The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets | Hacker News Reader

The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets

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119 pointsvmoore174 comments

I'm strongly in favor of expanding the US social safety net, but I don't want to neglect other obvious factors here. Dutch children are able to walk or bike outside unsupervised. In the US they'd risk either being killed by a driver, or stopped by an overzealous neighbor or police officer. I think this kind of freedom of movement has a big effect on happiness, it certainly did for me.

ETA relevant links: https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes https://letgrow.org/

ETA again: I glibly mentioned "being killed by a driver" but of course navigating the typical US built environment if you're under 16 or otherwise unable to drive is a miserable experience in a number of ways even if you survive it. Highways make pedestrian paths unnecessarily roundabout. Parking lots make everything further from everything else. Crossing major roads requires getting drivers to notice and stop for you (harder when you're short!), or waiting through interminable signal cycles, etc.

Certainly not as big as "do I have food tonight", though.

Cars ruin cities - https://www.ft.com/content/27169841-7ee3-481e-919d-41b247e40...

Urban cities in the US have some the worst public schools in the country which is a much bigger issue.

I read a blog post a while back that had the idea that the reason so many American's remember their college years so fondly is because for many of them it was the only time in their lives where they lived somewhere walkable.

This was my experience. There's this narrative that you move away from your parents and you have the freedom and independence they were previously denying you, and I'm sure that's very much the case for many people but it's not as though my parents were ever trying to keep me from going places and seeing people, the built environment where I grew up (suburb of Los Angeles) did that.

I'm pretty sure almost everywhere in the world people remember their college years fondly.

Not to the same degree. The relative freedom and stress of high school vs collage vs young adult varies quite a bit. Extreme collage debt does quite a bit to dampen the joy of many young working Americans.

Not only walkable, but with a lot of third spaces and those get actually used because your peer group cannot afford lots of private space. You likely even live in a dorm or with roommates.

Anecdotally I spent 2 years of my undergraduate living by myself a 10 minute drive away from University in a little village outside of town. I then moved in with roommates to live walking distance between University and downtown. It's obvious from what time most of my fondest memories are.

And on top of that, your social peers are very nearby. Whereas even in walkable cities like NYC or SF, the cities are big enough that your peers may also be in a walkable area but far enough away to require public transit/careful planning.

I have read that one consequence of the Japanese practice of tearing down buildings and buying new is that you tend to get colocated with many people of the same socioeconomic class and age. We have similar forces going on in the Western world (families may prefer suburbs which also tend to sort by SES, yuppies prefer nice urban areas, etc) but I think in Japan it is a bit more deliberate.

It also a time living in an unnatural community not subject all the issues that exist in the outside world. Campuses are not functionally independent entities. They are artificial environments funded from the outside to fulfill a specific purpose. Spend time on a military base. They are also great places in which to live. Easy commutes, local services, great security, very low unemployment and most are very walkable. They are largely designed to accommodate the needs of young people, much like college campuses. But nobody forgets the artificiality. They are not standalone and their systems cannot accommodate the realities of the wider population.

Have you never been to a city?

I think you are being unfairly downvoted. Campuses have the ability to do things like expel their residents and physically remove trespassers, which is only possible in the most draconian gated communities in the “real world.” They filter for things like SES and at least a nominal desire to learn. They can shunt the really hard problems, and problematic people, to the rest of society.

there is also a filtering process just to get there, both with the military and college. even more so when you filter by military officer or grad student housing.

Not entirely true. I moved a block away from the local college with three daughters in elementary school specifically to take advantage of the businesses and enrichment activities around the school.

In 1.5 years living here, we've had the cops called on us once when we let our 7 year old walk 2 blocks to her friend's house unescorted. We also have to deal with the muscle cars and loud motorcycles which whizz by our house at 3 am each Saturday evening. We also know our neighbors who are of all ages and walks of life and there is never a moment we are fearful for our children's safety.

Please try embracing the opposite view. College campuses in the US are not an aberration, but rather an example of what community could look like.

Those revving engines are the reason why I moved far away from everybody. I shouldn't have to deal with it, but apparently the cops here don't enforce the muffler laws.

Yeah, the way I see it, as a parent I've got basically two responsibilities for my children. Ensure safety and wellbeing AND facilitate increased autonomy as their development allows.

I'm more than happy to transition into a secondary caregiver for their own children and/or a financial backstop when they get to that stage of life. But I've met too many people first hand who were never allowed to increase their own autonomy as they aged into adulthood. Sometimes due to their parents and sometimes due to society. They do not seem to be happy.

I have noticed that most of my friends who have depression had this upbringing. The lack of autonomy resulted in them being overwhelmed by the real world and caused them all sorts of damage

> In the US they'd risk either being killed by a driver, or stopped by an overzealous neighbor or police officer.

It may depends on where in the US you're talking about, but in my area none of this is actually true. Although lots of people believe it is.

Sounds nice. I've personally spoken on the phone with a police officer who told me he'd involve CPS if he saw my daughter walking (two blocks!) to school again.

How old is your daughter and what happened when you told him to mind his own business and called his bluff?

> what happened when you told him to mind his own business and called his bluff?

It's not a bluff. From what I've read, fighting CPS is expensive. (Though I would raise the issue with the police chief.)

You want to antagonize an untouchable murder junkie? In what universe is that a good idea?

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

I also disagree with framing all police as “murder junkies”.

I agree that we need to push back, but that can also be done politically.

