How millennials learned to dread motherhood
December 8, 2023 4:22 PM Subscribe
To our generation, being a mom looks thankless, exhausting, and lonely. Can we change the story? [Vox]
(...though apparently my brain may have been changed by the experience "in ways that are strikingly similar to gestational mothers," whatever that means?)
posted by clawsoon at 5:30 PM on December 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 5:30 PM on December 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
wages for motherhood. 18 year contracts.
posted by eustatic at 6:18 PM on December 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by eustatic at 6:18 PM on December 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
This article doesn’t answer the question of why the solution is likely to be found by listening primarily to the richest most educated set of unhappy mothers. Because they have the most media access their voice is already the loudest.
posted by Selena777 at 6:44 PM on December 8, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 6:44 PM on December 8, 2023 [9 favorites]
Gotta start somewhere.
posted by MiraK at 7:13 PM on December 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by MiraK at 7:13 PM on December 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
This article doesn’t answer the question of why the solution is likely to be found by listening primarily to the richest most educated set of unhappy mothers.
I'm confused. The article doesn't seem to be suggesting that?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:30 PM on December 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm confused. The article doesn't seem to be suggesting that?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:30 PM on December 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
The paragraph that starts “does this pressure to stay nimble and untethered” implies that there’s a reason to intentionally focus on them.
posted by Selena777 at 7:34 PM on December 8, 2023
posted by Selena777 at 7:34 PM on December 8, 2023
It's weird...
One of Ms. Windo's life goals was to have children. And we have a bunch. Was never something I was super interested in, but, we had a bunch. And she is so thankful for that. And she is exhausted, but I don't think she is lonely. They all call her, and have long conversations with her every day. Me, not so much.
And also weird that I was at a reunion of employees at a company I worked for like, 30 years ago today. One person mentioned that their kids didn't want to bring kids into this world, because of how terrible things are right now. Which I can't argue against.
But grandchildren would be nice, as that is a way easier gig than being a parent. And all my former coworkers were saying how many grandchildren they had...
And I'm not getting any younger, my eldest is a polyamorous butch, my second has no real prospects it seems, despite being a great hunk of a catch, then the non-binary child, who seems to have no interest in children, and then the 18 year-old, who has no idea about the future. Sigh.
Being a grandparent seems fun. Just need to hang on for another 5 years or so.
posted by Windopaene at 9:45 PM on December 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
One of Ms. Windo's life goals was to have children. And we have a bunch. Was never something I was super interested in, but, we had a bunch. And she is so thankful for that. And she is exhausted, but I don't think she is lonely. They all call her, and have long conversations with her every day. Me, not so much.
And also weird that I was at a reunion of employees at a company I worked for like, 30 years ago today. One person mentioned that their kids didn't want to bring kids into this world, because of how terrible things are right now. Which I can't argue against.
But grandchildren would be nice, as that is a way easier gig than being a parent. And all my former coworkers were saying how many grandchildren they had...
And I'm not getting any younger, my eldest is a polyamorous butch, my second has no real prospects it seems, despite being a great hunk of a catch, then the non-binary child, who seems to have no interest in children, and then the 18 year-old, who has no idea about the future. Sigh.
Being a grandparent seems fun. Just need to hang on for another 5 years or so.
posted by Windopaene at 9:45 PM on December 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
I'm grateful for the energy and ignorance of youth.
Ms. Gurple and I have a kid. Nearly everything that could go wrong did (really). I would never tell someone they should have a kid, any more than I would tell someone they should get kicked in the groin every day for five years.
But I'm thankful it all happened. Our kid's a pretty great teen, and from where I sit now I legitimately wouldn't trade it all for the child-freedom that most of my friends have enjoyed for the last decade and a half.
But there's no way I could handle it again now. Really knowing how hard it would be. So, thank goodness for the energy and ignorance of youth.
posted by gurple at 10:20 PM on December 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
Ms. Gurple and I have a kid. Nearly everything that could go wrong did (really). I would never tell someone they should have a kid, any more than I would tell someone they should get kicked in the groin every day for five years.
But I'm thankful it all happened. Our kid's a pretty great teen, and from where I sit now I legitimately wouldn't trade it all for the child-freedom that most of my friends have enjoyed for the last decade and a half.
But there's no way I could handle it again now. Really knowing how hard it would be. So, thank goodness for the energy and ignorance of youth.
posted by gurple at 10:20 PM on December 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
My work wanted to be inclusive of families, so they scheduled a children's holiday party on a school day at 10am. American culture is so out of touch with parenthood/families/children, I can see why younger generations in the US are saying no thanks. As the article points out, if they do it, they are completely on their own and surrounded by people who are clueless.
posted by Toddles at 10:44 PM on December 8, 2023 [21 favorites]
posted by Toddles at 10:44 PM on December 8, 2023 [21 favorites]
I'm 37. I don't have any kids, probably never will. At least not unless I win the lottery or something. Right now in Canada, the cost of rent and other living expenses is so absurdly out of control, that there is just no way that my partner and I could afford to breed.
I've said it before half-jokingly, but it really is pretty much true:
Plants are the new Pets.
Pets are the new Kids.
Kids are the new Yachts.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:45 AM on December 9, 2023 [41 favorites]
I've said it before half-jokingly, but it really is pretty much true:
Plants are the new Pets.
Pets are the new Kids.
Kids are the new Yachts.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:45 AM on December 9, 2023 [41 favorites]
The paragraph that starts “does this pressure to stay nimble and untethered” implies that there’s a reason to intentionally focus on them.
Got it.
I felt her later comments on not doing guilt provided, if not an answer, at least a solution to dealing with those voices.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:59 AM on December 9, 2023
Got it.
I felt her later comments on not doing guilt provided, if not an answer, at least a solution to dealing with those voices.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:59 AM on December 9, 2023
There was an interview on AoM lately with some information.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:05 AM on December 9, 2023 [22 favorites]
Men and women a both say they want to have about 2.5 kids-ish. Depends on how you word the question. If you word the question instead you ask, “How many kids do you intend to have?” You’ll get answers around two, 2.1. But intentions aren’t really desires. Intentions are a compromise between desires and reality. If you ask any desire question, what people want, what they think would make them happiest, what their ideal is, yada yada, they give you between 2.2 and 2.7 as their answer on average. That’s true for men and women. There’s not much difference between the two on this particular question. And so, yeah, people want to have more kids and that’s been true for a while now. Fertility desires did fall in the 1950s and ’60s. People used to say they wanted about 3.5 kids. Now they want about 2.5. And that fall happened around the same time that fertility fell after the baby boom. And so yeah, people want about 2.5-ish, but they are going to have in the US currently about 1.6, 1.7, which means the average woman will have 0.8 fewer children than she wants. Which means if you take 10 women, that eight of them will be missing a child that they wanted to have.Not everyone wants children, and that's fine and reasonable. But the cost and difficulty of child raising today is causing a vast number of quiet tragedies for people who can't afford what used to be a normal life.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:05 AM on December 9, 2023 [22 favorites]
And we can juxtapose this with what the wealth class is doing which increasingly seems to be: paying women to have children for them. See: Paris, Kim & Kanye, Khloe, Alec Baldwin & Hillaria, etc.. For the rest of us, housing and education is so expensive, it’s all just too daunting. There’s very little safety net and what’s out there is hard to know about or get a grip on unless you are really in desperate straits. Which is how it’s designed. Tradwife offers up security for servitude but it looks boring to me. Pretty but boring.
posted by amanda at 7:21 AM on December 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by amanda at 7:21 AM on December 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
I (ADHD, recovered alcoholic) and my spouse (also recovered alcoholic, abused as a child) had one kid. One of the great joys of my life, and a whole lot of work and stress. Our adult kid is bipolar and ADHD, and they came out as nonbinary a few years ago after most of a life spent as a lesbian. They married someone and had a kid. I think my kid is utterly awesome. The feeling is mutual. We get along marvelously and I am incredibly lucky.
But I think part of why they were positive about parenting is they had a good experience of being parented, and I wonder how much that has to do with it. I also will say something that gets denied a lot, and that's that helicopter parenting started much earlier than people think, in the 1980s. I made the conscious decision not to hover, though it was swimming upstream, and I delivered my kid to college with several trash bags full of clothes and drove away, while the other parents were busy installing the mini-fridge and wiping everything down with disinfectant. My kid used to remark (with a note of wonder) on how their college friends all seemed to hate their parents. I didn't give up my life dreams for my kid, just gave up some other things, like housework and competitive mothering.
