say "you don't get to have kids" as a law due to income or some sort of bullshit Malthusian argument.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
I don't begrudge anyone for telling me how exhausting kids are. They absolutely are.
But I was acutely aware of how much my mother played how rough it was keeping up the home when she spent maybe 2 hours a day doing actual housework and cooking, and the other 7 hours before my dad got home watching tv or talking on the phone or visiting friends.
I'm sure it's still exhausting keeping up after kids, sure, but I dunno, it seems like "I'm exhausted" is a normal response to being awake for 16 hours a day and just doing the normal day to day shit, too.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Man come on. If I leave @tinwhiskers at the bottom of every post for a week you'd be pissed off - imagine me following you around doing it constantly for years at a time will grabbing your shirt and tugging every time you don't pay attention to me. One small part of the focused attention and work required 24/7 for decades, you'd lose your shit and report me to the mods.
You literally have no fucking clue what you're on about here.
Could someone explain to me why population growth being based on immigration is a bad thing? Seems like it's all positives to me: more diversity, and more people getting a better life. I don't see any downsides, honestly.
It's not a bad thing at all. Saying no one should have biological children and that population growth should only be via immigration is a bad thing. Because that robs people of access to part of the human condition. Choice should remain paramount.
You might want to think very, very carefully about the implications of what you are saying there.
I have said:
Population growth by immigration in the US is fine. It's been that way since the 1950s and hasn't really impacted the economy or required us to limit births in any legistlative way for our population.
I think parents should be able to decide if they want to have kids, rather than have someone say "you don't get to have kids" as a law due to income or some sort of bullshit Malthusian argument.
What exactly is the negative implication here?
How about the constant implication that people who don't have kids are not fully humans and are broken.
Quite a few people don't have any opportunities to choose whether or not they have kids. This does not in any way reduce their humanity. They were not fucking robbed of part of their humanity.
Having constraints on that decision, including people disagreeing with it, is not an attack on human dignity, quite the opposite.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do non-parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Childcare is one of the only jobs where you must be "on" and attentive at every moment.
I will put money on there being times at your job, maybe even large stretches of time, where your attention isn't really required. You can zone out, walk around, maybe talk to people if that's your thing, or otherwise lose focus on what you're responsible for. That's not really possible when you're watching a kid. Because throughout all of those tasks, making breakfast and cleaning the house and going shopping, you're not just doing those things.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do non-parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
You could have just saved a few paragraphs by saying "I don't know anything about the work involved in raising children". This whole post is ridiculous.
Parenting is a lot of work and the studies just on things like lack of sleep and heightened stress and financial burdens all back these up. As does, like, every parent.
Could someone explain to me why population growth being based on immigration is a bad thing? Seems like it's all positives to me: more diversity, and more people getting a better life. I don't see any downsides, honestly.
It's not a bad thing at all. Saying no one should have biological children and that population growth should only be via immigration is a bad thing. Because that robs people of access to part of the human condition. Choice should remain paramount.
You might want to think very, very carefully about the implications of what you are saying there.
I have said:
Population growth by immigration in the US is fine. It's been that way since the 1950s and hasn't really impacted the economy or required us to limit births in any legistlative way for our population.
I think parents should be able to decide if they want to have kids, rather than have someone say "you don't get to have kids" as a law due to income or some sort of bullshit Malthusian argument.
What exactly is the negative implication here?
How about the constant implication that people who don't have kids are not fully humans and are broken.
Quite a few people don't have any opportunities to choose whether or not they have kids. This does not in any way reduce their humanity. They were not fucking robbed of part of their humanity.
Having constraints on that decision, including people disagreeing with it, is not an attack on human dignity, quite the opposite.
Hell, I don't know anything about the work involved in raising children. I don't have kids, and most likely never will. Which is why it's kind of important to listen to people who do when they tell you what it's like.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do non-parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
fair, it's an inflammatory construction and I don't begrudge anybody the choice to go back to work. My whole intent here is to advocate for the choice, and try to push back against the recurring theme that women choosing to stay home to be the full-time primary caregiver is bad for some or all of kids, women, society, and feminism.