Antagonizing a local police officer is a terrible idea unless you are wealthy and/or well-connected. Most are kind, but not all are, and antagonizing the wrong one can make your life hell.

(I also agree that the vast majority of police are not "murder junkies". But it's also not surprising that a handful of folks like that do join an organization that nearly always manages to protect their members from repercussions when they use lethal force.)

They might not personally be "murder junkies" but through the "thin blue line", they almost all enable that behavior from their peers.

One of the nice things about Texas is that it has a law against that. Tell your reps to get something similar passed. https://letgrow.org/texas-becomes-third-state-to-enshrine-re...

I'm reminded of how Georgia will pay foster parents of homeless kids more than it'd cost to simply put a roof over those kids' families heads. https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-housing-assistanc...

Yeah, in CA you aren't allowed to leave a kid under 6 in a car if "there are conditions that can pose a risk to the child’s health and safety, even if accompanied by another child who is not yet 13. What does it mean for conditions to "pose a risk"? Obviously high heat, but it's not clear what else could qualify.

I don't ever leave my kids (one that is under 6 and one that is well over 6, but not yet 13) alone in a car, since I don't want police or nosy passersby injecting themselves in a perfectly benign situation.

I don't think any of the parent posters were talking about leaving kids in a car. That is certainly a dangerous thing to do.

Why is it "certainly dangerous" to leave a 5 year old and a 10 year old in a car, while I go into a store to pick something up?

Not the person you asked but if I had to guess it might be similar to how people react to leaving a dog in a car. That is to say it's a heat issue.

Unlike dogs, children can open doors and windows, and can shout for help if they think it essential.

In many cars, power windows can't be operated when the car is off with the key removed.

Definitely true…but you can always open the doors. Kids that are 10, 11, or 12 are old enough to open a door.

Overzealous neighbors in the US will have someone's house sold out from under them when the grass is too high and they don't pay the fines to the HOA for mowing it. The idea that they'll be ok with children wandering around unsupervised is preposterous on its face. The cops might not care either way, but only until the busybodies start nagging. Especially the sort of busybodies that live in the places where any sane parent might consider letting their kids wander. Kids would probably go unmolested by aging Karens in the bad parts of Baltimore or Gary IN, but then they have other problems.

I agree with you that the risk of being killed by a car is somewhat low though.

The US is a country with hundreds of millions of people in tens of thousands of municipalities in dozens of states. The idea that because outliers exist, they describe the typical experience everywhere in the nation is preposterous on its face.

One place I'd have hoped would be able to understand such a simple concept is HN. Especially with all the Europeans who frequent this site.

330 million people with about the same land area as Europe. Yet people simultaneously think there can be a pretty big difference between, say, UK and Poland, but think that every newsworthy event that happens anywhere in the US is representative of all of the US.

It would be hilarious if it were not sad.

uhm, not quite. it's all relative. regions in europe for centuries have been separated by national borders and still are separated by languages. as a result, each region in europe is homogeneous, but different from other regions in ways that doesn't compare to the differences in the US. pretty much the only thing that is really the same every country in europe is mcdonalds and cocacola.

yes, there are plenty of differences in the US too, but they are limited to much smaller regions. it is more likely to say that pittsburgh and los angeles are different than the east coast vs the west coast. i have lived in both regions, as i have lived and traveled in many regions of europe. the most stark differences in the US are local, when you compare say an amish town with another town nearby. or chinatown which exists many cities. but for almost any regional uniqueness in the US you can find multiple locations all over the US that share that uniqueness. which is not the case in europe.

the problem is that we tend to overstate our differences. i have lived in europe, the US, and new zealand, and i thought they were all very different from each other, until i traveled to asia and africa, and realized that in comparison all western countries really are pretty much the same.

in the end we all have much more in common than we realize.

This was the fundamental point I was alluding to.

The US is huge, and incredibly diverse. I have no doubt that there are places where the sorts of things being reported here happen. I know for a fact, though, that there are many places where such things are unheard of.

As a rule of thumb, any time someone says "this is how it is in the US", they're probably wrong. It may be how it is in some parts of the US, but there are few things that are actually universal here.

Most American homes don't have HOAs. Don't buy homes that do. HOAs should severely undervalue a property automatically. HOAs are anti-democratic. It's easier to get rid of a city than an HOA.

While that's true that many (and perhaps most!) HOAs are awful, that isn't categorically true for all of them.

I live in a neighborhood with an HOA. Its purpose is primarily to act as a collective for bargaining with the city government. It also negotiated a sweet deal with the local waste disposal services - they're covered by the HOA dues, which are lower than what my parents pay a mile or so away. It sends out quarterly newsletters about local events and has yearly meetings and elections for its handful of officers.

I was hesitant to buy into this neighborhood when I first learned there was an HOA, but the bylaws don't prevent me from doing anything with my property that the city ordinances don't already prohibit. I've never received any complaints from my HOA, nor have any of my neighbors to my knowledge.

tl;dr: not all HOAs are bad, but it's always a good idea to check their bylaws before committing to a residence that has one.

> I live in a neighborhood with an HOA. Its purpose is primarily to act as a collective for bargaining with the city government.

That's called a political party

> It also negotiated a sweet deal with the local waste disposal services - they're covered by the HOA dues, which are lower than what my parents pay a mile or so away. It sends out quarterly newsletters about local events and has yearly meetings and elections for its handful of officers.

Yeah... this is called a neighborhood association. We have that too, despite not having an HOA

> I was hesitant to buy into this neighborhood when I first learned there was an HOA, but the bylaws don't prevent me from doing anything with my property that the city ordinances don't already prohibit. I've never received any complaints from my HOA, nor have any of my neighbors to my knowledge.