The article talks about the highest income, most accomplished parents dreading the idea, and I think that's why. I taught in an elite private school and I used to tell the parents over and over again that if they treat getting into an elite college as the pinnacle of life and they don't have their own hobbies, professional joys, and interests, they are modeling something terrible about adulthood. They were too afraid for their children to be able to listen to me.
posted by Peach at 7:28 AM on December 9, 2023 [22 favorites]
But I think part of why they were positive about parenting is they had a good experience of being parented, and I wonder how much that has to do with it. I also will say something that gets denied a lot, and that's that helicopter parenting started much earlier than people think, in the 1980s. I made the conscious decision not to hover, though it was swimming upstream, and I delivered my kid to college with several trash bags full of clothes and drove away, while the other parents were busy installing the mini-fridge and wiping everything down with disinfectant. My kid used to remark (with a note of wonder) on how their college friends all seemed to hate their parents. I didn't give up my life dreams for my kid, just gave up some other things, like housework and competitive mothering.
The article talks about the highest income, most accomplished parents dreading the idea, and I think that's why. I taught in an elite private school and I used to tell the parents over and over again that if they treat getting into an elite college as the pinnacle of life and they don't have their own hobbies, professional joys, and interests, they are modeling something terrible about adulthood. They were too afraid for their children to be able to listen to me.
posted by Peach at 7:28 AM on December 9, 2023 [22 favorites]
> thank goodness for the energy and ignorance of youth.
I feel exactly the same way! So so so very glad that I had these kids, because they have been a pleasure beyond imagining to raise and I'm honored to be part of their lives. But if I'd been told exactly how much work (and exactly what KINDS of work - weird and inhuman-sounding levels of emotional labor especially) would be involved in raising them, I would absolutely have balked.
I think it comes down to the fact that before becoming a parent (hell, before the kids are at a manageable age of say 5 or 6 years old on average) it's easier to grasp the struggles and sacrifices involved in raising kids, than to truly grok the rewards of it. When we try to communicate how rewarding it is, it sounds cliched and trite and so easily dismissable. Perhaps that's one of the tragedies of being able to talk to each other on social media, too, that we've been able to communicate the first to one another very well so that would-be (or might-be) parents are very well informed of the former, but sadly, nobody is able to communicate the latter very well at all. Maybe that is also part of why so many people don't want kids anymore (in part, at least).
posted by MiraK at 7:39 AM on December 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
I feel exactly the same way! So so so very glad that I had these kids, because they have been a pleasure beyond imagining to raise and I'm honored to be part of their lives. But if I'd been told exactly how much work (and exactly what KINDS of work - weird and inhuman-sounding levels of emotional labor especially) would be involved in raising them, I would absolutely have balked.
I think it comes down to the fact that before becoming a parent (hell, before the kids are at a manageable age of say 5 or 6 years old on average) it's easier to grasp the struggles and sacrifices involved in raising kids, than to truly grok the rewards of it. When we try to communicate how rewarding it is, it sounds cliched and trite and so easily dismissable. Perhaps that's one of the tragedies of being able to talk to each other on social media, too, that we've been able to communicate the first to one another very well so that would-be (or might-be) parents are very well informed of the former, but sadly, nobody is able to communicate the latter very well at all. Maybe that is also part of why so many people don't want kids anymore (in part, at least).
posted by MiraK at 7:39 AM on December 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
Still, I felt nervous and even a bit lonely, because I am not someone who has dreamed of being a mother; I’ve never particularly liked babysitting or even being around little kids.
Yeah...me too...so it was a no brainer I shouldn't do the thing.
Later:
There’s also emerging neuroscience that suggests that the angst I felt about lacking a “maternal instinct” is largely pseudoscientific sexism, a fiction that helps fuel discrimination against same-sex couples, cements the idea that men are secondary to a child’s development, and makes women who can’t conceive naturally feel inferior.
That's great! Love myths exposed. But if you're still not feeling it, I see this as a way to say, "don't worry about it, do it anyway" which is the current societal message already.
Meanwhile, the very idea of becoming a parent has grown more politically fraught. Republican politicians are doubling down on explicit endorsements of childbearing, the kind that Democrats increasingly see as at odds with reproductive freedom and valuing families of all kinds.
Politically fraught? ahem, it is downright DANGEROUS to be pregnant now, in the U.S. They will let you die rather than give you medical care, if it even begins to harm the the fetus.
But there’s a lot that’s positive, too. For example, most parenting choices you make are not very high-stakes at all. It’s not a huge deal whether you breastfeed your child if you live in an area with decent water quality. Large-scale longitudinal research has found that quality of time spent with children matters vastly more than quantity of time.
Also great! But you'll still have to deal with a lot of judgment for those choices, like not breastfeeding. Also geezus, water quality? Doesn't mom drink the local water and produce local milk? What the heck is this a new one I'm not exposed to?
I feel the hint of a new breastfeeding judgment there and I thought we had plenty of those already.
In The Feminine Mistake, Bennetts asks a fellow journalist, Anna Quindlen, how she handles the guilt of managing her career with raising three children; Quindlen responds that she “doesn’t do guilt.” Bennetts’s reaction has stuck deeply with me since. “It didn’t occur to me back then,” she wrote, “that the refusal to feel guilt was a trait that could be cultivated, like patience or good manners or kindness.”
This is good. People without kids can be guiltless too! We all can do it!
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:47 AM on December 9, 2023 [15 favorites]
Yeah...me too...so it was a no brainer I shouldn't do the thing.
Later:
There’s also emerging neuroscience that suggests that the angst I felt about lacking a “maternal instinct” is largely pseudoscientific sexism, a fiction that helps fuel discrimination against same-sex couples, cements the idea that men are secondary to a child’s development, and makes women who can’t conceive naturally feel inferior.
That's great! Love myths exposed. But if you're still not feeling it, I see this as a way to say, "don't worry about it, do it anyway" which is the current societal message already.
Meanwhile, the very idea of becoming a parent has grown more politically fraught. Republican politicians are doubling down on explicit endorsements of childbearing, the kind that Democrats increasingly see as at odds with reproductive freedom and valuing families of all kinds.
Politically fraught? ahem, it is downright DANGEROUS to be pregnant now, in the U.S. They will let you die rather than give you medical care, if it even begins to harm the the fetus.
But there’s a lot that’s positive, too. For example, most parenting choices you make are not very high-stakes at all. It’s not a huge deal whether you breastfeed your child if you live in an area with decent water quality. Large-scale longitudinal research has found that quality of time spent with children matters vastly more than quantity of time.
Also great! But you'll still have to deal with a lot of judgment for those choices, like not breastfeeding. Also geezus, water quality? Doesn't mom drink the local water and produce local milk? What the heck is this a new one I'm not exposed to?
I feel the hint of a new breastfeeding judgment there and I thought we had plenty of those already.
In The Feminine Mistake, Bennetts asks a fellow journalist, Anna Quindlen, how she handles the guilt of managing her career with raising three children; Quindlen responds that she “doesn’t do guilt.” Bennetts’s reaction has stuck deeply with me since. “It didn’t occur to me back then,” she wrote, “that the refusal to feel guilt was a trait that could be cultivated, like patience or good manners or kindness.”
This is good. People without kids can be guiltless too! We all can do it!
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:47 AM on December 9, 2023 [15 favorites]
I think economic and, in the US, political realities loom large here. My husband and I started trying for our kids after we bought our first house….which, being Gen Xers, we could.
That said, I hope people are not basing their decisions on either social media or books/traditional media. I never have been a mommy blogger or influencer (except by accident of profession) and I haven’t been compelled to write a book, instructive, cultural critique, or other. I support the full range of choices and if you don’t want kids, great. If you want kids, great. But you don’t have to be either a trad wife or a neurotic NYC powerhouse.
