Asymmetrical Information

Jane, baby. Love the blog. The woman who quits to raise the kids isn't just making a huge bet on her husband's fidelity- she's whacking a huge chunk out of the family income. Dad's swimming as hard as he can as it is just to pay for all of the cool stuff baby needs (Princeton). Even a journalist probably makes a net contribution to the family balance sheet...grab a shovel, lady, there's digging to be done!

she's whacking a huge chunk out of the family income.

Not always. That depends on how much of the added income is going toward paying the child-care service, fueling and servicing the second car (or going toward mass transit fees), etc. Also, if the mother is choosing to work a high-stress job purely for the sake of added income (rather than professional fulfilment or whatever), long-term medical expenses could come into play.

I once read an article on the subject in which one of the families cited sat down with a calculator and discovered that nearly all of the additional income the mother was making at her job was being negated by those kinds of added expenses. As the mother preferred to stay at home, this was welcome news -- by tightening their personal expenditures slightly and through the advantage of no longer putting high mileage on the second car, she was able to do so without notably changing the family's standard of living.

That's not to say this approach is an option (or desired option) for every family but for those worrying about whether a second income would be beneficial, it does need to be considered.

Hi Jane,

One reason for continuing to work: a 10-12 year hiatus would pretty much mean starting over as far as experience is concerned, so the financial hit would last lots longer than the childrearing.

Cheers,

Glenn

"But I am infinitely sympathetic to women who don't want to look up ten years from now and find that the reward society has given them for the utterly vital job of rearing the next generation of citizens is to forget that they exist."

Why? For nearly every one of us, as soon as we stop what we're doing, society forgets that we exist. As soon as we stop splashing, our ripples fade and the water becomes as if we were never there.

And there is always part-time work. After the first two years (or so), children become independent enough to be without their parents for 4-5 hours a day. Part-time work, working at home, consulting, they're all things that can help to keep job skills sharp without sacrificing as much time.

However, none of this is meant to belittle the enormous problem that you've described well. All I know is that I'm going to do my part by, like my father before me, being faithful to the woman I marry until I die (well, technically my father hasn't done that yet since both of my parents are still alive, but they've been together nearly 30 years now).

Problematic to be sure.

Really, the only viable alternative for those without the means to either hire a nanny or telecommute would seem to find work near a stay-at-home relative willing to take on the task.

Not too many kindergarten teachers making $90k annually, though. And, indeed, even if she's taking care of five kiddies and making $50k, that's "only" 10k per kid, or $833 per month.

have any of you ever heard of the *extended family*

This is a topic I have very strong feelings about. I help run a small professional services firm. We could not serve our clients without the very talented women who are part of our team. We try to be as accommodating as possible to allow them to meet the multiple demands on their time and emotional energy. Still, when one of them decides to stay home with her baby rather than return to work, I say, "Yes! Good for her. Good for her child."

I am very glad my wife chose to stay home with our three children. We tried day care for about a year and a half, but she decided the toll on our children was too great. It was a financial struggle. While my peers at work were buying homes, we were still renting, when they bought a new car, we made do, etc. (Worse, my tax money helped pay for their child care credits.) But it was worth it.

What to do? Part of the answer might be to get rid of no fault divorces. It used to be that the economic portion of the marriage contract was enforced (through alimony) even after the marriage itself was dissolved. There were a lot of bad things associated with having to prove fault to get a divorce, but women had more economic security, too.

This is a problem which concerns me deeply, because if our society doesn't figure out a way (whether business or government driven ) to let smart, motivated women have kids without neglecting them, you're going to have a society where smart, motivated women don't have all that many kids. You don't have to be a wild-eyed eugenics cultist to realize that will not be a good thing.

> But in order for me to justify the decision to first, have kids
> (it's not like the world needs more of 'em, after all)

For shame, for shame! Haven't you heard anything of the demographic crisis Europe and Japan are facing? And even here in the US, it's only net migration that gives us a positive population growth. Those kids you don't have turn out to be sorely missed!

(OK, to clarify, the "shame" isn't that a particular individual shouldn't have children--that's a totally personal decision--but in promultating the horrid notion that an additional human being is a detriment rather than a benefit.)

Someone said "get rid of no fault divorces. It used to be that the economic portion of the marriage contract was enforced (through alimony)".

Well, there is still child support, so it's not like a divorce isn't still costly to the non-custodial parent, no fault laws or not.

My wife (an ecoonomist) has often commented on the need for a binding contract to cover the loss of future income problem. we will probably write one up in the event she takes much time off.

Actually, Jane, you are exactly the kind of person the world needs to have children. You should have five or six and pass on the genes that contributed to your fine intellect and sense of humor. Too many people like yourself are foregoing children and abandoning the future to the spawn of the promiscuous underclass (to be very blunt).

You're right, there's no solution if by solution you mean a way for women to have children, raise them lovingly and with attention and devotion, AND make a full-time career. That's life. Humanity needs babies to be born; babies need their mother's full attention (or the attention of grandmothers or others in the extended family); and this means most women cannot have a career to the same degree men can. That's life. Let's accept it at focus on enjoying it within the parameters that we are permitted.

What's so rewarding about being a corporate lawyer anyway? As if life wouldn't be complete if you couldn't make partner at a law firm or achieve some other big competitive acknowldegement. The real pleasures in life aren't found in that direction. Quality is not just about careers.

There will never, ever, be a good solution to the problems incurred by choosing a mate unwisely. Period. I do think that divorce should be considerably more difficult when children are involved, but that will not be a substitue for being a very picky shopper when choosing a mate.

As far as being recognized by society, I've been an entrepreneur for most of my life, and the longer I am at it, the less I care about being recognized, to the point where I know I leave money on the table by not promoting myself. I value control of my schedule as much as I do the money, and there have been years where I haven't made a lot because I wanted to put more energy into other pursuits. I've known dozens, if not hundreds, of very successful entrepreneurial women who have spent significant time with their children, particularly prior to them entering school, and then have gone on to build good businesses as their children became more independent. The lucky ones involve their children in the business. On the other hand, I know very intelligent mothers who have corporate employers consume their lives because being part of that corporate structure is in their comfort zone. When we are blessed with good brains, it really is incumbent on us to think carefully about what we value most, and why, and then behave accordingly.

Sheesh! Am I the only one who sees what's _really_ going on here? Pipe down, numbskulls, and let the master take over.

*ahem*

Dearest Jane, should fate bestow upon us children of our own, I would gladly foresake my career to ensure their proper upbringing. Jane, my sweet, will you marry me?

(pause to let sunlight gleam off of teeth)

My wife is going through the same thing now. She's a creative consultant (for ad firms and such), but has been staying home since our son was born two years ago. She wants to stay home to be with him, but I can tell that she's finding motherhood at this stage to be a little boring, so I encourage her to look for work. Should she find a job (the ad market is awful now), I know she'd feel guilty being away from our son, but truth be told, I don't think our two-year-old needs our constant attention anymore. What he does need is to meet more kids and other folks. That plus the extra money, to me, seems like a wise trade off. If daycare is affordable, I think women should take advantage of it after the first two years. (Having the mother at home before that, I feel, is much more important.)

Life is about choices. Some are easier than others. After 30 years in a demanding corporate career, I am at home with my middle school boys. Why do we think children need parents only when they are young? They need a steadying hand even more during the adolescent years.

And why has no one mentioned that the FATHER can stay at home with the children. My husband did just that, running a business out of the home. Now he is studying for a second career as a teacher just as I am starting a second career as a stay-at-home Mom.

A year after my first was born, my wife decided to quit her teaching job and stay home. The same time I left the military for a civilian job. That year our family income was pretty much cut in half. A few simple scrifices and some belt tightening and we managed fine. Now five years later my wife owns her own pre-school and both children are with her. Now we are lucky in having a great neighbor who watched my son when my wife started back, but that was a half-day.

I just don't think that rousing a kid up early to spend most ofthe day with a stranger is that good an idea. There's no easy solution, but life is about sacrifice.

An undercurrent in this discussion is that women ought to be able to have as much enjoyment and fulfillment at work as men do, so making (or having, or encouraging) them to stay home away from all the fun is unfair.
The presumption built into this is that all men work at jobs whose days begin with a power breakfast catered by a five-star restaurant, followed by a really keen downsizing (of somebody else), and then a management retreat to Tahoe. All paid at the rate of at least a quarter mill a year. At least.
Most men are not in such a position, should such a position exist in the first place.
Most men would rather not have the jobs they're in if they had a choice, but having a family restricts choices in more than one sphere.
How would this discussion go if it were framed by saying women ought to go to jobs where they have too much work, too much exertion and sometimes physical danger, too much responsibility and far too little authority to carry it out, too little pay, and too much uncertainty?

I have two children in day care and my brother and I both spent most of our lives in daycare/school. I never felt neglected by my parents and am very close to them even though I was often the last kid at school.

