[HN Gopher] The key to mother and child well-being may be many c...
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The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers
Author : stareatgoats
Score : 146 points
Date : 2023-11-26 11:44 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| mandmandam wrote:
| As much as I welcome more actual science on this topic, I don't
| think the words 'new key' are at all justified here (and they
| aren't used in tfa).
|
| New to some WEIRD nuclear families maybe, but not actually new or
| surprising.
| myspy wrote:
| What's a weird nuclear family?
|
| That's the mode of operation. Without grand parents it gets
| harder. Single parents have it the hardest.
|
| Relationships to neighbors are not that deep.
| dave4420 wrote:
| WEIRD = Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic
| lettergram wrote:
| Imo it's a derogatory term people in ... alternative
| circles, like to use.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Is "alternative circles" also a derogatory term?
|
| I
| brvsft wrote:
| I'm guessing the term is supposed to point out the idea
| that what we think of as normal is actually not.
| lettergram wrote:
| Except it is normal to have a nuclear family?
|
| https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publica
| tio...
|
| It's actually more common in the rest of the world than
| Europe and the US. It's kind of crazy to say it's WEIRD
| to expect nuclear families, when it's the west that is
| the least likely (still the majority have nuclear
| families).
| dave4420 wrote:
| It was invented by Western psychologists upon discovering
| that the results of their experiments on Western
| psychology students did not, after all, generalise to
| results that were applicable to all humans.
|
| If you're hanging round in circles that use it as a
| derogatory term, you're hanging round in the wrong
| circles.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| The title had to be shortened - 'new' was the best I could
| think of. But it can be justified I think, both in relation to
| the gist of the article and the original title. If this was
| well established knowledge that that is new to me at least,
| albeit not really surprising, admittedly.
|
| (tfa? I couldn't get a hit on that acronym anywhere)
| closewith wrote:
| TFA is "the fucking article".
| csa wrote:
| > (tfa? I couldn't get a hit on that acronym anywhere)
|
| "the fucking article"
|
| I recommend using urban dictionary if a generic search
| doesn't yield a result that makes any sense.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| ah, thanks. Did try UD but it didn't show up for me on the
| first nor second page.
|
| edit: seems I missed the top entry!
| csa wrote:
| Interesting. First result for me.
|
| I wonder if they adjust search results by geo.
| MandieD wrote:
| The (Fine|Friendly|F-ing) Article
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > When considering the implications for Western countries, the
| authors highlight that the provision of affordable high-quality
| childcare support, which goes beyond effective supervision,
| should be prioritized.
|
| > Ratios of caregivers to children were greater than five-to-one
| in the observed hunter-gatherer groups, whereas in UK nurseries
| each adult is responsible for numerous children.
|
| There is now way you can pay for these kind of ratios. These
| ratios can only happen due to a social structure that involves
| large extended families and a social structure that has a large
| proportion of the population (pretty much all the females) that
| spend all their time with each other and the children.
|
| However, that would be a huge step backwards from the progress we
| have made in women's rights and equality.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Why does it have to be all women?
| EGreg wrote:
| Exactly the right question.
|
| People make all kinds of assumptions and thanks to the
| corporate world, both sexes now slave away for the market:
| https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=286
|
| I wrote that in 2017 and it's only gotten worse since then
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| People could accept lower living standards and opt for
| single income families.
|
| However, people like to compete, for purposes of fulfilling
| their own ego and attracting a mate. That is why higher
| income individuals attract other higher income individuals.
|
| Corporations did not make people competitive. People want
| financial freedom, people want to buy goods and services,
| and people want to attract a partner per their liking.
| EGreg wrote:
| Corporations, just like governments, engage in pervasive
| propaganda, from impressionable school years all the way
| to adulthood. Edward Burnays said propaganda got a bad
| name after WW1, so they renamed it to "PR".
|
| It's how corporations got women to smoke, too:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom
|
| How they control the crowd, featuring Edward Burnays and
| his uncle Freud (whose theories became famous ironically
| because of his nephew):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04
|
| How the corporate world market to kids:
| https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/
|
| They marketed it to Black youth:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BjKyVzRr_U
|
| They marketed it to teen girls: https://www.washingtonpos
| t.com/education/2023/03/30/social-m...
|
| Sometimes the mask comes off and they do it too openly:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8
|
| The for-profit model of news corporations and social
| networks has led more and more adults to become
| perpetually angry and tribal politically:
| https://www.laweekly.com/restoring-healthy-communities/
|
| There is even a term for what they resort to in order to
| please shareholders: surveillance capitalism:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism
|
| I was at the event in NYC when Sheryl Sandberg unveiled
| her book, "Lean In": https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Women-
| Work-Will-Lead/dp/03853499...
|
| Make no mistake. YCombinator and shareholder capitalism
| leads to this inevitably. Corporations have to please
| shareholders forever. And there is more and more push for
| inclusivity and part of that means adapting people from
| traditional roles (e.g. women homemakers) into types of
| work that benefit the market. As both sexes flooded the
| labor pool, wages got depressed, and marriage declined.
| People are distracted into being e.g. gender warriors
| (Red Pill vs Feminism) rather than realizing they are all
| being exploited by a for-profit capitalist system that
| gradually relegates them to gig-economy workers and
| depresses their wages as they get replaced by AI. It's
| like a slowly-boiled frog.
|
| Anyone can opt out if they want. Opt out of the over-
| diagnosis of ADHD for their kids in public schools, by
| spending more time with them. Opt out of single
| parenthood and nuclear families, creating something far
| more expansive and with the benefits of traditional
| societies. Health benefits abound. Kids aren't
| overmedicated by amphetamines. Teens aren't depressed due
| to tiktok or angry due to drill music. Middle aged women
| aren't on antideprssants. Men aren't on opiates. Elderly
| parents aren't in nursing homes being drugged up. I'm not
| saying it's a utopia but the capitalist system has gone
| in a very bad direction, arguably worse than USSR where
| people drank vodka to cope.
|
| Look at any traditional society even within the US, such
| as the Amish, or religious orthodox Jews, or Christians
| in small-town America who still get together for Church
| etc. You don't have to be religious to make it work. But
| it takes a village to raise a child, and today's children
| are raised by government schools and indoctrinated to be
| corporate drones, for a job market that will be gone by
| the time they graduate. I recommend phasing in a UBI, at
| least, to help save the increasingly under-employed (i.e.
| making too few $s) people and families from falling
| through the cracks even further. The best kind of UBI can
| be done on a community level, for newlyweds and new
| parents etc.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > As both sexes flooded the labor pool, wages got
| depressed, and marriage declined.
|
| Corporations did not force both sexes to flood the labor
| pool. Women wanted (and fought) to gain the ability to be
| paid. To reduce their struggle and achievement as a
| "corporate conspiracy" is an insult.
