I mean the real problem is that we went halfsies and didn't actually build out systems that allow women to do both effectively, but then everyone got lumped into doing work because not doing so put your family at a distinct disadvantage.
It's hard enough to do _one_ of those things effectively, let alone both. Welfare certainly helps, but you're still half-assing both things at best, and the results are pretty self-evident by now.
I mean, it's also not clear that mothers are necessarily the best people to be raising children either, given that being a mother and being trained in childcare are not the same thing.
From the Quebec study:
> For those kids who are in Quebec’s public programs, known as centres de la petite enfance (CPEs), “repeated studies have found sharp improvements in child development,” Fortin said. This accounts for about one-third of Quebec’s children in care right now.
Now the problem is scaling up good childcare to the other two thirds.
Other than this I don't really see how you would put the genie back in the bottle for women juggling childcare with employment, without also screwing over women who want both or don't want children.
Have you been in a daycare? They're basically staffed by generic retail/service workers. I thought they were highly trained folks like teachers, but upon touring them, I realized they're not and also learned they're paid very little, so it kind of makes sense.
It's moot. Childcare is no longer a real option from the epidemiological standpoint. It's one thing when your kid brings back a cold or a flu from their preschool. It's another when they bring back coronavirus.
Besides, I don't believe anyone other than parents are "the best" to raise children, on average. That's because I have children of my own and I know that childcare and primary education is basically a game of roulette wrt whether you get lucky and get a teacher who's any good. We should just make it socially unacceptable to abdicate parental responsibility at this point, IMO. It's absolutely nuts that 6 months old children end up in daycare.
That's because I have children of my own and I know that childcare and primary education is basically a game of roulette wrt whether you get lucky and get a teacher who's any good.
As opposed to the average parent who is great at parenting, right?
Sorry, but many (most?) parents absolutely suck at raising their kids. They didn’t have good parents themselves and they never dealt with the psychological issues that resulted. And in 99% of cases, they’re totally blind to this, and think (as you apparently do) that loving their kids makes them good caregivers.
I’m not arguing for or against childcare, but it’s a mistake to think the average parent is well-equipped.
Average parent is at least predisposed to giving a shit about their progeny. And what constitutes an "average parent" is not a constant. If we could make good parenting feasible (which it currently absolutely isn't) and bad parenting socially unacceptable (which, in contrast, is almost expected, at least in the US), the quality of parenting would improve quickly.
I mean, if only we could radically and rapidly change the values our society, there's a long list of things we could apply that ability to.
But even there, just looking at developed countries around the world with arguably much better values around parenting, I still think we'd end up with most kids in childcare. Maybe not starting at six months, but starting pretty young. I'm biased as a parent too, just in the other direction. There are just too many benefits to both children and women.
In countries less allergic to establishing welfare programs, cheap subsidized daycare is used to boost workforce participation amongst women: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-31/affordabl...