Is it a choice over the entire population? If we were to raise a kid and one of us were required to stay at home there is not really any doubt who it's going to be. That's only a "choice" in the most technical sense.
Edit: by "we" I mean me and my partner, not me and spool.
:winky:
Seriously though, that's why I support a subsidy for staying at home as the primary caregiver - it makes the choice easier for women because it blunts or removes the financial penalty for doing so. Anything that brings stay-home parenting closer to financial parity with daycare + job should make it easier to choose between them.
That's not enough though. You also have to account for basically the entire modern history of the western world. There's discrepancy in pay scales, advancement of careers, career choices and just plain social expectation which makes it less of a free choice and more of a rational one.
If at the macro level, you see that the Government policy is having a disproportionate effect on one population segment, you need to adjust for it.
We already account for it in some respects, like with affirmative action or quotas. Crude methods to be sure, with drawbacks. But they're there to address an imbalance that goes beyond just hiring practice and college admissions.
That doesn't mean that you scrap the whole idea, but tweak it so that it makes it just as attractive for the man to take that position as the woman on a population scale.
Indeed.
Edit. Added this line: Imagine this scenario, if we gave money for new parents to stay at home:
The government pays for women (technically parents, but let's not kid ourselves) to stay at home with kids. As soon as the woman has a child, she can immediately quit her job and never come back, and still get both money and more time with her kid(s). Lots of women take this option.
As an employer, I have the resume of two young people in front of me: a young man and a young woman. Knowing that they might have kids in the nearish future, and that the woman candidate is substantially more likely to choose that time to quit, I hire the man.
And, inevitably, a woman's place remains the home.
The US has the worst maternity leave protections around and yet employers in the US make this judgement every single day, right now.
I am genuinely unsure what you mean.
Are you saying that, in the US, companies hire women equally to men since the US has such garbage maternity leave?
Or are you saying that, in the US, companies don't hire women equally to men since the US has such garbage maternity leave?
In the US, companies don't hire women equally to men despite the US has such garbage maternity leave
Ah. I would suggest other factors, such as women quitting when the get pregnant (they get no time off and need it, they earn so little that daycare is too expensive) or that the mother will take time off when the kids are sick. Also, misogyny.
Yeah, the secret is misogyny. That's also the secret to the survey Shryke posted, where it turns out people judge mothers to be worse workers and treat them more poorly than childless women. And why it also shows that people judge fathers to be better workers and treat them better than childless men.
It's sexism. Sexism is the horse, and women being stay at home parents more often then men is the cart.
The cart does not push the horse around.
I think most of those surveys when you break them down a little further show more anti parent bias and less sexism, and then in turn reveal more sexism in people's decisions around child rearing.
If you look at surveys of parents who are the primary caregiver vs those who are not, then both men and women's careers suffer when they are the primary caregiver and are strengthened by having children if they are not. However, what this actually means is that women are almost always the primary caregiver, and they (and men who do the same role) also suffer immensely in their career progression.
The overall effect of having a child on a couples career progression is negative if one is the primary caregiver, but actually positive if they share the burden equally. Companies like people with responsibilities which make them afraid to quit, they just dont like dealing with the fact that people need time and flexibility to deal with kids especially if they are always the primary caregiver.
So, business is more anti caregiver than it is anti parent or sexist, whereas society is more sexist than it seems from those surveys.
Regardless, the right call is the Norwegian model, regardless of its problems. A large chunk of fully paid leave for one parent, another chunk for the other and one smaller chunk to share.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do non-parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
I assure you you are not doing those activities the same way parents are with their kids.
When make dinner it's whatever and whenever I want. Toss a bowl of ramen in the microwave, grill a steak, go out, whatever.
Parents have to deal with balancing what their kid is actually willing to eat with proper nutrition. They have to manage to cook while watching and managing one or multiple kids. They have to haul their kids in a variety of car seats and hope they behave at a restaurant whose bill is going to be exponentially more expensive than mine.
I love helping our siblings and friends with their kids. I'm also acutely aware that it's work I only enjoy doing because it's more a novelty I get to walk away from at the end of the day.
fair, it's an inflammatory construction and I don't begrudge anybody the choice to go back to work. My whole intent here is to advocate for the choice, and try to push back against the recurring theme that women choosing to stay home to be the full-time primary caregiver is bad for some or all of kids, women, society, and feminism.