You don't have to spend time with your kids to love them, you can spend quality time with your kids in the evenings and on weekends.

Maybe we're lucky, but the daycare our kids (5 mos and 3 years) go to is Montessori-style and teaches even the little ones. They give the babies exercise, tummy-time, and play time. The older kids (even as young as 1 year) learn languages (mostly by listening to someone talk to them) and music among other things. Our daughter (the older) loves school and loves her parents. She is much more outgoing than the children of some of our friends who have kept their children home. Of course, this could be her nature.

I'm not sure that either my wife or I would enjoy spending all day, every day home with the children. It's a lot of work and having a professional who has a lot of experience even if he or she may not be as intelligent or educated as we are help out during the day is good.

Like a lot of things, I think that you need to decide what is best for you. Also, children are adaptable and if you can show them you love them by the quality of the time spent with them as well as the quantity.

Bolie IV

Apparently you don't live in California and other places, where "activist" judges are only too happy to hand a chunk of future earnings over to the ex-wife in a divorce.

Bolie - I hope things work out well for you and your children, but the line we were all fed that "it's the quality of the time, not the quantity, that counts" is a canard. Recent studies have failed to distinguish any measurable differences based on the quality of time parents spend with their children. Studies do show measurable positive outcomes as parents spend more time with their children.

There are differences in daycare. Some methods are better than others. Some caregivers are more, uh, caring. Still, all the recent studies have shown that the BEST you can hope for is that your child's daycare might APPROACH the quality of care provided by a stay-at-home parent. Not as good as. Just almost.

Are there exceptions? Of course. Looking at things from a societal view, we are putting more and more of our children into a system that has proven to be less effective than stay-at-home care. There are lots of reasons why we do this, but there are also lots of costs we seldom attribute to this root cause. One example: Children reared in daycare tend to be more aggressive when they get to school -- this means they need more supervision (to keep them from fighting) than prior generations of kids. So, is it possible that one of the (many) reasons our schools are in such a mess is that so many children are now being raised by the hour? Yes. I don't think it's the primary cause of our nation's educational woes, but it doesn't help.

Jeesh, I think we are letting our minds get a little more control of this process than we need to.

Y'all, if you value yourself and your own happiness more than that of your offspring, then DON'T HAVE THEM. This goes for men and women.

To me, Parenting is about one thing: putting the kids first. This means: less time at work, less career oppurtunity, an old car vs. a new car, a cheap, functional house instead of a showplace, not going on vacations, scheduling your life around school, and wearing the same damned shoes for 3 years so the kids can go to private school.

If you are not willing to give it all up for your kids, DON'T HAVE THEM. They are not a lifestyle accessory, they are the very reason why we are put here.

When your life is over, what is your legacy? Unless you are the top .00001% of the human race, you legacy is not your work, but your kids.

Donut

ps. Sorry, full of mid-wiffery speeches and missing my mom at the moment.

A relationship built on "quality time" is like a diet based on frosting!

My wife and I are going through this now; we make the same salary, fairly high, so either of us taking a break from work would literally cut our income in half. We've managed by both of us making sacrifices; fortunately, my hours are fairly flexible, so I stay home with our baby until 10-11. My wife cut her hours, and works early, so she can pick up the baby at daycare by 3. This way, we each spend several hours a day with her, and she spends 4-5 hours a day in day care. The advice I would give is find a way to build a schedule you can live with. Optimally, both parents need to make sacrifices.

Richard - spend some time home taking care of a baby before arguing that men's day jobs are harder and less pleasant. I took a few weeks off to stay home with the baby to delay her start at day care; it was by far the hardest, most exhausting job I've ever had (I've been a janitor, landscaper, fast food cook to compare). Raising a child can be very rewarding, but don't kid yourself into believing that it is easy.

A woman who gives up a lucrative career to stay home with the kids is, in effect, taking a huge financial bet on her husband's fidelity.

Wait, you mean that American livelihood might depend on stable, honest marriages? I thought those were just gigs people did for tax benefits.

Y'all, if you value yourself and your own happiness more than that of your offspring, then DON'T HAVE THEM. This goes for men and women.

Amen.

I don't think Richard is saying that raising a child is easier or tougher than "work" - he's saying (and I agree) is that the argument is always framed in the language of women's choices. There's no mention of men's lack of choices. I don't see anything particularly wrong with men staying at home to raise the kids, but, you have to admit, society considers stay-at-home dads to be a tad weird. Conversely, women's choices (stay at home or go to work) are always treated with respect.

Being five months pregnant, I will once again thank my lucky stars that I have a wonderful sister-in-law who lives in town who is willing to watch our child when I return to work. I wish with all my heart I could stay home, but we just can't afford it (even factoring gas and whatnot.)

Well, this is probably just further complicating a matter that is already complicated enough, but my concern is not just for the women out there making these decisions today, but also includes the women who have already made these decisions--a coin toss on the promise of investments paying off--between family and market place, and are now living out their lives in a state of perpetual punishment--because there were no choices women could make without suffering, both then and now.

I stayed at home and raised my children, and then became a single mother. I went back to school the day I put my youngest child on the school bus, but I was still gambling on a future embedded in gender bias, that potent little author of our past and present dilemma. Women’s work is devalued, and the fact that the body of the woman gives birth to the child devalues all future relations that stem from and/or negotiate with that process. The problem goes light years beyond the economics of childcare, and yet, addressing the economics of childcare is essential to the fulfillment of any woman’s promise.

Taking a closer and far more critical look at the way the United States addresses social security is crucial to the investments women are making in their career choices. For all the years I spent married and at home raising my children, I was given absolutely no credit in social security benefits from the government. All of my benefits were, ostensibly, tied to those of my husband. It is for this reason I am wary of across the board negotiations to benefit “families,” when the definition of family can mean one thing today, and completely another thing tomorrow, particularly when the so called ‘bread winner’ decides to move on to greener pastures. The woman, if she elects childcare duties, stands to lose so much more than our present system of accountability is willing to acknowledge. If the abandoned woman never remarries, then she can redeem whatever stake she may have had in her husband’s social security benefits, the widow’s veil, more or less. She stands with nothing on her own, however, and this, in my mind, is a gross reflection of the gender bias that so devastatingly devalues women’s labor, both in the home and in the marketplace.

We must, whether we elect to stay at home, or develop a career, insist that our government place a value commensurate with the service being rendered on childcare. To shortchange in social security benefits, the woman who stays at home, is completely on par with the current pay scale for those we entrust with our children’s lives. Either way, our future is compromised. Women must not only advocate for social security benefits for the woman who elects to stay home and raise her children, but also for equitable pay for those who provide childcare. There is an identifiable reason why women are quickly becoming the largest group of poor in America, and that reason is, as always, gender bias. Addressing that gender bias means that we must first recognize it, and second, identify its workings not only in our own lives and choices, but in the lives and choices of those women who have, and will continue, to enable us to make choices.

I've worked 30 hours a week since my kids (now 9 and 6) were born. When they were infants my *entire* salary went to daycare; however, my job gave us excellent health care. It was worth the struggles -- we still have excellent and much -needed healthcare, and I am now a divorced mom due to my former husband's addictions. If I had stayed home, then been forced back to work when my husband fell apart and became dangerous, I can't imagine what we'd have done. Now we're living off of food-bank food, but I have an income, we have a house, and I can keep my children safe and warm. We will survive. That is the root of any parents' responsibility -- being able to provide the basics of life, along with love and commitment.

Liz, I don't know your ex-husband's fate, but if your divorce was due to his addictive, dangerous, behavior, and he has not made an effort to support his children, he should be placed on a forced-labor chain gang with other parents who do not support their children, until he comes to a better appreciation of how much more awful some of life's predicaments can be than those posed by supporting one's offspring. I'm quite serious about this. The deliberate abandonment of children ranks with the most vile of crimes, and deserves some of the most uniquely harsh treatment our society can mete out.

To any that say such a response is unfairly harsh to some men,given the state of custody or child support law in many states, I say, by all means work hard to change the laws. Until then, tough luck. If you are uncomfortable with the risk posed by having children with your sexual partner, or having a relationship with a woman who has children, then ensure, by your own behavior, that you either don't contribute to the procreation, or have a relationship with a woman who does procreate.

Darlene, the concept behind social security is that you pay into it from your wages (that lovely FICA line on your paystub) then get a portion of it back at retirement. I know in practice it's not as simple as everyone withdrawing the amount they put in, but I don't see why someone who didn't pay social security taxes up front should get the benefit of them. Tax breaks for families with children, I can support. Sure, by not reproducing I end up paying more than my share, but I can deal with that being my contribution to the species. But I am against my money being given to other people, in the form of tax credits (for more than they paid in) or social security for people who didn't work, just because the lifestyle they chose is expensive.

Jane,

Love your Blog.