Then what's the point other than to channel money? if you want to pay taxes, just ask your city to collect it. Like I said, it's a lot easier to get rid of a city than an HOA.

My friend and I were stopped by an officer and asked to show identification. We were just walking down the street, age 12. This is in the midwest.

Dismiss complaints about police at your own peril.

I find these stories of kids not walking (or biking) outside wild! Hundreds of kids in my neighborhood walk, bike, or public transit to school everyday with no issues.

I do worry about car on pedestrian crashes but the city has crossing guards and traffic calming for just this.

Where are these places that you can’t be outside as a child?

I'm not from the US, but just zoomed into a random spot in what I assume is a typical shopping district in suburban Atlanta[1]. Can't imagine many young kids safely walking or biking around there. Compare a local shopping district near me[2]. Plenty of young kids walking and biking to school here alone and in groups.

[1] https://www.google.co.nz/maps/@33.8644514,-84.5949946,3a,75y...

[2] https://www.google.co.nz/maps/@-41.2953813,174.7673872,3a,75...

edit: Might add that close to those shops in [2] there is a large botanic garden with play area and stream, one small and one very large reserve with native bush and an abundance of mountain bike tracks, a playing field, the central city area with cafes, many theatres, galleries, a library, and all sorts of other things that a child can make use of without supervision. All of this is within 5 minutes walk of those shops. Within 10 minutes walk there is the waterfront and a very safe swimming beach.

But there are no schools or houses there?

I’m not arguing that there are places that are pedestrian unfriendly in the US or even that there are more places per capita like that in the US.

I’m just saying it would be weird for homes and schools to be placed in those locales, and even weirder for governmental officials to take action against kids walking in appropriate locales.

Here is the shopping district nearest me: https://maps.app.goo.gl/SUZCyUHuGbCAwcYT7?g_st=ic

And here is a place that is inappropriate for pedestrians near you https://maps.app.goo.gl/aLdDyWdbFq6vUG6X9?g_st=ic

Within 5 minutes of my area are at least 5 parks/play lots, a beach and a library.

Theaters, cafes and galleries are on that street.

Within 1 mile of that location is a 550 acre public park with all manner of facilities and less than 2 miles away is a 370 acre park.

Thats not mentioning the museums and university facilities near here.

None of that is to flex it’s just to say a random sampling is not an appropriate retort. The US can obviously be less car centric but to imply that it’s impossible or strange for kids to be outside on there own in the US is a wild assertion and anyone making it needs to provide extraordinary proof.

You compared a commercial zone to a residential zone. What did you expect?

I mean drive around a little in the place you picked - do you see any houses? Now move your map a couple miles in any direction and you'll see forests with walking trails, ponds, parks, small streets where kids can play on the street. That's what it's actually like.

That 'residential zone' has a supermarket, brewery, bakery, cafe, hairdresser, restaurant, bar, video store(!), community hall, basketball court, park, childcare centre, greengrocer, takeaway shop, and secondhand store all within 50m on a street with a 30km/h speed limit.

When I explore that area surrounding the commercial zone in Atlanta I find just houses, green spaces, and roads. It's a crappy environment for anyone without a car (e.g. kids).

I guess you are used to zillions of tiny stores near all the houses?

People in the US don't like that, they like central large stores in one area, and then residences without any business nearby. You are wrong though, it's actually very nice for the kids, they can play without worry. But they can't go shopping. Big deal, that hardly matters.

I lived in a place like that, it's actually a really nice way to grow up. Much better than the packed-in way that they do it in Europe or New York. Instead of stores, you have space. And yes, you can play in the road, there's not that many cars, since the only driving nearby is if you live there. And kids can and do, ride bikes all over the place, because again, hardly any cars.

It's different tradeoffs. Also don't forget America is big, really really big. Without a car you basically can't go anywhere, America is too big for public transport to work, with the exception of a couple large cities.

And they like it that way.

Americans don't want to live closely packed near other people. They like having space. The like having huge houses, and huge yards. They like not hearing the neighbors. (And if you want something different, you can live in a large city.)

I've been in the kinds of cities you seem to like, and I find them miserable experiences, it's so crowded, you can't get away from people! The stores are so small, the selection is terrible and the costs high. And you can't go anywhere since you need a bus to do anything (which means you can't take very much with you, and you don't have anyplace to store things), instead of just hop in your car. You can go anywhere, you can leave your possessions locked in your car, so you don't have to carry them.

I've talked to people who used to live in New York, then moved out, and they act like prisoners who found freedom. They had no idea how nice it is to live somewhere with space. Yes you need a car for that, but that's hardly a problem.

People in the US don't like that, they like central large stores in one area

Not all of us. I hate strip malls. They're terrible. I have to drive to them. I have to walk across a stinking, hot, dangerous slab of car-infested parking lot to get into the stores. The stores themselves are packed with piles of shit I don't want, forcing me to roam around looking for what I need.

Cars in the suburbs are literally a problem because we heavily subsidize their use through free parking, subsidized roads (only 30% of Virginia's VDOT budget comes from use taxes - the rest is from general revenue), and failure to fully capture negative externalities (emissions, etc). It's also rare that a suburb has the tax base to maintain it's own physical infrastructure - the land values simply aren't high enough (because it's too spread out) to be anything but a Ponzi scheme, where those costs are kicked down the road onto future generations.