|
| Might businesses influence people's decisions with
| marketing? Sure. But that is not why people yearn to be
| financially independent. People want to be financially
| independent so they can live life how they want to live
| it, and marry or date who they want to be with, and so on
| and so forth.
| EGreg wrote:
| Insult or not, well-meaning movements are often hijacked
| and co-opted by corporations and governments. Women's lib
| is just one example.
|
| People are often not given a choice, individually or even
| collectively. For example when Crimea overwhelmingly
| (94%) voted in 1991 to be independent of Ukraine, no one
| honored it. Then 6 months later they voted 54% for
| Ukraine to be independent of USSR, and that was taken as
| them wanting to be part of Ukraine. Then in 2014, the
| only choices given were be part of Ukraine, or be part of
| Russia. They never again got to vote for independence in
| a referendum, as Montenegro or Kosovo did. Kurds and
| Catalonians voted for independence in 2017, but none of
| that was honored. Uyghurs, Rohingya, Palestinians and
| many others are stateless. In short, people are usually
| just kicked around by whatever system the governments set
| up. And similarly with corporations, though it's more
| voluntary, it's still a system. As a young woman, to
| declare that you aspire to be a mother and homemaker, is
| something of an oddity and peer pressure is strong at
| formative young years. I wouldn't say most young people
| are really making "their own choices" statistically
| speaking, and in any case, the choices society has
| collectively made has led people psychologically to be
| more miserable across the board, and we are using
| medication as a way to treat the symptoms.
|
| I could be wrong. Perhaps today's women are actually
| happier than their grandmothers ever were. But it doesn't
| seem to be borne out in the data. And I think it has to
| do with the labor market.
|
| https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/In
| tel...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/may/18/wome
| ns-...
|
| I should say that the USSR has enfranchised women much
| earlier than USA, and given them equal rights to jobs
| much earlier. It's hard to me to gauge whether people
| there were happier by the 1990s (fall of USSR) than
| people in USA are today (we may be reaching a breaking
| point here as well).
| seec wrote:
| All of this is pretty obvious to anyone that takes some
| time to actually observe what is going on. But we are
| currently under a very strong political ideology that has
| replaced what was previously called a religion. You can't
| say those things and nobody will agree publicly (even if
| they think alike) until the whole thing falls appart...
|
| To be honest it won't take much longer, because this
| system by itself creates poisonous inter sex competition
| that ensure a very low level of reproduction. The numbers
| are already in. So, either it gets replaced by
| alternative ways of organizing society (it's already
| somewhat happening in some places, the problem is the
| alternatives are a lot less nice) or some spark ignites a
| revolt that brings back some balance.
|
| But from where I stand it's probably over already. Nobody
| seems to question having both sex/parents working (and
| often competing for the same job!) and women definitely
| do not want to take the breadwinner role after somewhat
| refusing the homemaker role. But that's very consistent
| with reality of interacting with women. In my opinion any
| society that start to listen to the infinite demands of
| women is doomed to failure. I don't have much to bet but
| so far, I'm winning...
| watwut wrote:
| The high levels of marriages were to large extend result
| of "women can't eally survive without a marriage, they
| need man to eat" and following "therefore single me are
| pressured into marriage cause someone needs to pay for
| them".
|
| Not all of that was free choice.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Competition is not opt-in, especially when it's about
| scarce but required resources such as housing.
|
| When the majority of households in the market became dual
| income, every single income family inevitably had to
| compete with them for housing as the prices for that have
| gone up to what the dual income families can afford to
| pay - and with that being a so large portion of most
| people's expenses, simply accepting 1950s (for example)
| living standards won't be sufficient to for a single
| income family to afford renting or buying a home in that
| city.
| Qem wrote:
| The whole pedophilia scare makes people suspicious by default
| of adult men in contact with non related small children.
| There's a great movie I recommend on that problem, The Hunt
| (2012): https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2106476/
| pharmakom wrote:
| The vast majority of child abusers are male and known to
| the child and family (not strangers), so there is some
| evidence behind the bias, I suppose.
| falserum wrote:
| All stereotypes grow from a kernel of some truth. Lets
| calculate.
|
| - 80-90% of child abusers are male. (Lets use 90% further
| on).
|
| - Us population is 330 million. (So half will be 165m
| male).
|
| - It has 750 thousand registered sex offenders
|
| Calculations:
|
| - 750t * 0.9 = 675t male offenders; 675t / 165000t = 0.4%
| of male population in us are registered sex offenders. (1
| out of 243 males).
|
| - 750t * 0.1 = 75t female offenders; 75t / 165000t =
| 0.045% (1 out of 2200 females)
|
| Caveats apply: not all are caught; these numbers are for
| all sex offender (I think it includes adult rapists and
| public urinators); distribution through society is not
| uniform, some occupations will be more "lucrative" for
| phedos.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| The numbers are even worse when removing young boys.
| morsch wrote:
| >> Ratios of caregivers to children were greater than five-to-
| one in the observed hunter-gatherer groups, whereas in UK
| nurseries each adult is responsible for numerous children.
|
| > There is now way you can pay for these kind of ratios.
|
| As it turns out, 5:1 is the legal limit for pre-k (age < 3)
| daycares in most of Germany, and the average in 2020 was 4.1:1.
| For older kindergarten kids, it's roughly double.
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betreuungsschl%C3%BCssel
|
| The government seemingly pays about 40 billion EUR per year for
| pre-school childcare; participating parents, depending on their
| income, pay up to around 250 EUR a month (+50-100 EUR a month
| for meals). All of these figures are very rough, but should be
| in the right ballpark.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| The ratios you mentioned are 1 caregiver for 5 children.
|
| The ratios in the article for the societies they studied are
| 5 caregivers for 1 child.
| morsch wrote:
| Wow, okay, that hadn't even crossed my mind. I see your
| point, then.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Note that the 5 caregivers per 1 child also contains a
| chain of older children, each looking after one another.
|
| You take those 5 kids, and put them in school from ages 5
| to 22 or even 26, obviously, there is going to be a
| dearth of labor supply.
|
| The gain is those older kids in school gain financial
| freedom (especially the girls) rather than having to take
| care of younger kids. But the cost is still coming into
| view (not that it isn't worth it, but we are in for big
| changes).
| cycomanic wrote:
| I find that part of the article and the parallels drawn to
| nurseries in the UK (by one of the researchers apparently)
| quite weird. My understanding is that what is denoted caregiver
| in the article is quite different to a careperson in a nursery.
|
| I don't think that a caregiver in the hunter gatherer society
| will exclusively watch one child only (and not all the time). I
| suspect more that they are available if needed.
