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Excellent post.Physics Guy wrote: ↑Sat Oct 07, 2023 2:52 pmMy mother stayed home to raise her three sons, and it was great to have her to do that. It may be the least of what we gained, but it's visible: we all three love to cook, and do the cooking in our families now. On the other hand, my mom is a very intelligent woman with an ability to manage people diplomatically that was very useful in her various volunteer activities over the years, but that I'm sure could have had more impact in the world if she had used it professionally.
My wife is also a professor (not in physics) and our children went into full-time daycare at young ages. They seem to have survived okay so far, with one now out on her own and the other in high school.
Being a stay-at-home parent is definitely plenty of work. We only have two kids but my siblings with more kids support my impression that the work scales fairly well. Two children are a lot harder than one, because they outnumber you, but each one added beyond two seems to add less to the burden. The kids keep each other occupied a lot of the time. One child can be a full-time job for one person, but two people really can manage quite a few kids. Daycares work.
Besides sheer person-hours of labor, being a stay-at-home parent also calls for talents and skills. I'm pretty sure, though, that it requires and rewards less in the way of specialised skills and talents than many of the things that most stay-at-home parents could be doing instead. Raising young children is important but illiterate peasants did it successfully for thousands of years. Most people today can probably do more for the world with a modern education put to use outside the home during work hours.
If looking after children is really what someone does best, then that is absolutely as respectable a calling as anything, but why not do it on a larger scale? They could be running a daycare or teaching in a primary school, so that more children than their own can benefit from their skills—and so that other parents can be freed to exercise their best talents effectively, too. Devoting the whole working life of an educated human adult to looking after the basic needs of just their own children seems like a waste of resources to me. It might be nice for those children to have so much brain power focused only on them, but I'm not sure that humans collectively can really afford that luxury. There are big problems out there.
Thank you.Philo Sofee wrote: ↑Fri Oct 06, 2023 11:04 pmOK, thank you so much!Jersey Girl wrote: ↑Fri Oct 06, 2023 11:00 pmChange "the Boy" to "my husband", don't use my screen name or real name, and it's yours for the taking.
I think you hit on the big picture when you said there are big problems out there and that working with young children is a respectable calling. You bet it is, PG. When you have an opportunity to take part in growing young humans whose personalities and social concepts are developing in those years, you have an opportunity to reach into and influence the future health of society. Surely participation in a quality environment can be a supplement to a good home or provide consistency and stability when home life is compromised.Physics Guy wrote: ↑Sat Oct 07, 2023 2:52 pmIf looking after children is really what someone does best, then that is absolutely as respectable a calling as anything, but why not do it on a larger scale? They could be running a daycare or teaching in a primary school, so that more children than their own can benefit from their skills—and so that other parents can be freed to exercise their best talents effectively, too. Devoting the whole working life of an educated human adult to looking after the basic needs of just their own children seems like a waste of resources to me. It might be nice for those children to have so much brain power focused only on them, but I'm not sure that humans collectively can really afford that luxury. There are big problems out there.
THANK YOU for providing the anchor points for a terrific discussion with a terrific woman and her points of view. We will be doing more as we have time. I appreciate all you do to help us all see brighter and more clearly Dr. Moore.
What about the separation anxiety that the children feel? Isn't that psychologically harmful?
That would depend on the age of the child and whether or not an appropriate transition was facilitated.Dr. Shades wrote: ↑Tue Oct 10, 2023 7:06 amWhat about the separation anxiety that the children feel? Isn't that psychologically harmful?