Is it a choice over the entire population? If we were to raise a kid and one of us were required to stay at home there is not really any doubt who it's going to be. That's only a "choice" in the most technical sense.
Edit: by "we" I mean me and my partner, not me and spool.
:winky:
Seriously though, that's why I support a subsidy for staying at home as the primary caregiver - it makes the choice easier for women because it blunts or removes the financial penalty for doing so. Anything that brings stay-home parenting closer to financial parity with daycare + job should make it easier to choose between them.
That's not enough though. You also have to account for basically the entire modern history of the western world. There's discrepancy in pay scales, advancement of careers, career choices and just plain social expectation which makes it less of a free choice and more of a rational one.
If at the macro level, you see that the Government policy is having a disproportionate effect on one population segment, you need to adjust for it.
We already account for it in some respects, like with affirmative action or quotas. Crude methods to be sure, with drawbacks. But they're there to address an imbalance that goes beyond just hiring practice and college admissions.
That doesn't mean that you scrap the whole idea, but tweak it so that it makes it just as attractive for the man to take that position as the woman on a population scale.
Indeed.
Edit. Added this line: Imagine this scenario, if we gave money for new parents to stay at home:
The government pays for women (technically parents, but let's not kid ourselves) to stay at home with kids. As soon as the woman has a child, she can immediately quit her job and never come back, and still get both money and more time with her kid(s). Lots of women take this option.
As an employer, I have the resume of two young people in front of me: a young man and a young woman. Knowing that they might have kids in the nearish future, and that the woman candidate is substantially more likely to choose that time to quit, I hire the man.
And, inevitably, a woman's place remains the home.
The US has the worst maternity leave protections around and yet employers in the US make this judgement every single day, right now.
I am genuinely unsure what you mean.
Are you saying that, in the US, companies hire women equally to men since the US has such garbage maternity leave?
Or are you saying that, in the US, companies don't hire women equally to men since the US has such garbage maternity leave?
In the US, companies don't hire women equally to men despite the US has such garbage maternity leave
Ah. I would suggest other factors, such as women quitting when the get pregnant (they get no time off and need it, they earn so little that daycare is too expensive) or that the mother will take time off when the kids are sick. Also, misogyny.
Yeah, the secret is misogyny. That's also the secret to the survey Shryke posted, where it turns out people judge mothers to be worse workers and treat them more poorly than childless women. And why it also shows that people judge fathers to be better workers and treat them better than childless men.
It's sexism. Sexism is the horse, and women being stay at home parents more often then men is the cart.
The cart does not push the horse around.
Except we have neither cart nor horse here. The issue is that there is some evidence that one feeds back into the other. That cash-for-childcare benefit schemes (ie - paying stay-at-home parents for being stay-at-home parents) lower workforce participation in uneven ways. Basically, women and especially afaik poorer and immigrant women. Basically, that these policies actually reinforce the sexism you are talking about.
Like, the basic opposition to these schemes as far as I understand the politics of it is usually from the left and based in the way they accidentally end up reinforcing gender roles and attitudes about child-care.
The obvious solution here, at least to me, is to keep the overall idea of compensating childcare but rejigger the system so it promotes more men to take advantage. And from some other vaguely similar policies, this may involve earmarking a bunch of the benefits only for fathers.
Father only benefits are bold but may be too 7th-level-chess to survive public opinion
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
+2
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do non-parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Being a stay-at-home dad was generally more exhausting than any position I've ever held, including working in a warehouse unloading trucks and doing 60+ hours a week managing a business with 50+ employees. There were many, many times I would have gladly gone back to any job I had held before - not one of them was as demanding mentally or emotionally.
It's gotten easier now that both of my children are old enough to be in school full time, and I'm looking around for part-time positions that would allow me to work while they're at school, but it's still much more demanding than you are apparently capable of believing.
Somebody before noted that the percentage of stay-at-home dads was much higher in West Virginia than in many other states. I'd be willing to bet that's because many of them are out of work coal miners who haven't been able to find new work and are basically forced into that parenting role so their SOs can work to support the family instead. I'd also be willing to bet that an extremely high percentage of them would trade being a stay-at-home dad for returning to work in a coal mine in a heartbeat.