|
| If we look at the scientific article, it studied 18 children
| across 3 camps and the camps of 20-80 individuals. The article
| says children had often 10-20 caregivers, based on the 18
| children that's a minimum of 180 adults. Assuming an average
| camp size of 50 that would mean more adults than living in the
| 3 camps.
|
| So clearly caregivers are not exclusive which makes the whole
| comparison to child to adult ratio completely non-sensical IMO
| and I'm quite disappointed that researcher was tempted to make
| a comment in this way (to be fair, often journalists try to
| pull out a political angle in stories, in our communication
| training as researchers we were actually warned to be vary of
| this).
| Eumenes wrote:
| > "For more than 95% of our evolutionary history we lived as
| hunter-gatherers. Therefore, contemporary hunter-gatherer
| societies can offer clues as to whether there are certain child-
| rearing systems to which infants, and their mothers, may be
| psychologically adapted,"
|
| You can cherry pick anything that fits a narrative. This
| narrative advocates for more funding for state sponsored daycare,
| which does not resemble anything close to the 'caregiving' that
| was going on in hunter-gatherer communities.
|
| I bet 95% of our evolutionary history also involved bashing in
| skulls over arguments regarding food or resources, mass rape,
| living in caves, and not wearing clothes. Should we return to
| that too? The difference between those things and the example
| given in the article? Fortune 500 companies don't get more
| workers. Big corporations can pass the buck to taxpayers to fund
| childcare. Naive activists will promote this in the vein of
| 'womens rights' as if dumping your kid at a state sponsored
| daycare is empowering or something.
| Podgajski wrote:
| It could also be used to do away with the capitalist system for
| more anarchistic one and instead rely on community rather than
| on the state.
|
| In any case it all points to the fact that the way our society
| is set up, is creating a lack of well-being among humanity.
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Disagree with your last statement. We can each look back on
| our own childhoods and make a local and biased assessment. I
| loved my childhood and all of the experiences. I thank both
| the modern American social structure and my parents. Could it
| have been improved. Well sure, probably--but that is not an
| experiment I can run.
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Interesting work but yes, trying to extrapolate to best courses
| of action for child care in technologically advanced cultures
| should not be the focus of the discussion.
|
| Almost every epoch and population will have common and
| idiosyncratic features. Why not look back on child care 25, 50,
| 100, 200, 300, or 3000 years ago in any group/deme of humans?
| The variability will be striking even within any one population
| and will depend in large part on class structure, rank, and
| mean family size. Patterns of raising children will be all over
| physical, social, and behavioral maps.
|
| The groups studied here are primarily forest-dwelling hunter-
| gatherers in the western Congo region---what used to be
| referred to as Pygmy populations
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_peoples).
|
| Fascinating topic but not of much policy relevance.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| You realize that off-loading overwhelmed parents even a bit is
| already a massive step in positive direction for literally
| everybody including companies and taxman, and kindergartens can
| help a lot.
|
| You can be much happier and better parent when rested rather
| than being semi-constantly on the verge of breakdown. Who
| hasn't walked this valley with at least 2 kids can't really
| comprehend the topic appropriately. Apart maybe of those
| suffering long term insomnia combined with some serious
| stressors in their lives.
| seec wrote:
| That would also be true if every family had a parent that
| mostly had free time. Then you just need to know more than
| one family in the world et voila!
|
| It would cost way less money to everyone, while allowing more
| diversity and more actual ressource to be used for the child
| instead of stupid bureaucracy...
|
| But it looks like you are deep into communist propaganda, as
| if a third-party institution run by a government would be
| empowering anything instead of completely destroying
| everything, including the society it stands on...
| hasoleju wrote:
| > childcare needs to give parents an actual break.
|
| In my experience caring for your small children is really
| demanding work. On the one hand you need to be focused on the
| situation in order to protect the children and on the other hand
| there is not much going on for entertaining yourself.
|
| Creative or focused deep work where you get a positive feeling of
| accomplishment also counts as a break from childcare for me. So a
| break does not necessarily mean not working. But I believe there
| are a lot of demanding jobs that are not a break from childcare.
|
| The other aspect I can relate to is the fact that in hunter-
| gatherer communities many different caregivers support each
| other. Every summer we travel in the mountains with 3-4 other
| families and their kids. Last year there where 12 kids under the
| age of 8. Sounds very stressful but actually it was really
| smooth. Having multiple parents available all the time allowed
| everyone to take a real break once in a while. And also the
| children enjoyed having multiple different adults they could
| interact with apart from their parents.
|
| So I really think this concept works, but only if you all live
| under the same roof. Which in practice is only possible during
| holidays.
| manmal wrote:
| In our Montessori school, parents do pick up other kids
| occasionally, and the kids would just stay with the family for
| the afternoon. Ideally, kids take turns so sometimes parents
| get an afternoon off.
|
| Another thing that sometimes works (lots of preconditions) -
| living in walking distance of grandparents or siblings, and let
| the kids visit family frequently.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Another thing that sometimes works (lots of preconditions)
| - living in walking distance of grandparents or siblings, and
| let the kids visit family frequently.
|
| If you are not sufficiently rich such that you can afford
| personal services such as live in nannies and flights to
| visit family and whatnot, I find that living walking distance
| to close family is one of the biggest quality of life
| upgrades one could make (obviously assuming you get along
| with them).
|
| The redundancies it provides makes for much less stressful
| living, along with many other benefits.
| ryanjshaw wrote:
| > living walking distance to close family is one of the
| biggest quality of life upgrades one could make
|
| And yet those with the power to change this situation
| choose not to. We have to work in office buildings located
| in expensive commercial districts with small
| homes/accomodation and no real community, or spend hours
| commuting each week if we want to live in the suburbs.
|
| After a few decades we earn enough money to escape and
| retire to a small town with greater space and more
| community, but our now adult children are forced to trek
| back to the big city to earn a living.
|
| The grandchildren get to see granny and grandpa a few times
| a year, if they're lucky. One of the few developments
| improving this situation, remote work, is sadly considered
| a privilege.
| xapata wrote:
| If there weren't so many cars and the associated danger,
| it'd be easier to use public spaces and not feel like
| your "small" apartment is cramped.
|
| I bought a house and miss my 2-bedroom apartment. Enough
| that my wife and I are considering moving back into an
| apartment and renting out our house.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| It doesn't help either that outdated fire codes pretty
| much dictate apartments in the US to follow the double-
| loaded hallway pattern which makes apartments less
| pleasant and makes it hard to build ones that are
| pleasant for families.
| https://www.niskanencenter.org/how-to-build-more-family-
| size...
