Hacker News Reader

Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

Ignoring the obvious downsides for a moment, I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now. This morning I went up and down the stairs at least ten times while trying to get my 7- and 9-year old kids successfully established in their first remote learning session, simultaneously participating in two consecutive Zoom meetings with coworkers, and figuring out how to solve a nagging issue in our application that has stumped the rest of the team. I won't be cut any slack by management, in fact it works out the opposite -- as the team lead, I need to be around all day to answer questions, solve high-level problems, and fit in a bit of architecture work around new projects around the edges. I put in more work time for the office now than I did if you added up all my previous office time, lunch time, and commutes.

I wouldn't give up my kids for anything but I will be so very happy when this pandemic is safely behind us and we can get back to something approximating what we had before.

View on HN

A BIG chunk of all that drama is due to the US social safety net not including childcare.

That's the thing disturbing thing about these stories: employees are turned against each other when it's a) the company; and b) your tax dollars, not providing any kind of built-in childcare for society. In France, kids can go to preschool and have pre- and post- school childcare, which has to be paid, but it's only like $500/mo and has subsidies involved and all kinds of subtleties that I don't know about but still aren't expensive.

And I'm not saying "move to France," I'm saying that tax dollars in the US should be going toward making the lives of tax payers easier, especially in a nationwide/global situation like a pandemic.

Yes but isn't that childcare in france gone?

no it's back. It will probably be gone again if things keep spiraling out of control, but child-care is back in France.

It is always funny thinking that outside of the US a lot of places are able to cautiously resume normal life while here we’re all either terrified or pretending nothing is wrong.

France and Spain are also currently experiencing big spikes again. We are struggling in the US for sure (especially due to the extremity of most opinions like you mention), but so are other places.

They are having difficulties for very different reasons.

France and Spain seem to be experiencing big spikes precisely because they largely returned to normal. Now, reopening schools and childcare probably isn't the big problem there because they don't seem to be major contributors to spreading the disease - but this also means countries could just not have shut them in the first place.

Just to clarify, I was stating the situations in France and Spain are very different to the one the US is going through. Should have been more clear in my previous comment.

I'm not really sure your point, I wasn't saying they are spiking for the same or different reasons. Just that they're having problems too, so they're not exactly "able to resume normal life."

> pretending nothing is wrong.

And there's out problem. The covid situation in the US is a trainwreck because we can't get everyone to follow basic hygiene guidelines and practice social distancing.

We could have basically whooped this thing months ago if people weren't violently resisting face masks and similar measures.

On the bright side, Americans have prevented 90% of the 2+ million predicted deaths that were to have occurred by now had nothing been done.

That means most Americans don’t need the government to tell them what to do to make a decent outcome of things.

Yes we will voluntarily do better than nothing. It’s still infuriating that tens of thousands have died due to mixed messages about appropriate behavior. We’ve beaten the “do nothing” scenario but that is a very low bar.

We already have government schools that are closed by the edict issued by teachers’ union. How having government childcare would help?

> We already have government schools that are closed by the edict issued by teachers’ union. How having government childcare would help?

The government gives you money each month for each child you have, and forces your employer to allow you to work part-time.

> the edict issued by teachers’ union

This is greatly misinformed. Schools in the US are underfunded and have scarce resources to deal with the healthcare nightmare that is COVID. The unions simply are the medium through which some school organizations had to be convinced of this rather obvious problem.

$23k+ per pupil in NYC is underfunded?

If that number was pre-COVID, then yes. No school system budgeted for healthcare-level precautions. Also, it doesn't seem overly surprising given the cost of living in NYC and how expensive everything else is.

If the median price of a home in NYC is $799K [1] (likely the average is even higher), an average spending of $23K per pupil is not too surprising.

[1] https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/new-york-real-estate-m...

Who do you suppose pays for it then? At that level public schools shouldn’t exist as private do a better job by all metrics.

> At that level public schools shouldn’t exist as private do a better job by all metrics.

There is no real "that level"; average are misleading without better context. Bill Gates walks into a bar and "the average net worth is 1 billion per person".

> At that level public schools shouldn’t exist as private do a better job by all metrics.

Private schools have the liberty to pick and choose their students. A special needs student that requires extensive care throughout the day will be rejected by a private school, but the public schools have to accommodate the student. Most private enterprises are efficient precisely because they select their customers with a view to minimum cost and maximum revenue. This is fundamentally incompatible with a public teaching system that has to serve everyone.

> private do a better job by all metrics.

Not much, if at all, when you correct for student body makeup. Private schools do a good job of selecting the students that would do better anyway.

> If the median price of a home in NYC is $799K

A pointless stat in the context of school spending. A ton of NYC residents can’t afford homes and still send kids to school.

> A pointless stat in the context of school spending. A ton of NYC residents can’t afford homes and still send kids to school.

How is it pointless? Do you think house prices don't affect the rent that those people have to pay to be residents? Where do you think all the employees of NYC schools stay? I mean, sure, quite a few probably stay in New Jersey and such, but in general the NYC area has inflated prices of everything, so I'm not overly surprised by inflated school spending.

How much of that goes on rent? And is that rent paid directly back to the city?

Not much. NYC's schools (and the schools in most cities) are mostly on property that has been owned by the city for a very, very long time.

For example, most Schools are in massive violation of OSHA because their air filters aren't up to the job because they can't afford to retrofit buildings to support a clean air system.

The unions are trying to keep their members ALIVE not out of spite, but because some one has to take the hit.

Yet all the millions in bond issues don’t address that? That’s mismanagement, not lack of funding.

Who knows? I can tell you that my wife’s 60ish year old elementary school in Southern California finally got air conditioning last year. So the bond issues aren’t flushing schools in money.