My neighborhood is <1 mile from the local school complex (all 3 levels on one plot). There are literally ZERO road crossings to get there. Yet, the students are bussed.

So, every winter, there's a pile of kids standing at the bus stop. With their parents waiting nearby in idling cars. They could quite literally walk their kid to school and back in the time they spend waiting for the bus.

And to make it worse, those kids are literally NOT allowed to walk home unless a parent is there to retrieve them. Otherwise the school will put them on the bus.

It's completely bonkers.

I live a couple blocks from a middle school and a high school. The streets and sidewalks are full of kids walking or biking, alone or in groups, at school start/end times. There are crossing guards at the intersections they use.

This isn't a poor neighborhood but it's not terribly wealthy, either.

Frankly, if you visit some other country for a couple weeks, you don't get any more than the most superficial idea of what life is like there.

I wonder if there's an urban/suburban/rural or political divide when it comes to this.

I live in a suburb in California and have never ran into this problem. But we're also unincorporated and don't have cops with nothing better to do than harass some kid walking to school alone.

We're also surrounded by people whose kids are now in their 20s-30s. They don't see our kids running around as a nuisance - they're relatively new empty nesters and the kids seem to evoke nostalgia as they discuss the different things their kids did around the neighborhood when they were young.

I grew up in rural California in the one town in the county that was incorporated; the kind of place where every cop in town shows up if anything happens at all. I biked and rollerbladed to school alongside literal highways and never was approached about it once.

Oh yeah, for sure. But I think the argument is that times have changed.

And in my rural California town growing up the cops pulled you over for everything. I was once pulled over for riding my bicycle "fast". I wasn't speeding.

Every place is different.

> in my area none of this is actually true

That's wonderful you live in place where children are can roam freely without being injured or killed by drivers. But this is a real threat in most of the US. Being killed in a motor vehicle crash is the second highest cause of death among children and adolescents. (It was the highest until 2020 when firearm-related injuries overtook them.[1])

For every 100,000 people the Netherlands has 3.8 annual traffic deaths, the US has 12.9, and Libera (the worst I could find[2]) has 35.9. That means when it comes to traffic deaths the US is 3.4x more deadly than the Netherlands and Liberia is 2.8x more deadly than the US.

I bike with my kids and let them walk to school and we talk about how to manage these risks. But being near roads in the US is less safe than most other developed countries by a statistically significant margin.

[1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

Most of that in the US is children who were riding in a car that crashes.

The number of children who are killed by cars as pedestrians or bicyclists is much lower. In 2021 for example it was 176 pedestrian children and 38 bicyclist children [1].

[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

That's an interesting point I need to think about. I do wonder how the deaths would compare to the number of trips taken, because children in the US take significantly fewer trips by bike than children in the Netherlands. Given that pedestrian deaths were at a 40 year high[1] in the US last year, I wonder if the relatively smaller number of children killed is simply a reflection of the low number of children walking.

I can say though that the few times I've ridden on the road with my children were the most stressful of my life, I have never done it since, and it made me completely understand why I no longer see any other children or parents doing it.

[1] https://www.vox.com/23784549/pedestrian-deaths-traffic-safet...

For more in-depth reading on Dutch street design, this blog is fascinating:

https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/what%20wo...

People keep saying this, and it's just not true. Sure, there are stories in the press, but the actual lived reality of kids in the US is not that.

You can easily tell I'm right simply because it's in the News: The News doesn't cover the normal situation, they cover the unusual. If it's in the news, it's something that rarely happens.

To support your point, the news in the US has become far more sensationalized then what I remember growing up. In the mid aughts when I was in college, my buddy (a journalism major) told me even in their college news room they had adopted the famous adage, "If it bleeds, it leads" as their motto on what gets reported.

> In the US they'd risk either being killed by a driver, or stopped by an overzealous neighbor or police officer.

This is true on the Internet, but not true in any real life place I've lived in the US.

Witnessing Americans slowly realizing that public health care and social safety contribute more to personal freedom than anything else they consider "freedom" (such a as unregulated capitalism) is a wonderful process.

Do you think you can create a better society if you provide everyone with basics, or by granting access to guns to everybody?

I mean, you guys don't walk in your city and don't have kids playing outside. Wow. Land of the free?

I had a simmilar experiance in Iceland, compared to my home country (Australia). Some examples:

* The birth of our son cost us a total of $50. That was parking fees and a bed for me in the same room as my Partner. Who had a 30 hour labor and an emergancy C-Section.

* For the first couple of weeks we had a nurse coming over and checking up on the health of my partner and son. Organized and paid for by the goverment.

* Both myself and my Partner got 3 months maternaty/paternaty leave. Then another 3 months to split. And we could take that however we wanted. I ended up work 20hours a week for the first month.

* Once our son was a little older and was going to Daycare, he was sick, a lot! I wasn't at work for more than 3 days a week for the first 3 months. I went to my boss to appologize and offer to take holiday days or something, and he laughed at me and said "No! I knew this was going to happen, your a new parent, look after your child!".

* Kids as young as 5 and 6 would walk to school, in the snow, by themselves.

That contrasts with my experiance in Australia:

* Its illiegal for my son to walk to school by himself, before he's ~12

* It cost us as much per week for daycare in Australia, as it did per month in Iceland.

IMHO, this comes down to a sociatal prioritization and allocation of resources. When countries invest in their children, they are investing in their future.

> I went to my boss to appologize and offer to take holiday days or something, and he laughed at me and said "No! I knew this was going to happen, your a new parent, look after your child!".