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > If you are not sufficiently rich such that you can afford
| personal services such as live in nannies and flights to
| visit family and whatnot, I find that living walking
| distance to close family is one of the biggest quality of
| life upgrades one could make
|
| Being able to choose housing with that level of granularity
| still requires wealth that exceeds most incomes. For most,
| just finding housing without lots of significant negative
| impacts - this is about the edge of possibility. For even
| that minimal outcome, the odds aren't terrific.
| sklargh wrote:
| This is a very high quality comment and I suspect will capture
| many parents' feelings. Something that shocks me, even as an
| experienced parent, in caring for two small children is how
| physically and mentally tired I am at the end of the day
| without having done anything particularly challenging. The
| level of alertness required to track and monitor several mobile
| toddlers is quite draining.
|
| Actual mental rest can be quite hard to come by and the need to
| get parents breaks that are not simply "being at work," is
| real. I often get to the end of the day, particularly on
| weekends, and I realize that I have maybe an hour of downtime
| to eat and get to bed to achieve a reasonable amount of sleep.
| detourdog wrote:
| The only thing I would like to add to this thinking is that it
| also explains cultural norms. If a child is getting input from
| that many different adults it becomes an averaging of the
| culture norms.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > If a child is getting input from that many different adults
| it becomes an averaging of the culture norms.
|
| More directly, it greatly softens the inevitable blows from
| highly-concentrated, inexperienced parenting.
| croo wrote:
| I would also add that by the time of becoming a parent
| every girl was already familiar with most of the chores and
| tasks of raising a child and most likely familiar with
| giving birth because no one went away to hospital to give
| birth - it happened at home.
| bloopernova wrote:
| The child situation in that group vacation sounds like the
| shared child raising in a Kibbutz:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz
| scruple wrote:
| I'm already hearing the comments on Monday, people asking me
| how my "break" was, since I took off all of last week (I mean,
| I had to since the preschool our twins attend and the daycare
| our singleton attends were closed). Work is typically a break
| from what happens in the home, but when things at work are
| stressful it feels like coming out of the frying pan and into
| the fire.
|
| We also have a similar experience, where adding families (with
| kids) is greatly beneficial for everyone, but the folks who
| have kids that we are truly good friends with live far away.
| Nearby we have playdates and dinners with other families but I
| wouldn't want to cohabit with them, not even for an overnight
| stay. So we also only get the holidays or special occasions
| with other families and then we can finally get a break.
| hattmall wrote:
| In a very similar situation too, but add in that both sets of
| grandparents have one with Alzheimers so instead of extra
| care givers we actually have even more work with having to
| actively baby sit parents. Holidays are pretty stressful and
| this year we threw a nice thanksgiving stomach bug into the
| mix!
| Aurornis wrote:
| > In my experience caring for your small children is really
| demanding work. On the one hand you need to be focused on the
| situation in order to protect the children
|
| I expected this going into having children, but I was surprised
| at how much I actually enjoyed it. Yes, it's more active work
| than sitting in front of a computer, but for me personally I've
| found it much less demanding than my jobs.
|
| > and on the other hand there is not much going on for
| entertaining yourself.
|
| Honestly, I don't identify with this either. At least not since
| my children were more than 6-7 months old. Playing with kids is
| a lot of fun once you get into it. We go on a lot of adventures
| around the neighborhood and beyond where everything is new and
| exciting to them. It's like they've re-opened the wonder of the
| world for me.
|
| On the other hand, I have some friends who struggle with
| parenting because they approach it more as babysitting than as
| quality time with their kids. For them, it's just a matter of
| passing time until they can go do something else. That's a
| minority of my friends, though.
| watwut wrote:
| > go on a lot of adventures around the neighborhood and
| beyond where everything is new and exciting to them.
|
| I mean, first time and second time. But when they get excited
| 55th time over exactly same hedgehog, it just was not so
| exciting to me anymore.
| underlipton wrote:
| A saying most black Americans will be familiar with is, "It
| takes a village to raise a child." It resembles proverbs common
| to cultures across Africa; one could say that it's cultural
| knowledge embedded deeply within the African diaspora. American
| black culture is often derided as being inadequate,
| particularly in efforts to raise well-adjusted and pro-social
| children, but what's rarely mentioned by these commenters is
| how frequent and widespread are the historical and contemporary
| destruction and dissolution of black communities in America. In
| the too-common case of single mothers rearing children alone
| (the absence of the father often itself a product of poor
| social support), the difference seems to be in the presence or
| absence of older siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and
| supportive teachers, especially when the mother is forced to
| work multiple jobs in order to cover ever-increasing expenses.
| (It should also be noted that when the father _is_ present,
| married or not, he tends to spend more time with his children
| than fathers of other ethnicities.)
|
| I bring this up in order to maybe open some minds as to why we
| see racial disparities of certain types - and also because, as
| mentioned by another commenter, the increasing atomization of
| families and communities of other ethnic groups threatens to
| replicate the aforementioned dysfunction. Common and widespread
| understanding of the dynamic could head-off tragedy; they hit
| us with crack before they hit y'all with opioids, after all.
| nanis wrote:
| A much more logical inference would have suggested that being
| surrounded with other individuals with familial ties is
| important, not others who are only there purely based on
| financial motives.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| We can only move forward, not backward. The hunter-gatherer
| existence is often endowed with some notion of pristine, peaceful
| existence in harmony with nature, which is likely far from the
| actual truth. That said, I for one find many aspects (but not
| all!) of the present situation unsatisfactory, where the needs of
| macroeconomy and national priorities supersedes many of our most
| basic needs as humans.
|
| This article _could_ indicate how one of those needs are
| currently neglected, and point to the need for more grownups to
| spend more time with their children (and other children) than
| currently is possible.
| treespace8 wrote:
| With all the massive life improvements we have with technology
| we could be investing so much more into our kids. Jobs could be
| flexible with short work weeks, and we could use that time to
| invest in kids. Parent, volunteer, mentor. Remote work done on
| a school site giving even more time to help kids learn.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Having worked remote most of my kids' lives, I'd say there
| are other challenges. Parents need time away from their kids
| too, and if every parent in society is working then how are
| kids supposed to get the adult attention _and_ allow the
| parents some child-free time?
|
| When I was younger kids played with others in the
| neighborhood, and there was always a homemaker parent in
| every household. Now every adult has at least a part-time
| job. Kids still play in the neighborhood, yet weekly instead
| of daily. More often they are in daycare, school, or staying
| home.
| treespace09 wrote:
| I'm thinking about everyone being more involved with kids.
| Not just parents of young children.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Lots of folks don't want kids or to be involved with them
| too, another important consideration.
| em-bee wrote:
| those that do not want to be involved with kids would
| obviously not choose to participate in such an
| environment, so they are out of the picture.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Has to be explicitly said, lots of folks expect a village
| without asking if the village consented towards the
| effort (n=1). Managing and openly communicating
| expectations derisks disappointment and suboptimal
| outcomes.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Not wanting to be a parent is one thing, but people who
| don't want to be involved with kids need to work on
| themselves, that's a deeply antisocial trait - your own
| existence depended on everyone around you being involved
| with you to some degree.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| That is an opinion, not a fact. Freedom of association
| and to be happy can include not interacting with children
| you choose not to, and optimizing for happiness is
| important (versus a social contract requiring otherwise).
