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Comment by amb23 | Hacker News Reader

Mothers--the vast majority of mothers, not the aristocracic ones we model our current family structures off of--have always worked. They'd strap the baby on their back and go to the fields to plow or gather the harvest or cook or weave or chop firewood. Motherhood as as a full-time job is a modern invention; historically, it was a side gig.

I'd love to see a startup tackle this problem: think a benefits platform that allows companies to offer daycare as a benefit, or a Wonderschool-like daycare for working parents. Even an improved work from home policy for new parents would go a long way to plugging the talent "leak" that's prevalent right now.

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To the extent that was generally true...

* most mothers were still with their infants and very young children. The babies weren't being taken care at a daycare where you can have one staffer trying to deal with 4 crying newborns.

* mothers were doing active work, not work that requires sitting in one place, not work that requires long-term concentration, not work that requires being on someone else's schedule.

I have noticed it is no problem doing active work like cooking or the dishes or grocery shopping while bringing along an infant. But I cannot do computer work -- baby goes crazy from lack of stimulation.

Also, being on a schedule while trying to take care of a baby causes immense stress. What if you have a client meeting while baby is crying because he needs to be fed ... or is crying just due to lack of comfort and attention? Or sometimes (oftentimes) baby has a bad night and keeps you from sleeping, but you still need to be up and at work at a given time, instead of being able to nap when baby naps?

Both parents doing a schedule-bound, desk job while raising a newborn baby is not how we evolved to do things, and it's always going to be a source of stress and problems, even if you have "high quality" daycare available.

I run a 100% remote company and have done so for five years, since my first child was born. Everything you said is something I've experienced.

One of the nice things about being in charge of a remote company is that when I bring the baby to our weekly video call, no one says anything, and of course they all feel comfortable doing the same (although right now there are only fur babies).

If I need to take a nap because the baby kept me up all night, I can, as long as there is no meeting scheduled.

We try to do things as asynchronously as possible, mainly because being remote this is a better way to work, but the nice side effect is not a lot of scheduled meetings.

The hardest part honestly is saying no when my son asks, "Daddy, do you want to play trains with me?!"

But my point is, I think remote companies with family friendly policies will help a lot in this regard. There is still the issue of "I need to concentrate for two hours uninterrupted", but a lot of the other issues aren't so bad when people understand you have kids and they might come to a meeting and that you may not be available instantly.

Historically, the extended family and neighbors were contributing to raising children. For a couple that doesn't have family close by and lives in a city, parenthood is at least a part-time job.

Also, mothers didn't have to keep an eye on the kids all the time past infancy. It was fairly common to leave them on their own with other kids to play, only ensuring they're fed on time.

And once they reached a sufficient age (10 or 12), children usually helped the family with their craft.

Before the industrial revolution, what's considered norm today was the norm only for aristocrats.

I'm 37 and the oldest of 4 kids and your first paragraph is for the most part how I grew up. I don't remember my mom following any of us around past a certain age, like 5 or so. She cleaned the house etc. while we played inside or in the backyard. I remember going up the block to the park with my friends without any adults at the age of 10-12 or maybe a little younger.

>It was fairly common to leave them on their own with other kids to play, only ensuring they're fed on time.

This was the norm 25 years ago, it's how I grew up.

Part of the issue her is that society, at least in the U.S., has significantly devalued the idea of living close to one's family. Sure, some people don't grow up in economically vibrant areas, but many others move away from family without giving much thought to what they're giving up.

> but many others move away from family without giving much thought to what they're giving up.

I don't know how large of a population that really is. I've found many people move away because their family lives in a place that isn't approachable for them to live in. (e.g. Grew up in the bay area but not with well to do parents - just ones that barely got by. They aren't in careers that afford them $2m homes)

And many move away because they despise them and never wish their children to encounter their family.

I really do think many people give plenty of thought about moving away from family in one way or another. It's their family - they lived with them for something like 18 years. Everyone gives that thought.

It isn't a bad idea but really you are just talking about the cost of daycare services. Some mothers and fathers stay home because they want time with their kids at a very young age. They want to be able to go to every show and tell. Most people who are able to have a stay at home parent is because the other partner makes enough so the don't need to work. You suggestion just makes work possible for a subset that don't work because sending four kids to daycare costs more than they could make. There are other issues for school age kids where they need care close to their school district (for busing) not necessarily where they work.

It may have also been the case, that before industrialization, metal smelting, and anything-faster-than-walking the world was inherently safe.

Daycare only become necessary once transportation, tools that could cut, and exposed toxins became abundant.

Imagine a world were all parents let their children roam the streets from dawn til dinner, child-right-of-way, and any harm befalling a child was universally met with public outcry against the adult responsible for creating unsafe conditions. (If you left a can of gas unlocked and Jimmy burns thing down, you are responsible, not Jimmy or Jimmys parents. Rational precautions etc.)

Kids would be barred from factories sure, highways and other necessarily dangerous places could be fenced off. Contrast this with our blame-the-parents instincts, now.

Can we collectively consider taking a step in that direction?

When our workplaces have a spot for our cars and not our children, should be surprised that car ownership climbs and fertility falls?

> It may have also been the case, that before industrialization, metal smelting, and anything-faster-than-walking the world was inherently safe.

I would disagree: historically, kids had to cope with other threats - illnesses, toxic or otherwise deadly animals, general accidents that are "tiny nothings" today could cripple or even kill you back then because there were no antibiotics...

Back 200 years ago, this only worked because people bred like rabbits. Partially of course because there was no birth control (or its usage, e.g. intestines as condoms, frowned upon by the church) , but also because if you had 10 kids it didn't matter if all survived and losses were expected/built in. Now with people having only one child or two, these must be protected to ensure family survival, and that is where helicoptering comes from.

