How can we improve the childcare crisis?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If benefits paid for by the taxpayer are used to pay for others' childcare, then it should only be granted for the first child. You cannot have taxpayers continue to pay for your responsibility for additional children. Plan on having one child or plan on saving a lot of money for any future children.

Why not? We all pay for the entire education of a child in public school regardless of how many kids you have. That’s 13 years minimum. Why does education start at 5 when learning starts from birth?

Seriously, I’m a SAHM but I don’t get why early learning and daycare isn’t regulated (college educated teachers) and subsidized. We don’t want a dumb populace and the first five years are the most important for brain development and intelligence

I agree. Investing in early childhood education is investing in the future of our country, whether you have kids or not. The achievement gap everyone is trying to eliminate starts at age 2.

Well when Virginia lost out on free pre-school DCUM insisted that having a state-funded PreK program open to our young students was stupid because 'they're not learning anything'. Sucks I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Free free free. I want everything for me. I am a parent and you owe me that .

Yee haw!

You actually do owe me. We have no future without children.

Did you go to public school, PP?

No,we don’t “owe you” a damn thing. You didn’t have your kids out of altruism. You had them because you wanted them.

[Anonymous]

There are very few ways to improve the childcare crisis. Young children need care and close supervision. They go to school around age 5. Until this time, you have to fork over money to pay for their care. The good news is that it’s for a short period of time.

Everyone thinks European parental leave is so great but really they are just paying women an extremely low wage to stay home with kids. The media or even Europeans talk about their “fully paid leave,” but rarely disclose that the max you can even get is $200-300 a week. Who wants to stay home for an entire year with a baby for $20k? This is a great deal if you were already planning to SAH, but it’s hardly a panacea and comical that American women are jealous of this benefit. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The insane waitlists for daycare.

The nanny shortage.

The lack of parental leave.

What can reasonably be done to even take a step in the right direction?

Stay home and you take care of your children. I did. Why can't you?

Since you're fundamentally uninterested in recognizing any problem here, you might want to move along from this discussion.

There is no problem. Your children are not my problem or concern. What is it about this that none of you understand?

Ah a isolationist! You exist only in this world alone- is the correct? Nothing about how other people's children are raised or cared for impacts our society? Employment doesnt impact our society? Do you and your children not live in society? Do you understand what happens when there is no middle class or do you just hope to be on the rich side of that divide?

Your kids are your responsibility. There is zero reason you should be entitled to free child care. No, your employment doesn't impact society. Real middle class get child care help in this area. The problem are rich people claming to be middle class living in million dollar homes who expect hand outs.

Thank you! I'm so tired of the whining from the UMC meanwhile you find out their retirement + stock accounts are fat and flush. Give me a break.

I will never, as long as I live, forget the woman on DCUM during 2020 who threw the largest ongoing adult temper tantrum I have ever seen, with multiple furious, bile-spewing responses, who claimed she NEEDED THE SCHOOLS OPEN RIGHT NOW I DON’T CARE NOW NOW NOW because she “couldn’t afford childcare” while she worked. She blew an everloving gasket when she revealed that she had a several thousand dollar European vacation fund and people suggested she use that for childcare.

It's weird that you are very opposed to subsidizing childcare but you were fine with your tax dollars paying for schools that were closed to students, all to stick it to some anonymous woman on the internet. What a consistent and reasoned fiscal policy.

They weren’t “closed.” Services were provided. You didn’t like them, but that’s too damn bad.

Handing out only sh!t sandwiches does not equal feeding people. It has been made very clear that prolonged school closures with virtual teaching (NOT learning) was catastrophic to women in the workforce in addition to students suffering. That cannot be ignored.
Childcare shouldn’t be subsidized (with rare poverty exception) because certain classes of people decided to stick it Trump by not returning to work in the pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are very few ways to improve the childcare crisis. Young children need care and close supervision. They go to school around age 5. Until this time, you have to fork over money to pay for their care. The good news is that it’s for a short period of time.