My wife and I both work. Our salaries are within spitting distance of each other. All three of our children spent their early childhood in work sponsored day care.

This year the two 6 year olds (B-G twins) started first grade and are on the same school schedule as our 11 year old daughter. My wife's career has reached the point where she is no longer promotable. She had topped out in her pay grade and is not allowed to jump to the next pay grade in her current job. So each year she may get a one time bonus and a small cost of living increase.

Two weeks ago she started working part time. So she takes the kids to school. Goes to work, and then leaves early and picks the kids up and takes them home.

The kids love it, my dear wife loves it, I love it because we finally see our plans working out, and because it makes my wife happy. Our budget hates it. The loss of salary far exceeds the savings from not having a day care bill.

But then we made the decision 5 years ago to put our children in private school in order to avoid the travasty that California calls a public school system. So we are used to living with older (paid for) vehicles, no vacations, and limited entertainment funds. We just had to tighten our belts a bit more, and hope my pay raises the next few years exceed the incease in cost of living expenses.

So my wife still has her career, she gets to be a Mom several more hours a day, we are becoming better money managers, and my wife isn't near as stressed at work as she used to be. All in all it's a win-win for us.

But we had several things working for us - good day care available, children who liked the day care center, a boss who will let my wife work part time, high quality, barely affordable private school, and I'm totally devoted to my dear wife so she doesn't have to worry about being left in the lurch.

But we didn't just luck into these situations. We selected our employers based on their support of families. We put the time in to build her career early so she would be in a position to work part time now. We've always lived within our means, and saved for retirement, and continencies like this. We don't have any revolving debt (ie credit card balances).

My point is women can have both career and family. But it takes forethought, planning, some sacrifice, and a bit of luck.

We started planning for the possibility of the circumstances we're in now almost 15 years ago. Things haven't always worked as planned (the market crash two years ago set our plans back 2 years). We're not living as comfortably as we hoped. But we're getting by, and that's good enough for now.

What Donut said.

And, as a latchkey kid from the '70s, I can assure you that the quality time idea sucked the big one. Nothing was as important as the parent being there, both when it didn't matter (95% of the time) and when it did (5% of the time).

Shell--Well, you’ve got the concept right, but it is the theoretical premise behind the concept that I am taking issue with. Why is social security set up so that the person in the home who cares for the children is not paid, and therefore does not contribute to social security? Why is that labor considered volunteer service, and who, ultimately, benefits from this gendered division of labor and benefits. I would suggest it is corporate America. Obviously, you haven’t done childcare, or you wouldn’t be so quick to define it as “people who didn’t work”. Quite the contrary, and I’m not sure how you deduce an expensive lifestyle from this, unless of course you are counting the cost of reproducing the species, ie. the future social security contributors, as an expensive lifestyle choice. Interesting, but I think the entire issue deserves much more thought than your comments give it.

Interesting. I am also a "lach-key" kid from the 1970s (actually, more early 80s) and i have to say, thank goodness. I learned to be independent, I spent lots of time with my parents, but not so much that we drove each other nuts. I saw that a woman could be anything (Mom was a bank vice-president until she retired due to illness), which is why I am where I am. My parents were equals, sharing in the responsibilities and the fun. Presumably this is one of the reasons they are still happily married and why I am currently in a happy, loving relationship right now (for 9 years, married over 4).

I know lots of women who stay home with their kids and I think it's great that they can and want to do that. But I dislike a discussion on the "right" way to do something as personal as this. Everyone is different and while I think some parents are great "stay at home" (and by the way, my husband makes significantly less than I do and can free-lance, which I can't, so guess who is staying home with the baby...initially) parents, I don't think it's necessarily right for all families.

I disagree that you have to stay home with the kids all the time, 24 hours a day until they go to college. Have you ever met those kids, they're generally horrible brats. I think there needs to be a balance. So this, "If you aren't planning on spending every waking moment with your children, then don't have them" crap is awful. If that's the way you want to raise your children, then fine, but I don't think that's the right way to do it.

Having children is an inherently selfish act. Imposing your children on others is too. The thought that you should spread your DNA, that there will be some molecular record of your existance, that's selfish too. The only non-selfish act is to not have children, but we're obviously not going to tell people they can't have them, we're only going to tell them how we think they should raise them. Wow, no better way of pissing people off, is there.

Well, child-rearing is highly subjective and the outcome probably depends as much on the people involved as the number of hours spent together. As I said, I spent my entire life in daycare/school and was a very good student my entire life. I never had behavior problems.

My oldest is also a good student, loves to spend time with us, plays games with us, reads with us (well, we read) and plays well with other children. She hasn't even had many problems with the arrival of her brother and the subsequent loss of time for her as we spend more time with him.

Perhaps my good behavior genes got passed on. We were very careful in the selection of our daycare and that probably helps, too. We pay a lot (though less than either of us makes) for good care for our children and will probably continue to pay for good schools.

I would like to find it again, but I read an interesting report about a study that found that how children behave as children has very little correlation with how they are as adults.

I would also like to see more information on what constituted quality time versus non-quality time and the quantities used as well as the measurements of improvement in children. My statement about quality time was actually my own conclusion based on my own upbringing. So my advice may not be for everyone, but it seemed to work for me and we'll see if it works for my children.

Having said all that, if I win the lottery, I'll probably quit my job and spend more time with my kids.

Bolie IV

Nice article, Jane.

We figured that if we were going to have kids, we wanted to raise them. Either of us were happy to quit our jobs to do so, but my husband has far more earning power than I do (care to guess which one of us has the college degree?).

I don't think I'm all that bad off, though. No, I'll never have a high-paying career. But I will still be able to have a career. I can still pursue my writing. I may become a midwife once the kids are grown. Things like that have no built in penalty for starting later in life. I could even teach. Who knows?

This lifestyle leaves me very dependent on my husband, as you mentioned. That's true. It is a gamble. But it's worth it.

Darleen Baker,

I don't quite see how "corporate America" "[. . . ] ultimately benefits from this gendered division of labor and benefits." How does it benefit corporations that labor in the home is unpaid? I have no idea how it could be made into paid labor (well, I suppose by taxing paid workers and doling out the proceeds to unpaid ones?), but why would that be worse for corporations than the current system?

Whose paying your benefits? Most of us work for corporate America, in one fashion or another. None of us has any idea how it could be made into paid labor...that may very well be the point, it's not even on the agenda, not even a moot point. We can only narrowly consider the options, and we have learned, for whatever reason, to simply consider this entire realm of labor unpaid. It would also seem, that the only way we can imagine otherwise, is by reinforcing that division between paid and unpaid workers (by taxing paid workers and doling out the proceeds to unpaid ones). And yet, for those who have ever done childcare, there is absolutely no question in their minds as to whether or not there is actual labor, worthy of pay, going on in the home. How does corporate America benefit? How much more of the time we individually give to our company would each one of us have to retain if we were each responsible for raising, let’s say, two children, without a wife, or nanny, or daycare worker? Your company must either pay you enough money to pay someone else to do this work, or, there is an unrepresented worker in the background doing this work for you. This argument, of course, presupposes something of a shared responsibility in the propagation of the species, but corporate America cannot prosper without worker bees, and yet, how those worker bees are reproduced and ultimately assimilated into the system remains covertly operational in the realm of unpaid labor. If corporate America had to acknowledge its own stake in the business of families, why would that be worse than the current system? I’d be willing to venture that it would look a lot like the public relations campaign the tobacco industry has found itself financing since the lid came off there.

Here is how in-home-care can become paid (and therefore qualify as Social Security earnings): You could watch my kids and I'll watch yours. I'll pay you $6 an hour. No, why be cheap? I'll pay you $60 an hour and you'll pay me the same. Within a few months, we'll both have maxed out in our Social Security "contributions" for the year!

And, for you economists, just think of what this approach will do for GDP! Why stop with daycare? I'll wash your windows for $10,000 and you'll do the same for me. We'll get this economy growing at 20%!

David--not quite as flippantly, Mark A.R. Kleiman had a similiar thought...

http://markarkleiman.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_markarkleiman_archive.html#106253988491010107
My only thought about how to handle the problem (speaking, I must confess, as a bachelor, though I'm still hoping) is that it seems like a good candidate for a co-operative effort. If ten families with, let's say, an average of 1.5 two-to-nine-year-olds each, formed a co-op, with each family delivering one person-day of effort per week, and the group hired one full-time professional child-care provider, then you'd have three grown-ups (the pro plus two parents) each day to handle fifteen kids. That would be a long, tiring day, but it wouldn't be impossible. Most professional-class jobs can tolerate a workday off every two weeks, and the per-child financial cost would be manageable on two professional-class salaries.