For me, parenting generally has been both hard and a joy, both drudgery and one of the best set of relationships I’ve ever had - and also completely ordinary. Nothing to write home about, but also connective and nice. My kids and I have had so much fun, and also tense moments. All just - living (apart from losing my daughter and some health crises.) I hope people on the fence can observe some normal stuff too.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:52 AM on December 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
That said, I hope people are not basing their decisions on either social media or books/traditional media. I never have been a mommy blogger or influencer (except by accident of profession) and I haven’t been compelled to write a book, instructive, cultural critique, or other. I support the full range of choices and if you don’t want kids, great. If you want kids, great. But you don’t have to be either a trad wife or a neurotic NYC powerhouse.
For me, parenting generally has been both hard and a joy, both drudgery and one of the best set of relationships I’ve ever had - and also completely ordinary. Nothing to write home about, but also connective and nice. My kids and I have had so much fun, and also tense moments. All just - living (apart from losing my daughter and some health crises.) I hope people on the fence can observe some normal stuff too.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:52 AM on December 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
Re grandkids - In my social circle, there are a lot of 35+ couples who are finally stable enough and/or done playing chicken with their fertility to have their first babies. All of them have had substantial caregiving from at least one grandparent for at least 2-3 months chunks of time.
The only friends I know who have more than one child have also have had at least one local grandparent as the primary non-parent childcare solution for a substantial chunk of time. Preferences aside, none of us have the resources to have one of the couple drop out of the workforce longer than 3-6 months to provide full time care.
We are pregnant and short on extended family...it's daunting.
posted by heyforfour at 8:17 AM on December 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
The only friends I know who have more than one child have also have had at least one local grandparent as the primary non-parent childcare solution for a substantial chunk of time. Preferences aside, none of us have the resources to have one of the couple drop out of the workforce longer than 3-6 months to provide full time care.
We are pregnant and short on extended family...it's daunting.
posted by heyforfour at 8:17 AM on December 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
After reading this article it does seem like this is a “worse problem” for “educated, upper-middle-class professional women”, and why would it not be?
Thinking only structurally, motherhood is a lowering of living standards. If you like your job or consider it a major source of meaning in your life, you have less time and energy for it; your position and earning potential will suffer. You are expected to provide your kids with expensive stuff and an expensive environment, and devote endless amounts of time and energy to raising them.
Whereas other folks who have grown up not expecting that a job will provide them life-meaning and social status, and that kids aren’t expected to have the “necessities” of an upper-middle class child, their, um, joy-to-cost ratio is a little different. It’s still challenging and a financial squeeze, of course.
I don’t mean this to sound condescending; when considering children earlier in my life I was confronted with the difference in child rearing standards amongst my “new peers.” It was certainly possible for me to have kids and raise them as I had been raised or like lots of other people in my gentrifying neighborhood were raising their own — shared bedroom in a rental apartment, public school, free after-school activities, neighbor lady providing under-the-table childcare.
In the meantime my coworkers at underpaid nonprofits were acting like it was child abuse to have a kid before you had a 3-bedroom with yard, “good” district or private school, hugely expensive soccer leagues…
posted by Hypatia at 9:31 AM on December 9, 2023 [15 favorites]
Thinking only structurally, motherhood is a lowering of living standards. If you like your job or consider it a major source of meaning in your life, you have less time and energy for it; your position and earning potential will suffer. You are expected to provide your kids with expensive stuff and an expensive environment, and devote endless amounts of time and energy to raising them.
Whereas other folks who have grown up not expecting that a job will provide them life-meaning and social status, and that kids aren’t expected to have the “necessities” of an upper-middle class child, their, um, joy-to-cost ratio is a little different. It’s still challenging and a financial squeeze, of course.
I don’t mean this to sound condescending; when considering children earlier in my life I was confronted with the difference in child rearing standards amongst my “new peers.” It was certainly possible for me to have kids and raise them as I had been raised or like lots of other people in my gentrifying neighborhood were raising their own — shared bedroom in a rental apartment, public school, free after-school activities, neighbor lady providing under-the-table childcare.
In the meantime my coworkers at underpaid nonprofits were acting like it was child abuse to have a kid before you had a 3-bedroom with yard, “good” district or private school, hugely expensive soccer leagues…
posted by Hypatia at 9:31 AM on December 9, 2023 [15 favorites]
Also geezus, water quality? Doesn't mom drink the local water and produce local milk? What the heck is this a new one I'm not exposed to?
Nestle contributed to the deaths of a lot of babies in the developing world by selling formula in places where they didn't have a clean water supply. My family didn't eat Nestle products for almost my entire childhood.
posted by praemunire at 10:13 AM on December 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
Nestle contributed to the deaths of a lot of babies in the developing world by selling formula in places where they didn't have a clean water supply. My family didn't eat Nestle products for almost my entire childhood.
posted by praemunire at 10:13 AM on December 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
My sister and I (Both Gen x and for different reasons) had a wonderful childhood yet never wanted to have children of our own once we became adults. We are thankful that nobody ever put pressure on us or made remarks about that choice, and were drawn to partners who reflected that choice.
Looking back, it is fair to say that the pressure for us to reproduce is insidious and often subtle, and can often be found lurking even in the most progressive of communities online. This feels perhaps less pernicious in the UK, where we are from, but this is the only experience I have.
We are so thankful that our parents never, ever dropped hints about grandchildren. This is not something we 'owe' to the world, nor should we be subtly shouldered towards it. If one has children with an expectation for them to pleasure your later years with fun-time kid company, there's something inherently misshapen about that.
Globally there are far too many poor, uneducated women working in dire conditions to make ends meet. I would expect a huge drop off in global pregnancies if girls were given adequate education. Capitalism wouldn't like that, for sure.
posted by PheasantlySurprised at 11:03 AM on December 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
Looking back, it is fair to say that the pressure for us to reproduce is insidious and often subtle, and can often be found lurking even in the most progressive of communities online. This feels perhaps less pernicious in the UK, where we are from, but this is the only experience I have.
We are so thankful that our parents never, ever dropped hints about grandchildren. This is not something we 'owe' to the world, nor should we be subtly shouldered towards it. If one has children with an expectation for them to pleasure your later years with fun-time kid company, there's something inherently misshapen about that.
Globally there are far too many poor, uneducated women working in dire conditions to make ends meet. I would expect a huge drop off in global pregnancies if girls were given adequate education. Capitalism wouldn't like that, for sure.
posted by PheasantlySurprised at 11:03 AM on December 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
We had a kid recently, and the thing that currently keeps me up at night is his daycare. They decided "mobile infant" meant toddlers aged 13-18 months and that it was okay to keep ALL of the actual infants - including the mobile ones - in the "young infant" room which is really only designed for babies aged about 0-8months.
We toured daycares too early, and picked this one at the beginning of the summer when the baby was 6 months old and just learning to crawl. At that time, the room would have been fine. By the time he actually entered daycare at 9months he'd already been crawling for a while and was pulling up and crusing, and the space is no good for him now. Yesterday he fell for the third time trying to climb out and escape out of the little walled-off play-area they stick the young infants in, where they put him alone while they're feeding or rocking the other babies to sleep, with no toys that are interesting to him.
I'm sure this shows my upper-middle-class upbringing, but I worry we're doing damage to our kid's development. He was WAY AHEAD of his milestones when he entered daycare, now he's about average or maybe a little behind. We kept trying to wait it out because they kept promising they would promote him soon, or simply lying to us that "mobile infant" meant "infant who could walk" and this was just how things were done everywhere, no where else would be better. Now it's 3.5 months later and we'll never get that time back.
I argue with my husband about this a lot, and I think he's finally come around to my side. We're going to move him as soon as we find a place with room we think will be better. I don't think this place is complying with the standards of what kinds of toys need to be in what kinds of rooms. I hate that we already wasted so much time, I teach high schoolers in an area where the parents are much more lax about early childhood development and I can see every day the difference it makes.
If I didn't feel like we should be doing everything we can to make sure baby's brain is developing well, I don't think this would stress me out so much. They feed, change, and make sure he sleeps on schedule, he is safe there (apart from all the times he tried to climb out of the dreaded and hated play area cage).
posted by subdee at 11:25 AM on December 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
We toured daycares too early, and picked this one at the beginning of the summer when the baby was 6 months old and just learning to crawl. At that time, the room would have been fine. By the time he actually entered daycare at 9months he'd already been crawling for a while and was pulling up and crusing, and the space is no good for him now. Yesterday he fell for the third time trying to climb out and escape out of the little walled-off play-area they stick the young infants in, where they put him alone while they're feeding or rocking the other babies to sleep, with no toys that are interesting to him.