My brother teaches in an Arizona public school classroom which has one window and poor ventilation. The Security Officer for the school forbids leaving the door open because of the risk of active shooters.

Arizona having active shooters wandering the halls of public schools all day long seems like an unlikely problem. Even given the number of school shootings in the past decade the likelihood of a single classroom getting one is way less than one of the students getting hit by a school bus in the parking lot.

> This is greatly misinformed. Schools in the US are underfunded

K-12 in the USA is more funded than almost every country on this planet. What are you talking about?

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

On average, you are technically correct. But the US also has the greatest disparity in funding, which isn't visible on your link but is absolute basic conventional wisdom for any discussion of US education.

Fifteen of the fifty states had per-pupil funding less than the OECD average. Our median-funded state is around Canada, around 13th in the world. If Utah were a country, it would rank in the 30s, somewhere around the Slovak Republic.

https://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-educ...

[why was objectivetruth's comment downvoted to 'dead'?]

Also should/are those figures adjustment for cost of living for the particular state?

> K-12 in the USA is more funded than almost every country on this planet. What are you talking about? https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

As I have said elsewhere in this thread, statistics viewed in isolation are not useful, and are often used for shock value rather than to provide an actual insight. That article of yours refers to the OECD. The US has the highest population in the OECD countries (325 million), almost 3 times the next highest country (Mexico at 129 million). A greater and likely more diverse population with no social safety net means more challenges. Also, are you sure that the USA and say, Japan have exactly equivalent facilities for all students, including special needs students? Also, there's the issue of adapting to different cultures and languages, both of which American schools are far more accepting about. Japanese schools have gotten in hot water for forcing students to dye their hair black to maintain uniformity [1].

So yeah, making apples-to-apples comparisons between the US education system and other countries is hard at best, and meaningless at worst. The US has the challenges of being the largest population in the OECD, as well as being the most diverse culturally, the most liberal in terms of social norms, and not having a meaningful social safety net, particularly for healthcare. This is a unique set of challenges that requires an equivalent amount of funding to tackle.

-------------

[1] https://japantoday.com/category/national/tokyo-public-school...

No.

We spend more per student than nearly every one of our economic peers and get drastically worse results. Results have gotten worse over time, even though we have increased funding.

This is a portrait of total failure, and we need to stop funding it.

You can't "fix the system".

The system is insanely profitable. It makes a lot of money for lobbyists, private interests, unions, administrators... it's great for everybody but parents and students.

Both of my parents were educators. Mom served on the school board, with great distinction, for over a decade.

I got to see, first-hand, just how bad things were. How much damage lobbying, insane political programs, and public-sector unions have done to education.

As a future parent, I will never subject my children to the horrors of American public education in its current incarnation.

That choice should be open to every American parent, not just those wealthy enough to send their kids to a private school.

> drastically worse results

Every single time I double check this, it turns out that American education system, while not perfect, is not that bad either.

American education system tend to have big differences - schools that have tons of money and schools that struggle for supplies or are unable to fix buildings. Schools that are great, schools that are very bad. Schools that are difficult and schools that are easy. But overall, the results are not some kind of catastrophe. It is far from that.

In fact, specifically on public/private divide there are plenty of good public schools with good results. The places middle class families fight to live at are such because everyone wants to go to local public school. This does makes local house prices higher and makes that school available to rich only. But it is still public school and not a private one.

The biggest issue is the lock-in.

Most people can't move to get access to good schools.

It's like "you live in a McDonalds area, so tough luck, that's what your family gets to eat until you are rich enough to move somewhere better."

Nobody would find that acceptable. Especially when the McDonalds is priced as if it had a Michelin Star.

> It's like "you live in a McDonalds area, so tough luck, that's what your family gets to eat until you are rich enough to move somewhere better."

This is literally true in the US, with food deserts [1].

> Nobody would find that acceptable.

I don't like it, but apparently people in the USA are just fine with this. Show me politicians who are winning elections based on equal access to nutritious food.

Most people resent money spent on schools because they are stuck in 19th-century thinking about how “all you need is a schoolhouse and some willing students, why does it take so much money?”.

-------------------

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

Food desert is defined as "more than one mile from a supermarket in urban and more than 10 miles from a supermarket in rural areas".

Doers that really imply such area does not have good food available? Because by that definitino I used to live in food desert and still had fresh foods, such as meats, fruits, and vegetables.

That definition has affordability and some amount of processing and convenience inherent in it because of the word "supermarket". So it means that you can't get good food with a reasonable amount of effort, and without needing access to things like large chest freezers or canning equipment.

My guess is that you lived in an area with plenty of produce, close to a farm or something like that. This is my preferred setup as well, but it is a) expensive and b) hard to process and store in the quantities you get. Typically you get tens of pounds of tomatoes one month and nothing the next.

> We spend more per student than nearly every one of our economic peers and get drastically worse results. Results have gotten worse over time, even though we have increased funding. This is a portrait of total failure, and we need to stop funding it.

You are repeating the talking points about average, when the entire point of my paragraph above is that averages are not useful outside of context. There is no "we". Someone posted elsewhere in the thread that several states in the USA have funding below the OECD average already. [1]

> The system is insanely profitable. It makes a lot of money for lobbyists, private interests, unions, administrators... it's great for everybody but parents and students.

This I agree, for everything except the unions. Those might have been very powerful in the past; now apparently they are under fire for resisting a call to work where they could potentially contract a disease that has stopped entire economies.

-------------------------------

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24416490

Absolutely this, I bet if you gave each parent a check for $10k (less than what we are spending per student) to spend on education as they see fit, we would have a very different (and more efficient) system.

> I bet if you gave each parent a check for $10k (less than what we are spending per student) to spend on education as they see fit, we would have a very different (and more efficient) system.