Jane doesn't address how to handle the problem further down the SES ladder, but it's pretty obvious there's going to have to be some public-sector money involved. I, for one, see no conceivable objection to the idea that those of us who aren't contributing personally to carrying on the species and transmitting the culture to the next generation ought to contribute financially to those who are.

posted by Mark Kleiman at 7:49 PM

Bolie - I hope you did not take any offense from any of my prior comments. Certainly no offense was intended.

The question of how kids are influenced by their care (whether by mom and dad or by others) has been the subject of extensive studies. In the 1960s (or 1970s) one of the first studies of daycare showed that children going to daycare had better "social" skills -- meaning they had better language skills and were quicker to interact with children they were unacquainted with, etc. Based on this study (and others that followed up on it), it was generally accepted that daycare provided a small net benefit to kids. At least that was what I was taught in my psych. class in college in 1981.

Based in part on this information, my wife (who has a degree in child development) and I decided to put our children in daycare. About two years into daycare, she came to the conclusion that she could do a better job with our two kids than the daycare center. She's been a stay-at-home mom ever since. She has done some things from home to add a few dollars to the family budget from time to time, but there is no way we are better off financially.

So what of this small net benefit early studies showed daycare delivered? Follow-up studies, done by the same professor, showed that the kids from his first study (now in their school years) were more aggressive than those raised at home. Daycare kids tended to have more disciplinary problems, were more likely to act up to get attention, and got poorer grades. (The professor went from feminist hero to a goat.) These were not big differences, but at best, day care provided a small detriment to the kids based on this long-term study -- and the ones following it.

Exceptions? Yes. Is daycare right for your family? Maybe. Are there long-term social costs to daycare? Yes, just as there are benefits. We have a good idea what the benefits are. We have only begun to start counting the costs.

MattJ. I didn't say that taking care of kids was easy.
I said that a primary presumption built into the debate about women working is that they will have to give up fantasy jobs, such as I described.
In fact, few jobs are like that, if any are.
I was not referring to the difficulties of raising children.
The point is the quality of the jobs women are supposedly giving up.

I'm sorry, but if I hear one more whine about "corporate America" I'm going to vomit.

Darlene, we're not one big collectivist farm here, producing "worker bees" for the benefit of Big Business. The world does not owe you payment for doing something you choose to do, having children. People are not going to pay me to mow my own lawn; people are not going to pay me to paint my own house; and people are not going to pay me to raise my own children.

With all due respect, you appear to be completely adrift in the liberal "it takes a village" worldview that wants to clump all human beings into one big collectivist entity and assign responsibility to everyone for everyone else and blame to "corporate America" for most of what goes wrong. No thanks. The evidence that this is the case is your apparently sincere confusion about why you can't be paid for engaging in an activity that you voluntarily engage in and that is meant to benefit you -- having children.

See, the way it works is that if you want to earn money you offer goods or services and other people buy them IF THEY CHOOSE TO. You don't just declare, "hey I contributed to the world by producing this -- pay me." And no, your act of reproducing is not some kind of unilateral act of sacrifice for humanity that automatically binds me to pay you for it. With that reasoning, your parents should still be getting residuals from all of us for having raised you and given you to humanity.

I apologize for the sarcastic tone of this. The blanket condemnations of corporations for the ills of the world strikes me as ignorant. Corporations are entities which people voluntarily create and voluntarily work for in order to create profits by making products that other people voluntarily buy. They're one of the great legal inventions of all history for producing social good. But because they are so successful and so visible, they serve as a lightening rod for people who resent that they need to work to live and who have had a subpar basic education in economics.

Please take this as advice based on the hindsight of a retired Personnel Officer. If more women would TAKE THE TIME OFF, the labor market would make adjustments in favor of a "parenting gap" career. It is because we were so docile, tried to be everything to everybody that we are here. Not every woman, some are better suited to a full time career, but many are not. My generation led women into the professional workforce. Now it's the current mothers who need to lead to a system which gives full due to the importance of full time parenting.

Mark--yes, personal insult will always produce better results than rational discussion,

and I got straight As in economics.

by the way, you spelled my name wrong, probably just an oversight.

Oh, and regarding the idea of paying each other the same amount per hour to take care of each others' kids, in order to qualify for social security:

Yes that would work. BUT you would have to pay income tax and self-employment tax out of that money you'd be paying each other. So you could pay each other $100/hr to take care of your kids, but you'd only get $55/hr and the government would get $45/hr. Net effect: you each have your children taken care of and you each pay the government $45/hr for the privilege of it. Then at the end of your working life you get a pathetic little dribble of money back from the government (in theory) in the form of social security for all the tens of thousands you paid in.

There is no free lunch.

Darleen,

How does corporate America benefit? How much more of the time we individually give to our company would each one of us have to retain if we were each responsible for raising, let’s say, two children, without a wife, or nanny, or daycare worker? Your company must either pay you enough money to pay someone else to do this work, or, there is an unrepresented worker in the background doing this work for you.

Yes, but said "unrepresented worker" is presumably going to be clothed and fed and housed, yes? And if said "unrepresented worker" is a wife, she will be clothed, fed, and housed in roughly the same style as her husband — which I suspect wouldn't be true of many day-care workers catering to the upper classes.

Besides, your average day-care worker is tending several children at once, and so receiving income from several parents. The

So you're saying that it is to "corporate America"'s advantage to perpetuate a system where they have to pay the full living expenses of a second person at each employee's standard of living, rather than the partial living expenses of someone who makes far less than the median income? Pardon me if I observe that this doesn't make sense.

Aaack. Please disregard the rogue "The"!

Memo to self: the Preview feature is your friend!

My generation led women into the professional workforce. Now it's the current mothers who need to lead to a system which gives full due to the importance of full time parenting.

Hear, hear.

I would add that the current fathers who are taking time off to raise their kids are also likely to improve things. As it becomes more common for men to take a turn staying home with their kids, we'll all quit seeing stay-at-home parenting as a female job, and the labor market will correct for it.

If you think about it, there's the same shortage of stay-at-home parents as there is in other traditionally female professions. The nursing shortage is acute, and have you tried to find a competent admin lately? Eventually we'll quit seeing all these jobs as primarily for women, and men will step in and fill the demand.

Kleinman's rant on prosecutor's opposing reopening of cases for DNA evidence, he really knows better. Of course, there are some cases where the prosecutors do not want the case reopened to reveal some shortcut they've taken. But prosecutors' offices also want to oppose such efforts because they don't have the resources to relitigate every case. That Kleinman wants to pretend that there is no argument against revisiting criminal cases - that its nothing but those lousy unethical prosecutors - is a disingenuous argument.

Something else to give parents daycare nightmares:

There have been several cases here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area this summer involving the death of children left in locked vans by daycare workers.

"Institutional children" do just fine in parts of the world where institutional care is the norm.

But in an environment where this is not the norm, subjecting your kids to institutional care is costly. Of course, highly educated and loving mothers impart an advantage to their children.

That's what is really going on here. You don't want your kids to have "normal" oppotunities. You want them to have the best. And so does every other parent. In the race to provide the "best" parents do all kinds of crazy things. It is an arms race to the "top".

The social costs of this behaviour far outweighs the social benefits. But the private benefits exceed the private costs. Which is why I prefer the European approach. It just makes good old fashioned economic sense to adopt efficiency enhancing institutions.

"Institutional children" do just fine in parts of the world where institutional care is the norm. But in an environment where this is not the norm, subjecting your kids to institutional care is costly.

I'm not sure I understand your argument. Are you saying there's something about our culture that disadvantages our daycare kids more than kids in, say, France, who are in government daycare from the cradle? Or is it just that in France, there's no control group of stay-at-home kids to compare them with? Either way, it seems like an argument for less daycare, not more...

It's not something about our "culture" that disadvantages US kids in daycare -- its the private incentives of US parents to give their kids a little something extra.

Say your goal -- however misguided it may be for the child in question -- is for your kid to go to Harvard.

Now you can either send your kids to the nice high quality daycare, or give them a marginally better start on life by staying home and raising them yourself.

The Harvard admission list is finite. The kid who has a full time parent at home has an advantage over the kid whose parents both work. So, in the US, one parent takes time off.

Are we better off as a society? No. Social Costs > Social Benefits. We still have X number of Harvard educated kids, but you spent your valuable human capital changing diapers rather than working for world peace.

Are you better off as a parent? Yes. Your kid got into Harvard. Private Benefits > Private Costs.

Thanks for the clarification. It occurs to me, however, that raising children well is about as effective as anything else I could do to contribute to world peace, and surely more important to the good of humanity than the work I'm doing tonight at the office. Those diaper-changing parents aren't wasting their human capital--they're just investing it.

I have to chime in on the "men face hard choices too" topic.

A friend of mine with four kids was laid off recently. He was in a high-paying, high-tech job and had four kids. He was back at work in only a couple of weeks, *but* at a job he used to have for a company that had been terrible to him. He used to *joke* about this company and the way they had treated him.