Everyone thinks European parental leave is so great but really they are just paying women an extremely low wage to stay home with kids. The media or even Europeans talk about their “fully paid leave,” but rarely disclose that the max you can even get is $200-300 a week. Who wants to stay home for an entire year with a baby for $20k? This is a great deal if you were already planning to SAH, but it’s hardly a panacea and comical that American women are jealous of this benefit. No thanks.

+1 and that was because their population was declining. We don’t have that problem with all the legal and unbridled illegal immigrants pouring in. There is zero reason to pay people to procreate while our population continues to grow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are very few ways to improve the childcare crisis. Young children need care and close supervision. They go to school around age 5. Until this time, you have to fork over money to pay for their care. The good news is that it’s for a short period of time.

Everyone thinks European parental leave is so great but really they are just paying women an extremely low wage to stay home with kids. The media or even Europeans talk about their “fully paid leave,” but rarely disclose that the max you can even get is $200-300 a week. Who wants to stay home for an entire year with a baby for $20k? This is a great deal if you were already planning to SAH, but it’s hardly a panacea and comical that American women are jealous of this benefit. No thanks.

Valid point. I do like the idea of staggered maternity/paternity leaves (like the Germans' "Elternzeit")

[Anonymous]

If you want European type of child care, you have to pay more taxes. It’s called socialism. No free lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want European type of child care, you have to pay more taxes. It’s called socialism. No free lunch.

Right. And realize that women will be expected to stay home for a year or more after each baby and men will be expected to take extended leave as well. And often this leave is at a very low wage unless your employer helps contribute.

[Anonymous]

We could start by teaching people to live within their means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want European type of child care, you have to pay more taxes. It’s called socialism. No free lunch.

Right. And realize that women will be expected to stay home for a year or more after each baby and men will be expected to take extended leave as well. And often this leave is at a very low wage unless your employer helps contribute.

Europeans accept higher taxes and sometimes lower wages in return for social welfare that ensures common life events (having a child, getting laid off, getting sick, aging) do not result in destitution. Americans believe in a lottery system we pretend is a meritocracy instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Free free free. I want everything for me. I am a parent and you owe me that .

Yee haw!

You actually do owe me. We have no future without children.

Did you go to public school, PP?

No,we don’t “owe you” a damn thing. You didn’t have your kids out of altruism. You had them because you wanted them.

NP here. So why do you pay taxes to educate all children k thru 12? I actually never had children but have been paying taxes for public schools all my working like as well as funding for state colleges.

People are making the point that it’s so arbitrary to say you’ll pay for public education starting at five but not four.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We could start by teaching people to live within their means.

There aren’t enough “means” to live within when you’re a daycare teacher. Minimum wage and all the colds you can catch.

[Anonymous]

We do not live in a society that can afford to have one parent stay home for five years - there’s a labor shortage as it is. Further, the most important developmental time in a child’s life is the first five. We have to provide better daycares at subsidized cost for our young Americans. In thirty years, they will be driving the progress of our country.

Regulated daycare and preschool is a must after a full year of parental leave.

And I have two grown kids so no dog in this fight beyond wanting the USA to regain strength.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Free free free. I want everything for me. I am a parent and you owe me that .

Yee haw!

You actually do owe me. We have no future without children.

Did you go to public school, PP?

No,we don’t “owe you” a damn thing. You didn’t have your kids out of altruism. You had them because you wanted them.

And no one owed you a free public education but they gave you one. It’s supposedly for the betterment of our country (failed with you however).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are very few ways to improve the childcare crisis. Young children need care and close supervision. They go to school around age 5. Until this time, you have to fork over money to pay for their care. The good news is that it’s for a short period of time.

Everyone thinks European parental leave is so great but really they are just paying women an extremely low wage to stay home with kids. The media or even Europeans talk about their “fully paid leave,” but rarely disclose that the max you can even get is $200-300 a week. Who wants to stay home for an entire year with a baby for $20k? This is a great deal if you were already planning to SAH, but it’s hardly a panacea and comical that American women are jealous of this benefit. No thanks.

Given I was only making $65K before taxes, that would have been great to get $20K as by the time I paid for day care, taxes, union dues and all that, I would not have made anything. It all depend son how you look at it.