> When our workplaces have a spot for our cars and not our children, should be surprised that car ownership climbs and fertility falls?

The other idea would be to provide livable wages again. I am 28 now, my father was barely 20 and a fresh police officer when I was born - but he could solely fund me, my sister, my mother and himself, saving enough on the side for a downpayment on a 100+ m2 flat.

Today? Many young policemen have to work side gigs to make rent, and my s/o and I plan for the first kid in 3 years from now because without us both working (she's finishing her MSc) we don't stand a chance to financially survive, and forget about saving anything or buying a place to live if our parents would not support us financially. And that doesn't even include the question "who will stay home for how much time/reduce their hours".

Provide real wages, limit workdays to 4x6 or 5x6 hours a week (and ENFORCE this) and whoops, there are the children that have been missing. If people don't feel safe they don't have kids.

I would expect that if wages wise, that screens-per-person would increase and children-per-person would continue to decrease.

Housing, healthcare, and actual-cost-of-food (because eating out is on the rise) are all increasing beyond any realistic hope of political reform. Best to optimize for children at the expense of any dream of middle class comfort.

My parents had a low income and made 2 kids work. I expect to stretch things thinner than they had to even with our middle class-ish income. (Most meals are homemade and vegetarian for example).

I know a family that's under 30, just had their second, just bought a house, and is a single earner as a middle/high school teacher. It is possible, it just requires some sacrifice.

Daycare isn't an appropriate analogue to your example though. A shift in culture that allows you to bring your children to work would be and would be absolutely sensible for white collar and several blue collar jobs.

I've had coworkers bring their children into work - they're highly distracting and not good for work place productivity. It's not like bringing a pet into work that just sits on the floor or on their lap - and may as well be close to an inanimate object.

Or perhaps, allowing parents to work from home.

I'd imagine many families are like mine, where our house is strategically designed for optimal childcare.

No... that's madness. A child has no place in the workplace. The child would just disrupt the day of the workers and slow them down.

A running car would be equally disruptive I think.

I have worked at places that paid for convenient nearby parking.

I worked at a university that had a daycare just across the street. Given the dramatic pay gap between there and elsewhere it must have been sticky enough for some.

A shift in culture that allows you to bring your children to work would be and would be absolutely sensible for white collar and several blue collar jobs.

Young children (under three) babble and screech and cry and explore and try to finger everything and put everything in their mouth and then screech when you take the thing away from them or try to restrain them from getting at that shiny object they really want. They play for a few minutes then come running over demanding attention and screech if you ignore them. They get hungry and cry, they fall and cry. And this cannot be trained out of them because they are too young for that.

None of this is a problem if you have baby proofed your house and they can wander and play with whatever they want, and if you are just doing chores and can give them the love and attention when they demand it and go back to your chore when they go back to playing again. But it is a big problem if you and other people are trying to concentrate and work.

Yup. Back in the day, women in traditional housewife roles were major contributors to their household finances [1]. They used their own unpaid labor to transform raw materials into goods that saved their family from having to purchase them on the market. They also performed services that would have been prohibitive to hire out. But thanks to mass production and household appliances, household production doesn't contribute as much to household finances as it once did. 1950's suburbia was that awkward transition period before middle class families realized that they could have dual incomes--it was never going to last.

[1] https://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/80599...

Not every problem is startup shaped.

> think a benefits platform that allows companies to offer daycare as a benefit

Companies could offer daycare as a benefit today if they wanted to. It isn't their benefits platform holding them back.

In fairness, I can see why companies don't offer daycare as a benefit: it's enormously expensive (particularly in major metros) and it would be very difficult to plan what % of your employees would be utilising it at any one time.

Other countries have solved this problem by making it everyone's problem: the government subsidises it. I won't hold my breath waiting for the US to do the same.

It doesn't fit the HN definition of startup, but here's a small, growing company doing just that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_Horizons

Oh, I've used them! I just really don't think they're a startup by any definition. Founded in 1986, 30,000 employees, 1,000 locations.

And they aren't offering a benefit platform, they're running actual daycare locations. Their connection to employers is also most commonly providing "backup care", not solid day-to-day daycare. Nothing to sniff at of course, but that alone will not solve the problem for working parents.

And according to one company, daycare as a benefit pays for itself by reducing turnover ... although Patagonia really stands out by offering such a benefit in the current environment. If such a benefit became the norm maybe people would go back to hopping between jobs at something close to the previous rate.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3062792/patagonias-ceo-explains-...

> Motherhood as as a full-time job is a modern invention; historically, it was a side gig

Can you share any study/evidence to support that statement?

Some indigenous North Americans used the strap their babies into cradle boards that could be propped up somewhere safe while parents did whatever. That handles pre-walking children.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradleboard

I wish we knew more about how children spent their days in pre-industrial societies. Maybe they played out of site of their parents, only coming home to eat. I had a pretty autonomous childhood.

If we imagine that the work of women was craft work that could be safely and comfortably be done in the presence of children, then we can compare that to the places and conditions of the workplace of todays woman.

If yesterdays woman could bring her kids to work and todays cant, then we are pressuring women to have fewer children, and dumping the blame on them to boot.

What does todays idealized woman look like? Who are the role models we assign to our daughters?

I worked for a company that had daycare as a benefit, but were much more reluctant to flex in their more ingrained ideas of work schedule. I guess you could say they were more conservative overall, despite how much money they wasted in make-work. Seemed to more or less be a consequence of having employees with kods before they moved to a big new office.

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