Except the special needs students. And the ones with severe physical and learning disabilities. And the ones who have trouble getting food at home. And the ones who don't have school supplies, which the teachers buy out of their own pockets.

Oh, and the free childcare that teachers also provide during the daytime! It's not exactly working out well, now that that's temporarily on hold due to the pandemic.

Brainwaves like this are rarely productive when you think about them in the context of an entire society. But I actually think if you told parents "Here's this $10k, and good luck. The school buildings are going away.", they wouldn't take it.

Then we need a serious discussion as to why we are using the education system to solve food access issues, along with poverty, and support for disabilities.

Once we burden the education system with solving society ills, you fail at the main goal. This is called scope creep.

Yes! I think comprehensive social benefits and putting handling of disabilities and such outside the purview of schools would go a long way towards reducing the amount spent per child.

Have to agree with others that more funding, alone, won't solve the problem. At my mother's school, any extra funding usually paid for more administration to tell her how to do her job wrong.

That doesn't mean it's not underfunded for what it would need to achieve what people expect of it.

Should these be adjusted for purchasing power parity?

Also does the US education spending number (6.5% of GDP) contains spending on sports and research?

That is not a correct summary. The first part of this study includes private schools. The second part includes universities. Removing those factoers, USA K-12 is either average or below.

Schools in the US are _not_ underfunded. There's some issues with unequal funding (which I think is a real, large, problems).

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/school-s...

>Schools in the US are underfunded

This is pure flasehood. The US spends more per child than pretty much all of Europe.

Maybe you meant they're under performing because while not lacking in money they are most certainly lacking in outputs.

I'll happily cite sourced if you want but it's well known and well documented and written about you can corroborate it easily with whatever sources you find reliable.

Childcare, although helpful for those parents who cannot WFH, would seem to present a choice to those who can: either put your children into a riskier environment, or accept that you will be less productive than your colleagues who are willing to take that risk. That's a terrible choice for a parent to make. The safest method would be to permanently assign one child care professional to a family, to limit any transmission, but I doubt there are enough child care professionals to do that.

Most likely depends on what you consider professional. Turns out the qualifications for watching other people’s children are almost enterally age base. Even then there’s wiggle room for a competence factor that is deemed by the guardian and confirmed by the court.

For example, there is no lower age a child can be left alone in my state, and no requirements for leaving with someone else — except that the child or person can reasonably recognize danger and avoid it.

The amount of risk depends upon where a person lives. I am in a part of the world that acted aggressively early and got the spread under control. The only real concern is that someone from outside of the region will import covid since we are still dependent upon trade and some people don't like playing by the rules, while people within the region are getting a bit complacent should that happen.

Even assigning one child care professional per household with children is impractical. That would amount to one care giver per one or two income earners in those families, while still introducing vectors for the virus to spread. It is a disproportionate amount of the workforce and would be incredibly expensive. Good child care professionals aren't working for minimum wage.

Mothers and extended families used to cover that role.

Childcare was nearly shut down during a large fraction of this pandemic (with some supply for children of essential workers). Childcare is still not back at full capacity.

The biggest chunk is due to the US's (and much of the rest of the world's) lock-down policies.

I am not a parent, but I am disgusted that so many in society would wish to knowingly ruin childrens' lives all over the world just to continue living through this obscene assault upon humanity. Even if we were to buy the absurd notion that we will save substantial numbers of lives by forcing kids to go to school remotely, what the hell kind of cost is that? To immeasurably harm a kid's upbringing - where they need the guarantees of a stable and loving environment the most?

It is completely ludicrous, superstitious, and specious to shut down our public school systems over a respiratory illness that statistically kids do not commonly catch nor transmit. We have endured far worse than this while we simply sat and did nothing. And those times, we didn't end up with a battered economy and massive increases in famine in the developing world, like we are now.

Few countries in the modern world would be prepared to sustain the kind of long-term damage this lock-down policy is going to wreak upon us all. Especially not ones as large and sprawling as the US, with corporate interests and military campaigns ongoing all throughout the globe. There's no sense in discussing policy when clearly there's no policy on earth that could stand against the tyrannical stupidity of all the world's governments turning against their citizens.

I totally agree. Thanks for putting your perspective out there. It is indeed an assault on kids. Where I come from, school is mandatory. I think there is an obligation of the government to ensure that school can continue, with the same level of quality as perviously.

I would give this comment 'Hacker-news Gold' if I could.

Yesterday I heard on the radio the local chief of police saying they would be present and ready to write fines to people who didn't follow the new restrictions on public night life. Like they were actually eager to do so!

The same is true for people not wearing face-diapers on public transport.

I'm not saying ignore corona entirely, but on the other hand I'm shocked at how carelessly people act when their rights are violated and their governments oppress them.

> The same is true for people not wearing face-diapers on public transport. I'm not saying ignore corona entirely, but on the other hand I'm shocked at how carelessly people act when their rights are violated and their governments oppress them.

What is the right that is being violated here? The right to put others in danger needlessly? You are free to choose to go and live in the mountains by yourself and not wear a mask, and the government won't stop you. Living in society comes with rules attached. Cherry-picking only the benefits of living in society but refusing the downsides doesn't work.

Wearing a mask is a trivial inconvenience and the least you could do to show empathy for other vulnerable people in the middle of a pandemic.

There are plenty of human rights violations and government oppression around the world; face mask requirements for public health pales by comparison.

And if a kids goes back to school and infects an at risk family member - imagine being 10 years old and being responsible for the death of your grandpa or mum who is on treme risk register.

Puts missing some crammed for test into perspective.

Please. A pandemic is ongoing, right? That means a lot of people are getting, spreading, and coming into contact with the virus. The idea that one's infection could be attributed to a single individual is ridiculously unscientific.