This is just a nice boss, not a social policy. There are plenty of nice bosses anywhere; and plenty of shitty ones.

It can be a social policy, as well. In Germany, each parent is entitled to up to 10 days a year (single parents get 20) to take care of their sick child. Most people get 70% of their regular wages for those days, paid by the public health insurance.

In Australia those are part of your sick leave, and you get roughly 10 a year IIRC. Quite generous. At 100% wage, paid by your employer.

Your own sick leave (at 100% pay, paid by the employer) is separate and the average German employee takes 22 days of sick leave per year, up from 16 days ten years ago.

22 days seems like a lot. You guys must have better restraint over taking sick days than Australians.

i'm unfamiliar with any law making kids below twelve walking to school illegal, if it is then a decent portion of my class in primary school were breaking the law, unless it being fine is just a queensland thing. there have been scares sure, events that make parents afraid to let their children walk to school unsupervised, but at the very least where i grew up buses were only the norm because of how spread out the area was

(edit: to be clear iceland sounds amazing and overall i think i agree with you but i'm genuinely curious about the walking alone being illegal part because that wasnt my experience growing up)

Your right! I'm wrong :)

Source showing I'm wrong and giving more context: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-09/how-long-is-too-long-...

> * Its illiegal for my son to walk to school by himself, before he's ~12

I see a lot of primary school kids walking to school without parents here in Sydney.

For the record the birth of our daughter which involved emergency c-section cost $0. We had multiple home visits in the first 3 months some purely focused on things like breast feeding techniques. Additionally all vaccines and checkups were $0.

My partner had 6 months paid maternity (albeit from her company). The daycare sickness is not country specific - if your boss has kids then they get it.

>Its illiegal for my son to walk to school by himself, before he's ~12

Where's the source for this? I don't believe that's true.

Also most of what you wrote is true for Australia too. Except it's 3 months to split from gov leave, and as long as your company offers in paid leave.

Kindy is free in QLD now. Not sure whether that equates to daycare?

Re: 12yr olds walking to school, yep I'm wrong about that!

Re: Kindy, that starts at 4yrs old. Daycare is prior to that. There is government assistance for sending your kid to daycare, the 1 week to 1 month cost I mentioned is the out of pocket expense.

In Australia we had the same experience, basically.

The costs for the public system was basically just the parking. In addition, discussing the experience with every other mother in the mothers group, the public hospital we went to treated my wife better than any of the private hospitals treated the other half-dozen women.

We had a nurse visit occasionally to check up on our son. paid for by govt.

My wife got the standard 3mo paid by govt, but she took 12mo of leave. I got 4mo paid by my company(I know I was lucky in that regard).

I take sick leave whenever I want because I have about 10yrs of it banked up with my current employer. My wifes employer is also really chill about her taking leave and even going into a negative leave balance.

One thing I agree though, daycare is ridiculously expensive. So genuinely relieved when my son started school & we only have to pay daycare for 1 child now. Can't wait till my second child is in school and I can put all that money on the mortgage instead.

I started the article expecting it to be little more than a standard case of one's pet grievance being the cause of all of society's ills. I was pleasantly surprised as I started reading. I thought maybe 'social safety net' to the author doesn't mean wealth distribution but rather something like community engagement and mutual support. Alas. Not halfway through does the article take the expected turn towards pet grievance.

Not that wealth disparities aren't a serious issue; the issues mentioned for poor parents raising children are certainly real. They just don't strike me as the reason Americans don't parent in a laissez-faire manner. The reasons are more to do with lack of community engagement, lack of trust, misplaced fear of harm, an endless optimizing mindset, and so on. Wealth disparity doesn't even register.

Yes, I file this article under the categories of "straw man" and "non-sequitur".

Does wealth disparity have nothing to do with 'lack of community engagement, lack of trust, misplaced fear of harm, an endless optimizing mindset, and so on'?

It's not obvious that it does. Sure, some of these things correlate with wealth disparities. But there's no reason to think the causal arrow flows from wealth disparity to distrust, lack of community engagement, etc. For example, most communities are wealth-segregated. So within community will not see a vast wealth disparity. Any proposed explanation must also contend with the fact that parenting was to a much larger degree laissez-faire just a couple of generations ago. (Average/median) Wealth disparities haven't grown that much in this time (meaning discounting the culturally irrelevant growth of a handful of tech billionaires).

We might say that low income and a lack of social safety net results in increased anxiety about oneself and society, which results in lack of trust, increased fear, etc, and consequently more controlling parenting. This seems plausible enough. But it doesn't well explain the recent massive increase in hypermanaging/helicopter parenting. American society hasn't become more precarious or more dangerous. While income anxiety may be a contributing factor, it probably isn't the proximal cause. There was a phase change in the average parenting ideology in the last 30-40 years that isn't well explained by the usual societal bugbears.

I'm somewhat skeptical that the Dutch social safety net is why Dutch parents let their kids "ride their bikes in the rain unsupervised".

Does anyone believe that Americans would be more like Dutch parents with a social safety net? What causal chain is necessary for that result, when American parents tend to be be like that due to anxiety about monstrous crimes? Do we really believe that the crimes happen enough that the anxiety is warranted, but when welfare starts taking care of the underclass, there will somehow be fewer kiddy diddlers? Do we believe the anxiety is unwarranted, but when the parents' unemployment insurance is more robust that they'll realize that such dangers are so statistically unlikely that they won't worry until the kid hasn't checked in for 3 straight nights?

Is there some evidence that these hypotheses might be true? Am I missing something?