With four kids, though, being out of work just wasn't an option and these folks were willing to pay him well (for brutal sixty hour weeks). I felt bad for him, but proud of him to: the things he was willing to do for his kids was quite courageous.

It's not always so great being the "breadwinner", either.

Rob, I don't mean to dismiss your friend's plight in working for people he doesn't like or respect; it sucks and I can't do it. The concept of a "brutal sixty hour work week", however, is a very relative thing. I think we sometimes lose sight of the historical circumstances in which we live.

Given that the social costs of stay at home parenting exceeds the social benefits, we have a market failure. Shouldn't we tax highly educated stay at home moms to achieve the efficient outcome?

Or maybe just subsidize working moms?

Robin Roberts wrote:

Kleinman's rant on prosecutor's opposing reopening of cases for DNA evidence, he really knows better. Of course, there are some cases where the prosecutors do not want the case reopened to reveal some shortcut they've taken. But prosecutors' offices also want to oppose such efforts because they don't have the resources to relitigate every case. That Kleinman wants to pretend that there is no argument against revisiting criminal cases - that its nothing but those lousy unethical prosecutors - is a disingenuous argument.

I agree however while Kleinman did touch on another reason in his post:

What most non-participants don't understand about the criminal law is that an appeal isn't supposed to be a fresh review of the evidence: it's almost exclusively about errors made at trial. As a matter of law, the fact that someone convicted in due form is factually innocent of the charge is not, in general, a reason to let him out of prison. (Justices Scalia and Thomas have argued [*] that the execution of a factually innocent person would not constitute a Constitutional violation.) So the ability of demonstrably innocent people behind bars to have their cases reopened depends on state law and state rules of criminal procedure, and the prosecutors have had considerable success in opposing such attempts both in the legislatures and in the courts. (Most horribly, some states explicitly allow police to destroy the evidence after some period; the proof of innocence in some case may be literally going down the drain as I write.)emphasis added)

It could very well be that prosecutors are opposing reopening closed cases because they really are under no obligation to prove a convicted person’s innocence (that’s the job of the defense attorneys) and not fighting every case would open the door for all sorts of frivolous challenges. Also with regards to allowing police to destroy the evidence after some period, does anyone really doubt that this is because with finite resources allocated for law enforcement, it might be legitimately considered a waste of dollars and space in some places to continue storing evidence from cases where the defendant has been convicted? Granted, there is always the possibility (beyond a reasonable doubt) that an innocent person was convicted of crime they did not commit, but destroying evidence after some period after a person has received due process is not necessarily as ominous as Mark Kleinman seems to suggest.

Boban wrote:

Are we better off as a society? No. Social Costs > Social Benefits. We still have X number of Harvard educated kids, but you spent your valuable human capital changing diapers rather than working for world peace.

I most strenuously disagree. I think we would be better off if more Harvard-educated persons spent less time engaged in mischief in the name of “working for world peace” and did something useful like changing diapers.

A couple of thoughts...

Raising children IS a career, and likely to be the most fulfilling in your life. The problem is that 'modern' society doesn't recognise it as such.

The requirement that both parents work to make ends meet is in no small part due to women entering the workforce in large numbers - it's a classic catch-22. A larger supply of labour reduced the price of it.

I understand your concern about the people who would be raising your kids - but shouldn't you have a similar worry about the people who run our lives. They're just as incapable...

Raising children IS a career, and likely to be the most fulfilling in your life.

Is it? In a famous 1975 column, Ann Landers asked her readers, "If you had it to do over again, would you have children?" To her surprise, 70% of her respondents said no.

Not a scientific survey, of course. And if you ask them face-to-face I'm sure the vast majority of parents would say they don't regret having had their children. But I suspect many parents are actually much more conflicted about their choices than they are willing to admit.

"Are we better off as a society? No. Social Costs > Social Benefits. We still have X number of Harvard educated kids"

Your reasoning doesn't take into account that they may be higher quality Harvard kids. Competition has as much a role to play here as anywhere else in life; do you really think America would have been better off with the old style "Harvard as Finishing School" WASP culture? More to the point, if staying at home to look after one's children is such a loss, why bother having kids to begin with? I haven't even touched on the point that you give no rationale for your evaluation of the cost/benefit balance to "Society."

"Given that the social costs of stay at home parenting exceeds the social benefits, we have a market failure."

Your initial assumption is far from being self-evidently true. Just because some women want full-time careers and the pleasure of bringing up their own children does not mean that there is a "market failure" in any shape or form. There are all sorts of wonderful things I'd like to have myself, and I don't go around talking about "market failure" simply because no one has seen fit to hand them to me on a silver platter.

hi all,

some comments:

for jg,

"Any child care provider I hire is going to be less motivated than I am, because no one loves my child the way I do. Any child care provider I can hire is going to be (let's be honest) probably not as smart as I am, less educated, and is not going to be dedicated to imparting to my child, not the values I want them to have, but the values that make it easiest for them to perform their job. And if I am a professional woman, my child is going to be spending ten or more hours a day with this person -- more hours than they are with me."

following earlier discussions on this blog, how about using the term "teachers" here? if you put that in there jane instead of "daycare provider", what exactly is your issue again? out of curiosity, would you be home-schooling your child? if not, why not? is school different from child-care? if so, how, as you see it?

for boban,
you appear to assume that the value of a well-educated person staying at home rearing children to society is worth less than getting a job and working. may i ask why you make this assertion (unsupported as far as i can tell?). i do not want to appear harsh, but the economic paradigm we mostly use--neo-classical economics--talks about value being subjective. if choice really is an issue here, then my choice should be prima facie evidence of a higher valued product. to make your claim work, you would have to point to the negative externality attached to staying at home that the market place is not able to capture in this issue. so, what is it?

to markj,
yes, having kids is a choice, though for some, it comes as quite a surprise--so what about those cases of accidents? shou;d we abort? forceably adopt out? let those who choose to struggle on in debt, poverty, etc, keeping their biological child keep on going without support?

markj: do you see any positive externalities for having children in this country not captured by the market place? if so, then there is a case to be made for having government support for raising them. if we actually examined that question, i think you and boban could have an interesting debate about the issues of a role for government. and one that could articulate some possible common ground amongst the ideologically opposed...

more generally an observation: something most economists (most any uptodate eco development text) and many anthropologists (check out caldwell on this) agree on: having kids in advanced western economies is not an investment good for parents as it is in poorer lcd's (security in old age, etc) but a consumption good for parents, and one that gets more expensive with each passing year for exactly the reaons of the opportunity costs of foregone labour by one or more parent/guardian.

cheers

Nice post, Jane. A few tangential reactions. First, it is too easy to idealize the time spent on meaningful parent-child interaction with a stay-at-home parent. Most stay-at-home parents are not spending their full time playing and teaching their child. The division of labor that allows one parent to stay at home usually necessitates other tasks. There are errands, cooking, phone calls, play dates spent chatting with adults in the kitchen while the kids run around. Yes, it's nice to have Mom or Dad nearby, and there still is plenty of time for the good stuff. But a careful time-use study would, I believe, drop the "meaningful time" by a nontrivial factor. This doesn't contradict Jane's basic point but it does change the magnitude of the difference with other child-care options.

Second, the ideal of parenting in previous generations was very different than what we aspire to today. Less of structured play, quality time, and developmentally appropriate interaction; and more of unsupervised play, neighborhood interaction, and tag-along-while-the-house-work-gets-done. Extended families also tended to be more available then, giving new groups of playmates and alternative informal care givers. Even if we want more today, that it worked suggests at least that the cost to the child of external care need not be as great as it seems.

Third, I agree that no good solutions have appeared, but I expect that there is not one right solution. Rather, our hope should be that our institutions can adapt to allow for a wide range of successful family choices. Just for example, we now tend to commute and have a single block of "business hours". If we shifted toward working closer to home or if we altered the workday to have a siesta-like hole with business hours extending later, new solutions would present themselves. As the variety of workable solutions increases, and the institutions and choices can better co-evolve.

Fourth, I recognize that now most of the childcare burden falls on women. But compared to twenty years ago a much wider array of choices is possible. Framing the question in terms of what women can do elides the is-ought distinction here. We should thinking about what families can do. For example, my wife and I decided before our son was even conceived that we would share the load, and we split the childcare and other duties evenly. (Actually I do a little more child care to get out of some laundry.) We are also fortunate enough to be able to stagger our schedules, alternating early and late, so that our son is with a caregiver for only about two hours and in preschool for about three. Of course, this won't work for everyone; my point is just that it was a decision (and sacrifice) we made together.

Sorry to go on and on here.

Most stay-at-home parents are not spending their full time playing and teaching their child.

Speaking as a person whose own mother resigned a secretarial position to be a stay-at-home parent following my birth, I think you may be overlooking one important fact: Kids are ALWAYS watching and learning, and WHO they watch and learn will be as influential on their development as direct interaction with those people.

