Hacker News Reader

Comment by jahewson | Hacker News Reader

I think you’re painting a pretty simplistic and distorted caricature of reality.

I don't think I am, at least speaking to the US, but if you've got a particular argument I'm open to hearing it.

-----------

Just as some related examples to illustrate that there's a whole lot of children not growing up in some idealized life though:

~23% of children in the US live with one parent and no other adults in the household.

~40% of children born to married parents in the US will see those parents divorce before they turn 18.

~40% of children are born to unmarried parents. I don't know where to find what the rate for those parents splitting up is, but I'll assume it's probably not better than the married ones.

1/7 children experienced abuse or neglect in the past year, 1/4 will at some point in their childhood.

I think the statistics look different if you look at it in terms of percent of parents instead of percent of children. There's a certain segment that has lots of kids, either out of wedlock or in circumstance especially vulnerable to divorce and vulnerable to conditions which create unintended neglect due to scarcity of resources. Fewer number of kids is also associated with circumstances associated with more privileged background, which skews the statistics to look very different in % parents vs % children.

Also bear in mind some states consider neglect something like "allowed 8 year old to play at park by himself 2 blocks from the house and within line of sight from a trusted neighbor's house" or "left child in locked climate controlled running car while walking inside to pay gasoline because card reader was broken and didn't want to expose child to crackheads/drunks lingering next to the register (if you use inner-city gas stations you know what I mean)."

Also did those splits happen because of the children , or because of the parent's issues with each other or the world? It's often the later.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com