This argument is, in fact, so poor that it doesn't even stand muster when we accept your blindingly outrageous premise. Supposing a kid could be blamed for their 90 year old grandpa's illness, do you think grandpa is going to go down screaming, blaming the kid and cursing him for wanting to learn how to read, write, and do multiplication?

Grandpa would probably die to ensure their grandchild has a decent shot at a good life. I know mine would have.

> We have endured far worse than this while we simply sat and did nothing.

Perhaps this is the real issue that needs addressing?

First, $500/month for each child in France is not that cheap or great, especially as you’re sacrificing earning potential.

Second, we have anecdotal data and you suggest we revamp a trillion dollar industry and incentive structure? Seems like we’re doing ok here, considering more people want to come in from France than emigrate there.

>A BIG chunk of all that drama is due to the US social safety net not including childcare.

Of course it does. That’s 90% of what grade school is and that’s why sending kids back to school is such a high priority for so many people.

Sorta.

In a family with 2 working parents, I've always been shocked that "all day" pre-k and schooling means "until 2p". After care is quite expensive and in our experience has a hard stop at 6p.

It's hard enough with office-drone professionals, but when I think back to my service industry days and how those schedules were created - at the whim of a petty manager with no week-to-week consistency and only a couple days notice ont he next week - I just don't understand how those parents get to feel that school is childcare. I means they can only work 8-2, assuming little commute.

In my experience the shifts that line up with childcare are given to those with children who express the need.

A job that respects childcare is more likely to retain those employees that need it, and that can be used as leverage.

1. the $500 of child care in France is more expensive than $1500 child care in California if you factor in lower salaries.

2. with the attitude of reopening schools in France and elsewhere in Europe in spite of the pandemic I’m actually happy that schools and day care are closed (at least on the west coast). I don’t want the government to mandate school attendance right now (not sure about France, but in Germany attendance is required by law), thank you.

That being said, I completely agree with you that tax dollars are well spent on early education and it’s grossly neglected in the US.

The problem with that is two-fold: first, the median childcare worker is less concerned with the child’s long-term success than is the median parent (that’s not a slight against childcare workers!); second, that the presence of state childcare makes it less competitive for parents to spend time taking care of their children themselves rather than to work and earn money, which means more and more folks are likely to utilise state childcare, which is less ideal due to the first reason.

Is there any evidence that childcare is detrimental to a kid’s future?

Your argument could easily be used to argue against anything in our service based society. From schooling to dentists.

Yes.

> The Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program

> Past research documents the persistence of positive impacts of early life interventions on noncognitive skills. We test the symmetry of this finding by studying the persistence of a sizeable negative shock to noncognitive outcomes arising with the introduction of universal child care in Quebec. We find that the negative effects on noncognitive outcomes persisted to school ages, and also that cohorts with increased child care access had worse health, lower life satisfaction, and higher crime rates later in life. Our results reinforce previous evidence of the central role of the early childhood environment for long-run success.

https://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/kmilligan/research/BGM-childcare...

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20170603

Edit: Here’s a decent explainer for anyone who doesn’t want to read the whole paper. https://www.macleans.ca/economy/economicanalysis/how-to-unde...

Interesting stuff. One question:

> After a few years, there’s no distinguishing between a child whose performance was improved (or worsened) by daycare and one who did not go to daycare.

Is this potentially because most schools are aimed at "middle of the road" kids, kids who come in with more experience / skills / knowledge spend a couple of years just reviewing and waiting for the other kids to catch up?

Not arguing against the findings, just trying to explore alternate hypotheses.

It’s important to distinguish that that quote is referring the prevailing findings on cognitive outcomes, while the research paper I linked to looks at non-cognitive outcomes, which do persist.

I’m not an expert in the field but it’s an interesting question. It seems like a lot of research on childhood interventions converges around cognitive capacities being pretty innate, but socialization or behaviour being more affected by environment.

This is an interesting idea and one I hadn’t considered.

It’s a tough one to test empirically, of course, since it would involve taking gifted children and sending half of them to personal tutors and enriching experiences and the other half to, well, “regular” school.

I would guess that there are cohorts of kids across states or districts with different offerings of things like AP classes that could be matched on standardized test and SES scores.

In Sweden, preschool/childcare is a part of the school system, with it’s own education plan. My kids have loved going to their respective preschools, and they get to meet other kids and learn new things in a safe environment. Even though I love to hang out with my kids, I would never consider it better for them to stay at home with me. Btw, I have four kids, 2-12 years old, so I’ve seen quite a few preschools now and they have all been amazing.

I’ve heard horror stories about childcare in the US from friends who live/lived there so I can understand people’s reticence when their only experiences have been extremely poor.

But likewise my experience in Iceland has been phenomenal. Experienced, educated teachers who specialise in pre-school education backed up by really caring support staff. And the schools are packed full of fun things to do and healthy food.

Really. Bringing my 1½ year old kid to the (heavily subsidised) kinderdagopvang in the Netherlands is a no-brainer. He gets to play and mingle with other young children and enjoy himself tremendously, and we work from home. Professionals take care of his needs, and there is not a moment of worry as far as we parents are concerned. It's also only 500m away, so I get some fresh air too when I bring and pick him up by bicycle.

The day these day care facilities reopened (May 11th) was a good day.

Unfortunately, childcare is like most things in the US, cost and quality vary wildly. We had great childcare and preschool experience, but for a period of time was paying more than our mortgage to send the kids there.

In my region of Spain, childcares typically have 1 adult per 8 children for under 1 year olds, 1 adult per 13 children for 1 to 2 year olds, and 1 adult per 20 children for 2 to 3 year olds. Some private childcares offer better ratios but not substantially better (they can brag about maybe (6,10,15) instead of (8,13,20), for example).

