Satellite Babies | Hacker News Reader

Satellite Babies

en.wikipedia.org

33 pointsALee20 comments

Some folks do the opposite and have extended family visit to take care of the children. One of my friends' parents joked at immigration¹ when asked what they were visiting for. "Babysitting" they smiled. They were sternly rebuked, saying they did not have a Visa that would work for employment. They did get let in, in the end, though.

¹ A lesson you learn very fast is to never joke while at immigration or customs.

Well, yeah. As an immigrant couple living far away from either of our families, I have no idea how you'd raise children otherwise without spending literally all of your money on daycare/nannies. Everyone else I know has the incredible luxury of being able to just call over their parents/grandparents/uncles/cousins to come over and help with kids(or leave the kids to them for a little while at least), but if you moved abroad, then raising kids without the support network of your family is incredibly difficult. Basically either one of you has to stop working, or you can both work but you need to basically arrange for your entire salary to be transferred directly to the account of the nearest daycare - and that also doesn't strike me as the right way to raise children.

Like, I wouldn't do that personally, but as an immigrant I totally get why people would send their kids to live with their grandparents until they are of school age.

Daycare doesn't have to be extremely expensive.

Where I live the cost is dependent on the parents' income, and where I come from it's a fixed cost that is low enough for most people to be able to afford it. Even if they lived in my country, I don't think I would call my parents to take care of my children very often.

Where i live day cares are free - only Problem is that there zero spots available. Maybe try again in 2022.

Yes, artificially fixing prices below the market clearing price inevitably leads to shortages. If the government wants to ease the financial burden on parents then a better solution would be to just give them money and let them pay for day care on the open market.

Sounds very related to the situation with "left-behind children" in China[1] (留守儿童), where parents leave their children with their extended family so they can work in larger cities. This has already caused massive social problems.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-behind_children_in_China

How is this different than giving your children to orphanage?

You get it back a few years later.

From the wiki article. The first two sentences.

"Satellite babies (also called Satellite Children) refer to immigrants’ children who are temporarily sent back to their home country by their parents to be reared by extended family."

These kids are being raised by their extended family.

" Typically, the satellite babies are born in the host country and sent back as infants, returning to their parents in time to start schooling or when their parents have established financial stability."

Then they reunite.

In other words, nothing like giving your children to an orphanage.

How is it similar? A grandparent is nothing like an orphanage.

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