I'm sure this shows my upper-middle-class upbringing, but I worry we're doing damage to our kid's development. He was WAY AHEAD of his milestones when he entered daycare, now he's about average or maybe a little behind. We kept trying to wait it out because they kept promising they would promote him soon, or simply lying to us that "mobile infant" meant "infant who could walk" and this was just how things were done everywhere, no where else would be better. Now it's 3.5 months later and we'll never get that time back.
I argue with my husband about this a lot, and I think he's finally come around to my side. We're going to move him as soon as we find a place with room we think will be better. I don't think this place is complying with the standards of what kinds of toys need to be in what kinds of rooms. I hate that we already wasted so much time, I teach high schoolers in an area where the parents are much more lax about early childhood development and I can see every day the difference it makes.
If I didn't feel like we should be doing everything we can to make sure baby's brain is developing well, I don't think this would stress me out so much. They feed, change, and make sure he sleeps on schedule, he is safe there (apart from all the times he tried to climb out of the dreaded and hated play area cage).
posted by subdee at 11:25 AM on December 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I know about Nestlé. Not sure how that relates.
It’s not a huge deal whether you breastfeed your child if you live in an area with decent water quality.
I took this initially to mean, "if your water isn't polluted like in Detroit, you're ok to use formula. If it is polluted, you should breastfeed, even if you can't" Still felt like the same old but repackaged breastfeeding shame/of-course-you-will-try-because-everyone-must-try-to-breastfeed thing when literally as long as a kid is being fed, it does not matter.
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:25 AM on December 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
It’s not a huge deal whether you breastfeed your child if you live in an area with decent water quality.
I took this initially to mean, "if your water isn't polluted like in Detroit, you're ok to use formula. If it is polluted, you should breastfeed, even if you can't" Still felt like the same old but repackaged breastfeeding shame/of-course-you-will-try-because-everyone-must-try-to-breastfeed thing when literally as long as a kid is being fed, it does not matter.
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:25 AM on December 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
subdee: If I didn't feel like we should be doing everything we can to make sure baby's brain is developing well, I don't think this would stress me out so much.
Having a kid who had brain damage at birth has protected me from this source of guilt and pressure to some degree, I think. Thinking about the world I'd like her to live in, I don't want it to be one where if you're not an optimized super-baby you will fall into the abyss of poverty and misery.
But that's the propaganda we've been getting for the past few decades, isn't it? I liked Barbara Ehrenreich's phrase (and book) about it, "fear of falling". We're told that we have to make our babies the best so that they can succeed over other people's babies, so that our babies can keep their desperate fingerhold on the edge of the cliff.
It feels like it'd be much nicer if we were told that we should all try to make things better for each other's children so that they can all succeed no matter their abilities. But the powers-that-be who want us clawing over each other aren't relentlessly broadcasting that message.
posted by clawsoon at 11:55 AM on December 9, 2023 [36 favorites]
Having a kid who had brain damage at birth has protected me from this source of guilt and pressure to some degree, I think. Thinking about the world I'd like her to live in, I don't want it to be one where if you're not an optimized super-baby you will fall into the abyss of poverty and misery.
But that's the propaganda we've been getting for the past few decades, isn't it? I liked Barbara Ehrenreich's phrase (and book) about it, "fear of falling". We're told that we have to make our babies the best so that they can succeed over other people's babies, so that our babies can keep their desperate fingerhold on the edge of the cliff.
It feels like it'd be much nicer if we were told that we should all try to make things better for each other's children so that they can all succeed no matter their abilities. But the powers-that-be who want us clawing over each other aren't relentlessly broadcasting that message.
posted by clawsoon at 11:55 AM on December 9, 2023 [36 favorites]
hmmm...I am a woman who has chosen to be childfree, but of course I have always been aware of the pressures and the disapproval that can come with that choice (not my own family, thankfully). so I have thought about this stuff. also as a history geek. so: for most of human history there hasn't been a lot of choice, other than celibacy, because we had no reliable birth control. so I think most people didn't necessarily spend as much time thinking about IF because it was just what happened. unless you had a fertility issue you were gonna have kids if you engaged in hetero intercourse. my paternal great grandmother had 4 sets of twins (with 2 survivors only) and another 3 or 4 and was dead before 40. OMFG!!!! who would choose that??? that sounds like something to dread to me.
so now we have the power (if not always the 'right' or the access) to control our fertility pretty well. we have CHOICE. so even people who really want children are going to stop and consider things. even in a time of prosperity, peace etc., (ie, not now) they are going to.
and we talk about these ridiculous pressures and expectations that are put on the middle class to perform parenting in a certain way or OMG you abuser! that is one reason I opted out. that RAT RACE of the best pre-school to Harvard pipeline. just no. but I guess I never felt like I could have opted out of that...so I guess I'm lucky that I just didn't want kids anyway.
I don't blame younger people for hesitating, for thinking twice. economics, war, climate change, the creeping march of fascism. its a lot.
posted by supermedusa at 12:38 PM on December 9, 2023 [9 favorites]
so now we have the power (if not always the 'right' or the access) to control our fertility pretty well. we have CHOICE. so even people who really want children are going to stop and consider things. even in a time of prosperity, peace etc., (ie, not now) they are going to.
and we talk about these ridiculous pressures and expectations that are put on the middle class to perform parenting in a certain way or OMG you abuser! that is one reason I opted out. that RAT RACE of the best pre-school to Harvard pipeline. just no. but I guess I never felt like I could have opted out of that...so I guess I'm lucky that I just didn't want kids anyway.
I don't blame younger people for hesitating, for thinking twice. economics, war, climate change, the creeping march of fascism. its a lot.
posted by supermedusa at 12:38 PM on December 9, 2023 [9 favorites]
I know people can look on millennials having kids as possibly foolhardy, but at this point, I think they're brave. Brave enough to hope. Brave enough to try.
posted by Kitteh at 1:06 PM on December 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 1:06 PM on December 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
>>wages for motherhood. 18 year contracts.
>>posted by eustatic at 6:18 PM on December 8 [12 favorites +] [⚑]
So you want to **tax** unmarried, childless men and women to pay for your kids? Really?
posted by metametamind at 5:30 PM on December 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
>>posted by eustatic at 6:18 PM on December 8 [12 favorites +] [⚑]
So you want to **tax** unmarried, childless men and women to pay for your kids? Really?
posted by metametamind at 5:30 PM on December 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
We already pay for other people's kids, but we're free to quibble about the amount.
posted by Selena777 at 5:42 PM on December 9, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 5:42 PM on December 9, 2023 [11 favorites]
So you want to **tax** unmarried, childless men and women to pay for your kids? Really?
We recently had a retirement discussion thread at here where the discussion appears to acknowledge that no pension fund is stable without children being created. Pensions collapse when societies begin depopulating. There's going to be an issue where a lot of childfree couples won't have the investments to survive retirement, so what exactly should happen to them after that? Tax other people's kids harder so that their retirement can still be supported or return to the era where the elderly die on the streets?
posted by DetriusXii at 6:19 PM on December 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
We recently had a retirement discussion thread at here where the discussion appears to acknowledge that no pension fund is stable without children being created. Pensions collapse when societies begin depopulating. There's going to be an issue where a lot of childfree couples won't have the investments to survive retirement, so what exactly should happen to them after that? Tax other people's kids harder so that their retirement can still be supported or return to the era where the elderly die on the streets?
posted by DetriusXii at 6:19 PM on December 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
I know about Nestlé. Not sure how that relates.
? If you live somewhere without "decent water quality" and reconstitute the formula with potentially contaminated water, your baby might be sickened by the formula. Nowhere in the United States is supposed to have such poor water quality, but obviously it could happen, and elsewhere and for other reasons than Flint (which is not Detroit). Since the historical example is well-known, and the alternative reading seems to rely on some odd theory like poor tap water causing inadequate milk of some kind, I'm not sure where the confusion lies?
posted by praemunire at 6:24 PM on December 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
? If you live somewhere without "decent water quality" and reconstitute the formula with potentially contaminated water, your baby might be sickened by the formula. Nowhere in the United States is supposed to have such poor water quality, but obviously it could happen, and elsewhere and for other reasons than Flint (which is not Detroit). Since the historical example is well-known, and the alternative reading seems to rely on some odd theory like poor tap water causing inadequate milk of some kind, I'm not sure where the confusion lies?
posted by praemunire at 6:24 PM on December 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I know it's got its problems but David Hackett Fischer's analysis in The Great Wave was pretty compelling to me when I read it, especially the part about how the average age of childbearing increases when economic circumstances get difficult.
