Reply to How can we improve the childcare crisis?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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?[/quote]

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

So, your answer is to keep women out of the workforce?  [/quote]

Not women.  There are SAHD and will be more and more of them.  For the first year, a baby needs a parent.  A grandparent can step in but a parent is best.  [/quote]

Ok, so how about a year of parental leave? Some of us can't afford to just leave our jobs and/or would have a lot of trouble getting a new one without moving cross-country. Other countries do this. It's possible.[/quote]

Stop having children you can't afford.[/quote]

Stop making having children so expensive.

We've structured our entire economy around the idea that childcare will be provided for free. Every other developed country in the world has overhauled their childcare system to deal with the facts that (1) slavery, indentured servitude, and exploitation of cheap immigrant labor are, correctly, no longer seen as acceptable ways to raise children, and (2) women are allowed to work and have rights now.

The US is the only country that was like "ok, ok, we won't just force WOC to care for children for free/close to free anymore, and fine, women can have jobs and be people, but you're just going to have to figure out for yourselves whose going to take care of children then, we give up." Like all the other countries were able to recognize that without the free labor of women, you were going to have to subsidize childcare in some way or the whole economic system falls apart. We are so, so dumb.

This is not even considered a left-right issue in most countries. [b]Europe, Asia, Australia/New Zealand[/b], many of the more developed countries in Africa -- they have plenty of political debates, but the question of whether a free country can survive without subsidizing childcare in some capacity is viewed as non-controversial. They have arguments about whether immigrants should have access to subsidized childcare, but not whether it should exist. Of course it should, because otherwise how would children be cared for?[/quote]

Childcare is an issue everywhere.  Most developed countries offer lowly paid parental leave so that women are encouraged to stay home and watch kids up to 1-2 years.  Yes, it’s low pay.  Almost all western countries have caps on the amount of weekly pay under the parental leave.  In the UK it’s around $250 a week.  Canada it’s $25k to stay home for a year.  Then in these countries you’re expected to put your kid in institutionalized childcare (daycare) after your year to 2 years are up.  The COL is so much higher in these countries that your average MC/UMC mom can’t stay home with kids.

So not sure what the solution is.  But I don’t think these countries really have it figured out either.  Have friends in a few European countries and I think they struggle just as much as we do.  [/quote]

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