I don't doubt the professionalism of the people who work there, in fact I have a high opinion of them, but I think it's simply physically impossible to provide the kids with the care and stimulation they need with that kind of adult-to-child ratio. My kid demands an amount of attention that just couldn't be provided by 1/8th of a person before 1 year old or 1/13th of a person now that he's 1.

I suppose the solution ends up being strapping them to some bouncy seat or hypnotizing them with screens. And when it's meal time, just try to give them the food for 5-10 minutes and if they didn't eat much, bad luck. I can't blame the professionals because what can you do if you are alone with that amount of babies/kids? But that's something I don't want for him, I definitely think he's better at home where he can get more attention.

I suppose in Sweden the ratios will be much better, which of course changes everything.

Those ratios are pretty high indeed. Eight babies for one adult! In the Netherlands:

    under 1: max 3 per adult
    1–2: 5 per adult
    2–4: 8 per adult

The UK is very similar though it depends a bit on the setting and qualifications of the person involved - but generally max 3 per adult for under 2s, max 4 per adult for 2-3 and 8-13 per adult for 3-4s.

While parents care more about outcomes, they may not be making ideal choices to support those outcomes.

When I have my kids full-time, time with them is a balancing act between being actively engaged and trying to enrich their lives and just trying to keep them alive while I knock out other stuff that has to be done. My youngest is still a toddler, and much of his experience of being at home is me chasing him around the apartment taking (almost) everything away from him. He loves going to day care where he's in an environment that's designed around him and where he's allowed to mess with just about anything he wants to. I'm skeptical that I'm worse in that regard than a "median" parent.

In practice, very few stay-at-home parents dedicate all of their children's waking hours to their kids.

Do you have some data to back up your claim about childcare workers being less concerned? And also, that "less concerned" translates to worse education?

When childcare closed across Europe due to the pandemic, I've seen a lot of my friends with kids turning from oh so "concerned" parents to people in survival mode who suddenly don't mind their kids having sugary food in the evening or watching yet another TV show if that is what makes them happy:

It's one thing to hand the nanny a list of things to do or to avoid, it's another thing to prepare gluten-free, vegan food 3 times a day while also making sure the little one does the preschool-level introductory course to quantum physics.

> The problem with that is two-fold: first, the median childcare worker is less concerned with the child’s long-term success than is the median parent

Two of my siblings are primary school teachers (that is, for kids who come right out of kindergarten; not sure how this is called in the US/elsewhere), and from the stories I've heard from them, they'd argue heavily against your points.

I think you're underestimating how many families are completely dysfunctional, or where the parents are overwhelmed with taking care of their children, even under normal situations, let alone during the current pandemic. For example; where I live, it's unfortunately still often the case that schools do not take care of lunch for the kids (they are supposed to go home during lunch breaks) and the amount of times where teachers have to wonder whether the kids had anything to eat at all for lunch (sometimes because nobody is at home and they didn't feel hungry at the time or had only junk available) is astounding.

Childcare workers are trained and certified for their job (that's at least the case in my country); and yes, while they have many kids around and thus might not have as much interest in an individual kid as a parent might have, they at least have to uphold a certain level of competence in order to keep their jobs (essentially, like the rest of us - be good enough at your job or search something else), while a parent stays a parent, no matter how bad they are at it.

As a counterpoint here's something Franz Kafka wrote in a letter to Elli Hermann 1921, badly translated by me.

> Parents have an animalistic, senseless love for the children, which confuses themselves with the child all the time, the educator has respect, and this is much more valuable for education, even if there is no love present at all. I repeat: valuable for education, because even though I call parental love animalistic and senseless, that does not value it lowly, it is just as much a unknowable mystery as the artful, creative love of the educator, only in the context of education however it cannot be valued low enough.

I don't think that's entirely relevant when most existing childcare in the US has just been completely unavailable due to COVID-19. It's not lack of funds or state support; childcare had been shut down along with everything else.

But I agree that it's messed up that this is causing parents and non-parents to turn against each other; non-parents should be siding with parents to get their companies to provide better conditions.

(I don't think I'll go as far to suggest this outcome is intentional by employers, though, despite the fact that turning your employees against each other is a classic employer-vs-labor tactic to keep benefits and wages low.)

>>> it's only like $500/mo

In France the large majority of workers make 1000 - 2000 euro a month after taxes. Half of it going to rent like in every city. That means people may have a couple hundreds euros left at the end of the month in disposable income after rent, food, gas, taxes, etc...

That is to say 500/month for childcare is insanely expensive and unaffordable!

Here in Norway we have another system where the payments for child care is graded so those with low income pay zero and those with highish (> €60000/year) pay full (€200-300/month) and in between you pay around €100/month.

500 bucks/month seem quite expensive.

Well, I find it hard to believe that €200 - €300 should be "full". That can most certainly not cover the full cost for child care, so there's probably still a significant subsidy by the state even for high earners.

It's not the full cost of having a kid in childcare. Norway have set a cap on what the parents have to pay, and most (if not all) kindergartens have discounts if you have multiple kids in the same place.

The actual cost is much higher but is covered by the government, with some adjustments to account for local variations in things such as real-estate costs and similar.

This also means that people are still paying a higher price for it, but that price is just mixed in with the rest of their taxes.

To be clear, I'm in favor of governments taxing for the purpose of providing services of benefit to society. But having the government cover costs does not make those costs go away, it just shifts how people pay for them.

If you only look at the cost you are correct. But at the same time having more people able to work increases the tax revenue of the government which in turn makes the total influence on the economy of the country not as bad. Too often people only look at costs in these scenarios. I see you are not opposed to the idea regardless but it is a thing to bear in mind :)

> This also means that people are still paying a higher price for it, but that price is just mixed in with the rest of their taxes.