| No one will optimize for your own happiness besides you.
|
| I have kids, but fully respect people who don't care for
| or want to avoid time and interaction with kids. I
| respect their boundaries, that is what I advocate for
| here.
|
| I've had over a decade of therapy, so I'm fairly
| confident in my position on the topic.
| em-bee wrote:
| it is one thing to ask someone who doesn't want to deal
| with kids for help taking care of them, but quite another
| to expect them to tolerate kids and behave in a manner
| that gives the kids space they need. (like not smoking
| near kids, etc)
|
| in a city i can't choose my neighbors, but some neighbors
| don't like kids and will complain if they are to noisy
| because they are playing soccer in the yard, to the point
| that they force the building management to disallow it,
| which then takes a lawsuit from the parents to remove
| that rule because such a rule is in fact illegal since
| kids playing is natural had has to be tolerated.
|
| if someone feels that kids playing infringes their
| boundaries then they do need an attitude adjustment.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Agreed. Kids need the space to develop as you mentioned,
| and it's somewhat trivial to determine where to live to
| avoid children using granular census and school
| availability data if desired.
| em-bee wrote:
| _it's somewhat trivial to determine where to live to
| avoid children_
|
| given the discussions of how much more housing most
| cities need, i actually think this is not trivial at all.
| not wanting to live near children pretty much comes down
| to not living near people.
| em-bee wrote:
| _how are kids supposed to get the adult attention and allow
| the parents some child-free time_
|
| not everyone is going to work all the time. obviously
| someone has to be available for the kids but not all the
| time either. the point is that life improvements,
| technology and flexibility makes this more easy.
| kaskakokos wrote:
| I look at it from this perspective, we have been hunting-
| gathering for 95% of our time on earth, it may be the case that
| from our bubble we think we are "more advanced", but if we
| think about the test of time, we have not yet passed, and call
| me crazy, but it seems that this "advancement" of ours does not
| hold up for long at this level.
|
| Today we know that many "non-advanced" cultures, aware of the
| limits of growth, limited the consumption of resources in many
| imaginative ways.
|
| It is ok to say, hey you did this better than me.
| danr4 wrote:
| I look at if from a logical lens rather than a romantic one.
| Modern lifestyle outpaced our human evolution.
| conception wrote:
| The book Hunt, Gather, Parent touches on this a bit. It takes 3-4
| humans, not necessarily adults but cousins and whatnot, to take
| care of a child. Two? 6-8. Since western societies broke up tight
| knit communities, the support system for this in the west has
| been lacking and jerry rigged with tired parents and nannies etc
| ever since.
|
| The reason for the breakup is fun -
| https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/roman-catholi...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Interesting hypothesis, but I don't know if I buy it.
|
| Much of India had also long barred cousin marriages, probably
| long before the Roman Catholic Church, but the dependencies and
| village raising the kids dynamic still existed (until
| recently).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapinda
|
| If I were to guess, the main causal factor is economic/security
| independence. If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing
| your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what
| most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain
| your freedom and have financial independence and physical
| security, then people tend to choose that (e.g. getting an
| education and a well paying job, etc).
|
| The latter basically destroys any chance of "village raising a
| child", because no village bonds will exist, since everyone is
| moving around for their economic opportunities.
| em-bee wrote:
| _If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms
| is the best option you have, then that is what most people
| choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom
| and have financial independence and physical security, then
| people tend to choose that_
|
| you make it sound like these are opposing incompatible
| choices. why not choose both? i'd love to live in a small
| tight knit community. going to school and getting a good
| education does not prevent that. and with more options to
| work from home it is now even more possible than it was in
| the past.
|
| also, people didn't move because they wanted to gain
| independence. they are forced to move because they can't find
| work at home. in europe the majority of people live where
| they grow up and do not move far from there, unless lack of
| local jobs forces them to. which is one reason why big cities
| are popular and growing because jobs are there, and it is
| more likely that future generations will have jobs there too,
| so they can stay.
| dsign wrote:
| This.
|
| I grew up poor and moved far away from my family to change
| it. In the rich land where I now live, most people I've met
| could do a little better by moving to another town but they
| choose to remain close to their families and their birth
| community. With that said, they still have to raise their
| children on their own, because it is culturally
| inappropriate to ask, accept or (god forbid![^1]) offer
| help.
|
| [^1]: You want to do what with our kids? What are you? A
| budding, wanna-be child molester? You never know, the media
| says they are everywhere. No sir, and you have upset me so
| much that I'll write to my local representative to install
| CSAM surveillance in all the phones.
| apwell23 wrote:
| I am guessing women have low labor force participation
| rates in the poor land you moved from ?
| em-bee wrote:
| i would guess quite the opposite. from what i have seen
| in places that i have been to women are doing most of the
| work, like selling food at the market while i saw more
| men hanging around doing nothing. i guess some of the men
| that did work went elsewhere for the better jobs.
| apwell23 wrote:
| Because they are incompatible choices. You have to live by
| the rules of the said small tight knit community. since gp
| said indian, in indian communities you _have_ to marry
| within the community otherwise you "bring shame" to the
| community. This coercion doesn't even have to be explicit
| like that it acts on you in insidious ways .
|
| Its the classic tradeoff between security and freedom.
| jl2718 wrote:
| > in indian communities you have to marry within the
| community
|
| Is this not evidence for the original point?
| zbyforgotp wrote:
| I think the analogy to fibers in food is very good (which I
| take from Wood o Eden). We now discover all kinds of similar
| phenomena.
| pfisherman wrote:
| The linked article is pretty ridiculous. I am pretty sure it
| leaves out a lot of nuance from the underlying work - as these
| types of press releases normally do - but there is a bunch of
| stuff in there that just does not make sense.
|
| First the taboo against consanguineous marriages was most
| likely because of genetic diseases. Biology may not have been
| very advanced, but people were smart enough to pick up on
| patterns. Similar to taboos against cannibalism despite having
| no concept of prion disease.
|
| If this was pushed by the catholic church then explain Italian
| families!
|
| Is "the hero's journey" not a story about rugged individualism
| that has been told over and over in different forms across
| cultures since the beginning of history?
| watwut wrote:
| > Is "the hero's journey" not a story about rugged
| individualism that has been told over and over in different
| forms across cultures since the beginning of history?
|
| I don't think so. The heros journey does not need to be about
| "rugged individualism" at all. Not is about it all across
| cultures and history.
|
| We like stories about rugged individualism. We prefer them.