The division of labor that allows one parent to stay at home usually necessitates other tasks. There are errands, cooking, phone calls, play dates spent chatting with adults in the kitchen while the kids run around.

And yet the kids often accompany the parent on those tasks, learn what defines "adult responsibilities," discover how their home/community/world is defeined, etc. Why did you choose those noodles there and not the other ones, mom? What's a coupon? Why does the store give you a bag of oranges for money? etc.

And then there's that moment where you're "running around with the other kids" and slip on some loose gravel...and mom is there to inspect the scrape, and clean it. Having a parent nearby is also a form of security blanket even when you're not using it.

I would agree that it is possible for a stay-at-home parent to essentially ignore a child or provide a negative influence that actually damages the child's development. But as expressed, your first paragraph makes no sense to me; trying to define parent time as "meaningful" based on when the parent is and is not able to actively interact with the child is nonsense IMO.

Interesting post and comments. Entertaining to read opionions from some who are quite focused on the economic benefits and costs of having children. I agree that economic benefits and costs are an important element but if economic factors are the driving force in your decision making process (and you decide to have children) then I would suggest that by all means you use child rearing services at the first opportunity.
You will be happier and the child will be happier.

If relationships are more important to you than economic costs or benefits, then stay home - once again, you and the child will be happier. Even if there is some economic hardship involved - you'll still both be happier and have a better chance of a happy home.

Few comments here:

1) Man or woman quitting work to take care of the kids is a choice, not a moral imperative. Whether you "should" have one or the other stay home depends on your circumstances and values.

2) If you both make the same amount of money, one quitting to take care of the kids does not cut your income in half, effectively. My wife and I had the exact same circumstances, and we did a little work with pencil and paper. First, all of her income (she was going to quit) was being taxed at 30% or so. Second, we'd cut down on drycleaning and housecleaning bills. Third, we'd cut down on shopping indefficiency. Fourth, we'd cut down on dinners out because neither had time to prepare it. Lower clothing bills. Daycare expense goes away. The list goes on and on. If you're going to compare before and after, compare the net cost, not the gross cost. I think it'll surprise you, unless you have money practically falling out of your favorite orifice. We discovered that we came out substantially behind, financially, but it wound up being more like 25-30% instead of a 50% cut. We chose to bite the bullet and do it anyway on account of my daughter has CP and needed 3 different kinds of therapy.

"The Harvard admission list is finite. The kid who has a full time parent at home has an advantage over the kid whose parents both work.

So, in the US, one parent takes time off.

Are we better off as a society? No. Social Costs > Social Benefits. We still have X number of Harvard educated kids, but you spent your valuable human capital changing diapers rather than working for world peace. "

The additional kids who are good enough to get into today's Harvard represent a net benefit to society, even if they don't get into Harvard in 18 years. They're still just as smart, even if they go to college somewhere else. And, if we somehow generate enough extra smart kids, you'll see other institutions of Harvard caliber start popping up to serve them.

"A couple of thoughts...
Raising children IS a career, and likely to be the most fulfilling in your life. The problem is that 'modern' society doesn't recognise it as such.
The requirement that both parents work to make ends meet is in no small part due to women entering the workforce in large numbers - it's a classic catch-22. A larger supply of labour reduced the price of it."

But that larger supply of labor is presumably being paid to produce something, thus increasing the total supply of goods and services in proportion.

The problem is that we're stuck in an income "arms race". The people at the bottom of the economic ladder are denied proper police protection, so failure to keep up economically with your fellow citizens exposes you to the danger of getting shot by thugs. Thus, if your fellow citizens are working two jobs (1 per adult) and living in neighborhoods twice as expensive as the ones you can afford with just one income, your personal safety may require getting a second job to afford a safe neighborhood.

Anony-mouse wrote:

Speaking as a person whose own mother resigned a secretarial position to be a stay-at-home parent following my birth, I think you may be overlooking one important fact: Kids are ALWAYS watching and learning, and WHO they watch and learn will be as influential on their development as direct interaction with those people.

"Yes, but said "unrepresented worker" is presumably going to be clothed and fed and housed, yes? And if said "unrepresented worker" is a wife, she will be clothed, fed, and housed in roughly the same style as her husband — which I suspect wouldn't be true of many day-care workers catering to the upper classes."

Michelle--Yes, a given, one would suppose. And if we pare parts of this discussion down to things like basic economics, we have the tribe on island A collectively deciding to produce widgets to sell/barter/trade to or with, the tribe on island B. But there is an entire tribe on both islands, or village, if you prefer (nod to Hilary), composed of not only the direct producers of the widgets, but also all of the people who prepare the meals and care for the children, so that the widget producers can engage profitably in the business of widget trade. There has been prior collective agreement about the whole widget business in the first place, and this collective agreement (some fondly refer to as democracy) has been inclusive, not exclusive. It’s been a given from its inception, that the unpaid worker will be taken care of in the same manner as the widget producers, the category of producer also, of course, including not only the actual producers, but also those who transport the widgets and do the actual trading (island version of Wall Street).
It will not require a close examination of our society to realize that such is not the case, and the very premise of social security benefits, or the notion that daycare workers of the wealthy, or wives, are covered by association, is an argument as absurd as Marie Antoinette's, “let them eat cake.” I am not suggesting that this is an oversight that corporate America must ameliorate. I am suggesting, rather, that corporate America is the direct beneficiary of said arrangement. Preserving categories of unpaid or underpaid workers benefits corporations because these are the places we (society) house our profits. The excess produced by labor, or widget production, is contained in corporations. Corporations are non-human entities capable of disguising the process of promoting capitalism under the guise of democracy, ie. Enron was not an oversight, it was intentional.

In our society, the closer you are to the actual widget, the greater the potential for personal profit. But where and how is that personal profit being realized? I am, all too unpopularly, suggesting that we, as a society, are robbing our grandmothers, mothers, wives, sisters, daycare workers and children to realize that profit, and the arguement justifying said travesty is, "they do not produce the widgets."

I wonder to how many people here this subject is theoretical.

I get very annoyed every time the "mothers: home v. work" argument comes up -- it is assumed that, if a parent is to stay at home, of course it will be the mother. In times past, I can see why this would be -- when women's career choices were limited to teacher, nurse, or secretary, chances were her husband would make more money. But now? Considering more women are going to college than men, it won't be very long when chances will be that the wife in a couple makes more money.

In any case, I'm happy my husband is at home with our daughter -- there's no way we could pay for good, legal daycare in NYC on the kind of salary he had been making. And, of course, I expect he will do as my mother did when I grew up -- taking bit jobs as they come up.

and if you leave him meep, he will be without social security benefits in his old age because he stayed home and did childcare...I understand your annoyance with the gendering of this argument, but gender is, unfortunately, intrinsic to the polemic.

...we have the tribe on island A collectively deciding to produce widgets to sell/barter/trade to or with, the tribe on island B

Or we could say that we have a tribe on island A deciding to raise children and using widget production as a means to finance that endeavor. Which is how it works with my wife and I (a small tribe) as well as other couples we know (other small tribes).

Darleen, if you change the central focus of production efforts from widgets to children, does that change your analysis? Might I respectfully suggest that in that case, grandmothers, mothers, and wives are close to the focus product and thus not victims of robbery?

We enjoy our production of children far more than we enjoy producing widgets. The project kickoff meetings are especially delightful.

Indeed, and I could not agree with you more about the delight involved in the process. You are, of course, more correct than the convoluted argument I posited, simply because the truth is, most of us decide to raise children, and the widget production is merely a means to that end...I'm making my argument in economics because I was goaded to think about it in those terms..about inequities in our system that persist in spite of our best efforts as parents, grandparents, caregivers, tribes etc.

There's a general theme among some of the posts on this interesting topic that because there are positive externalities to having children, society (i.e. government) should step in and take some money from some people and give it to others who don't appear to be reimbursed for their externality-generating behavior. For example, pay mothers who stay at home with their children because by doing so, society both gets more children and makes it possible for half the couple to go produce widgets.

There are problems with this, primarily because once you decide to pay for activities that the free market chooses not to pay for, the amount you decide to pay is based on a bureacratic decision rather than a market decision. You presume that there are omniscient bureacrats who can deduce what the pay should be for taking care of children, and will tax the right people to find that money. We've seen how that works in communist countries.

Yes there are positive externalities that society enjoys because parents raise children. But we can't live in a society that honors freedom and also have the government pay people for doing things that they unilaterally choose to do and that benefits no particular person. If my neighbor landscapes his property nicely, it will contribute some degree of value to my property, but he can't come demand payment from me for that. I didn't ask him to landscape; I had no say in how he landscaped; I may not have cared whether he landscaped or not. To decide that he can impose a financial obligation on me by deciding to landscape his property is to say that he owns me to some degree and can make financial decisions for me.

