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As someone who has never liked or wanted children (I only saw this thread via the active thread box on the right side). That's the coolest thing I've seen in a while. It's symbolic that everyone deserves a fair start in life regardless of your income level and it speaks volumes that the majority of Finns from all income levels partake in the program. This wouldn't work in the US.
We are far too self-centered, paranoid and concerned with status to actually consider this. "Put my baby in a box?" "Why I never!" Also too many individual Americans would rather watch someone grovel than think of the whole and they try to disguise their view by using the tax excuse (the US could easily afford a similar program even in our current tax situation if we didn't spend so much money on World Police BS) or by saying it encourages more pregnancies. Yes because a baby box is going to make more people partake in unprotected sex.
I understand completely how and why it works, which is because Finland leans towards a socialist society when it comes to public policy.
Teens sometimes have babies so that somebody loves them. A box full of freebies would just make it all that more attractive to a girl getting pregnant for the wrong reasons.
If you have the answers as to how why this should be done in the US, I urge you to run for public office and put it on your platform. I leave this thread, knowing it never will, could, or should happen here.
If that was the case you'd expect to see higher levels of teen pregnancy here in Finland, but there isn't.
You don't know much about rural living and just how fair away services can be when you don't own a car...even if you live in a small town and can get to a store. I have a friend that lives in rural Kansas...the have a Dollar General in their very small town.... the county seat is 50 miles.....the nearest grocery 25. They have one car for a family of 4 and that's needed so the hubby can go to work. It's hard finding someone to give you a lift 50 miles one way on a regular basis. There are no buses. There are no free clinics.
You can't compare being a "big city girl" to being born and raised in a rural environment.
.
People live in rural environments by choice. They are 100% aware of the sparseness of local services--whether it's retail shopping, food, schools, entertainment, etc. Yes, even available medical services. Yet, they still choose to live there.
They know that treating any medical condition (say a broken leg) will be difficult because of where they live. Why would they expect the world to suddenly be different because that medical condition is a pregnancy?
In the example given, why hasn't the family purchased a second car to be used for the wife? Even a cheap little car won't cost that much.
Just because someone intentionally lives somewhere far from the normally available services, it doesn't mean those services haven't been made available in a proper chosen location.
Are we saying that social service agencies have to set up shop every 2 miles because some people choose to live in the boonies?
FYI. I lived in Kansas and that entire area for over 5 years at one point in my life. Then I moved back to the city because I wanted more access to basic life services.
While I think the baby box is very cool, I'd like to know exactly why Finland's infant mortality rate was so high in the 1930s. Off to Google.
Update: What I found was that in 1936, one in ten Finnish children died before reaching the age of one. Forty of the infant mortality rate at that time was attributable to birth trauma, developmental defect, or innate weakness. Pneumonia, disease, and violence accounted for the additional deaths.
Last edited by randomparent; 06-10-2015 at 06:45 AM..
You were quick! That's what I found, too. Thanks for posting the link. Apple's current version of iOS isn't playing nicely with C-D and crashes whenever I try to create a link, which is seriously frustrating.
Fascinating article, and a really great ideal! In the US we have approximately twice the infant Mortality rate that Finland does....Just imagine if we gave this a try!
I'd be willing to pay more taxes for the following:
Single payer health insurance
Free postsecondary education
Maternal/Paternal Family leave
Better infrastructure
Hiring more teachers and doctors
Oh and baby boxes
I think what you might be thinking is that you want to pay a small amount of extra taxes, and get a lot more freebee benefits. But try and think about the real, actual cost of these things, per person?
Average cost of Healthcare for a single person over their lifetime $316,579 (source: NIH)
Average cost of Post Secondary Education per person $34,483 (source: Dept of Edu)
Average cost of 3 months salary per person (family leave) $12,625 (source: Google)
For now we will just leave out infrastructure, teachers, and doctors.
Now add that all together, and divide by 40 for number of working years (assuming everyone works 40 years) and you get a cost of $9,092 per person, per year. That's actual costs, not counting the bureaucracy to manage these things for the entire nation. That's the minimum of how much extra taxes you'd have to pay.
Except this country does not require about 50% of it's population to pay federal income taxes. So that number you calculated above? Double it, so you can pay for one other person's share.
So the first 3 items on your list alone will require for YOU to pay an EXTRA $18,184 in taxes, a year, over what you already pay. Double it for your family if you have a spouse. That's $36,368 of extra taxes, a year, for the average two-parent family.
Are you sure you want to pay THAT much extra taxes?
(And in case you were thinking just let the corporations and 1% pay it, it doesn't matter how rich they are, they would not able to absorb anywhere close to this kind of increase in taxes.)
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