The Other Children of Silicon Valley | Hacker News Reader

The Other Children of Silicon Valley

theatlantic.com

44 pointskelukelugames29 comments

Dont judge everyone by SV standards. Lots of kids in America, black, rural citizens, etc. Don't get anything before kindergarten. What people are doing is comparing the poorest to the the expectations of tigermoms. Don't. Fist thing is to teach patents they are the crux of their child's success. School can't teach success if a parent does not offer support in return. Yes, some will succeed despite that.

Yes we should improve educational opportunities for our own children, but much of it rests on parents and their view on education. "why do we need to learn calc?"

Also, to be clear, some affluent parents question the need for tigermom type education so early and will " red shirt" their children/pupils.

Unfortunately, this article is more interested in exposing income disparity, which is good, but its dressing it under scholatoc achievement.

> What people are doing is comparing the poorest to the the expectations of tigermoms. Don't. [First] thing is to teach [parents] they are the crux of their child's success. [...] > Unfortunately, this article is more interested in exposing income disparity, which is good, but its dressing it under [scholastic] achievement

This is an incredibly patronizing statement, followed by an equally delusional one. Let's unpack them.

The first one hinges on the assumption that poor parents don't understand that "they are the crux of their child's success". With the notable exception of the rare completely unfit parent, every parent already knows this. Parents have known this since the beginning of time.

This is then followed with a dismissal of the how wealth inequality effects education and thus lifetime gains. "If only the poors went to college!"

It's a very common sentiment, but that doesn't mean that it's right. It stems from the mistaken belief that everyone gets what they deserve because society is a pure meritocracy. It's the same sentiment where a multibillion dollar company built on the backs of minimum wage labor tells their employees that if they don't buy gum, they're money problems will be over.[1] Whereas in the real world, "being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs"[2].

The reason why poor parents aren't sending their kid to preschool, is because they don't have an extra $15,000 laying around in their bank account. The reason why poor kids underperform in school can all be tracked back to wealth. The distraction of hunger[3], lead paint in homes, and even under resourced schools because... the schools are funded by local property taxes , thus ensuring that the poor remain disadvantaged to the rich. (And if you seriously believe it's all just effort, put your kid the poorest public school in your area.)

[1] http://www.nasdaq.com/article/mcdonalds-sample-budget-sheet-... [2] http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/ [3] http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/david_sarasohn/inde...

Wealth has nothing to do with poor kids under performing in school. It has to do with not having a father in the house and the proper values being taught.

There's no hungry kids starving and being saved by the Federal School Lunch Program, and there's not any lead paint on the walls of the public housing, and schools have plenty of resources as evidenced by the multi-million dollar budgets the districts have. But leave it up to the Leftist to ride in to the rescue spouting off about the poor being disadvantaged.

There are poor people, but most are just sponging off the welfare system. And these people can get jobs and school loans just like I and others have done. And you know what? Welfare and school loans are there to help these people, and effort has a lot to do with their making it!

"notable exception of the rare completely unfit parent"

If you think unfit parents are rare you should talk to a social worker, police officer, or nurse, they will be able to bury you with heartbreaking stories of what life is like for a very large number of people who are predominantly poor.

My point was more that even unfit parents tend to recognize the role of parents. They're just not good at it. (eg "I'm a good parent! I take care of my kids just fine!")

I'm more inclined to believe unfit parents are unfit because they care more about themselves then their children. Their worried about their own problems and not introspectively critiquing their own parenting...

Edit: totally misread your comment, yup I agree. I think I just took the extreme of what you originally said (that unfit parents are rare), my bad.

NP. I realized my language was imprecise when I wrote it. ;)

Problem is parents "think" they know how to rear their children. Often they go with custom --and for many that custom is hard knocks, bullying and being physically superior to other pupils, rather than fostering academics [as a proxy, investigate how parents of academically low achievers discipline [or don't] compared to academically high achievers.

Society isn't a meritocracy. Most people don't get handed things based on what they "deserve". It's fallacious to think so. What people should have, in an ideal world, is a proper beginning, starting with parental support, community support, societal support. What we don't guarantee or provide is equal outcomes.

Look at third world countries where most parents are poor or aspirationally middle class. Poor kids do succeed, but on the backs of their parents [the sate provides very little]. Parents who go hungry and make sacrifices such as deciding which child will go to school and who will instead work, in order that one of them make it out of poverty and helps the rest out. Without parental determination and perseverance, you would not see success in the poorest conditions, yet we do.

But as Americans we think that's beneath us --we don't need to work hard, we're no. 1. Some think wisdom and success will visit upon their child by being pushed thru an educational system. It takes dedication and direction from parents with state assistance [in the form of universal education] as well as the support of society [culture].

Has early childhood education ever been shown to be effective? From what I've read, students with pre kindergarten were indistinguishable academically from students without it by about 3rd grade. I think we could help ourselves out a lot by focusing more on high school success and less on pre-K/elementary school success.

The article admits as much but hedges this by saying it may help to counter bad parenting by poor parents --which is dubious, since they offer no evidence. It's more of a feelgood/guilt piece.

What we should do is have programs to make better parents. If they have children, make them take nurture programs, etc. I know, they don't have time... But they have time to want to raise children. When pregnancy and parenting is by and large by choice, given they are talking about "families" we should come to expect more from parents in rearing their children, poor or wealthy.