| And oftentimes, we change original stories fro. other culture
| to fit the patterns we like or ignore those that don't fit
| them.
|
| And also, across cultures and history, the hero journey is
| far from the only or even primary kind of story.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > Is "the hero's journey" not a story about rugged
| individualism that has been told over and over in different
| forms across cultures since the beginning of history?
|
| I dont thi k thats true at all -
|
| Lets see, oldest stories - buddhism, hiduism - none of them
| are about individualism.
|
| I wouldn't say the christian writing or that of ancient Egypt
| is about individualism either.
|
| The oldest 'hero's journey' I can think of, would be myths of
| ancient greece - but ewually, many of them are not heroic,
| they are dramas.
|
| The dominance of this genre is a compeltely modern phenomena
| jseliger wrote:
| So does _The Anthropology of Childhood_ , which is a fun book:
| https://jakeseliger.com/2015/02/10/the-anthropology-of-
| child....
| concordDance wrote:
| The main reason for the break up is the movement of people.
| Into cities for economic reasons or off to university.
| Merrill wrote:
| Is this generally true of hunter gatherer societies, especially
| those in temperate or arctic climates?
|
| Most of our ancestors have been living in agricultural villages
| or pastoral camps for the last 50 or more generations, which is
| long enough to evolve adaptation to that lifestyle. Admittedly,
| urbanization is a quite recent and abnormal lifestyle.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| That's an interesting observation. Studying "childcare"
| probably shouldn't focus as much on the difference between
| "city lifestyle" and "untouched by civilization" like whatever
| hunter-gatherer remains but between city and, God giveth, the
| still overly abundant (if not statistically the majority?)
| rural dwellers.
|
| Where kids still spend most of their time around their parents,
| help with house chores, attend the garden and the animals etc.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Do we have to go that far back? Multi-generational living was
| much more common, in cities as well, just a few decades ago and
| made all this much easier.
| svnt wrote:
| The technical term for this is alloparenting, and it should be
| more well known outside anthropology. It has been extensively
| studied and I cannot find very much unique about this study,
| except perhaps the involvement of a child psychologist.
|
| If it helps get the word out I'm all for it, though.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloparenting
|
| https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&qsp=1&q...
| kakaz wrote:
| After a years of work, petabytes of data analysis and centuries
| of case study we know finally what's good for children care: a
| real family consist of mother, father, grandparents, siblings and
| friendly neighbors. It will be forgotten gieeber5as unimportant,
| mainly because AI hype does not follow such boring science...
| getpost wrote:
| > the researchers say that children may be "evolutionarily
| primed" to expect exceptionally high levels of physical contact
| and care,
|
| What strikes me here is the phrase, "exceptionally high levels."
| I imagine children need a "normal" level of care; it's only
| "exceptionally high" in comparison to the deprived state of
| family systems in these degenerate times.
|
| I often reflect on the understanding in Attachment Theory,
| wherein a child a needs to have a caregiver who is sufficiently
| attuned to the child's needs. And it turns out, "sufficiently
| attuned" means that the caregiver responds in an attuned manner
| to 30%-50% the child's entreaties. As one of my meditation
| teachers says, 'That's not a high bar. What grade did you get the
| last time you scored 50% on a test?'
| watwut wrote:
| Given that we actually give kids massive amount of attention
| compared to historical standards ... calling current situation
| "degenerate" is absurd. Also considering that by many
| statistics, children do better then they used to just a few
| decades ago.
| elmomle wrote:
| For some definitions of attention, yes, but not necessarily
| historically massive amounts of physical contact and (non
| -neurotic) care.
|
| Think of the images from the world over of indigenous women
| going about their days largely with their young children
| strapped to them.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Think of the images from the world over of indigenous
| women going about their days largely with their young
| children strapped to them.
|
| Until they can walk at which point they are increasingly
| gone to do the vital growing that happens away from adults.
| cplusplusfellow wrote:
| This is not advocacy for replicating indigenous societies
| parental habits, but perhaps a key is hyper-focused for
| 2-3 years and then a steeper dropoff on the hand-holding
| (literally and figuratively).
| watwut wrote:
| They have another child in 18 months. This one is then
| unstrapped and you don't see it on the pic. Nor you see
| even older siblings. And those women work with infant
| strapped cause they have to, they can't stop working once
| the kid is toddler.
|
| And by the time they are 5 they play alone unsupervised.
| Which was even the same in villages in Europe even after
| WWII. My grandma was herding goats with pack of kids at 5
| and remember it as normal. School started at 6.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Given that we actually give kids massive amount of
| attention compared to historical standards ... calling
| current situation "degenerate" is absurd.
|
| This seems to assume that ~all attention is positive and that
| attention is still beneficial after the Xth hour. After a
| time the adult role becomes less parent and more like prison
| guard duty.
|
| It also seems to assume adult-time is enough for kids and
| that peer-only time isn't an irreplaceable environment for
| kids to develop their core social skills.
| watwut wrote:
| We also spank them significantly less and yell at them
| significantly less (speaking of negative attention).
| LegibleCrimson wrote:
| Significantly better than some historical standards and
| significantly worse than others. We aren't doing the best
| that has ever been done across all cultures and history in
| this regard, not by far.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Given that we actually give kids massive amount of
| attention compared to historical standards ...
|
| This is literally based on a comparison with hunger-gatherer
| societies.
|
| To the extent that there is any accuracy to your "compared to
| historical standards", its probably based on a low point
| reached (in the "developed" world) somewhere between the
| first industrial revolution and mid-20th century,
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| Primitive hunter-gatherer societies might have raised their
| children in a communal way, with relatives and friends
| living nearby, always interrupting and nagging us.
|
| We, the supreme civilisation, at the summit of evolution,
| are locked in in individual cages, disconnected from each
| other, so we can spend more quality time attached to our
| screens.
|
| We are "civilised to death"
| amelius wrote:
| Maybe in comparison to other species?
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| I think it's not really about responding to 100% of a child
| demands, it's maybe even detrimental, and probably better to
| start teaching him patience, and let him learn what to do in
| boredom. But the other part is having long and meaningful
| activities/experiences with a child
| rexpop wrote:
| We decry "demands" when we should acknowledge "dependencies;"
| kids won't properly compile without their needs met.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Fantastic analogy :-)
| pixl97 wrote:
| The question here is one of alignment. I child may think "I
| need to eat right now" but that doesn't necessarily mean
| the "right now" part is correct.
|
| Open world problems are difficult to define, even the word
| 'properly' you use has a vast amount of interpretability as
| to what you believe the 'proper' outcome should be.
| XorNot wrote:
| There is absolutely no parent who's problem is a child
| who thinks "I need to eat right now".
| Feathercrown wrote:
| Compilation error: I don't feel like it
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| We have brainwashed our western minds to make women leave
| their kids in daycare sometimes weeks after being born.
| Then we are brainwashed to let kids sleep in a separate
| room so that mommy can get a good night's rest and be
| productive at work. We need a minimum of 3 years of
| maternity leave in our country to being with. It is insane
| as one of the best countries in the world we don't let
| people have kids naturally.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| The movie "The Pod Generation"
| (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15768848/) has a theme that
| touches what you state. No need to get pregnant, give
| birth, stay home with your kid. While in the pod the
| fetus can be trained, educated, etc...