Father only benefits are bold but may be too 7th-level-chess to survive public opinion
They seem to work just fine already. AFAIK several places have them. Basically, you give out X amount of leave/cash and divide it between the parents. I don't think most places do half-and-half but I think it's totally viable.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
Let me try and put it this way.
If I decide to go spend an hour tonight throwing a frisbee in the park. I don't think that if its a friend, a friends dog, or a friends kid catching it makes it work in one case and pleasure in the others.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
Let me try and put it this way.
If I decide to go spend an hour tonight throwing a frisbee in the park. I don't think that if its a friend, a friends dog, or a friends kid catching it makes it work in one case and pleasure in the others.
You fundamentally do not understand what being a parent is like or the work that goes into it. Please stop.
+15
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Could someone explain to me why population growth being based on immigration is a bad thing? Seems like it's all positives to me: more diversity, and more people getting a better life. I don't see any downsides, honestly.
It's not a bad thing at all. Saying no one should have biological children and that population growth should only be via immigration is a bad thing. Because that robs people of access to part of the human condition. Choice should remain paramount.
You might want to think very, very carefully about the implications of what you are saying there.
I have said:
Population growth by immigration in the US is fine. It's been that way since the 1950s and hasn't really impacted the economy or required us to limit births in any legistlative way for our population.
I think parents should be able to decide if they want to have kids, rather than have someone say "you don't get to have kids" as a law due to income or some sort of bullshit Malthusian argument.
What exactly is the negative implication here?
How about the constant implication that people who don't have kids are not fully humans and are broken. Quite a few people don't have any opportunities to choose whether or not they have kids. This does not in any way reduce their humanity. They were not fucking robbed of part of their humanity.
Having constraints on that decision, including people disagreeing with it, is not an attack on human dignity, quite the opposite.
Being legislatively told you cannot have children if you wanted children is absolutely robbing part of your humanity. Because having the choice to have children, or not, is part of the human condition.
I don't have kids. My wife and I probably never will biologically for a lot of sad, complex reasons that would risk her life. We're fine with not having kids, and live quite happily without them. But goddamn, if you came and told me I couldn't have kids? That's some goddamn dystopian bullshit and I would be one of the first to raise protest and resistance against you.
That you conflate the choice to have children with a personal attack on yourself is something worth examining. I'm not going to say that there isn't social pressure to have kids, or that getting that when you can't isn't hard and painful. We've lived through that from family, friends, work... you name it. But legislating away the right to have children is a totally different thing from that stigma.
Father only benefits are bold but may be too 7th-level-chess to survive public opinion
They seem to work just fine already. AFAIK several places have them. Basically, you give out X amount of leave/cash and divide it between the parents. I don't think most places do half-and-half but I think it's totally viable.
I think it doesn't really apply that way unless both parents are working at the same place, and even then, 50/50 is not a gender-dependent policy. In fact, a system that allows one parent to donate their leave to the other would probably be functionally superior, and now we're back where we started.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
Let me try and put it this way.
If I decide to go spend an hour tonight throwing a frisbee in the park. I don't think that if its a friend, a friends dog, or a friends kid catching it makes it work in one case and pleasure in the others.
Then you're 100% wrong about that, and it's not a matter of opinion. You're just wrong.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
Let me try and put it this way.
If I decide to go spend an hour tonight throwing a frisbee in the park. I don't think that if its a friend, a friends dog, or a friends kid catching it makes it work in one case and pleasure in the others.
The key phrase is "if you decide to". Parents don't get to decide when they are or are not going to be one. And it doesn't stop after one hour at the park.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
Let me try and put it this way.
If I decide to go spend an hour tonight throwing a frisbee in the park. I don't think that if its a friend, a friends dog, or a friends kid catching it makes it work in one case and pleasure in the others.
You fundamentally do not understand what being a parent is like or the work that goes into it. Please stop.
Maybe that's because it is fundamentally not work.
