This is why I keep jumping up and down and yelling about why we need a child tax credit in this country. If it seems like everything is breaking down and nobody is competent, it is because our system has, for almost 50 years, been focused on eliminating "waste," otherwise known as slack in the system. Just-in-time supply chains, made possible by the huge increase in computing technology and communications in the 1980's and free trade agreements a decade later, meant that nobody has much inventory anymore. So, if a huge container ship plugs up the Suez Canal, there are instant shortages.
The same thing has happened to families. I do think the feminist movement in the 1970s was well intentioned, and has improved lives in many ways, and I well remember how miserable my mother and other women were when there really wasn't any alternative to being a housewife, especially once you had kids. It didn't take long though for the idea that mothers could work to get to mothers SHOULD work outside the home, for a paycheck. The flood of women into the workforce in the '70's and '80's created downward pressure on salaries, which kicked off a vicious spiral where we got to a point where it was no longer possible for one average wage earner to support a family.
The reason I am such a loud proponent of the child tax credit, and I think it is a much better use of public money than funding daycare, is that daycare just simply does not scale to the level we would need it at if every 2 parent family had both parents in the workforce. I'm not talking about the kinds of jobs that upper income educated people have--doctors, lawyers, writers, etc. will almost always find it preferable for both parents to pursue careers. But think about the WalMart manager, or the millions of other routine and not great paying jobs that the vast majority of the people in the US do in order to support their families. Most jobs are routine, inflexible, stressful, and offer mediocre compensation. Why not let each family decide how they want to allocate their time? I firmly believe that the monthly stipend given to families for each kid would more than pay for itself in the following ways:
1. Families with middle-ish incomes would probably find that they net out better by using the tax credit funds to allow one parent to stay home full time, or at least part time. This would alleviate shortages of child care for families who made different decisions.
2. Reduced burdens on elder care systems---the flexibility created by a society with more one-income households has more resources to do the invisible and unpaid work of taking granny to her doctor's appointment, picking up her groceries, and checking on her. That allows her to stay independent longer, and reduces the need for paid caregivers.
3. More availability for community involvement--clubs, churches, PTA, school volunteering, etc. Part of the collapse in community engagement is the grinding work schedules that working class people endure. The on-demand scheduling in health care and retail is brutal. If you never have a consistent day off, you can never commit to joining a club or doing a volunteer shift
4. Upward pressure on wages--if there are fewer people who need to work, then employers have to stop exploiting their labor force. They will have to pay better, be more flexible with schedules, and be less picky about who they hire.
5. Better overall mental health, and possibly better parenting outcomes. If your career involves saving babies or curing cancer, the chances are the intrinsic rewards will beat chasing toddlers, mopping up spills, and taking granny to her appointments. But if your career is managing a Starbucks, being yelled at because somebody's triple almond milk half caf macchiato didn't get the caramel drizzle like in the picture, then chasing your own toddlers and caring for your own granny is probably more fun--at least you can put the toddler in time out if they yell at you.
It makes me so angry when people look at the child tax credit as if it's welfare--as if people are lazy and entitled. Our society needs some slack.
Thanks for the timing of this reader round-up. We’ve recently been considering the pros and cons of a few possible future scenarios for our family, and this was a hugely helpful reminder today-- to intentionally factor in the importance of slack, flexibility, and adaptability as part of the various value propositions at stake. I feel wiser and more grounded for having been reminded of this, at this particular moment.
This sort of a digression, but I also think people who feel the slack problem can be solved by simply providing more (outside of the home) childcare are missing something. A sick kid should be home with a parent, not a babysitter. Lots of families would love to give their kids a childhood that involves just hanging around at the local pool over the summer, rather than being in structured activities from 9-5. For many families that isn’t feasible, but it’s not the choice a lot of parents would make if given the option.
Where do I see slack as a means of accounting for planned and unplanned absences?