Given that Norway has extremely successful oil and gas investments that doesn't seem right. This is money that the average person would never see anyways. It's not money coming from their taxes back into their pockets.

Fair enough, it is more complex than I stated. Though there is still an opportunity cost; if that money were not being spent on this, it could be spent on other things, or given to taxpayers. I'm just pushing back on the idea that things are "free" when the government pays for them, but costs don't go away just because they are paid for by the government. It's a pedantic point though.

Keep in mind that most of the money Norway make from oil & gas are invested [1], it's not money used directly for anything in Norway. Up to 4% of the money made from the investments can be spent, the rest is re-invested.

Of the 1.173,5 bn NOK income in the 2020 national budget, 1.084,8 bn NOK are from taxes and various charges.[2]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... [2] - https://www.statsbudsjettet.no/Statsbudsjettet-2020/Satsinge... (Norwegian)

No, when I say full, it is really the "maximum you ever need to pay" for a spot in kindergarten. It is of course subsided too by the government!

And as the sibling here say you can get rebate for having more kids too.

Having accessible daycare for all means more women can go to work full time which again means higher productivity among the population and more career opportunities for women so it is very important in many areas.

In corona times it is essential to get anything done effectively.

We also have the right in law to daycare, not just an offer if there is room for it.

Here in France we have a system where the payments for child care is graded so those with low income pay zero (actually get billed a low hourly price plus receive an immediate help from the state so the net to pay is zero) and those with highish (> €40000/year) pay a high per hour rate and get the help capped to 600€, and that help drops to zero if the hourly rate goes above 10€/h (which can quickly happen if you have a flat daily rate but fail to present the child on time, like nobody with children has never been late, ever) or for days the child is not presented to childcare at all, but you still get billed for those, including if the child is ill up to 5 days (after that healthcare takes over, but in between, which is pretty much most of the time, you foot the bill)

I’ve been a father for three weeks, we ran the numbers with my wife for this kafkaesque system with crazy conditions at every corner that seem specifically designed to make us bleed inane amounts of money, and for our current situation this means for five days a week of presence the bill totals north of 2k€/mo, minus the capped 600 on the happy path, and if everything goes well... <deity> forbid anything goes wrong., we’d have to foot the whole bill plus possible penalties.

YMMV and there are “somewhat cheaper” solutions, but there’s 1-2+ year (years!) wait queues, and they’re not FIFO but priority ordered by... revenue, which makes the queue virtually infinite for us. So my wife which had an entrepreneur project on the table is contemplating dropping that on the floor and staying at home, which would be a terrible move in so many ways.

I’m all for social help and levelling the playing field, but this is downright batshit insane.

Half of it is returned in the form of tax credit.

A full time job minimum salary is 1.521,22 euros per month in France, and at this salary, you have no revenue taxes and extra child support, namely a one shot birth allocation of roughly 1000 euros, and 185,54 € per month of child support.

So, no, "500/month" is not in my opinion "insanely expensive and unaffordable" considering a bigger picture.

For foreign readers, the income tax in France is a secondary tax that more than half of workers do not pay at all (it's low compared to other taxes and it's divided by the number of children). Don't be mislead when hearing that there is no income tax, France has many taxes.

What you say is misleading. (1) That's not quite right for a single parent because they get more allowance but can't claim tax credit with no tax. (2) That's not quite right for a couple each around minimum wage because they get no allowance but may claim some tax back. (3) That's not quite right for a couple with good dual income or extra revenues because they're not eligible to any benefits but may be able to claim a good chunk of the child care in tax credit.

France has extremely strong threshold effects. A penny less and there's more allowance, a penny more and benefits are cut while taxes are increased. It's really hard to generalize.

In all cases though, it's tough for a household to pay for childcare. My sister is a childcare worker so I'd know, all parents are dual income earners, like the equivalent of the high earning engineer/lawyer household making $300k+ a year in the valley. They earn enough to pay for childcare upfront and get a fair chunk back in tax credits.

(1) If you pay no taxes, a tax credit is the state giving you money (not the same as a tax reduction). In the case of childcare, it's a tax credit, so everyone in France can claim it and the state will give you money if need be.

(2) I'm sorry, I don't get what you mean

(3) Well, yeah, if you're a lawyer/software engineer with a good income, you can probably afford to pay childcare, seems right by me ?

(1) You're sure about that? I used tax credits a lot and it's always been a deduction on my taxable income (before income tax). I don't think people paying no income tax can gain anything from tax credits.

I think that is common across Europe / social states:

- Half of gross income is taxation

- Half of the net income is rent

- Half of the net-net income is other cost of living

- The remainder is disposable income (~10 % of gross income)

Why should it be someone else's responsibility to care for your child during working hours? I have nine children, my wife both stays home with them AND home-schools them (COVID didn't affect our schooling situation), and I'm able to work from home without it being an issue to affect productivity. This is possible because I didn't start having children until I was married and I married someone not only based on shared beliefs but that we both wanted a large family who would be educated at home.

It's not magic, luck, or privilege: it's called planning ahead.

If it is a global pandemic, what is the benefit of having state-sponsored childcare if the schools ought to be closed?

Unless child-care workers are immune to the virus, they have to stay at home like everyone else, likely taking care of their own kids as well...

>A BIG chunk of all that drama is due to the US social safety net not including childcare.

The current problem has nothing to do with anyone's ability to pay for childcare and everything to do with the constraints the pandemic has placed on out ability for kids to leave the house to go to one central location for the bulk of the workday. Even if every parent in the country had a section-8 style voucher for childcare all you could do with it right now would be wipe your butt because childcare would be shut down for the same reasons schools are.