For me, personally, I'm a childfree Gen X woman. I'm also chronically ill in ways they have now found marker genes for. In the 90s when I was married to my ex, did not have the genetic knowledge I now have, and had an older and frankly not always great circle of friends, I got some very racist comments from folks pushing me to have kids because, effectively, smart, educated white women like me needed to reproduce more and [other people, you can guess] need to reproduce less.
I didn't get a lot of flak and judgement for not having kids precisely because of my illness, which on the one hand, great! and on the other, I side-eye a lot of the frankly eugenic assumptions underlying the idea that it's better for me not to have kids. I was also very aware going into my 30s, about the time when I got my tubes tied, that my (mostly white/educated/liberal/working) women friends were often super judgey about how other women parented in ways that were honestly shocking to me. They didn't convince me not to have kids, but avoiding the level of snide judgement behind my back and to my face was absolutely a relief.
So yeah, lots of pressure, and as far as I can tell it was worse for the millennials even without considering things like social media presentation increasing the sphere of folks who feel like they can and should tell you you're doing it all wrong. And middle-class status is more and more precarious as time goes on. Here in the US we're not going to try to fix it but everything we do in terms of policy and social mores makes it harder to have kids almost as if that were the goal. Things have to be pretty bad to make tradwifery look even slightly reasonable.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 6:34 PM on December 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
For me, personally, I'm a childfree Gen X woman. I'm also chronically ill in ways they have now found marker genes for. In the 90s when I was married to my ex, did not have the genetic knowledge I now have, and had an older and frankly not always great circle of friends, I got some very racist comments from folks pushing me to have kids because, effectively, smart, educated white women like me needed to reproduce more and [other people, you can guess] need to reproduce less.
I didn't get a lot of flak and judgement for not having kids precisely because of my illness, which on the one hand, great! and on the other, I side-eye a lot of the frankly eugenic assumptions underlying the idea that it's better for me not to have kids. I was also very aware going into my 30s, about the time when I got my tubes tied, that my (mostly white/educated/liberal/working) women friends were often super judgey about how other women parented in ways that were honestly shocking to me. They didn't convince me not to have kids, but avoiding the level of snide judgement behind my back and to my face was absolutely a relief.
So yeah, lots of pressure, and as far as I can tell it was worse for the millennials even without considering things like social media presentation increasing the sphere of folks who feel like they can and should tell you you're doing it all wrong. And middle-class status is more and more precarious as time goes on. Here in the US we're not going to try to fix it but everything we do in terms of policy and social mores makes it harder to have kids almost as if that were the goal. Things have to be pretty bad to make tradwifery look even slightly reasonable.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 6:34 PM on December 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's weird to me that - personally - the people I know who are least likely to want kids are the very same people who don't know anything about taking care of babies and small children. Taking care of babies and small children, and a general disinterest in most other people, is exactly why I never wanted to do this full time with my own.
To say that raising children looks thankless, exhausting, and lonely is like saying skydiving and free-climbing look like sports where you cannot have a single mistake.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 6:51 PM on December 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
To say that raising children looks thankless, exhausting, and lonely is like saying skydiving and free-climbing look like sports where you cannot have a single mistake.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 6:51 PM on December 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
We are taxed to pay for other people's children, other people's seniors, other people's disabled people, other people's criminals, other people's scientists, other people's bureaucrats, and the politicians that other people voted for.
Something something living in a society
posted by clawsoon at 6:58 PM on December 9, 2023 [15 favorites]
Something something living in a society
posted by clawsoon at 6:58 PM on December 9, 2023 [15 favorites]
I have a 17-month old. I have never been more tired or more happy in my life. She is a beautiful bundle of stress and joy. I really wanted to have a child and to be a parent - I had several years of trying to really contemplate living a life without children and it wasn't what I wanted.
But I do have friends who have suffered from "social infertility" - that is, they wished to have children but did not because they could not afford to, didn't have a partner or stability. It can be as much of a tragedy as biological infertility.
posted by jb at 8:57 PM on December 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
But I do have friends who have suffered from "social infertility" - that is, they wished to have children but did not because they could not afford to, didn't have a partner or stability. It can be as much of a tragedy as biological infertility.
posted by jb at 8:57 PM on December 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
In Australia, it is incredibly hard to get a gynaecologist to agree to give you a tubal ligation (sterilisation surgery where your fallopian tubes are cut and tied) if you have not had at least one child.
I had gynaecologists turn me down when I was in my 30s and in a job with a lot of responsibility because "what if you change your mind about not wanting children?"
This was circa 2005, so not all that long ago.
Other women I know have been refused tubal ligations because they were single and "what if your future husband wants kids?"
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:37 PM on December 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
I had gynaecologists turn me down when I was in my 30s and in a job with a lot of responsibility because "what if you change your mind about not wanting children?"
This was circa 2005, so not all that long ago.
Other women I know have been refused tubal ligations because they were single and "what if your future husband wants kids?"
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:37 PM on December 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
Plants are the new Pets.
Pets are the new Kids.
Kids are the new Yachts.
Honestly, this feels really true to me. I don't have kids, will never have kids. I have ambivalent feelings about that, but on a practical level, I cannot afford it, I have zero family, am currently single (at age 36), have a bucketload of mental health issues that I'm still unpacking - and wouldn't feel right bringing a kid into the world until this is more stable. Also am currently in an intense grad school program.
But I did a year ago finally get a puppy. And it's insane how much planning and how long I had to wait to be in the right place to get a dog (b/c of difficulty with housing, work schedules, etc). Like, I put so much thought into it. In fact, I often thought I would wait to get a dog until I was in a relationship, but then I finally decided to just do it.
I have zero retirement savings b/c of lots of financial instability and jobs that never were the type to contribute to retirement. And so many years of barely scraping by. Now being in grad school - I g et funding, but have to supplement from my savings.
I'll never own a house, will probably be working until the day I drop dead. I have expensive and exhausting health issues. Cost of living is through the roof. No safety net.
There is a part of me that wishes I could have had children. Not that it's exactly the same, but I was dreading the "puppy" stage, and I realized, I actually loved it. ANd it made me think a lot about what it would be like to have a kid. And yes, I worry about being lonely and alone in old age. But I can barely afford to take care of myself. How could I add a child into this?
And I have a career that I love, that provides a lot of meaning in my life, I have lots of ambitions for my career that are important to me. And as a woman - especially with no financial or other support from family, who would have to do it without a spouse at this point if I wanted a kid - I felt like I had to make a choice.
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:37 AM on December 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
Pets are the new Kids.
Kids are the new Yachts.
Honestly, this feels really true to me. I don't have kids, will never have kids. I have ambivalent feelings about that, but on a practical level, I cannot afford it, I have zero family, am currently single (at age 36), have a bucketload of mental health issues that I'm still unpacking - and wouldn't feel right bringing a kid into the world until this is more stable. Also am currently in an intense grad school program.
But I did a year ago finally get a puppy. And it's insane how much planning and how long I had to wait to be in the right place to get a dog (b/c of difficulty with housing, work schedules, etc). Like, I put so much thought into it. In fact, I often thought I would wait to get a dog until I was in a relationship, but then I finally decided to just do it.
I have zero retirement savings b/c of lots of financial instability and jobs that never were the type to contribute to retirement. And so many years of barely scraping by. Now being in grad school - I g et funding, but have to supplement from my savings.
I'll never own a house, will probably be working until the day I drop dead. I have expensive and exhausting health issues. Cost of living is through the roof. No safety net.
There is a part of me that wishes I could have had children. Not that it's exactly the same, but I was dreading the "puppy" stage, and I realized, I actually loved it. ANd it made me think a lot about what it would be like to have a kid. And yes, I worry about being lonely and alone in old age. But I can barely afford to take care of myself. How could I add a child into this?
And I have a career that I love, that provides a lot of meaning in my life, I have lots of ambitions for my career that are important to me. And as a woman - especially with no financial or other support from family, who would have to do it without a spouse at this point if I wanted a kid - I felt like I had to make a choice.