Father only benefits are bold but may be too 7th-level-chess to survive public opinion
They seem to work just fine already. AFAIK several places have them. Basically, you give out X amount of leave/cash and divide it between the parents. I don't think most places do half-and-half but I think it's totally viable.
I said this before, I don't see how the same principle is supposed to be applied to paying parents to stay at home. Can you elaborate?
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
Let me try and put it this way.
If I decide to go spend an hour tonight throwing a frisbee in the park. I don't think that if its a friend, a friends dog, or a friends kid catching it makes it work in one case and pleasure in the others.
You fundamentally do not understand what being a parent is like or the work that goes into it. Please stop.
Maybe that's because it is fundamentally not work.
Everything else aside, part of it is initially being on call at night; that's work. You ever been on call for a protracted amount of time?
Take that part out and I can see parenting being a lot more fun. I'm not speaking from experience though
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
Let me try and put it this way.
If I decide to go spend an hour tonight throwing a frisbee in the park. I don't think that if its a friend, a friends dog, or a friends kid catching it makes it work in one case and pleasure in the others.
You fundamentally do not understand what being a parent is like or the work that goes into it. Please stop.
Maybe that's because it is fundamentally not work.
Try, for just a second, and I know this will be hard for you, but really give it a try, to imagine that you don't actually know everything and that it's possible that the multiple parents in this thread telling you what parenting is like might actually, very likely, have lived experience to back up their knowledge and opinion.
Your attitude is part of the problem we are discussing. Childcare and homemaking and being a primary caregiver is work, that has, historically, been done by women, and historically and apparently in this very thread, gone unnoticed or been devalued as not that hard or something no one deserves to be paid for.
Maybe take a second to listen, instead of concluding, based on a summary post by a someone you don't know and whose struggles and personal circumstances you have no idea about, that parenting is easy and not work. Maybe just try that.
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
Let me try and put it this way.
If I decide to go spend an hour tonight throwing a frisbee in the park. I don't think that if its a friend, a friends dog, or a friends kid catching it makes it work in one case and pleasure in the others.
The key phrase is "if you decide to". Parents don't get to decide when they are or are not going to be one. And it doesn't stop after one hour at the park.
So, is a task being non-voluntary necessary for something to be considered work or is their a minimum duration prior to which a task isn't work. Both?
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
Let me try and put it this way.
If I decide to go spend an hour tonight throwing a frisbee in the park. I don't think that if its a friend, a friends dog, or a friends kid catching it makes it work in one case and pleasure in the others.
The key phrase is "if you decide to". Parents don't get to decide when they are or are not going to be one. And it doesn't stop after one hour at the park.
So, is a task being non-voluntary necessary for something to be considered work or is their a minimum duration prior to which a task isn't work. Both?
Neither. Work is always work. Enjoying some or all aspects of work doesn't make it not work.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
My friends get up with their kids at about 7am. Make breakfast. Do some house cleaning while the kids eat. Do an activity. Feed the kids morning tea. Go outside trip a park or other organized event. Make lunch.Go food shopping. Do another activity. If the kids nap, then they do some house work. Kids wake up, make afternoon tea. Do another activity or let them free play. Make dinner. More playing. Have a bath. Start bedtime. Keep doing bedtime. Finally they're asleep. Do more housework. If your kid's sleeping through the night, lucky you! And all of that while also talking to the kids constantly, answering a million questions about why the cow has four feet.
Get to sleep by ten. If your kid's sleeps through, you sleep through. If not, then you don't.
Then you do it all again the next day.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do no parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
Let me try and put it this way.
If I decide to go spend an hour tonight throwing a frisbee in the park. I don't think that if its a friend, a friends dog, or a friends kid catching it makes it work in one case and pleasure in the others.
This is a summary what my sister sent to me, on her experiences as a parent, back when a similar discussion came out on facebook. I haven't remembered every example, she wrote like three pages, but this was the meat of it:
Being a parent is being unable to go out in public without the constant, existential dread of escorting a china doll that can explode like a literal grenade literally everywhere. Children are extremely fragile and turning away for too long can lead to them being very hurt, and even more likely, damaging the property of others.