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > We need a minimum of 3 years of maternity leave in our
| country to being with
|
| And a year of mandatory evaluation and treatment at a
| psycologist for various baggage, complexes and plain
| stupidity that will manifest when raising a child.
| alex_lav wrote:
| You'll note the person you responded to never suggested
| responding to 100% of a child's "demands"
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| I try to teach my baby to be patient when he's hangry, but he
| slaps, punches, kicks and bites.
|
| He doesn't even say "I'm hangry, you incompetent giant". He
| demands to be held in arms, he punches, bites and slaps my
| face. He did this for the first time when he was around 3
| months old.
|
| Patience is learnt through many years, specially when the
| belly is full.
|
| Hangry people can turn violent, like most restaurant workers
| know.
|
| As "the whole-brained child" book states, children can not be
| reasonable when they are in a tantrum
| billti wrote:
| > children can not be reasonable when they are in a tantrum
|
| Are you supposed to grow out of that? I'm 51 and I still
| notice this about myself at times!
|
| (Only half joking here. It is amazing how hard it can be to
| snap out of a "sulky mood" after some type of frustration
| or disappointment, even when you're aware of it and that
| it's doing more harm than good).
| alasdair_ wrote:
| In the UK, 50% is a c and anything over 70% is an A.
| theodric wrote:
| "Nobody gets 100%"
| kaskakokos wrote:
| I think the word "exceptionally" arises when comparing with
| other animals, the amount of effort a human child needs from
| its parents and family until an advanced age is unprecedented
| in other terrestrial companions.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Indeed, it always a source of surprise to me that human
| babies will cry regardless of the situation, whereas the
| offspring of other animals seem to have an instinct to remain
| quiet while the mother is not about, or there's a perceived
| danger.
| Guthur wrote:
| Well if you come with an assumption we are like the other
| animals you are going to make an ass of someone.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Well not like ALL animals, since not all animals act the
| same way. I don't expect we are like fish, that
| (some?many?most?) are abandoned as eggs to make it on our
| own, or like sharks that have two wombs and the mama-
| shark keeps generating eggs to feed the two stronger
| babies (one in each womb).
|
| I assume that those who "group" us based on similarities
| on the behavior and manner we raise our offspring must
| have use some logic to the process.
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| Unlike kittens and superior animals, ape babies are not
| meant to be abandoned at any point, under no circumstances.
| They are meant to be carried around by their mothers or
| substitute relatives, clinging to them, so their sudden
| whimsical needs can be catered to immediately, or else you
| run the risk of developing an insecure attachment
| relationship.
|
| Google images for "monkey attached mother".
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| Yeah maybe that's why women live longer in order to help with
| the exhausting process of raising their grandchildren [1].
|
| We love to take care of babies, regardless of (or maybe
| because of) how clingy and dependent they are.
|
| From an Evolutionary point of view, This relationship between
| needy babies and abnegated caregivers might have given rise
| to a complementary schimogenesis according to Gregory
| Bateson, in which babies might have evolved to be more and
| more dependent, because having more and more invested
| caregivers produces fitter offspring.
|
| Parenthood is a self-inflicted sabotage and I cannot
| understand how come there are so many parents bearing
| children worldwide.
|
| 1. The Gardener and the Carpenter: Alison Gopnik, Erin
| Bennett: 9781536617832
| bnlxbnlx wrote:
| Yes, parenthood is intense, both both ways. It intensifies
| the highs and the lows. There's more strain and there's
| more joy.
|
| And there's a lot less strain when moving out of nuclear
| family structures. It all becomes easier for the children
| and the parents.
| lumost wrote:
| Can you elaborate? Curious how the stress profile differs
| in alternative family structures.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > I cannot understand how come there are so many parents
| bearing children worldwide.
|
| Because the best thing you can do for the world is to raise
| children well. If they raise theirs, etc. its a cycle of
| good over thousands of years, that will have more positive
| impact than anything you could do in your life as an
| individual.
| ajb wrote:
| This is once of the things that remote work/homeworking may
| enable, if companies don't succeed in taking it away. If people
| can rely on getting remote work, they can arrange their living
| situation to improve the rest of their life, instead of for work:
|
| - young people living in large halls, to improve their dating
| prospects
|
| - groups of friends living close together across job moves,
| enabling longer term friendships
|
| - new parents living in groups to reduce the burden of parenting
| bequanna wrote:
| Is this a thing?
|
| Other than one-off communes, I think this is still pretty rare
| and I'm not aware of it growing due to work from home.
| ajb wrote:
| Given that it requires changing property market choices, its
| only going to happen on a big scale if working from home beds
| in and people feel they can rely on it longer term.
|
| Having said that, I've seen some adverts for 'student hall '
| like living for young professionals. That works because the
| investor can switch to the actual student market.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I laud your foreseen outcomes but we are far away from
| everything else we'd need.
|
| ex: A scenario where large public halls are widely built for
| young workers.
|
| An income to housing ratio that would allow people to make
| block-level housing choices.
|
| Widely available, affordable, walkable neighborhoods.
| ajb wrote:
| As I mention in my other comment, halls for young workers is
| the one I've actually seen happen already, albeit only at the
| top end of the market
| silexia wrote:
| Only for the upper class. The lower class still has to go man
| the gas stations, grocery stores, warehouses, and factories.
| ajb wrote:
| Yes, this is true. I'm not sure that the opportunity should
| be foregone for that reason, but it would widen the cultural
| and living standard has between the classes.
| hackly wrote:
| Don't think it has to do with class. Surgeons and dentists
| still need to show up to work. Even in tech, the higher up
| you are, the more likely you will want to be in the office.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| You are missing the feedback loop - if middle class doesn't
| need to be crammed in a megacity to have a career, then
| neither does the grocery store.
| financltravsty wrote:
| I'm already doing this with a set of friends in a big city with
| decent public transportation (relative to the world).
|
| We all share a two story two flat. It's quite fun, and my
| mental health is great. The big "but" is that it's unlikely to
| last because people value different things. Most of us are
| doing this arrangement because it's ridiculously inexpensive
| compared to other forms of housing. One has already moved out
| to live with his girlfriend, and another is probably going to
| move to another city.
|
| This is of course ignoring the other very real problems: job
| prospects for industries are not uniform across cities (you may
| have friends in another industry that is in decline for your
| local)... etc.
