Day Care

[dazzleman]

thefactor, I can't disagree with anything you say, really.  I would just point out that many of those who are most favorable toward day care do consider it a substitute, rather than a supplement, for good parenting, and are generally in favor of subcontracting parental responsibilities from the home to institutions like schools, day care centers, etc.  I view this as a very negative thing.

These are the same people who think fathers should simply send a support check every month.  Their view of parenting is very limited and distorted, to say the least.

This doesn't mean that good day care is not sometimes the best solution for certain kids.  But I am just very very wary of the "day care" lobby.

Well I don't disagree with these points, either, though it's not as simple as a difference between theory and practice. On the whole, there is a cultural issue of responsibility that has plagued this country and is responsible for a huge part of support for social conservatism. It arises from the explosion of consumerism and changes in people's psychologies due to such large increases in wealth. Culture needs to adjust to this, and it's taking a while (though some progress is being made) but this adjustment can't just be a wholesale backlash against social progress.

I don't consider having some reservations about substituting day care for parenting as a backlash against "social progress."  I love the way some liberals define "progress" in terms of how far they have advanced their agenda, and consider any other agenda reactionary.  Liberals don't have the market cornered on "progress" and much of the "progress" that has been delivered by left-wing ideology has been highly deleterious and negative.  I don't consider high divorce rates, high rates of children born to unmarried mothers, high rates of fatherlessness, etc. and all the ills associated with these factors as "progress."

Could you be more specific about how some of these things are caused by increases in wealth?  I'm all ears.

[Beet]

thefactor, I can't disagree with anything you say, really.  I would just point out that many of those who are most favorable toward day care do consider it a substitute, rather than a supplement, for good parenting, and are generally in favor of subcontracting parental responsibilities from the home to institutions like schools, day care centers, etc.  I view this as a very negative thing.

These are the same people who think fathers should simply send a support check every month.  Their view of parenting is very limited and distorted, to say the least.

This doesn't mean that good day care is not sometimes the best solution for certain kids.  But I am just very very wary of the "day care" lobby.

Well I don't disagree with these points, either, though it's not as simple as a difference between theory and practice. On the whole, there is a cultural issue of responsibility that has plagued this country and is responsible for a huge part of support for social conservatism. It arises from the explosion of consumerism and changes in people's psychologies due to such large increases in wealth. Culture needs to adjust to this, and it's taking a while (though some progress is being made) but this adjustment can't just be a wholesale backlash against social progress.

I don't consider having some reservations about substituting day care for parenting as a backlash against "social progress."  I love the way some liberals define "progress" in terms of how far they have advanced their agenda, and consider any other agenda reactionary.  Liberals don't have the market cornered on "progress" and much of the "progress" that has been delivered by left-wing ideology has been highly deleterious and negative.  I don't consider high divorce rates, high rates of children born to unmarried mothers, high rates of fatherlessness, etc. and all the ills associated with these factors as "progress."

Well, progress denotes from movement toward improvement, whereas conservatism denotes resistance to such. For example, availability of day care improves the resources available to parents, and, assuming they are used responsibly, can actually be a positive aid to them. In the long view of things these terms are still meaningful when you look at the nominal "liberal" and "conservative" positions today, though arguably Bush hasn't exactly been the most traditionally conservative president on economic and foreign policy affairs.

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I consider from anectodal evidence that the problem of personal irresponsibility has become more pronounced over the past half century or so; all your examples of fatherlessness, childbirth out of wedlock, and high divorce rates have increased during that time. I think this is a function of an attitude that derives from wealth, an attitude which embraces immediate gratification. The reason is that poverty imposes certain constraints on the individual, I think, including hard work and a certain humility, mostly due to the lifestyle that is required when one is relatively poor. But the great amount of wealth created by Keynesian economics completely revolutionized this while the advertising and marketing industry is geared toward self-satisfaction. This is a huge change and requires a period of adjustment.

[TomC]

I dislike the terms, or institution "day care" if that's all that's going on- caring for the child. If we are talking preschool, where the teachers are college trained educators, I feel they can have a positive influence. My wife works at home, and our son goes two days each week. (incidentally, at the preschool she taught at for nine years, so we feel good about it, and it's a cooperative, so parents basically determine schools policies.) He didn't start til he was almost three. We were prepared for her to keep him at home for the first several years, but thought it was good for both of them if he broadened his horisons and spent time with other kids several days a week. We are quite pleased.