> I'm somewhat skeptical that the Dutch social safety net is why Dutch parents let their kids "ride their bikes in the rain unsupervised"

It's blindingly obvious for anybody who has experienced both sides. Dutch parents let their children outside because the roads are safe for children to bike and walk. bikelanes, bumpouts, bollards, slow cars in town, ...

American roads are a thunderdome by comparison.

Most americans just cannot see it, fish in a bowl, surrounded by water.

> Most americans just cannot see it, fish in a bowl, surrounded by water.

They just don't have a comparison. How many Americans have been to the Netherlands, or even Europe, let alone have lived there?

> American roads are a thunderdome by comparison.

Teach your kids to not challenge Master Blaster to to-the-death combat in Thunderdome if it really worries you. My concern has never, ever been that they'll get run over. Not by age 7 or 8, when I would consider letting them wander unsupervised. There are many traffic fatalities in the US each year, but those occur not to people crossing suburban streets (or rural roads). Hell, I don't think they much happen when people are darting across downtown streets either.

It is a combination of abduction anxiety plus people who are worried the neighbors will call CPS on them. Those latter sort might be able to break the cultural norm that's forming, but there have been high-profile cases of people siccing the authorities on them for letting their kids be independent. I think any survey not specifically designed to lead them to other conclusions would discover this to be the case.

Or is this more r/fuckcars propaganda, and I've lost the plot? Are we all nostalgic for the days when only party officials could ever afford a Lada or Trebant, and the proletariat had more important things to worry about?

Multiple things can be true at once. The CPS busybody thing is real, abduction anxiety is real too. Those are unfortunate too.

They are not key determinants. There are places in america you will see kids outside doing things. New urbanist developments, core of college towns, neighborhoods in big cities, ... And this is because stuff worth doing for kids is safely accessible without car there.

The big intellectual tragedy of the 2nd half of the 20th century is that we have become blind to the fact that much of our behavior, aspirations, dispositions are technologically determined, and not the other way around.

> Most americans just cannot see it, fish in a bowl, surrounded by water.

Alternatively, a lot of us actually live in places where it's no big deal. My kids spend an inordinate amount of time biking and walking out on the street, shooting hoops, etc.

Agreed, these places do exist, also in my metro. It's a big country.

No it made no sense to me either.

If someone could help me, I recall a study of all the decisions (on the order of 100-1000s) that a parent makes in the first year of a child's life. The conclusion of the study was something along the lines of most decisions have little to no effect. IF there was a single decision that had the largest effect, it was where home was. Of course, there is coupling between where you live and other decisions, making the conclusion not so straightforward.

I think you're missing a detail. The studies I've read generally found that it doesn't really matter which option you choose from a list of active/intensive/interested options, they'll all produce good effects. But neglect, indifference, and lack of involvement are not on that list. Neglecting your child vs being involved and supportive certainly has an incredibly large effect. In fact, quantity of parental involvement is probably the #2 predictor of a child's success later in life, with #1 being family monetary wealth.

I completely agree that neglect, indifference and lack of involvement can only result in negative outcomes for a child (e.g., sense of insecurity, lower feelings of self-worth, delayed development in certain areas due to lack of stimulation). I’m just curious what definition of “success” you are using in your final sentence. Not being snarky here - I’m honestly interested. There can be no question that having financial stability as an adult can be considered a form of success in that it provides security, shelter, access to a healthy lifestyle. Being raised by parents who have significant monetary wealth likely increases the chances that the child will have similar opportunities for financial gain as they become independent. I just wonder if parental involvement is at least equally important by teaching proper social interaction skills that can lead to favorable relationships later in life (i.e., the “it’s not what you know but who you know” effect).

I agree I am missing details, but I don't think wealth is considered a decision a parent makes in the first year of a child's life.

> American parents on both sides of the political spectrum know this and are increasingly frustrated by how little they have been offered in this country—particularly in exchange for the high taxes they pay.

How much taxes do Americans think we Europeans pay? Those dutch parents are paying close to 60-70% taxes once you account also for VAT

Source that please

You must have assumed some level of income. How much?

The comparison is very difficult. Just incorporating health insurance premiums (even the portion that is employer paid) paid from pretax income plus some proportion of deductible/out of pocket maximum involves assumptions that change the calculations.

Not to mention the myriad other ways to defer or exempt future income from taxes such as 401k/IRA/roth/529/HSA/etc.

And then on top of that, you have 50 different states with myriad ways of taxing income, different types of income, consumption, and estates, and within those 50 states, there are numerous counties and cities with their own ways of taxing the same.

For example, my effective individual tax rate at similar W2 incomes has varied from 30% to 17% (including health insurance premiums) just by changing the jurisdiction I live in. And that’s calculated using various assumptions one may or may not agree with.

> The comparison is very difficult. Just incorporating health insurance premiums (even the portion that is employer paid) paid from pretax income plus some proportion of deductible/out of pocket maximum involves assumptions that change the calculations.

I'm pretty sure the Netherlands has payroll taxes (employer paid) as well, so you would have to balance that assessment with what employers are paying.

NL has comparatively low taxes for what they get.

Their entire economy is based on scamming the other EU countries out of their company taxes, by letting companies open there, and then do transfer pricing.

edit: downvoting me won't change how NL is ran.

Ireland has a similar approach. It’s one of the few reasons why leaving the EU could have made sense.

I think calling it scamming is incorrect. They are competing — successfully!

They are using a loophole.