The problem with such programs is that they are also discriminatory in some ways. Set aside the differences in culture, just the amount of time and logistics that some lower-income people spend just to live their lives. Add to that the requirement to go to some kind of classes (or suffer some kind of unspecified consequences if I read "make them" as having some kind of teeth) and you can get to an unsolvable situation for some.

I volunteer occasionally at my young kids' public school and I'm saddened to see the differences in time that parents [/guardians] spend with their kids. It's readily apparent in the kids' behavior, even in pre-K and first grade.

For citizens it should be the duty az a parent, for immigrants it could be a condition of admission into country.

It depends how you define effectiveness. Academic is just one. I think it's equally important to consider that daycare/preschool allow two income households that might not be possible otherwise. That also ends up leading to increased parent involvement, which leads to increased academic success.

My wife left her (fairly well-paying) job when we had our second child in daycare. After taxes and daycare, she was only working for her retirement contributions and that wasn't worth it to us.

Our kids now get the advantage of a very involved mom and the whole family gets the advantage of more home-cooked meals and a smoother running, better organized, less stressed to the breaking point household. Now that the kids are in public school, it would again be financially advantageous for my wife to work, but we've decided to delay that still as all four of us (five, if you count the dog) are happier this way.

I hate to sound like I'm a time-traveler from the 1950s, but it's not clear to me that allowing/encouraging more two-income households is a recipe for greater family harmony and happiness for the next generation.

It sure helps GDP, but it's unclear to me that it helps the kids or families.

Great example of how it often makes sense for one parent to stay at home. Just remember that 1) this is a luxury that many families don't get because living on a single income often isn't possible these days, and 2) we should be equally supportive of stay at home dads as we are of stay at home moms.

Why deduct the whole cost of childcare from her salary? Why not split it and deduct half from each of your salaries?

I think his point is that the child care cost completely goes away if she stops working. So, if you're judging the two options of her working and not working, the only + the column for his wife working was the 401k contributions.

I think there are a few things that were implied by OP's comment:

- they would prefer that the children be taken care of by the spouse versus a 3rd party

- if the cost of childcare were to equal or exceed the full income of the lesser-paid parent, it would be preferable for that parent to spend their time taking care of the children and removing the cost of childcare in the process

- neither parent would be able to work part-time in their current job positions, which would address your question of split duty

Basically right (and the others hit aspects as well).

My wife liked parts of her job and hated others (PhD in neurobiology, working in a non-lab part of her field), but overall didn't love it and certainly didn't prefer that over raising our children. I (90+%) love what I do and we're fortunate that it pays enough for us to live on just "my" compensation. In theory, her job could have become part-time; in practice, that would have worked very, very poorly at her company. My job couldn't be done part-time or job-shared in any practical way.

So, I happen to be the stereotypical working dad, but it's not because of gender biases or pre-conceived notions, but rather because of math/finance/satisfaction concerns. We could live OK in Cambridge on just "my" comp but couldn't on just "hers"; I actively like my job and she didn't. We do 100% pool the money and there is no sense of "yours, mine, and ours", only "ours". I actively take pains to ensure that, but the tax brackets[1] and cost of daycare in Cambridge being what they are, the math made it a near even-money proposition.

So, in our case it was a combination of my wife's pay being lower and also the [dis-]satisfaction with spending ~1/4 of her life (and ~1/2 of her awake life) that way made it a near no-brainer.

1 - In essence, when considering forgoing her income, her income is effectively entirely taxed at our highest federal bracket, plus she's still paying Medicare, FICA, and state income tax on top of that. It means that about half of her "headline" pay is going to the government. That's a pretty stiff headwind.

What difference does it make when the incomes are combined in the end?

Where pre-K programs shine is children with diagnosable problems. Failure to have these kids in some kind of treatment can cost the taxpayer a lot money in K-12 and beyond[1]. When I was working with a 6 weeks - 3 year program in the 90's we had quite a few cases of hearing and speech problems that could be corrected in that time frame. If the kids had made it to kindergarten like that, they would have been permanently behind because of all the brain development in those years.[2] Even making sure children were given an initial screening with follow up assessments (we used the Denver Screening and E-LAP) catches a lot of things.

Yes, the other kids catchup, but the problem is some might have never have got there.

As to pre-K / elementary, if the kid does not have STEM mentors in those years then you can probably forget getting them into STEM in HS. Opinions of cool and want develop pre-K through elementary.

1) obviously providing the child a normal or at least better life

2) I was rather horrified at how much of this got by family doctors

"Study finds improved self-regulation in kindergartners who wait a year to enroll" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10571222

Note that the article is not comparing 5 years olds to 6 year olds. It is comparing 11 years olds who started school at 5 vs 11 year olds who started school at 6.

The Finnish school system has a very good reputation, compared to the US, and they start even later, at age 7 [1]

1: http://eyeonearlyeducation.com/2014/03/19/finlands-approach-...

Education really seems like more and more of an arms race. Makes me kind of apprehensive to have children if I end up getting sucked into this kind of system.

seeing this madness is part of the reason i don't have kids, and probably will never.

I'll just be blunt. Unfortunate that this tech boom has done almost nothing for the black, hispanic and other communities.

...aside from mostly being pushed out of historic community neighborhoods.

Historically they were white

Up to which point in history?

It's done a lot for the Indian communities. And the CJK communities.

I'm not sure what "other" is exactly.

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