[dazzleman]

thefactor -- I don't argue that day care shouldn't be available.  Clearly, it is necessary for some people, and some forms of it are actually good for kids.  I just question the real motivations of some people who think that day care is superior to parental interaction.

I find it hard to agree with your thesis that wealth leads to irresponsible responsible behavior, necessarily.  I think that unearned wealth generally does, but for most of us who are reasonably well off, our wealth is earned, and would not have been earned in the absence of responsible behavior.

The ironic thing is that the behavior that you mention as being produced by wealth -- high rates of fatherlessness, high rates of divorce, etc., actually produce poverty, and are therefore much more prevalent among the poor than they are among the middle and upper middle classes.  I would probably date the explosion of this type of behavior to the time when we started to subsidize and encourage it through welfare programs that reward it, at least to some extent.

On the other hand, you see some of this type of behavior among the very, very rich for basically the same reason you see it among the underclass -- there's really no downside to it, since extreme wealth insulates people from the negative effects of this behavior.

[J-Mann]

I dislike the terms, or institution "day care" if that's all that's going on- caring for the child. If we are talking preschool, where the teachers are college trained educators, I feel they can have a positive influence. My wife works at home, and our son goes two days each week. (incidentally, at the preschool she taught at for nine years, so we feel good about it, and it's a cooperative, so parents basically determine schools policies.) He didn't start til he was almost three. We were prepared for her to keep him at home for the first several years, but thought it was good for both of them if he broadened his horisons and spent time with other kids several days a week. We are quite pleased.

Preschool can be a positive experience -- I know that much, even though I didn't go to it myself.  But I really don't like the trend to send children at a younger and younger age.  My niece started preschool shortly after she turned three...first it was "playschool," then preschool, now kindergarten.  It's just too much.  These kids will have school for at least 13 years; they don't need to get an early start.

My dad worked a full-time job and my mom worked part-time when I was in my most formative years, between birth and six-years-old when I started kindergarten.  I remember both of them spending a lot of time with me in the evenings and on weekends to help me learn to read, write, tie my shoes, speak properly...all of those necessities. Instead of choosing to spend their free time on themselves, they spent it with me.  Now they weren't perfect parents, but they put the time into my development that I wish more parents today would bother to put into their own children.

This trend to get children out of the house and outsource their foundational educations is worrisome.

[Beet]

I find it hard to agree with your thesis that wealth leads to irresponsible responsible behavior, necessarily.  I think that unearned wealth generally does, but for most of us who are reasonably well off, our wealth is earned, and would not have been earned in the absence of responsible behavior.

That is true, I was speaking more of unearned wealth inherited from older generations (or handed down in the form of traditional welfare), and I don't think wealth necessarily leads to any behavior (god forbid I sound like a marxist ). But in the case of the U.S., in the socially irresponsible things you were talking about, I think societal wealth was a necessary precondition for them.

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I agree with you here.

[TomC]

I think people on this board are making an incorrect assumption that rich people are actually keeping kids at home and taking care of them on their own. Many rich people are MORE likely to send kids to preschool and MORE likely to hire a nanny.

[J-Mann]

I think people on this board are making an incorrect assumption that rich people are actually keeping kids at home and taking care of them on their own. Many rich people are MORE likely to send kids to preschool and MORE likely to hire a nanny.

I'm not making that misconception at all.  I think rich people are more likely to leave the raising of kids to a paid nanny or day care.  Poorer people are more likely to shove the responsibilities onto school systems.

[J-Mann]

I dislike the terms, or institution "day care" if that's all that's going on- caring for the child. If we are talking preschool, where the teachers are college trained educators, I feel they can have a positive influence. My wife works at home, and our son goes two days each week. (incidentally, at the preschool she taught at for nine years, so we feel good about it, and it's a cooperative, so parents basically determine schools policies.) He didn't start til he was almost three. We were prepared for her to keep him at home for the first several years, but thought it was good for both of them if he broadened his horisons and spent time with other kids several days a week. We are quite pleased.

Preschool can be a positive experience -- I know that much, even though I didn't go to it myself.  But I really don't like the trend to send children at a younger and younger age.  My niece started preschool shortly after she turned three...first it was "playschool," then preschool, now kindergarten.  It's just too much.  These kids will have school for at least 13 years; they don't need to get an early start.

My dad worked a full-time job and my mom worked part-time when I was in my most formative years, between birth and six-years-old when I started kindergarten.  I remember both of them spending a lot of time with me in the evenings and on weekends to help me learn to read, write, tie my shoes, speak properly...all of those necessities. Instead of choosing to spend their free time on themselves, they spent it with me.  Now they weren't perfect parents, but they put the time into my development that I wish more parents today would bother to put into their own children.