And, have you ever met a Dutch person? Very often they will tell you within 3 minutes how much better they are than you, since they come from a country with such a good economy, unlike yours.

In the asymptotic case, European countries levy 100% tax, and take over all economic and social activity, including child-rearing, with the role parents being only a field in the database.

I can’t tell if this is satire or a genuine point being made. It’s a long way from reality if anyone was in any doubt!

It looks like some political fringe theory talking point.

It was a slightly provocative statement said in satire to underscore the point that the right degree of taxation and social services to provide isn't a universal constant and we don't need to assume that the way European countries do is the only right. These things tend to have complex tradeoffs.

You are right. According to the article it's only right if you prioritize child happiness

> 60-70% taxes

The highest Dutch tax bracket is 50%, but that only applies to income over 75K EUR. Also, VAT doesn't apply to rent, and it's reduced for food. Housing and food are most household's largest expenses. So the 21% sales tax can be deceptive.

Taxation as a % of the Dutch GDP is 38%. That is to say, taxes take 38% of all the wealth produced in the Netherlands.

For some comparison purposes, the number in the USA is 27%, Japan 31%, Canada 33%, Germany 37%, Finland 42%.

The US does not have uniform tax rates. Taxation as a % of GDP in some of the higher-taxed US states comes in around 35% - quite close to the Dutch number.

It would appear that the typical middle class Dutch family probably pays about 30 - 50% of their income to taxation. The very wealthy might be coming up on 60% or so.

> Taxation as a % of the Dutch GDP is 38%

This is not necessarily a good metric for high income right? Companies pay less taxes for sure then a high earning couple.

For context, 75,518 EUR is $81,014. So if you're a software engineer making $200k, you're paying 37% on the first $81,014, or $30,000, and then 50% on the remaining $118,986, or $60,000. For a grand total of $90k on your $200k salary.

Oof. In a modern society, with modern technology, why does the government demand ownership of 30-50% of the value that people generate? That's an enormous amount of free labor.

It's not a good example as almost no-one has a salary that high. For software engineers you're looking at say 90-100K as an average maximum, with vast majority earning less than that.

Edit to cover your edit: it's certainly not free labour, I happily pay my taxes because I believe I'm getting quiet something in return.

It is free labor. You giving your income to the government is equivalent to doing free work. And of course, some level of that is required. I'm not anti-tax, I'm anti wasteful tax. And to my mind, requiring 30%-50% of everyones created value, just to maintain society, is enormously wasteful. There is no way in hell an efficient society actually requires that level of income tax of everyone.

> There is no way in hell an efficient society actually requires that level of income tax of everyone

If there's no way in hell you can sure back up that claim with sources? I personally cannot think of a single country with what I would consider to be a somewhat efficient society that has a significantly lower tax rate. On the contrary, as established upthread, in the US which many Americans pride themselves on being low tax, the effective tax rate is not far off, and American society is drastically less efficient or comfortable than e.g. Dutch one.

The burden of proof is on the people claiming that level of taxation is required in the first place. If taxes need to be that high, its on high tax proponents to justify it, not on everyone else to justify why we shouldn't raise them higher.

If you stop to think about it, there are only 3 possibilities: 1) Taxes are perfectly calibrated to exactly what they need to be. 2) Taxes are less than they need to be. 3) Taxes are more than they need to be.

Perfect calibration is nearly impossible. So that leaves 2 and 3. Which do you think is more likely of a corruption-prone organization that takes income through the implicit threat of physical violence?

> The burden of proof is on the people claiming that level of taxation is required in the first place

The proof is there and it's called the annual budget of the country. As far as I know it's public information, not that anyone ever bothers to look at it (and rightfully so - we are paying via taxes people to look at it, and another group of people to control it).

The existence of a budget is NOT proof that the expenditures in the budget are priced accurately. If it was proof, then there would never be instances of companies defrauding the taxpayer through government contracts.

I think this a great frame to examine taxes though: Are taxes perfect, too high, or too low?

Now that we have the question, how to we decide the answer? I think there are several possibilities, but one that comes to mind is happiness. A subjective and flawed metric to be sure, but a metric all the same.

Thankfully, we do not have to resign ourselves to thought experiments with no opportunity for real data collection, as in "Would the average US citizen be happier or less happy if taxes were 10% lower?" We don't even have to settle for logical exercises such as you pose here: "What is more likely, that corruption inevitably makes more government worse than less government, or vice versa?"

Instead, we can examine the beautifully diverse set of data-rich, large scale experiments known as sovereign nations to find how well taxation correlates to happiness.

And voila, your criticism of the article is an argument in favor of the article.

>your criticism of the article is an argument in favor of the article.

I never criticized the article, which is about social safety net and child happiness. I'm criticizing the claimed taxation level required to have nice things.

Wasteful/not wasteful is mostly orthogonal to high/low. If high taxes, in a wasteful system, results in happy people, then that means you can get the same result for less. Meaning people get the same benefits, while keeping more income. Or more benefits, for the same taxes.

People seem to think that high taxes correlated to happiness is evidence of a non-wasteful government, but it's not. Happiness is not the only metric that matters. If it was, then being happy with corruption would be a virtue.

If you have a non linear map, then the nice properties of orthogonality can disappear...

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineer-salary-...

> The estimated total pay for a Software Engineer is $140,779 per year in the United States area, with an average salary of $118,761 per year. These numbers represent the median, which is the midpoint of the ranges from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate model and based on salaries collected from our users. The estimated additional pay is $22,017 per year. Additional pay could include cash bonus, commission, tips, and profit sharing. The "Most Likely Range" represents values that exist within the 25th and 75th percentile of all pay data available for this role

Yeah, but we were taking about the Dutch tax system, that applies to the income made in the Netherlands.