Being a parent is being unable to clock out for work and being at the beck and call as the personal assistant of a nightmare boss that doesn't respect your privacy and demands degrading, difficult work from you at all hours of the day and night. When you settle down for that meal you just managed to prepare, moments after turning on the football game you wanted to watch, when you finally fell asleep after an 18 hour day. Children don't care. And you don't get to ignore them. You have to do your job, or they die or explode like a china doll that is also a grenade.
Being a parent is being unable to socialize with your friends and family for any meaningful amounts of time without paying to have someone parent in your place. Rather than having time off, you have to pay for time off. And, even then, you are constantly worried about what is happening to your china doll grenade while you are gone as you are still 100% liable for both the damage and their care.
Being a parent is sifting through your child's shit every six hours to see if the lego finally passed or if you have to take them back to the goddamn er for another round of testing. It's realizing you have had 7 hours of sleep aggregate in the last four days and knowing that you aren't getting any more for another 12 hours. It's realizing that you and your spouse barely have time to see each other, if you are lucky, because someone is always on shift.
Being a parent is also all the worst parts of being a grade shool teacher, without even the marginal pay of being a k-12 teacher. You are constantly, at every moment of your life, being observed and emulated by your child and have to maintain the best possible example you can muster so that the child turns out well, even when you yourself are exhausted. Everyone else is always watching you to see if you are a good example, and constantly tell you that you aren't good enough.
And this is from a woman who absolutely loves her sons and would never be without them. But it is hard, hard work. And as someone who works full time and raises her kids, taking turns with her wife, it is a hell of a thing to say its throwing a frisbee in the park.
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*pounds fist on desk*
The problem is First-World consumption and pollution, not population. And so attempting to address the problem via the proxy of "have fewer children" is, again, missing the point.
It's not a bad thing at all. Saying no one should have biological children and that population growth should only be via immigration is a bad thing. Because that robs people of access to part of the human condition. Choice should remain paramount.
Oh, so we do. https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/229577/whats-the-over-under-on-population
It's not going to stop new humans being born, and no, it's probably not the single worst thing that can happen to induce climate change. There are a lot of secondary and tertiary considerations there and an "average" doesn't and shouldn't work like that (this is where you'd want the median instead of the average).
But that's neither here nor there, it's a dumb topic and not even appropriate for this topic at hand.
You might want to think very, very carefully about the implications of what you are saying there.
The idea of wanting to have kids is foreign to me, but I don't begrudge anybody who does. I used to think I would be a good parent and was making preparations on the lessons I would teach them, planning out scenarios on how to share with them the wisdom I've learned to deal with the suffering I had when growing up.
But my life never evolved to the point where I thought it would be safe to have a family. Even with substantial protections like leave and homemaker salary, there are plenty of barriers not addressed that will ensure this Avenue stays closed to me until as the window nears its end.
And you know, I've found a new calling I can actually do. Almost all my co-workers are married and having kids. They need people to pick up the slack at work, cover call, and generally keep the company / program competitive while they take care of their families. This is a job for childless people. Once I accept this role, I accept being childless forever, but I've made my peace with that - it is going to happen anyway, and nothing currently being proposed can prevent this. It must happen in this climate.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
This is exactly the shit that makes me reject the whole "kids are work" construction. Most of this is stuff every adult has to do. You have to go food shopping and then after that you need to take the food and cook it? It is so unfair that once you have kids you can no longer use Amazon IV nutrient bags all non-parents use. Do non-parents receive government provided maids, landscapers, and handymen until they have a kid.
You go to bed at 10 and are up at the crack of 7. Sounds awful, they should pick a more laid back career like farming.
And I mean really, "go to a park", "free play"? 12 hours in the fucking coal mines that.
I have said:
What exactly is the negative implication here?
I don't begrudge anyone for telling me how exhausting kids are. They absolutely are.
But I was acutely aware of how much my mother played how rough it was keeping up the home when she spent maybe 2 hours a day doing actual housework and cooking, and the other 7 hours before my dad got home watching tv or talking on the phone or visiting friends.
I'm sure it's still exhausting keeping up after kids, sure, but I dunno, it seems like "I'm exhausted" is a normal response to being awake for 16 hours a day and just doing the normal day to day shit, too.