This trend to get children out of the house and outsource their foundational educations is worrisome.

[dazzleman]

I think people on this board are making an incorrect assumption that rich people are actually keeping kids at home and taking care of them on their own. Many rich people are MORE likely to send kids to preschool and MORE likely to hire a nanny.

I'm not making that misconception at all.  I think rich people are more likely to leave the raising of kids to a paid nanny or day care.  Poorer people are more likely to shove the responsibilities onto school systems.

True, it's not an ecnomic thing necessarily.  Many rich people are irresponsible parents.  Rich people generally don't use day care, because the option of hiring a nanny is much more convenient and flexible.  Day care is generally for those with less money.

Whether one hires a nanny or sends a child to day care, the parenting job still remains, and cannot be subcontracted out.

J-Mann makes a good point about school systems.  Poor people in particular often seek to dump their parenting job on school systems.  There is a push to keep schools in poor neighborhoods open practically around the clock to give the kids what their parents fail to provide.  The best part is that a good percentage of these parents have never even worked outside the home.  It is no accident that the schools that are being asked to do the biggest part of the parents' job are also the schools that are failing most egregiously at their real job -- educating the students.

[TomC]

I think people on this board are making an incorrect assumption that rich people are actually keeping kids at home and taking care of them on their own. Many rich people are MORE likely to send kids to preschool and MORE likely to hire a nanny.

I'm not making that misconception at all.  I think rich people are more likely to leave the raising of kids to a paid nanny or day care.  Poorer people are more likely to shove the responsibilities onto school systems.

 The best part is that a good percentage of these parents have never even worked outside the home.

Could you clarify this? What are you basing this on? What do you consider a "good percentage?" This seems an incredible generalization or stereotype with little basis in fact.

 I can see you and J-Mann are both smearing the poor with terms like "leave the raising of kids" to describe the rich and "shove the responsibilities" to describe the poor (J-Mann) and yours: "option of hiring a nanny" to the rich and "dump their parenting job" for the poor.

Why is this loaded language being used against the poor? Because of taxes?

[J-Mann]

Could you clarify this? What are you basing this on? What do you consider a "good percentage?" This seems an incredible generalization or stereotype with little basis in fact.

 I can see you and J-Mann are both smearing the poor with terms like "leave the raising of kids" to describe the rich and "shove the responsibilities" to describe the poor (J-Mann) and yours: "option of hiring a nanny" to the rich and "dump their parenting job" for the poor.

Why is this loaded language being used against the poor? Because of taxes?

I'm opposed to rich and poor alike who don't take primary responsibility for raising their children, or believe it is someone else's job to be their primary caregivers.  My family wasn't poor, but we were far from rich -- my parents still found the time to be primary caregivers and educators early on in my life. 

My point is that some rich folks will pay to pass off caregiving onto a nanny, etc., who cannot instill discipline or morality, but just give care.  These kids normally end up really spoiled and self-important.

Non-wealthy who pass off caregiving to schools are in the same boat -- educators cannot instill morals or discipline.  These parents come to expect full care services from schools but resent it when their children are disciplined or have someone elses ethical teachings pushed towards their kids.

[TomC]

But that doesn't answer the question of why your choices of phrases seems much more maligning to the poor.

[dazzleman]

I think people on this board are making an incorrect assumption that rich people are actually keeping kids at home and taking care of them on their own. Many rich people are MORE likely to send kids to preschool and MORE likely to hire a nanny.

I'm not making that misconception at all.  I think rich people are more likely to leave the raising of kids to a paid nanny or day care.  Poorer people are more likely to shove the responsibilities onto school systems.

 The best part is that a good percentage of these parents have never even worked outside the home.

Could you clarify this? What are you basing this on? What do you consider a "good percentage?" This seems an incredible generalization or stereotype with little basis in fact.

 I can see you and J-Mann are both smearing the poor with terms like "leave the raising of kids" to describe the rich and "shove the responsibilities" to describe the poor (J-Mann) and yours: "option of hiring a nanny" to the rich and "dump their parenting job" for the poor.

Why is this loaded language being used against the poor? Because of taxes?

I think you're overanalyzing to an extent.  I am also critical of rich parents who don't do their job properly as parents, though I do believe that poor parenting is more prevalent among the underclass poor than the rich.