Ironically the people who are actually least affected by this whole thing are the blue collar folks who's childcare consisted of paying an older kid down the street cash under the table because it doesn't take that much extra money to make that kid attend Zoom classes from your couch while watching your kid and that kids parents probably also like the idea.

Division of labor works. Moving away from it is the real cause of the drama. Stay at home parents are becoming a dying breed (staying at home because of covid notwithstanding).

>I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now.

Yes, some things come with downsides. I'm sure a lot of people would also want to trade places with you during the happy times you have with your kids. But you can't usually get the benefits without the downsides.

I think the current situation falls outside the bounds of the regular ups and downs. Most prospective parents were (reasonably) assuming school, childcare, etc would continue to exist.

Exactly, I very much doubt when OP was planning to have children they considered that very well established social norms that make our modern society possible (like traditional schooling and daycare) would not be an option in the future.

Yeah, I have the most ideal bachelor penthouse and terrace, living alone during phase I lockdown, but that didn't feel ideal after 2.5 months either.

I'm aware of the high chance of having a roommate/partner/children you begin to resent, and that was a useful rationalization given what nurses and police and articles were telling me.

But that 5% (or maybe much greater) chance of a fulfilling live-in companion was pretty enticing too.

But yes, the upsides rarely come without the downsides.

The single guys at work are actually the most eager to go back in. I think the loneliness and monotony gets to you after awhile, and most live in kind of dreary small bachelor pad type apartments. I am fortunate to have a wife and a dog and have a bit of outdoor space while also being more or less on a park with friendly neighbors- the restaurant down the street from me opened a take out window with dog treats and the minute or two of daily small talk accompanying my pup begging for a treat just went miles towards satisfying my socialization need. Its pretty much the pandemic on easy mode, and there have been moments where it has not been so easy.

Tbh my wife and I have gotten a lot closer through all of this and our relationship has never been better. But obviously YMMV on that and it helps that our jobs have been stable and both our companies are doing well during this.

The single guys are doing fine. We have video games and internet dating. Living with another person, regardless of my relationship with them, is absolutely terrifying to me.

We all choose the life we want because of our own individual preferences.

some* - the demographic is not a block, no more than married guys.

I'm a deeply introverted single guy, but personally I'm done with this. I don't like video games or TV, and virtual meet ups are so two dimensional... my pets and plants have kept me sane but I need real people again.

Have you joined second life yet?

I closed down my meetup group because of the virutal meetups. (No sense in paying meetup.com for anything when the virtual meetups aren't doing well)

What I've been sucessful with is limited gatherings on a weekly basis. (That's to limit who I see, when, and if something does come up you can responsibly disclose all of your ~partners~ contacts for the last week.

Agreed, I live alone because I want space. A lot of space. Had a fulfilling long term relationship before, and not very interested in that life.

Internet dating has been pretty excellent as the priorities there have seemed to change as well, along with everything just being slower. There is less distraction and competition for attention, it feels like. Video dates were never the move, nice try though.

The thin possibly of a great collaborative partner that has a matching libido is enticing after a few months of the extreme contrary. At this point I just try to keep my own R0 to <1, if I happen to get it or are around more than 1 person/group in a two week time period.

Looks like either I'm not a guy or I unknowingly have a partner.

I have a theory that it's extroverted people who are the most eager to go back in. ;)

Don't dismiss the introverts locked in with extroverted partners/roommates :P

Rorschach put it quite eloquently: "None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me".

My introvert self sure does miss going out to a bunch of cafes around the city to work from my laptop right now.

Count me out as an extrovert who has no desire to go back to an office any time soon. I get my social interaction outside of work hours, and missing out on that has been killing me for the past 6 months.

I'm single and been in my aforementioned large apartment with much larger terrace, I also have seen the bad relationships mostly shake out while the good relationships thrive. I don't have a way to quantify either, I just recall there was a shock at how many domestic disputes and abused children there were, along with how many passive aggressive things must be happening to anyone else cohabiting.

I mostly just had to re-evaluate what level of exposure I was comfortable with. I was doing full complete reclusion for over two months and it was getting to me.

In the urban environment a few months in, enough people actually were receptive to in person dates because half of the population already went back to their at-risk parents and the other half wasn't going to, so our risk profile had some discretion. With enough information about the disease, after ensuring I wasn't an early adopter, my distancing technique expanded to just making sure my personal R0 is less than 1, as opposed to being actually worried I got it. So that just meant two weeks between encounters, routine tests, and select small groups of people.

I've since had great flings, and the biggest surprise was how many people I was able to get to come back to the city. People I didn't hit it off with before were going stir crazy at their parent's house or in whatever rural area they had retreated to. I have a good cadence now and with completely new dates I just ask them what their current distancing policy is.

But around early May it was definitely unsatisfactory. An absurd level of loneliness, and jealousy towards fulfilling relationships and thinking about the improbable poor luck to get here: I was involved with half a dozen women before lockdown, 2 left the city immediately, 2 got covid, 1's roommate got covid and sheltered in an area I couldn't reach while getting spooked, and 1 went full on recluse like me. Its been a wild ride on the dating scene since May for me, and it just requires a different level of discretion, testing, periods of not interacting with other people which is actually super easy for an ambivert leaning towards introvert like me. (interacting with other people definitely drains me, instead of adds energy to me)

Just adding some color to "the grass is greener", as well as what a sometimes-extroverted bachelors actually wants.

> The single guys at work are actually the most eager to go back in.

Yup, that's been my experience as well. I have no kids, but live with my girlfriend. We're certainly experiencing some cabin fever, but things are mostly ok. My parent friends have been going crazy with stress, and my friends who are sheltering by themselves miss human contact, and many of them really want to be back in the social atmosphere of an office.