Man come on. If I leave @tinwhiskers at the bottom of every post for a week you'd be pissed off - imagine me following you around doing it constantly for years at a time will grabbing your shirt and tugging every time you don't pay attention to me. One small part of the focused attention and work required 24/7 for decades, you'd lose your shit and report me to the mods.
You literally have no fucking clue what you're on about here.
Quite a few people don't have any opportunities to choose whether or not they have kids. This does not in any way reduce their humanity. They were not fucking robbed of part of their humanity.
Having constraints on that decision, including people disagreeing with it, is not an attack on human dignity, quite the opposite.
Childcare is one of the only jobs where you must be "on" and attentive at every moment.
I will put money on there being times at your job, maybe even large stretches of time, where your attention isn't really required. You can zone out, walk around, maybe talk to people if that's your thing, or otherwise lose focus on what you're responsible for. That's not really possible when you're watching a kid. Because throughout all of those tasks, making breakfast and cleaning the house and going shopping, you're not just doing those things.
You could have just saved a few paragraphs by saying "I don't know anything about the work involved in raising children". This whole post is ridiculous.
Parenting is a lot of work and the studies just on things like lack of sleep and heightened stress and financial burdens all back these up. As does, like, every parent.
So the thing nobody has actually said?
Um, wow. I understand where you're coming from, but your tone makes it sound like you are from r/childfree.
With kids, especially in the first few years, you gotta keep your attention on them always. Imagine you got a new puppy. The moment you turn away, it's ripping up your carpet, peeing on your couch, ripping up your toilet paper, and trying to eat your fiscus. You've got a few weeks to spend to train it to go for walks, eat only from the bowl, potty train it, and puppy proof your house.
Now imagine that instead of a few weeks of constant viligance, it's several years. Oh, and if you do a bad job, or pick the wrong childcare provider, or even get distracted for a few minutes by a book, your kid could get hurt, and CPS is on your case.
I understand, looking after kids seems like a walk in the park (and sometimes it literally is), and that parents should be paid in the loving memories that it creates. A good chunk of the time you're stressed, sleep deprived, and a few potty accidents from breaking down.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
Yeah you don’t have kids...
I think most of those surveys when you break them down a little further show more anti parent bias and less sexism, and then in turn reveal more sexism in people's decisions around child rearing.
If you look at surveys of parents who are the primary caregiver vs those who are not, then both men and women's careers suffer when they are the primary caregiver and are strengthened by having children if they are not. However, what this actually means is that women are almost always the primary caregiver, and they (and men who do the same role) also suffer immensely in their career progression.
The overall effect of having a child on a couples career progression is negative if one is the primary caregiver, but actually positive if they share the burden equally. Companies like people with responsibilities which make them afraid to quit, they just dont like dealing with the fact that people need time and flexibility to deal with kids especially if they are always the primary caregiver.
So, business is more anti caregiver than it is anti parent or sexist, whereas society is more sexist than it seems from those surveys.
Regardless, the right call is the Norwegian model, regardless of its problems. A large chunk of fully paid leave for one parent, another chunk for the other and one smaller chunk to share.
I assure you you are not doing those activities the same way parents are with their kids.
When make dinner it's whatever and whenever I want. Toss a bowl of ramen in the microwave, grill a steak, go out, whatever.
Parents have to deal with balancing what their kid is actually willing to eat with proper nutrition. They have to manage to cook while watching and managing one or multiple kids. They have to haul their kids in a variety of car seats and hope they behave at a restaurant whose bill is going to be exponentially more expensive than mine.
I love helping our siblings and friends with their kids. I'm also acutely aware that it's work I only enjoy doing because it's more a novelty I get to walk away from at the end of the day.
Except we have neither cart nor horse here. The issue is that there is some evidence that one feeds back into the other. That cash-for-childcare benefit schemes (ie - paying stay-at-home parents for being stay-at-home parents) lower workforce participation in uneven ways. Basically, women and especially afaik poorer and immigrant women. Basically, that these policies actually reinforce the sexism you are talking about.
Like, the basic opposition to these schemes as far as I understand the politics of it is usually from the left and based in the way they accidentally end up reinforcing gender roles and attitudes about child-care.