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:37 AM on December 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
Something something living in a society
yep. I have never minded that my property taxes pay for the schooling of other people's children. I don't really want to grow old in a world full of uneducated, disenfranchised, angry, bored young people. that does not sound like a nice future. I would be happier if more of my tax money went to infrastructure, social safety networks, ubi, universal healthcare (and not, like, killing brown people in faraway lands). I would be very happy to know that my tax dollars benefited a family, helped a kid, kept a senior safe, and a struggling person off the street.
posted by supermedusa at 9:12 AM on December 10, 2023 [22 favorites]
yep. I have never minded that my property taxes pay for the schooling of other people's children. I don't really want to grow old in a world full of uneducated, disenfranchised, angry, bored young people. that does not sound like a nice future. I would be happier if more of my tax money went to infrastructure, social safety networks, ubi, universal healthcare (and not, like, killing brown people in faraway lands). I would be very happy to know that my tax dollars benefited a family, helped a kid, kept a senior safe, and a struggling person off the street.
posted by supermedusa at 9:12 AM on December 10, 2023 [22 favorites]
It's weird to me that - personally - the people I know who are least likely to want kids are the very same people who don't know anything about taking care of babies and small children.
Really? The combination of "not very interested" and "wholly inexperienced/unqualified" seems like it would often result in declining the role. For instance, I feel like I'd have to hire a nanny to teach me how to take care of a baby.
posted by Selena777 at 10:23 AM on December 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Really? The combination of "not very interested" and "wholly inexperienced/unqualified" seems like it would often result in declining the role. For instance, I feel like I'd have to hire a nanny to teach me how to take care of a baby.
posted by Selena777 at 10:23 AM on December 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have two younger sisters, babysat a bunch as a teen, and have been around the babies/kids of friends A LOT. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on it. I can change a diaper, I can play games and goof around and be fun. babies are cute and kids are fun! I just don't want to parent. I've known people who don't particularly like children yet wanted to have some. Knowing what I am missing does not make me regret missing it, and I'm sure plenty of people get into it without any really sense of what its going to be like.
posted by supermedusa at 11:32 AM on December 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 11:32 AM on December 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
millennial childfree cat mom here. honestly i wasn't expecting to be alive at this age, so having children never looked like an ethical option. i got sterilized in my 20s and that was one of the best decisions i've made in life. seeing what my friends who've had kids are going through, and the world those kids get to grow up in... yikes.
posted by sharktopus at 2:47 PM on December 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by sharktopus at 2:47 PM on December 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
We're told that we have to make our babies the best so that they can succeed over other people's babies, so that our babies can keep their desperate fingerhold on the edge of the cliff.
I get how my comment could have seemed tiger-momish, that I'm unhappy he's not the best most optimized version of baby (I'm sure the talk about milestones didn't help). But the main reason it keeps me up at night is because he's not happy, he HATES being locked up in the play-area-cage with no interaction and no toys that are developmentally appropriate for him.
Babies want to learn, they are learning machines. They get upset when you change their diapers because for those 30 seconds they're being prevented from playing with toys and learning. I hate that he's in this place where he's only happy when they let him play with the cabinet doors in the prep area because that's the only interesting thing in the room for him.
Sometimes I think, if we find a better place, I should report his current place to the licensing board. There's laws about what kinds of toys need to be in the rooms for what ages of infant, how often they should be going outside, etc.
posted by subdee at 6:51 PM on December 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I get how my comment could have seemed tiger-momish, that I'm unhappy he's not the best most optimized version of baby (I'm sure the talk about milestones didn't help). But the main reason it keeps me up at night is because he's not happy, he HATES being locked up in the play-area-cage with no interaction and no toys that are developmentally appropriate for him.
Babies want to learn, they are learning machines. They get upset when you change their diapers because for those 30 seconds they're being prevented from playing with toys and learning. I hate that he's in this place where he's only happy when they let him play with the cabinet doors in the prep area because that's the only interesting thing in the room for him.
Sometimes I think, if we find a better place, I should report his current place to the licensing board. There's laws about what kinds of toys need to be in the rooms for what ages of infant, how often they should be going outside, etc.
posted by subdee at 6:51 PM on December 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Also, and here's where I veer back into upper-middle-class territory, we are paying so much money for daycare. It's almost as much as our mortgage. If we're gonna pay that much, the baby should at least be able to play with other babies his age with toys that are appropriate for him, and interact with the staff now and again.
And then on the third hand, when he's sitting in his high chair for 90+ minutes in the morning after finishing his breakfast because staff are busy getting things ready for the day, which we can see because there are cameras (that upper middle class thing again), I suppose that is teaching him patience.
posted by subdee at 7:00 AM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
And then on the third hand, when he's sitting in his high chair for 90+ minutes in the morning after finishing his breakfast because staff are busy getting things ready for the day, which we can see because there are cameras (that upper middle class thing again), I suppose that is teaching him patience.
posted by subdee at 7:00 AM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Nothing to write home about, but also connective and nice.
Same here, and my kids are still relatively young. It's also not been 'enormously expensive' on a monthly basis - my kids are like owning a home or car - most of the time they don't cost much but they cost a boatload in fits and spurts. I also remember childhood quite well, have a sister 11 years younger than me, so did a fair bit of babysitting beforehand, and have friends and family who have far less money - kids can easily survive on less and less expensive than middle class daycare totally exists.
Opposite of subdee, I don't think early childhood development means that much, but that's just a personal opinion. IMO, individual personality matters way more.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:50 AM on December 11, 2023
Same here, and my kids are still relatively young. It's also not been 'enormously expensive' on a monthly basis - my kids are like owning a home or car - most of the time they don't cost much but they cost a boatload in fits and spurts. I also remember childhood quite well, have a sister 11 years younger than me, so did a fair bit of babysitting beforehand, and have friends and family who have far less money - kids can easily survive on less and less expensive than middle class daycare totally exists.
Opposite of subdee, I don't think early childhood development means that much, but that's just a personal opinion. IMO, individual personality matters way more.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:50 AM on December 11, 2023
sitting in his high chair for 90+ minutes in the morning after finishing his breakfast because staff are busy getting things ready for the day
On the 3rd hand, a baby sitting in a high chair for 90 minutes would cause concern, because babies don't do anything for 90 straight minutes - they are just starting to even sleep that long at baby age.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:52 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
On the 3rd hand, a baby sitting in a high chair for 90 minutes would cause concern, because babies don't do anything for 90 straight minutes - they are just starting to even sleep that long at baby age.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:52 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
And then on the third hand, when he's sitting in his high chair for 90+ minutes in the morning after finishing his breakfast because staff are busy getting things ready for the day, which we can see because there are cameras (that upper middle class thing again), I suppose that is teaching him patience.
Sometimes, this happens to my daughter - and she isn't even in daycare :)
Opposite of subdee, I don't think early childhood development means that much, but that's just a personal opinion. IMO, individual personality matters way more.
Early childhood does matter, but the specific stimulation isn't as important as the basics: lots of love, lots of movement, playing with (and occasionally chewing on) sticks, rocks, cardboard boxes - whatever physical thing that they can take apart and move and explore. Talking and singing and interaction with others (but exactly who isn't that important).
I've just re-listened to a great lecture series on children and development; it's available free from many public libraries and other places. It goes into the research on what actually seems to help improve development. Baby Einstein videos - No; wooden blocks - Yes.
Back to the actual thread:
Having children has never been easy for the working classes. There is a reason that there are folk tales about abandoning your children in the woods. For wage-labour couples in the 18-19th centuries, the years after the children were born were the hungry years, because they had to get by with only one wage even as their expenses went up. During periods of economic stagnation, birth rates would fall because people delayed getting married (abstinence being the only reliable birth control).
I'm not saying this is how things should be - rather that, as with so many things, left to itself, the market doesn't support families. Only communities and society can do that.
But something else struck me: for every folk-tale about abandoning your children due to poverty, there seems to be one (or more) about the couple who sad due to their lack of a child and then are blessed by the gift of a magical child. For as long as people have been struggling to have children, many are still driven (by culture? by instinct?) to want to have that experience and that connection to the future.
posted by jb at 9:27 AM on December 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
Sometimes, this happens to my daughter - and she isn't even in daycare :)
Opposite of subdee, I don't think early childhood development means that much, but that's just a personal opinion. IMO, individual personality matters way more.