The big downside for me having a small child at home is that I could not concentrate on a task for more than half and hour, which is essential for research work. I had to go over stuff again and again because once my thoughts broken I need to follow long trails to pick it up again. I enjoy spending time with family but I have a real urge for uninterrupted work now.

> the obvious downsides

They're not obvious to me... What are the downsides?

I don't have em, but having adult children when you're older and the experience of being a parent both seem like they're intrinsically valuable. I have a hard time believing any 18 year long cohabitation wouldn't form something of value, and struggling to deal with a problem together is a textbook team building exercise, for better or worse.

To switch places, the implication is I'd not have my kids. I can't fathom a life without them. Perhaps it didn't need to be added as a qualification.

And you still have time for HN!

One the most important self care things you can do right now is to take some time for yourself. That is true if you have kids or not.

For many of us, HN is one of those things. It is orthogonal to having enough time - it is more about coping.

I agree until I disagree because it becomes a refresh trigger... but you sound like you have discipline.

Yeah, I am pretty capable of procrastination. HN is a tempting alternative to drawing up another Miro diagram, or studying for my algorithms class (something else I can blame on HN, I might never have heard of OMSCS if not for someone mentioning it here ;-)). There was a time when I knew dynamic programming well enough to pass an algorithms class, but that time was in the 90s. I feel old now.

HN is often about feeding your mind. It's about getting the inputs you need.

That other stuff is about coming up with outputs, often from a dry well. HN feeds the well for a great many people.

(Just a general observation, not really intended to be argumentative per se.)

You make a good point. I'll keep it in mind when I'm feeding my mind from the well of HN :)

> This morning I went up and down the stairs at least ten times

Not trying to be arch or disrespectful here, but I view these moments as an opportunity to get a quick cardio work on happening. (I work at home and I've had to make these trips for decades due to handicapped family members.)

Ha, I don't disagree! Getting some stairs in is good for my health. My point was more about how disruptive it is to try and juggle activities happening simultaneously all over the house. My office is upstairs, my kids do schoolwork at the dining table downstairs. We're working out a schedule where my wife and I will alternate between our offices and taking our laptops down to sit at the dining table next to the kids, but it's barely controlled chaos right now. It'll settle down a lot as everyone figures out the new routine, but it's never going to be as simple as getting them dressed, fed, and out the door to the school for the day.

Oh man, I feel you. My clever solution has been large houses and kids who are used to a work-at-home dad... but yeah

(Edited to clarify my intended meaning)

> I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now.

For those childless co-workers that wish they could accept the other end of this deal, this phrase is both common and quite painful to hear. Please consider not using it unless you really mean it, which you don't, as you actually wouldn't give up your kids for anything.

“Trade places with” is meant figuratively here, not literally.

Even figuratively it's obviously going to read as mean to someone who wants but cannot conceive children.

Or at least that's how I read it, a polite reminder to be a little sensitive when it comes to such things...

Jeez, it's just an expression. They're just saying that it would be way easier to not have to worry about kids at home right now. You're reading way to far into it. They are not saying that they would literally want to trade places, which should be obvious from the statement "I wouldn't give up my kids for anything"

That doesn't change the fact that it's still painful to hear when you're wallowing in misery alone. I second this. Say what you mean.

It means if he ran into the Zoltar machine he’d definitely give it a couple of whacks

It wasn't meant with malice nor any intent to cause negative feelings. I think it's not really possible to say anything at all that won't possibly distress someone out of all the possible readers, so I just try to keep my intentions good and avoid the obvious gaffes. In this case it's just a figure of speech.

It's ableist, 'just a figure of speech' or not

Imagine you're blind.

Now Imagine a sighted person tells you that they've just seen something so ugly they wish they were blind. You might be a bit upset at that notion no?

Probably if I also had problems understanding things like humor or sarcasm.,

Now if only you understood empathy.

It is difficult to put myself in that position and imagine being offended. I think I'd just retort "careful what you wish for!" I don't think I'd want average people to spend a lot of effort presuming what will and will not cause me anxiety. I'm a grown man, blind or not, I can handle context.

Just like you, I don't mean any malice and I'm only trying to help you appreciate other perspectives and not put you down or nit-pick. (It's hard to do through a text-only noisy channel and I think you've done a better job of it than I have).

That said it's pretty clear that there's a bifurcation in how people read your comment, although those who reacted negatively are evidently an unpopular minority. Democracy has spoken and it's clear that I was being unreasonably sensitive.

I know it's hard and a lot of work to have to simulate other perspectives for every little comment, and it's better to err on the side of communicating more rather than never saying anything to avoid offending random people. So I'm really not trying to be critical! I just want to help you appreciate a perspective that is, I think, very hard to imagine from the vantage point that you (and almost everybody) have right now. And understanding that perspective is useful not only for avoiding offending random internet denizens, but also for better appreciating the good parts of the tough situation that you have right now, and for reacting empathetically when one of those random internet commenters reacts in an apparently unreasonable way.

What I'd suggest trying (although it may be painful) is, imagine that the children that you love, but who are causing you such headache these days.... Imagine that they all passed away in a car accident and left your house eerily, painfully quiet and childless. You and your partner struggle to cope with this every day. And then a coworker on a zoom call laughs that their children are causing such chaos at home that they wish they could trade places, and you start to get unreasonably mad at what is just a figure of speech. You can't stop yourself from un-muting your microphone and shouting "no, you don't wish that!", de-railing the meeting.

In this scenario, I don't think either you or your coworker is wrong to be doing as they do, but you might hope that your coworker would react in an understanding way, and think of a better expression to use next time.

Anyway, you're right. "Careful what you wish for" would have been a much better and less hostile reaction. I apologize.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com