The same would apply to paying people to stay home with children. Anyone deciding to have children would be automatically imposing a financial liability on me beyond my control. The next logical step would be for the government to license the ability to have children so as to control costs. Are you ready to go there? The government never gives out money without also making conditions, and then eventually making laws to force people not to behave in the ways they reasonably would given the warped incentives.

When you engage in an activity that has positive externalities, you don't get to collect for them. Not in a society that values liberty. Call it a contribution if you want. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, those who are willing to give up liberty for payments-for-mother shall end up with neither.

"society (i.e. government) should step in and take some money from some people and give it to others"

and on that note, perhaps we must dismantle the entire social security system, because what you object to Mark, is exactly what it does...as does the 4 billion a day we are expending to keep our forces in Iraq...where do you draw the line, and how much of a say do you really have in how your tax dollars are spent...
"once you decide to pay for activities that the free market chooses not to pay for, the amount you decide to pay is based on a bureacratic decision rather than a market decision"

Anony-mouse, you're right that "meaningful" was not the best choice of word. I'm not claiming that time spent just being together or doing day to day chores is without value or benefit. I would rather spend such time with my son than have someone else do it in my place. So I agree with you.

If you'll let me define "meaningful" in the know-it-when-you-see-it sense, then I'd say your picking noodles example is meaningful interaction. As are doing laundry or enjoying a view – if done together. Sitting alone while the parent takes care of some chore is not. Time alone, or with distant supervision, may be good in many cases but it's not interaction. And unless I have an extremely unrepresentative sample, in most households there is substantial time where the parent is otherwise engaged, in the background as a source of safety and comfort. For many, TV fills the gap, but even if it's a "worthy" activity (such as play dates or reading or independent play) the interaction is low during that time. My point was that the relative cost to the child of having a nanny, say, be that background supervision during such time is smaller than during time "meaningfully" interacting. And I agree that learning by watching the world is valuable, but watching the nanny is only slightly worse than watching the parent.

Darleen wrote:

and on that note, perhaps we must dismantle the entire social security system, because what you object to Mark, is exactly what it does...

I have no problem with dismantling the entire Social Security system. It’s a rotten Ponzai scheme that is sticking my generation with a $43-56 Trillion unfunded liability in addition to the trillions it will already forcibly redistributed.

I'm just having a little fun with your economic model of the world.

If it is true that the social costs of staying home exceed the social benefits, then your model says go to work. An MBA (or JD, etc...) is not exactly the efficient degree for a stay at home mom, and I think it is nearly self-evident that the social costs of such a person do exceed the social benefits. (A number of the replies confound private and social costs/benefits).

Either don't get the degree (lowering the social costs of you staying home) or go to work.

Or better yet, question whether this little economic model is the magic eight ball you really want to consult when dealing with complex issues.

"If it is true that the social costs of staying home exceed the social benefits, then your model says go to work."

Big If, and not one that I put out there as truth...

I think "big if" is a euphamism for I'd rather not consider the possibility....

It is strictly an empirical question, but theory can inform us on the point.

Increasing your level of education raises the social costs of you staying home. It also raises the social benefits, but much less so.

On net, the more educated you are, the more it costs society for you to sit out of the labor force.

I find it hard to fathom that the SOCIAl benefits of an MBA, JD, PHD educated person sitting at home are higher than the SOCIAL costs. The private costs/benefits are, of course, another matter entirely.

But this is exactly what makes it a market failure. The private cost/benefit decision is at odds with the social cost/benefit calculus.

Society is better off having a highly educated person in the labor force, but that highly educated person, in many instances, is better off at home.

The little economic model tells us that we would all be better off if highly educated people were taxed for staying home (or subsidized for staying in the work force). That is, the tax should be set to equalize the private and social costs of staying home. Then we would have the efficient number of stay at home parents.

An MBA (or JD, etc...) is not exactly the efficient degree for a stay at home mom

Boban: stay-at-home parents a) are not all women; b) do not spend their entire working life between 18 and 65 raising their children. We're talking 10-25 years here for most families, which leaves plenty of time to recoup the social costs of an advanced degree.

I find it hard to fathom that the SOCIAl benefits of an MBA, JD, PHD educated person sitting at home are higher than the SOCIAL costs.

Out of curiosity, how much education would your "little economic model" justify for stay-at-home parents? Junior college? High school? Is it okay if they learn calculus and study Shakespeare, or is all that irrelevant to child-rearing?

Don't get mad at me -- get mad at the little economic model.

But I'm not sure you understand the model. Assuming still that the net social value of a highly educated person sitting at home is negative -- you can never "recoup" the social costs of staying home.

This dead weight social cost is gone forever. Society has foregone an extra widget (or a cheaper widget) because you chose to sit home.

I'm sensing some cognitive dissonance here from those of you who like the little economic model, but not this particular implication of the model.

I think "big if" is a euphamism for I'd rather not consider the possibility...

ahhhh, but you misread me boban...I've been arguing for the consideration of possibilities since I got here.

As for Social Security, it is a big reason why raising children is "unpaid labor".

Without Social Security, you get rewarded for raising children - by your children, after you have retired, and in an amount related to the level of success that you helped them achieve and their judgement of how good of a parent you were. It's a deferred reward, but a reward all the same. If you don't raise children, or you raise them poorly, or you abuse them and earn their lifelong contempt, you don't get the reward. If you have kids, push them to study, and they end up making big bucks and remembering you as a positive force in their lives, you'll get your reward when it's time for them to support you.

Admittedly, it's not perfect - there's no way to come to an agreement about the terms of service beforehand, and service is delivered long before payment with no recourse in case of disputes - but it's an improvement over the current system, where your children are forced by law to support you regardless of how you mistreated them, and other people's children are forced to support you if you didn't bother to have your own.

Which is why childrearing is today "unpaid" labor - the next generation must pay up whether you provide the service well, badly, or not at all.

"On net, the more educated you are, the more it costs society for you to sit out of the labor force. "

And, the more it costs you for you to sit out of the labor force.

"But this is exactly what makes it a market failure. The private cost/benefit decision is at odds with the social cost/benefit calculus."

No, it's not; at least, not in the way you're claiming. The higher the opportunity cost to "society" of your foregoing work, the higher the opportunity cost to you of foregoing work.

Now the benefit to society of you raising your own children is unrelated to the benefit to you of raising your own children (see above). But that's true of just about any unpaid volunteer or leisure activity you might indulge in in your off hours rather than spending that time working. If "society" can't pay you enough to induce you to voluntarily give up those hours, then "society" can go screw itself.

"But I'm not sure you understand the model. Assuming still that the net social value of a highly educated person sitting at home is negative -- you can never "recoup" the social costs of staying home. "

That's not the model at all. The net social value of anyone, highly educated or not, staying at home may be zero, but it cannot be negative (unless that person is consuming welfare benefits, but we'll leave that out for now).

It may be true that we cannot reimburse people for staying at home to raise their children without producing unwanted market distortions. However, as our society has systematically removed all but the direct emotional benefits of child-rearing, it is becoming increasingly clear that the single greatest risk factor for poverty among women is child-rearing (or any other caregiving role).

Because we no longer recognize motherhood as a valued role, except in platitudes easily forgotten, it is disappearing as a vocation. Instead, we now treat it as a commodity, a mere service to be purchased, like cable TV or lawn care.

But if you think that will have no effect on our society as a whole (or that it has not helped create many of the problems we face today), you are deluding yourself. These are no mere externalities to be brushed off, as if they were someone else's pretty marigolds. Civilization itself springs directly from the family unit. Destroying the family risks destroying civilization. Such has occurred before. Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin all tried to destroy the family. Their actions resulted in over 100 million dead in the 20th century. Will we therefore face the same fate?

Surely you don't deny that -- in theory -- the private and social cost/benefits of an action can diverge.

You do agree that the social costs of smoking in a restaurant, commuting during "rush hours", and playing your banjo at 4 a.m. in the courtyard of an apartment complex are all higher than the private costs, right? You can find simple examples like these in any intro micro textbook.

The same MAY be true of an individual's decision to be a full-time parent rather than a full-time worker. And for highly educated people, I contend that the social costs of staying home exceed the social benefits.

Consider a woman with a joint MD/PHD and a one year old child.

If she goes back to work, we've got one more productive person doing something like finding a cure for cancer. If she stays home we've got one less person finding a cure for cancer. The wages for cancer cure finders goes up, and the amount of cancer cure research goes down.

But from the private point of view of the woman with the joint MD/PHD the calculus looks entirely different. If she stays home (assume the father is a cad who won't even consider providing full time care until 1st grade)the child will have a marginal advantage at getting into the hot new pre-school, private high school, Stanford, etc...

Private and social costs/benefits diverege. Net result: too many stay at home parents, too few cancer cure workers.