Early childhood does matter, but the specific stimulation isn't as important as the basics: lots of love, lots of movement, playing with (and occasionally chewing on) sticks, rocks, cardboard boxes - whatever physical thing that they can take apart and move and explore. Talking and singing and interaction with others (but exactly who isn't that important).
I've just re-listened to a great lecture series on children and development; it's available free from many public libraries and other places. It goes into the research on what actually seems to help improve development. Baby Einstein videos - No; wooden blocks - Yes.
Back to the actual thread:
Having children has never been easy for the working classes. There is a reason that there are folk tales about abandoning your children in the woods. For wage-labour couples in the 18-19th centuries, the years after the children were born were the hungry years, because they had to get by with only one wage even as their expenses went up. During periods of economic stagnation, birth rates would fall because people delayed getting married (abstinence being the only reliable birth control).
I'm not saying this is how things should be - rather that, as with so many things, left to itself, the market doesn't support families. Only communities and society can do that.
But something else struck me: for every folk-tale about abandoning your children due to poverty, there seems to be one (or more) about the couple who sad due to their lack of a child and then are blessed by the gift of a magical child. For as long as people have been struggling to have children, many are still driven (by culture? by instinct?) to want to have that experience and that connection to the future.
posted by jb at 9:27 AM on December 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
Subdee, I am alarmed on behalf of your baby and I sincerely hope that you WILL report that daycare to the licensing board. There is no excuse for letting babies sit in high chairs for ninety minutes at a stretch, or be locked in what is essentially a cage in isolation for long periods, on a regular basis at least (it happens occasionally when there's an emergency, sure, but not regularly!). It's appalling.
The fact that you're upper middle class doesn't make it somehow okay for your baby to get mistreated. FWIW you may have misunderstood clawsoon's comment as a criticism of your concerns when actually it was a tangential-to-your-comment (but relevant to the thread) commentary jumping off from your phrasing ("doing everything we can to make sure baby's brain is developing well"), as opposed to the meaning of your paragraph and your statement.
If I were to address the meaning of your paragraph and your statement ...
> If I didn't feel like we should be doing everything we can to make sure baby's brain is developing well, I don't think this would stress me out so much. They feed, change, and make sure he sleeps on schedule, he is safe there (apart from all the times he tried to climb out of the dreaded and hated play area cage)
... I would tell you the same thing I said at the beginning of this comment, which is holy motherfucking shitballs, Subdee, your child is NOT safe there, your child is being mistreated, and I am speechless, astounded, gobsmacked! that your husband needed to be convinced this hard and this long to realize what an emergency this is.
There are times when parents say "we should be doing everything we can to make sure baby's brain is developing well" and they mean "we need to get our toddler into math enrichment classes and toddler violin lessons to stimulate baby's brain optimally!" -- THAT is upper middle class bullshit, and THAT is what clawsoon's comment would apply to.
But when YOU say "we should be doing everything we can to make sure baby's brain is developing well", you mean "we need to make sure our baby's daycare isn't taking its operations manual from fucking Gitmo". This is not upper middle class bullshit (regardless of your class status).
posted by MiraK at 9:27 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
The fact that you're upper middle class doesn't make it somehow okay for your baby to get mistreated. FWIW you may have misunderstood clawsoon's comment as a criticism of your concerns when actually it was a tangential-to-your-comment (but relevant to the thread) commentary jumping off from your phrasing ("doing everything we can to make sure baby's brain is developing well"), as opposed to the meaning of your paragraph and your statement.
If I were to address the meaning of your paragraph and your statement ...
> If I didn't feel like we should be doing everything we can to make sure baby's brain is developing well, I don't think this would stress me out so much. They feed, change, and make sure he sleeps on schedule, he is safe there (apart from all the times he tried to climb out of the dreaded and hated play area cage)
... I would tell you the same thing I said at the beginning of this comment, which is holy motherfucking shitballs, Subdee, your child is NOT safe there, your child is being mistreated, and I am speechless, astounded, gobsmacked! that your husband needed to be convinced this hard and this long to realize what an emergency this is.
There are times when parents say "we should be doing everything we can to make sure baby's brain is developing well" and they mean "we need to get our toddler into math enrichment classes and toddler violin lessons to stimulate baby's brain optimally!" -- THAT is upper middle class bullshit, and THAT is what clawsoon's comment would apply to.
But when YOU say "we should be doing everything we can to make sure baby's brain is developing well", you mean "we need to make sure our baby's daycare isn't taking its operations manual from fucking Gitmo". This is not upper middle class bullshit (regardless of your class status).
posted by MiraK at 9:27 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
There is no excuse for letting babies sit in high chairs for ninety minutes at a stretch
Mira K is right - and I was being facetious. Our daughter is in a high chair for 90 minutes sometimes, but that's while eating - she's pretty slow.
If you have other options, I would look for another daycare.
posted by jb at 9:39 AM on December 11, 2023
Mira K is right - and I was being facetious. Our daughter is in a high chair for 90 minutes sometimes, but that's while eating - she's pretty slow.
If you have other options, I would look for another daycare.
posted by jb at 9:39 AM on December 11, 2023
I have strong paternal instincts. I love kids, and I like taking care of them. My wife has trauma related to being made to raise children while she was herself a child. She has no interest in having kids.
Life has made child rearing an impossibility anyway. We are poor, mentally ill, and she is physically disabled.
I occasionally ache when I think about not having a child of my own to raise, but I am really thankful she doesn't feel like she is missing out. That would break my heart.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 11:16 AM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Life has made child rearing an impossibility anyway. We are poor, mentally ill, and she is physically disabled.
I occasionally ache when I think about not having a child of my own to raise, but I am really thankful she doesn't feel like she is missing out. That would break my heart.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 11:16 AM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think it's baffling when these articles don't mention environmental destruction/biosphere collapse/the human-caused mass extinction event we are living through. Her interview subjects must not have mentioned this as part of their reasoning, or else she would have included in her synthesis...again, baffingly as everyone I know is talking about this in their family planning. But all my friends are leftist outdoorsy hippie types living nature-focused lifestyles in the Western US. We're in our mid-30s and it is a frequent topic of conversation; because the having or not-having of kids, and how many, is such a present question in people's lives -- and the environmental consequences of the number of humans on the planet are so obvious to us.
In our social circles it's become basically an ethical question and having 3 or more is frowned upon (in private, not to people's faces). We are all clear that we need to stay under replacement rate as a species -- so the most that any one couple ought to intentionally have is 2, and the more noble thing is to have 0 or 1. And many people I know are clear that a huge part of their hesitation to have kids is questioning whether it's ethical to make more humans given the current state of the planet.
I know this might be inflammatory or offensive to parents of 3+, but frankly I think we need to start talking about it more openly and plainly so that people can reflect on this and consider making different choices. Some social stigma around big families given our current situation is...deserved. There are too many humans on earth if we want the other animals, insects, and plants to be able to survive and thrive too.
Like the article's author, I don't think the media's representation of this issue is really accurate, though. ~90% of the mid-30s women I know want to be moms and are working on being moms, or are already moms, or are slowly grieving their "social infertility" (thanks for introducing me to this idea above, it really fits). And 3 women I know in the last 3 years who had not found a partner took matters into their own hands, getting pregnant outside of a committed partnership -- one through a sperm donor and the other two "unplanned" and keeping it over the protests of their partner. (I have to admit I have some curiosity about how the non-planning went down given they are 39 and 40 years old and were yearning to be mothers...and sort of feel like more power to them, and birth control fails and men can use condoms religiously if they aren't prepared for that possibility.)
posted by amaire at 1:22 PM on December 11, 2023
In our social circles it's become basically an ethical question and having 3 or more is frowned upon (in private, not to people's faces). We are all clear that we need to stay under replacement rate as a species -- so the most that any one couple ought to intentionally have is 2, and the more noble thing is to have 0 or 1. And many people I know are clear that a huge part of their hesitation to have kids is questioning whether it's ethical to make more humans given the current state of the planet.
I know this might be inflammatory or offensive to parents of 3+, but frankly I think we need to start talking about it more openly and plainly so that people can reflect on this and consider making different choices. Some social stigma around big families given our current situation is...deserved. There are too many humans on earth if we want the other animals, insects, and plants to be able to survive and thrive too.