In my faith tradition--I'm Protestant, and it's built into the system that clergy might need time off, and so there's a system of supply clergy, people on a stand-by list who can help as needed. The parish governing boards are encouraged to budget for those needs. I've seen clergy who work well together coordinate for absences, like vacations with family or illnesses. Otherwise, clergy are eligible for sabbaticals and the dioceses have policies in place under the guidance of the national church on how to manage those.
Well, that Kipling poem is my new life manifesto. What a perfect poem for a civil engineer with a penchant for theological ponderings like me. Thank you for sharing it Leah!
There seems to be something one could say about how when machines break, they immediately make it the problem of the humans around, but when humans break, it's much quieter and less demanding. Feels like a mirror of the breast pump/baby conversation of a few essays ago...?
The comparison to how machines have built-in redundancy as a matter of course, but it's viewed as wasteful when humans do it really struck me.
I have wondered if building in worker redundancy is how employers in countries other than the US provide for 6 months of parental leave and 4 weeks' vacations for everyone. Can anyone speak to this?
I think there needs to be some acknowledgement that there's only "slack" in having a SAHP because there are people willing to make sacrifices. Someone(s) is/are making a sacrifice in time, compensation, material wants, feelings of productivity or usefulness... in order for someone to be available for the greater good of their family and others. I find SAHMs, in particular, get a lot of lip service but in reality are seen as being in positions of "luxury" rather than sacrifice. Even SAHDs get more outright respect because it's an obvious sacrifice to not be in a more "traditional" role.
Without people willing to be self-sacrificial, even on a superficial community level, I'm not even convinced that a child tax credit, though I am in favor of one for all the reasons stated in an above comment, would induce a majority of people to make life changes leading to availability. The average family around where I live is just as likely to take that credit and use it to put their kids on travel teams or take that yearly trip to Disney. And I've had enough women tell me they prefer to work their office jobs over taking care of their children to be slightly dubious they'd change for a yearly windfall of cash.
"We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living."
And he said this in 1970, mind you. His other big prediction, of course, is that Women would, and should, eventually rule the world.
But until then, shortening the workweek to Dutch levels and/or implementing UBI would go a long way towards that goal.
This is why I keep jumping up and down and yelling about why we need a child tax credit in this country. If it seems like everything is breaking down and nobody is competent, it is because our system has, for almost 50 years, been focused on eliminating "waste," otherwise known as slack in the system. Just-in-time supply chains, made possible by the huge increase in computing technology and communications in the 1980's and free trade agreements a decade later, meant that nobody has much inventory anymore. So, if a huge container ship plugs up the Suez Canal, there are instant shortages.
The same thing has happened to families. I do think the feminist movement in the 1970s was well intentioned, and has improved lives in many ways, and I well remember how miserable my mother and other women were when there really wasn't any alternative to being a housewife, especially once you had kids. It didn't take long though for the idea that mothers could work to get to mothers SHOULD work outside the home, for a paycheck. The flood of women into the workforce in the '70's and '80's created downward pressure on salaries, which kicked off a vicious spiral where we got to a point where it was no longer possible for one average wage earner to support a family.
The reason I am such a loud proponent of the child tax credit, and I think it is a much better use of public money than funding daycare, is that daycare just simply does not scale to the level we would need it at if every 2 parent family had both parents in the workforce. I'm not talking about the kinds of jobs that upper income educated people have--doctors, lawyers, writers, etc. will almost always find it preferable for both parents to pursue careers. But think about the WalMart manager, or the millions of other routine and not great paying jobs that the vast majority of the people in the US do in order to support their families. Most jobs are routine, inflexible, stressful, and offer mediocre compensation. Why not let each family decide how they want to allocate their time? I firmly believe that the monthly stipend given to families for each kid would more than pay for itself in the following ways:
1. Families with middle-ish incomes would probably find that they net out better by using the tax credit funds to allow one parent to stay home full time, or at least part time. This would alleviate shortages of child care for families who made different decisions.
2. Reduced burdens on elder care systems---the flexibility created by a society with more one-income households has more resources to do the invisible and unpaid work of taking granny to her doctor's appointment, picking up her groceries, and checking on her. That allows her to stay independent longer, and reduces the need for paid caregivers.