|
| I wouldn't mind a return to communal apartments, with a dining
| hall, and a lounge _away_ from the property manager and the
| entrance. But it's doubtful very many people will ever use
| those facilities (when you have more interesting stuff to do
| outside the complex, or inside your own room, why settle for
| the third place?). The culture of friendship is also lacking in
| my current country (U.S.), and communal values are nonexistent.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I don't think remote work is the bottleneck to people living
| like this. It's fun when you're young but most people outgrow
| the situation relatively quickly as they age (barring budget-
| driven forced decisions).
|
| I also see a growing detachment from reality in some of the
| remote work maximalists who forget that not everyone has a
| job sitting at a computer all day. A significant number of
| younger people have jobs involved in-person work where remote
| isn't even possible. This seems to be forgotten about in some
| of the writings about how remote work might change society,
| especially on HN where many commenters have only known jobs
| sitting in isolation at a computer.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I feel like in lieu of spending money on research they could have
| just asked parents.
|
| Basically every parent knows this. The difference between
| happiness and madness is having several babysitters on standby.
| seec wrote:
| I hate those types of "research" that base all their "findings"
| on observation of what is undesirable primitive living. What's
| more they don't even meaningfully quantify what can be qualified
| as neglect or abuse.
|
| My opinion as well as my own experience is that those children
| are far more likely to be subjected to much higher levels of
| abuse and neglect in this type of situation. As someone who has
| been neglected by his parents very early in life, and been given
| to be taken care of by various family
| members/friends/institutions I cannot wish this for anyone. You
| will forever wear a feeling of abandonment and insecurity that is
| unfixable. That someone seriously pushes this as a valid method
| for raising kids is beyond ridiculous and just shows how
| disconnected from reality modern "researcher" can be.
|
| It also entirely removes the principle of responsibility in
| reproduction. We are conscientious animals and we have a
| responsibility to not reproduce if it is suboptimal to do so. The
| problems we face right now as a species are precisely because we
| created a system that removed many of the problems preventing too
| large reproduction but without also enforcing full responsibility
| (without the modern support system the sentence would be death).
|
| I get pissed off at all of this nonsense modern take. We had a
| system; it was working pretty well. In fact, it successfully
| kickstarted the industrial revolution and continued until
| relatively recently. Then feminism happened and suddenly nothing
| works. Women are the only one biologically able to create new
| humans and they have all the necessary toolkit to grow them to
| maturity; up to the point they are ready and stable as humans to
| be able to learn and collaborate with others. But we destroyed
| all that, following dangerous ideologies that distort reality.
| And now we going to "fix it" by going back to primitive behavior.
| I guess that's a way to go full circle, no very efficient, but
| that's a way alright...
| watwut wrote:
| > We had a system; it was working pretty well. In fact, it
| successfully kickstarted the industrial revolution
|
| You mean like when both parents worked 12 hours a day 6 days a
| week and 3-4 years old roamed streets in little gangs? Older
| siblings and other relatives worked those 12 plus hours a day
| too.
|
| That was industrial revolution and actual situation. In
| Germany, it led to kindergartens - you know so that 4 years
| olds have a place to go to.
| eastbound wrote:
| I've been down this alley. No-one will understand you.
|
| Now I just moved back to being a normal person seemingly
| integrated and all in favour of feminism and all this shit, and
| I just laugh internally every time a woman tells me "I have
| been raped." In my city, they add "But don't tell anyone, it
| will make people racist." Every. Single. Time. Ahh, it's
| already bad enough that I know several of them.
|
| Not very healthy, but you have to admit that you can't do
| anything about it, they're not asking you for advice before
| they do it. So just take that popcorn and move on. Kids being
| disenfranchised? Kids abandoned? Needing state benefits for
| studies because they only have a single monster as a parent?
| Cousin getting mugged on the street? Throwing away a perfectly
| working system? Promoting the criminals while abandoning the
| adorable pupils?
|
| Take some distance. You can't do anything. And if you promote
| the good thing, they'll take revenge upon you. People actually
| _want_ all of those quirks in the system.
| watwut wrote:
| Criminality is historically pretty low now. So is
| interpersonal violence including domestic violence and rapes.
| seec wrote:
| Well, I know people try very hard to not understand. So, they
| don't have to feel concerned and actually do stuff to fix it.
| That's how people are generally, let's just ignore everything
| until the house is on fire...
|
| But that doesn't make it much less frustrating. And to be
| honest there are more and more people understanding my view
| in between words telling me their stories and ultimately
| agreeing. I have to say that is somewhat necessary because
| otherwise it makes you feel crazy for being the only one that
| can see. Like giant permanent gaslighting...
|
| And yeah, people are still delusional but the stats keep
| telling the same story. At some point we are going to run out
| of prison and benefits for single moms I guess...
| apwell23 wrote:
| > the researchers say that children may be "evolutionarily
| primed" to expect exceptionally high levels of physical contact
| and care,
|
| This seems like garbage article with just one interesting line
| that's never further delved into.
| uoaei wrote:
| "It takes a village to raise a child" is more than just an empty
| truism.
| jisaacstone wrote:
| The book "Mothers and Others" discusses this at length, positing
| not only did mothers have much more "Alloparental" support in the
| past, but this was the key fact that allowed the evolution of our
| big brains. That is, alloparental involvement was a necessary
| precursor to homo sapian big-brain evolution and the key thing
| that was lacking in other apes.
|
| Very interesting and highly reccomended
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > He argues that recent changes in UK policy show childcare is
| becoming more of a priority for the government
|
| Seems like some massive cognitive dissonance going on here.
| Outsourcing childcare is why there would be less attentive care
| in modern society. Virtually all women - old, young, mothers or
| not - would stay together with the children at all times in these
| hunter gatherer societies.
|
| We already have great daycares (albeit expensive) which are
| apparent contributing to this less attentive care. If we want to
| return to the old ways that would be communities of women staying
| home together.
| wslh wrote:
| The Zionist youth organizations [1] worked and work in a similar
| way where teenagers take care of children and a cycle is built.
| This is implemented also in Kibbutzim [2] and the diaspora as
| well.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_youth_movement?wprov=s...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz?wprov=sfti1
| philip1209 wrote:
| Suburbanization is pretty much the exact opposite of hunter-
| gatherer life.
| concordDance wrote:
| I wish the article mentioned the proportion of cries (or other
| metric such as time being held) answered by non-parents/older
| siblings. That's the more important figure than number of
| different caregivers (where 10 people each holding the baby for
| half an hour total would count).
| zbyforgotp wrote:
| https://open.substack.com/pub/woodfromeden/p/hell-is-other-p...
| similar conclusions from an author that I like
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| It takes a whole village to raise a child?
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