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People need to live off their wages, so what do you expect? What should happen is more maternity and paternity leave guaranteed by your company. Also, in the WFH era, many people should be able to do their jobs from home during this critical phase.
Also, I would like to see the government subsidizing couples having children. I remember reading that Gaddafi used to give $1000 USD to the family for every newborn. The USA government can do something like that, afterall it needs a young generation to work and pay into the system so the previous generation can retire in dignity.
Let me guess- YOU have lots of kids and you want support from all of the single ppl with no kids to support your kid-producing addiction? If you are going to have all single workers subsidize your lifestyle, what do you propose that employers and/or government should provide for the single workers? Double pay to compensate for the slack for the lovely, absent parents? Why should a single person even want to work then? Better to do a John Galt and then disappear.
Let me guess- YOU have lots of kids and you want support from all of the single ppl with no kids to support your kid-producing addiction? If you are going to have all single workers subsidize your lifestyle, what do you propose that employers and/or government should provide for the single workers? Double pay to compensate for the slack for the lovely, absent parents? Why should a single person even want to work then? Better to do a John Galt and then disappear.
Family leave doesn't just benefit people with children. It also benefits people who need to leave work to care for an aging or sick parent. So yes, it is beneficial to people who don't have children.
It certainly does. And as a childless lower income woman, I understand that very well. I have paid property taxes on everyone else's kids for decades and not complained about it. Why? Because the children everyone else has are our future and I'm not so selfish and petty as to think that my property taxes aren't worth investing in their education, whether they are mine or not. Children should be cared for throughout their childhood, no matter whose they are. It is our responsibility as a civil society.
you're making a big assumption that there would be no education absent govt schools, also that attendance in a govt school results in an education.
Average govt school spending per student is $10,000 per year, so each classroom on an average has wiil say 200k to 300k a year to educate the students, unfortunately much of that is absorbed by a bureaucracy and not education. Im certain if govt was out of it all together, education costs would drop and parents would have more of their income left to spend on daycare, nannys, etc.
It is ridiculous how much the public demonizes and blames to poor for their situations, like it's always their fault. The fact is, much of poverty is a vicious cycle. One unfortunate circumstance leads to another, which snowballs into the next, leading to an inability to get out of their situation. And most people are born in poverty from their parents. They start out at a financial disadvantage and it can be exceedingly difficult to rise above this.
Ms. Hypothetical Woman gets pregnant accidently. Oh my God, she made a mistake and because she's poor, everyone will scorn her for the rest of her life. Rich people can make mistakes. Poor people can't because of the W word: welfare. Republicans say, "Don't get an abortion; it's murder." So she doesn't (or she can't afford one) and has the baby.
I agree that the attitude represented by the bolded is prevalent in our metro, but it isn't in some other states (I moved here from the SF Bay Area).
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Now she has to support two people. She isn't well educated so she doesn't earn much at her low paying job. (And an education isn't a ticket to success anyway). So she has to buy a cheap crappy car. Not surprisingly, her cheap crappy car craps out on her, leaving her stranded with no way to get to work. She loses her job and goes on welfare to pay the bills until she gets another job which is just as bad and gets another cheap car. And if she has a poorly paying job, how does she afford daycare? Lord forbid she take subsidized daycare because that's WELFARE. But if she doesn't work because she can't afford daycare or it's too expensive, she's lazy for not working. What about food stamps? That's out too, because people look down on her for taking WELFARE. Poor people don't come out of the womb with a free PhD in a STEM field.
No matter what they do, poor people are demonized, stigmatized, and vilified. Should individuals take personal responsibility? Absolutely. But poor people should not be blamed for remaining poor when they are doing what they can and bad things still happen. Bad things can happen to anyone and when a person has no cushion, they are one disaster away from financial ruin. A myriad of circumstances exists that keeps them trapped in that situation.
That brings up another issue. We have a culture of encouraging breeding just as a part of "going through the motions" of adulthood.
I'm in my late 20s, married since I was 22, dual income with high paying jobs, well-educated, financially comfortable, yada yada...but I don't feel like we're ready for kids because we still want to focus on ourselves and our own endeavours and happiness before we sign our lives away to a child for 18+ years. Once we have a child or adopt, they own us. They become all that matter, our own desires would no longer be any factor in any decisions made. That is what being a parent is.
That's a pretty big ask, yet so many people I know (or even meet) keep asking when I'll hurry up and have kids.
I simply tell them I'm too selfish to be a parent, and instead of being relieved that a selfish person is not breeding, they usually try to further convince me to change my mind!
Wth? In a logical world, an unwillingness to make unlimited sacrifices for your (hopefully hypothetical) children should render you unfit to reproduce in the eyes of others.
One of my dearest, sweetest, oldest relatives is like that. She is a college educated upper class woman who never had to work outside the home. She thinks everyone should be married, and that everyone should have children.
My kids grew up in SAHM, working dad suburb of Houston. Heaven would be a lateral move.
I'll bet the rent money 1/2 those SAHM spent the afternoon at the club playing bridge and drinking their lunch. The local holy roller church had a therapist on staff. He wrote many Rx for mood altering drugs for those SAHM who thought drinking alcohol was a sin.
I truly love your anecdotes about our metro...'2,000' miles away from my home state.
They add texture to the things I see, and I think much of that is because you cut to the chase with perceptive, unvarnished insight.
I enjoyed reading them even before I registered on CD.
Let me guess- YOU have lots of kids and you want support from all of the single ppl with no kids to support your kid-producing addiction? If you are going to have all single workers subsidize your lifestyle, what do you propose that employers and/or government should provide for the single workers? Double pay to compensate for the slack for the lovely, absent parents? Why should a single person even want to work then? Better to do a John Galt and then disappear.
This is just a stupid stereotype. How would they be at the club playing bridge if they had young kids at home?
Sweety, they had live in help. Most of the time it was illegal.
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