"Surely you don't deny that -- in theory -- the private and social cost/benefits of an action can diverge. "

Sure. If you're throwing off large externalities, that sort of thing will happen. Someone who stays home and does nothing is not throwing off externalities of any sort. Someone who is raising children properly is throwing off positive externalities.

"You do agree that the social costs of smoking in a restaurant, commuting during "rush hours", and playing your banjo at 4 a.m. in the courtyard of an apartment complex are all higher than the private costs, right? You can find simple examples like these in any intro micro textbook. "

Yes, but I don't see how competently raising children could possibly qualify as such an example.

"If she goes back to work, we've got one more productive person doing something like finding a cure for cancer. If she stays home we've got one less person finding a cure for cancer. The wages for cancer cure finders goes up, and the amount of cancer cure research goes down. "

But she doesn't owe us a cure for cancer. In our system, we offer to buy her services, and if she doesn't like the terms and figures she has something better to do (like raising children), she can decline.

(Around these parts we had an economic system that was based on the opposite principles, but that was outlawed in 1865)

Anyway, if it's a cheaper and more readily available cure for cancer you're looking for, work on dismantling the FDA before you even think about ragging on smart women for the services they aren't selling us.

Actually, I work for a company that does retirement benefits -- =and= in some divorce cases, there is a splitting of pension benefits. Obviously, not in the case of Social Security, but as I'm 29 and my husband's 41, I don't think SS will be around for us (I'm an actuary, and I can see the demographic implosion ahead... as can anybody else who realizes that the retirement age is rather low. Those who live to age 65 have a very good chance of making it to 85 -- and beyond.)

In any case, I agree with those saying that no-fault divorce has made stay-at-home-parenthood a risky situation (not to mention the degradement of marriage as a sacred institution period -- when religious groups allow one to marry multiple times with impunity... what can one expect from the government?). Someone early on mentioned the involvement of extended family, which seems a partial solution, as many baby boomers delayed childbearing until their 30s or later, and their children do the same -- many grandmothers and grandfathers will be in retirement when their descendents come along (not true when one started procreating in the teen years, as was the custom). Then there's what my husband did for his first child - he and the mother worked different shifts (him: night, mother: day) and took care of the child during the remaining time. There's more than one career path than college -> cubicle -> corner office, and childcare can be integrated into that.

boban: I can see that when a person acquires a professional degree (JD, MD, MBA, whatever) and then doesn't practice the profession, there might be a "net loss of social utility" if the degree-holder then took time out of the labor force to raise a child. To the extent professional skills aren't being used, the person who gained them is withholding from society the skills that another, different student would have employed had s/he gotten the same educational slot.

At one point I contemplated applying for law school — not because I wanted to practice law so much as because I find the subject fascinating and thought I'd enjoy learning it. That would be a "social loss" of the sort you mean: if I got through law school and then didn't practice law, there'd be one less lawyer out there doing productive work.

(Oh, stop snickering, you kids.)

But how big the loss would be for a parent on a break would depend on how long the hiatus was (I'm inclined to think the net effect might even be positive if it were only two or three years of scaling back to part-time/home office work early in a career, though God knows how you'd actually calculate it).

And what about degrees in the arts, the humanities, the theoretical sciences, &c.? These are fields in which the knowledge is supposed to be valuable simply as knowledge, without regard to its ability to generate new and better widgets. I think you would have a peculiar difficulty in fining or taxing humanities PhDs for not working in their fields, given the number that cannot get jobs in their fields. A friend with a PhD from one of the top departments in the country in his subject finally got an academic job a few years back, after something like a decade as a secretarial temp. Another friend (also a PhD) worked with me for a couple years in a retail environment, then another couple years as a secretary, before getting a teaching job.

Of course, you don't say you want to tax "highly educated" people for not working in their fields, only for not being in "the labor force." So they'd be OK, yes? At least they were working and not sitting around educating their kids. (Neither had kids, in fact, but you see the point?)

Most people fail to recognize the externalities --a marginal increase in congestion -- associated with a private choice to drive during "rush hours". If you get that you shouldn't have a problem seeing the externalities with a highly educating person voluntarily sitting out of the workforce -- a marginal decrease in productivity. (Think of Dilbert rather than Jane Galt running the railroad.)

And this occurs no matter how high you argue the social benefits of stay at home parenting are. Just draw the nice little cost/benefit curves such that the private costs are lower than the social costs. The implication -- too much stay at home parenting -- follows directly from the model.

"In our system, we offer to buy her services, and if she doesn't like the terms and figures she has something better to do (like raising children), she can decline."

A remedy is to tax stay at home parenting such that private costs are equal to social costs. Then "if she doesn't like the terms and figures" she can still stay home (or work) -- but we will have achieved the efficient outcome.

Of course some, in another context, would advocate that auctioning off permits for stay at home parenting is a superior solution (to taxation).

This is soooo fun!

Positive and negative externalities do exist for both working and raising kids, yes. And yes, if positives(work)+negatives(home)>positives(home)+negatives(work) (all of the above in absolute value) then there is a socially inefficient excess in at-home care. I think it is hard to argue that our MD/PHD's marginal social product is sufficiently greater than her wage to make the social cost of staying home outweigh the external benefit of staying home which accrues just to the kid. (Don't forget that, in a purely selfish economic model, the rugrat's interests are "external" to the calculation decision.) If anything, our economic model probably suggests that, as some above have argued, we provide too little stay-at-home socially. Since most of the benefit accrues to the kid, have the kid "pay" for it. In most societies the children care for their parents in their old age. Better upbringing = more caring and richer kids = better care in old age. Externality internalized. What stands in the way of this? Social security, and "modern" cultural norms, among other things.

"boban: I can see that when a person acquires a professional degree (JD, MD, MBA, whatever) and then doesn't practice the profession, there might be a "net loss of social utility" if the degree-holder then took time out of the labor force to raise a child. To the extent professional skills aren't being used, the person who gained them is withholding from society the skills that another, different student would have employed had s/he gotten the same educational slot."

That assumes that "educational slots" are necessarily fixed in number and cannot grow to meet demand. Otherwise, people can consume "educational slots" for any reason whatsoever, with a clear conscience, the same way they consume computers, TV's, and DVD players for their own amusement, secure in the knowledge that supply will end up meeting demand and everyone who can pay for it will be able to get it for their purposes.

"Most people fail to recognize the externalities --a marginal increase in congestion -- associated with a private choice to drive during "rush hours". If you get that you shouldn't have a problem seeing the externalities with a highly educating person voluntarily sitting out of the workforce -- a marginal decrease in productivity. (Think of Dilbert rather than Jane Galt running the railroad.) "

When you drive during rush hour, you are physically getting in someone's way. When you stay home, you are not preventing anyone from doing anything; you're simply not selling your service and, from the point of view of people who would like to buy services such as yours, you might as well not exist. No externalities, positive or negative. (Except for raising your kid, which will most likely be positive, unless you screw it up.)

And Dilbert was the smart one... now his pointy-haired boss would be right at home in Taggart Transcontenintal under Jim Taggart, while Dilbert would finally quit his technical job and go hide in the wilderness, after things had gone completely to hell.

I agree with much of what you write rvman -- but not for highly educated people. The argument is simple reversed for all but the highly educated.

Don't have an (advanced) degree? Then the net social costs of you working are negative. Stay home and raise those kids for a few years!

Unfortunately, again the private and social costs of staying home diverge.

Poor (especially single) parents are compelled to work by their private cost/benefit incentives. A subsidy that allows a poor parent to be a primary caregiver rather than a low wage widget maker is sound economic policy. But conservative fiscally responsible types advocate policies that are diametrically opposed to this.

Ken -- You just don't understand the basic neo-classical textbook model. Draw a cost curve (that one slopes up) and a benefit curve (that one slopes down). Now draw another SOCIAl cost curve such that the private costs are lower than the social costs. End of story.

The argument has nothing to do with "educational slots" or the like. That is a straw-man you made up. The only way you can wiggle out of this is to argue that the social costs of stay at home parenting is the same as (or less than) the private costs. This seems implausible for highly educated parents.

And as above, you can reverse this argument for poor parents. With them, the social costs of working exceed the private costs. So draw the SOCIAL cost curve to the right of the private cost curve. End of story. We should subsidize stay at home parenting for these people.

Don't like the conclusion? Hate the model, not the messenger. Or admit the model isn't really all that good of a guide when discussing complex social phenomena.

In the 1960s, President Kennedy's economic team felt the economy could get a boost if more women were encouraged to work outside the home. They achieved this result by NOT increasing the standard deduction and personal exemptions for inflation. The net result was a reduction of the income tax subsidy of families with children. To the extent that one woman simply was paid to watch another's children, who then paid another to watch her own, the economy did not grow in any real sense. Of course, women also entered more financially rewarding positions and our GDP grew as a result. I think that Boban's argument is simply that the GDP measurement is lower than it would have been if not for the fact that some highly educated people choose to s