Still, when the rich fail as parents, it usually doesn't result in me being asked to foot the bill directly as a taxpayer, nor does it usually result in me being robbed or beaten or the victim of some other crime.  The rich largely pay the price for their own failures, while society in general pays the price for the failures of the poor.   That's probably why the poor are judged more harshly for their failures than the rich are.  And frankly, I think that's appropriate.

My comment about parents not working outside the home refers to underclass welfare parents.  These are often the parents who find it too difficult to give their kids a bowl of cereal in the morning.  I don't mean to say all poor people are like this, but a good number of them are.  I can't say what percentage, and neither can you.  But it's not low.

[J-Mann]

But that doesn't answer the question of why your choices of phrases seems much more maligning to the poor.

Possibly because that's the sort of irresponsible parents that I am more familiar with.  We don't have many so-called rich parents where I'm from, though we've got a few.  The problems I am more familiar with are far-and-away the poorer parents who shirk their responsibilities in parenting.

[TomC]

I think people on this board are making an incorrect assumption that rich people are actually keeping kids at home and taking care of them on their own. Many rich people are MORE likely to send kids to preschool and MORE likely to hire a nanny.

I'm not making that misconception at all.  I think rich people are more likely to leave the raising of kids to a paid nanny or day care.  Poorer people are more likely to shove the responsibilities onto school systems.

 The best part is that a good percentage of these parents have never even worked outside the home.

Could you clarify this? What are you basing this on? What do you consider a "good percentage?" This seems an incredible generalization or stereotype with little basis in fact.

 I can see you and J-Mann are both smearing the poor with terms like "leave the raising of kids" to describe the rich and "shove the responsibilities" to describe the poor (J-Mann) and yours: "option of hiring a nanny" to the rich and "dump their parenting job" for the poor.

Why is this loaded language being used against the poor? Because of taxes?

I think you're overanalyzing to an extent.  I am also critical of rich parents who don't do their job properly as parents, though I do believe that poor parenting is more prevalent among the underclass poor than the rich.

Still, when the rich fail as parents, it usually doesn't result in me being asked to foot the bill directly as a taxpayer, nor does it usually result in me being robbed or beaten or the victim of some other crime.  The rich largely pay the price for their own failures, while society in general pays the price for the failures of the poor.   That's probably why the poor are judged more harshly for their failures than the rich are.  And frankly, I think that's appropriate.

Yes, that's what I thought you meant, the old, tired propaganda that programs for the poor are the cause of our high taxes, despite the fact that we spend much more preventing the spread of communism in nations far, far away from home, and spend hundreds of billions so that oil companies have more agreeable leaders in Iraq or tens of billion annually that go to quite well off people to own farms that grow absolutely nothing. Tax laws that favor very profitable corporations that pay less in taxes than many working class families. Sorry, but the rich in this country are subsidized too; your "hard earned tax dollars" pay for plenty of stuff that has nothing to do with the poor and really has nothing to do with you or me.

[dazzleman]

Yes, that's what I thought you meant, the old, tired propaganda that programs for the poor are the cause of our high taxes, despite the fact that we spend much more preventing the spread of communism in nations far, far away from home, and spend hundreds of billions so that oil companies have more agreeable leaders in Iraq or tens of billion annually that go to quite well off people to own farms that grow absolutely nothing. Tax laws that favor very profitable corporations that pay less in taxes than many working class families. Sorry, but the rich in this country are subsidized too; your "hard earned tax dollars" pay for plenty of stuff that has nothing to do with the poor and really has nothing to do with you or me.

Honestly, it's not so much the cost of those programs that I object to, though they are considerable, notwithstanding what you say.  I object to the fact that we have spent money to expand a problem and entrench it more deeply.  If the programs worked, I wouldn't be complaining.  But most of the anti-poverty programs that we have had do not work because they encourage the type of behavior that perpetuates poverty.

In any case, my original point stands.  If rich people have to spend large amounts of their own money on psychologists, drug rehab, etc. for their kids because they have failed as parents, that doesn't really affect me directly.  It doesn't mean their failures are any less; it only means I'm not paying for them directly.  Your other comments about spending in other areas aren't really relevant to this topic, so I hesitate to address them here.

[Keridwyn]

Why do people bother having children if they must work to earn money to pay someone else to raise them???

I think it's best for the children and the parents to avoid daycare, if possible.  Surely the parents would prefer their children to grow up learning their values and morals.  And just as surely, the children (especially at a young age) would prefer to spend time with the people they idolize the most -- their family.

Although sometimes there is no other option, I think too few families look for alternatives. StatesRights seems to have made the best of his situation for everyone, although I hope they've left time for each other, as well. 

Keridywn