3. More availability for community involvement--clubs, churches, PTA, school volunteering, etc. Part of the collapse in community engagement is the grinding work schedules that working class people endure. The on-demand scheduling in health care and retail is brutal. If you never have a consistent day off, you can never commit to joining a club or doing a volunteer shift
4. Upward pressure on wages--if there are fewer people who need to work, then employers have to stop exploiting their labor force. They will have to pay better, be more flexible with schedules, and be less picky about who they hire.
5. Better overall mental health, and possibly better parenting outcomes. If your career involves saving babies or curing cancer, the chances are the intrinsic rewards will beat chasing toddlers, mopping up spills, and taking granny to her appointments. But if your career is managing a Starbucks, being yelled at because somebody's triple almond milk half caf macchiato didn't get the caramel drizzle like in the picture, then chasing your own toddlers and caring for your own granny is probably more fun--at least you can put the toddler in time out if they yell at you.
It makes me so angry when people look at the child tax credit as if it's welfare--as if people are lazy and entitled. Our society needs some slack.
Thanks for the timing of this reader round-up. We’ve recently been considering the pros and cons of a few possible future scenarios for our family, and this was a hugely helpful reminder today-- to intentionally factor in the importance of slack, flexibility, and adaptability as part of the various value propositions at stake. I feel wiser and more grounded for having been reminded of this, at this particular moment.
This sort of a digression, but I also think people who feel the slack problem can be solved by simply providing more (outside of the home) childcare are missing something. A sick kid should be home with a parent, not a babysitter. Lots of families would love to give their kids a childhood that involves just hanging around at the local pool over the summer, rather than being in structured activities from 9-5. For many families that isn’t feasible, but it’s not the choice a lot of parents would make if given the option.
Where do I see slack as a means of accounting for planned and unplanned absences?
In my faith tradition--I'm Protestant, and it's built into the system that clergy might need time off, and so there's a system of supply clergy, people on a stand-by list who can help as needed. The parish governing boards are encouraged to budget for those needs. I've seen clergy who work well together coordinate for absences, like vacations with family or illnesses. Otherwise, clergy are eligible for sabbaticals and the dioceses have policies in place under the guidance of the national church on how to manage those.
Well, that Kipling poem is my new life manifesto. What a perfect poem for a civil engineer with a penchant for theological ponderings like me. Thank you for sharing it Leah!
There seems to be something one could say about how when machines break, they immediately make it the problem of the humans around, but when humans break, it's much quieter and less demanding. Feels like a mirror of the breast pump/baby conversation of a few essays ago...?
The comparison to how machines have built-in redundancy as a matter of course, but it's viewed as wasteful when humans do it really struck me.
I have wondered if building in worker redundancy is how employers in countries other than the US provide for 6 months of parental leave and 4 weeks' vacations for everyone. Can anyone speak to this?
I think there needs to be some acknowledgement that there's only "slack" in having a SAHP because there are people willing to make sacrifices. Someone(s) is/are making a sacrifice in time, compensation, material wants, feelings of productivity or usefulness... in order for someone to be available for the greater good of their family and others. I find SAHMs, in particular, get a lot of lip service but in reality are seen as being in positions of "luxury" rather than sacrifice. Even SAHDs get more outright respect because it's an obvious sacrifice to not be in a more "traditional" role.
Without people willing to be self-sacrificial, even on a superficial community level, I'm not even convinced that a child tax credit, though I am in favor of one for all the reasons stated in an above comment, would induce a majority of people to make life changes leading to availability. The average family around where I live is just as likely to take that credit and use it to put their kids on travel teams or take that yearly trip to Disney. And I've had enough women tell me they prefer to work their office jobs over taking care of their children to be slightly dubious they'd change for a yearly windfall of cash.
To quote the late, great Buckminster Fuller:
"We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living."
And he said this in 1970, mind you. His other big prediction, of course, is that Women would, and should, eventually rule the world.
But until then, shortening the workweek to Dutch levels and/or implementing UBI would go a long way towards that goal.