Like the article's author, I don't think the media's representation of this issue is really accurate, though. ~90% of the mid-30s women I know want to be moms and are working on being moms, or are already moms, or are slowly grieving their "social infertility" (thanks for introducing me to this idea above, it really fits). And 3 women I know in the last 3 years who had not found a partner took matters into their own hands, getting pregnant outside of a committed partnership -- one through a sperm donor and the other two "unplanned" and keeping it over the protests of their partner. (I have to admit I have some curiosity about how the non-planning went down given they are 39 and 40 years old and were yearning to be mothers...and sort of feel like more power to them, and birth control fails and men can use condoms religiously if they aren't prepared for that possibility.)
posted by amaire at 1:22 PM on December 11, 2023
As someone with 4 children, I don't take offense, but, 18 years ago, we didn't know how bad it was going to get...
posted by Windopaene at 1:30 PM on December 11, 2023
posted by Windopaene at 1:30 PM on December 11, 2023
I know this might be inflammatory or offensive to parents of 3+, but frankly I think we need to start talking about it more openly and plainly so that people can reflect on this and consider making different choices. Some social stigma around big families given our current situation is...deserved. There are too many humans on earth if we want the other animals, insects, and plants to be able to survive and thrive too.
I don't really agree with that. I think we need to use our resources far more efficiently, especially the US, and can do so without ever having to consider the social effects or individual choices of any particular household.
If you really think the US is full of people, then you should leave the 'western US' every once in a while.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:50 PM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't really agree with that. I think we need to use our resources far more efficiently, especially the US, and can do so without ever having to consider the social effects or individual choices of any particular household.
If you really think the US is full of people, then you should leave the 'western US' every once in a while.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:50 PM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
amaire, the article is in line with this polling data. It does not appear to be a prominent concern.
posted by Selena777 at 3:23 PM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Selena777 at 3:23 PM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
I know this might be inflammatory or offensive to parents of 3+, but frankly I think we need to start talking about it more openly and plainly
I mean, plainly, this is merely an extension of consumerism. You can't un-consume your way to a stable climate. Children are not an extension of your purchases.
If you want a stable climate, why not move to Texas and sue an oil company? Why not organize the oilfield? Lifestyle changes don't bring environmental changes, political changes do
posted by eustatic at 6:48 PM on December 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
I mean, plainly, this is merely an extension of consumerism. You can't un-consume your way to a stable climate. Children are not an extension of your purchases.
If you want a stable climate, why not move to Texas and sue an oil company? Why not organize the oilfield? Lifestyle changes don't bring environmental changes, political changes do
posted by eustatic at 6:48 PM on December 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
The summer I spent in the oilfields of the Texas panhandle, it felt like the workers were organized. It was like, 1984, but the crew I was running with seemed like they all had health benefits and such, (since my gang pusher was just coming back from a heart attack, and the other gang's pusher had had one a year and a half ago, but they were still alive and back to work). And being the gang pusher during the summer when the college interns were there meant you were likely on the gang the rest of the year...
And none of anybody can pay to sue an oil company.
posted by Windopaene at 8:00 PM on December 11, 2023
And none of anybody can pay to sue an oil company.
posted by Windopaene at 8:00 PM on December 11, 2023
And, since this would likely get deleted from the green...
What about Jimmy Carter?
Do we have good historical data about former Presidents who were awesome after their terms?
posted by Windopaene at 8:06 PM on December 11, 2023
What about Jimmy Carter?
Do we have good historical data about former Presidents who were awesome after their terms?
posted by Windopaene at 8:06 PM on December 11, 2023
Thanks for the reassurance that I have an appropriate amount of concern about daycare, guys.
The thing is, I share these concerns with other parents, and they just nod and say they understand, daycare is terrible, the daycare just takes your money and don't do what they should. Or you never know what they are really doing at daycare, most of them skirt the legal requirements if they do that much. Or you get what you pay for, if you don't pay top dollar your daycare might be cutting corners on staffing requirements*
So we kept our kid in daycare, because it seemed like his problems there were temporary, and because as far as we could tell, ALL the daycare choices (that we could afford) were bad in one way or another! So we wondered, if we move him, and disrupt his schedule and take him away from the staff who seem to like him, and it's the same old problems again, is that the right move? And we just went back and forth on this, for months.
*Which is what's happening at my son's daycare - the rooms are set up for young infant, mobile infant, toddler all in different rooms. They don't have the staff to run three rooms, so that was collapsed into two rooms, and infants who should have been in "mobile" room are getting bumped to the "young" room that isn't set up to meet their needs. Also, they advertise that they open at 6:30am but run a skeleton crew until 8am.
I said we're upper middle class, but the more I think about it, the more we aren't really. My **parents** are, and they help us to pay for daycare, because the one my son is in isn't cheap! But we have these blue-collar jobs, and they start early. We have to be able to drop him off somewhere that opens early.
This is an article about the exhaustion of parenting - so here's my contribution, it is really, really difficult to know what to do about daycare if you are in the unfortunate situation of needing one.
Since I told the daycare we would move our kid after the Christmas break, if we found a place we liked better, they have been much more careful with our kid, BTW. He seems happy recently, he's staying in the space where he can move around.
But like, as much as you guys think it's normal to expect children to have a free space to play in, to be out of the high chair - as much as that **is** normal as necessary for their development - it just doesn't seem to ring alarm bells for other parents like it did for us. There are cameras at this place, and all these other parents kept their kids there! We wondered if we were the crazy ones.
posted by subdee at 10:58 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
The thing is, I share these concerns with other parents, and they just nod and say they understand, daycare is terrible, the daycare just takes your money and don't do what they should. Or you never know what they are really doing at daycare, most of them skirt the legal requirements if they do that much. Or you get what you pay for, if you don't pay top dollar your daycare might be cutting corners on staffing requirements*
So we kept our kid in daycare, because it seemed like his problems there were temporary, and because as far as we could tell, ALL the daycare choices (that we could afford) were bad in one way or another! So we wondered, if we move him, and disrupt his schedule and take him away from the staff who seem to like him, and it's the same old problems again, is that the right move? And we just went back and forth on this, for months.
*Which is what's happening at my son's daycare - the rooms are set up for young infant, mobile infant, toddler all in different rooms. They don't have the staff to run three rooms, so that was collapsed into two rooms, and infants who should have been in "mobile" room are getting bumped to the "young" room that isn't set up to meet their needs. Also, they advertise that they open at 6:30am but run a skeleton crew until 8am.
I said we're upper middle class, but the more I think about it, the more we aren't really. My **parents** are, and they help us to pay for daycare, because the one my son is in isn't cheap! But we have these blue-collar jobs, and they start early. We have to be able to drop him off somewhere that opens early.
This is an article about the exhaustion of parenting - so here's my contribution, it is really, really difficult to know what to do about daycare if you are in the unfortunate situation of needing one.
Since I told the daycare we would move our kid after the Christmas break, if we found a place we liked better, they have been much more careful with our kid, BTW. He seems happy recently, he's staying in the space where he can move around.
But like, as much as you guys think it's normal to expect children to have a free space to play in, to be out of the high chair - as much as that **is** normal as necessary for their development - it just doesn't seem to ring alarm bells for other parents like it did for us. There are cameras at this place, and all these other parents kept their kids there! We wondered if we were the crazy ones.
posted by subdee at 10:58 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
“America is killing its mothers,” Lyz, Men Yell At Me, 13 December 2023
Motherhood doesn’t have a marketing problem. It has a mortality problem.posted by ob1quixote at 5:00 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
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(It took a while for her to realize that evangelical happiness was enforced, that you had to be happy or you were punished. Even when she lost her second child in an accident and plunged into a grief that flirted with the suicidal, what she heard was, "We lost our child, too, just last month, but we've found our joy in Jesus," and what she got was a roll of the eyes when she didn't respond in kind. She - her grief, her anger - wasn't good for the tradwife brand.)
(She once told me about living alone in a house out in the country with her second child - a single mother again, but more determined this time to not let go of him, to never let go of him - in a way that made it sound like the happiest period of her life.)
(I could talk about my own complicated feelings about being a single father for the past seventeen years, but I've probably talked enough already in a post that isn't about me.)
posted by clawsoon at 5:28 PM on December 8, 2023 [33 favorites]