But here we are, in a society where this does need to be said:
We do entirely agree that there is a childcare “problem”. Children require care, so the problem is who should provide that? We also entirely agree that there’s no reason at all why it should necessarily be the mother that does so. But we do need a structure, a reasoning method, inside or with which to make the decision.
Where the work being done outside the nuclear family covers the cost of importing the childcare into the nuclear family then perhaps this should be done. Where it doesn’t it shouldn’t. As with absolutely any other discussion about home as opposed to market production of anything at all – cooking, laundry, floor sweeping, button sewing, lawn mowing, gutter clearing and all of the rest.
I bought a new microwave. I couldn’t repair the old one myself and it’d cost more than a newie to pay someone else to do so.
No doubt the lady’d demand that I pay the larger sum to repair her microwave as well.
We also entirely agree that there’s no reason at all why it should necessarily be the mother that does so.
Do we? Women being responsible for the bulk of childcare has been the case for 99% of humans throughout 99% of our history.
Of course recently things have changed in some nations. How has that change affected the health and happiness of children….?
“necessarily” is doing a lot of work there. I can think of lots of reasons why it will be. Even why it “should” be. But without that in there people would reject the argument – to the point of not even considering the actual point – as simply being sexist.
@ MC
Orphans? Families where the husband cannot get paid work but the wife can? Competent teenage sisters?
But, most obviously, when second baby arrives and mother is in a maternity ward and/or full-time occupied therewith [e.g. when my second son was born I took half my annual leave]
Tim,
There’s a lengthy, rambling piece over at worksinprogress.co called “Parenting as a public good”; in which the author tries to argue that children are a public good.
https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/parenting-as-a-public-good/
Personally I’d narrow it down further: my children are a public good (therefore the state should pay me to make more of them); but the children of Wayne and Waynetta are a public bad (therefore they should be fined for having them).
It’s incredible when you look back at what comfortably-incomed people used to pay other people to do around their household before we had 2020s tax rates (to pay other people to watch Jeremy Kyle).
‘ We also entirely agree that there’s no reason at all why it should necessarily be the mother that does so.’
Maybe ‘we’ agree, but children don’t… they want Mum, as anyone who has actually been a child well attest.
@Andrew M
What a ramble. And sadly the author doesn’t seem to have thought it would be a good idea to check what the term “public good” actually means first. To be fair, they did make a case for there being positive externalities for society when someone has kids – probably that’s been true since whenever the main purpose of having kids ceased to be providing labour on the family farm/within the family household, when the benefits of having kids were more privately captured. Probably could have made a decent case for the social benefits of having a next generation being non-rivalrous and non-exclusive, had the author put her mind to it. Unfortunately a lot of people who think they’re very clever because they know “public good” has a technical economic meaning that’s not just “being good for the public” don’t realise it’s also not just a synonym for “positive externality”.
Non-excludable*, stupid autocorrect
Anon, spot on. Children as a whole might just be considered a “public good”, but it’s tenuous. Safer to stick with “positive externalities”, which to her credit the author does mention. As I said though, some children have more positive externalities than others.
@Andrew M
Indeed, very tenuous – you only need to look at how messy divorce cases can get to see that access to kids (and the very private benefits of having someone to love/care for/play with/nurture/watch grow up) is very much excludable and potentially pretty rivalrous…
Surely making children is rivalrous.
If Linda Lusardi is carrying her husband’s child, I’m excluded from boffing her.
Anon,
And sadly the author doesn’t seem to have thought it would be a good idea to check what the term “public good” actually means first.
We’ve had this discussion before when Spud has thrown about the term in his usual Humpty Dumpy fashion. Its the difference between “public goods” a term they use to mean whatever they want it to mean and “Public Goods”, which has a generally accepted definition, one they probably don’t understand even if they have heard it.
As others have said, there are some positive externalities to have educated, well adjusted adults which is why we provide free education to 18* and free healthcare.
*There’d be a big saving if it was returned to 16 or even 14. They could still teach the main stuff kids need if thy cut out all the crap.
Bongo,
You’re not technically excluded from boffing her, just she can’t have your kids for a while.
If we use Lord Spudcup’s definition of children being public goods, then surely the state should supply them with no intervention from the consumers.
@jgh
The state does. It’s why the terms “welfare baby” and “anchor baby” exist.
Also see the gay rights groups claiming it’s a human right to have children and state has to provide surrogacy services.
Sometimes think a version of the Handmaids Tale isn’t that implausible