The obvious solution here, at least to me, is to keep the overall idea of compensating childcare but rejigger the system so it promotes more men to take advantage. And from some other vaguely similar policies, this may involve earmarking a bunch of the benefits only for fathers.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Being a stay-at-home dad was generally more exhausting than any position I've ever held, including working in a warehouse unloading trucks and doing 60+ hours a week managing a business with 50+ employees. There were many, many times I would have gladly gone back to any job I had held before - not one of them was as demanding mentally or emotionally.
It's gotten easier now that both of my children are old enough to be in school full time, and I'm looking around for part-time positions that would allow me to work while they're at school, but it's still much more demanding than you are apparently capable of believing.
Somebody before noted that the percentage of stay-at-home dads was much higher in West Virginia than in many other states. I'd be willing to bet that's because many of them are out of work coal miners who haven't been able to find new work and are basically forced into that parenting role so their SOs can work to support the family instead. I'd also be willing to bet that an extremely high percentage of them would trade being a stay-at-home dad for returning to work in a coal mine in a heartbeat.
They seem to work just fine already. AFAIK several places have them. Basically, you give out X amount of leave/cash and divide it between the parents. I don't think most places do half-and-half but I think it's totally viable.
Let me try and put it this way.
If I decide to go spend an hour tonight throwing a frisbee in the park. I don't think that if its a friend, a friends dog, or a friends kid catching it makes it work in one case and pleasure in the others.
You fundamentally do not understand what being a parent is like or the work that goes into it. Please stop.
Being legislatively told you cannot have children if you wanted children is absolutely robbing part of your humanity. Because having the choice to have children, or not, is part of the human condition.
I don't have kids. My wife and I probably never will biologically for a lot of sad, complex reasons that would risk her life. We're fine with not having kids, and live quite happily without them. But goddamn, if you came and told me I couldn't have kids? That's some goddamn dystopian bullshit and I would be one of the first to raise protest and resistance against you.
That you conflate the choice to have children with a personal attack on yourself is something worth examining. I'm not going to say that there isn't social pressure to have kids, or that getting that when you can't isn't hard and painful. We've lived through that from family, friends, work... you name it. But legislating away the right to have children is a totally different thing from that stigma.
I think it doesn't really apply that way unless both parents are working at the same place, and even then, 50/50 is not a gender-dependent policy. In fact, a system that allows one parent to donate their leave to the other would probably be functionally superior, and now we're back where we started.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Then you're 100% wrong about that, and it's not a matter of opinion. You're just wrong.
The key phrase is "if you decide to". Parents don't get to decide when they are or are not going to be one. And it doesn't stop after one hour at the park.
Maybe that's because it is fundamentally not work.
I said this before, I don't see how the same principle is supposed to be applied to paying parents to stay at home. Can you elaborate?
Everything else aside, part of it is initially being on call at night; that's work. You ever been on call for a protracted amount of time?
Take that part out and I can see parenting being a lot more fun. I'm not speaking from experience though
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Try, for just a second, and I know this will be hard for you, but really give it a try, to imagine that you don't actually know everything and that it's possible that the multiple parents in this thread telling you what parenting is like might actually, very likely, have lived experience to back up their knowledge and opinion.
Your attitude is part of the problem we are discussing. Childcare and homemaking and being a primary caregiver is work, that has, historically, been done by women, and historically and apparently in this very thread, gone unnoticed or been devalued as not that hard or something no one deserves to be paid for.
Maybe take a second to listen, instead of concluding, based on a summary post by a someone you don't know and whose struggles and personal circumstances you have no idea about, that parenting is easy and not work. Maybe just try that.
So, is a task being non-voluntary necessary for something to be considered work or is their a minimum duration prior to which a task isn't work. Both?
Neither. Work is always work. Enjoying some or all aspects of work doesn't make it not work.
This is a summary what my sister sent to me, on her experiences as a parent, back when a similar discussion came out on facebook. I haven't remembered every example, she wrote like three pages, but this was the meat of it:
And this is from a woman who absolutely loves her sons and would never be without them. But it is hard, hard work. And as someone who works full time and raises her kids, taking turns with her wife, it is a hell of a thing to say its throwing a frisbee in the park.