If we're paying 'social democracy sized taxes', you damn straight I demand social democracy policies.

But nope, we just get "sell more weapons to Israel and Ukraine", and more class warfare.

This is wrong. I am relatively at the beginning of my career and already reached the said max. Median is probably much less, but the max is also much higher.

For comparison, in California if you're making $1m W-2 income, you'll lose $470k to total taxes (Federal+State+FICA). The difference is not that huge. The difference is what you get for that 47%. Go higher and there's a 1% extra mental health services tax.

Is this including federal? State income taxes are nowhere near that high in California.

Yes, edited to clarify.

> The highest Dutch tax bracket is 50%, but that only applies to income over 75K EUR

To make it even clearer, it only applies to the part of income that is over 75K. So if you are earning 76K, the highest tax bracket only applies to that last thousand.

The US has one of the most progressive tax rates of any nation. Not only do we not have a VAT, but also the top 10% pay over 70% of all income taxes. I don't think that it's a coincidence that the American government seems especially inefficient at spending money.

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/summary-latest-fe...

Income taxation is not a good proxy for all taxation. If you look at the effective taxation of some of the richest individuals in America, you'll see they pay far less than income tax percentages would lead you to believe [1].

[1]: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...

Sure, but that just makes it worse for high-salary earners (me and I suspect a lot of HN readers).

The OECD puts it at around 35% for a single worker, and 30% for a one-earner married couple with two children.

Even if they spend their entire income on taxable goods and services — which is very unlikely, as rent/mortgage doesn't have VAT — that would mean 21% of the remaining amount were taxed, so 55-50%.

https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-netherlands...

Then they have much less taxation then I thought. I based it on my Swedish and Portuguese experiences. Thought NL was similar

I also wasn't making the case for the average worker. Was assuming higher earners then the norm since that's the whole vibe of the article

For reference, total tax revenue (at all levels) is around 25% in the US. Compared to around 37% in the Netherlands and 33% across OECD. By this metric, the US has the 4th lowest overall tax rates in the OECD (above only Mexico, Ireland, and Chile).

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-do-us-taxe...

As someone from an Asian background that grew up in the United States, I'm shocked at how many of my friends parents refuse / don't want to look after their grandchildren. My parents watch our kids multiple times per week, and I seemed to have married a relative unicorn amongst Anglo-Saxons because my in-laws watch them as well.

I think this is a highly under-rated reason why birthrates are falling. Grandparenting is actually a big deal, and we need to encourage it more. It's like the fatherhood campaigns we used to have. Don't be a deadbeat grandma / grandpa... it's not cool.

I don't think this is that uncommon. It just depends on how far grandparents live, and whether they have other grandkids. When our first child was born, both sets of grandparents couldn't wait to help out — it was their first grandchild, after all. As other kids have been born, they've had less time to do so.

My experience has not been 'we don't want to care for grandkids because we're so busy caring for our copious grandchildren that we're too busy for one'. It's more like "I want to go to Europe... too bad".

^100% this

"But, after spending time at their former home on Bloemgracht, a street and canal in the Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam"

So ... for context ... the Bloemgracht is where the 1% of Dutch people live. Not exactly Park Avenue ... but not Queens, and certainly not the Ozarks.

Haha this.. That part of Amsterdam is really for the hipster-rich people. Now go to the southern Burroughs of Rotterdam or Amsterdam-Bijlmer ;-)

We have a lot more diversity in the US. More diverse level of education, more diverse level of income, more diverse housing, more diverse everything.

I'm happy to let me kids roam the neighborhood. But I do get calls from other parents that think I'm crazy. The helicopter Dad down the street stopped talking to me, I'd guess his kids protest his watchful eye when they see my kids free.

Skeptic that I am I do wonder if this is something normal in all of the Netherlands or specific to, like, these hyper urbanized walkable places in (clearly) affluent neighborhoods of Amsterdam. While the social safety net is a factor I'd honestly like to know if what's true of her sister's children is also true of some kid living in a country village or wherever.

I've never lived in the Netherlands, but what's described in the article is pretty much how it is most places in Norway. Sure, if you have to go 5km to go football practice someone might drive you, but otherwise kids roam around on their own a lot.

It's really not just Amsterdam. Very obvious if you check out Rotterdam, Hague, Eindhoven, Utrecht and etc. Obviously richer sides will have better and more "things", but biking and taking trains is very convenient.

The country is much more urbanized, and the distances are just not that long. Even if you take two big cities - Rotterdam and Amsterdam, it takes like 4 hours to bike. So if you live just a bit in the outskirts, you can still bike to a walkable place, or bike to the train station and go from there.

> "Dutch parenting" allowing kids to bike in the rain...

That's how I grew up IN America. So what is parenting in America now?

Helicopter parenting. You risk a visit from CPS in the best case, and arrest (and forfeiture of your children) in the worst case, for not engaging in it.

> You risk a visit from CPS in the best case, and arrest (and forfeiture of your children) in the worst case, for not engaging in it.

There is evidence of class bias in this policy's enforcement.

I live in Jackson Hole. Kids are unaccompanied everywhere. I also remember the same in Manhattan. My friends raising families in Phoenix, on the other hand, have almost continuous totally-bizarre interactions with their cops.

Do you see kids biking or running around on their own in the US now?

No?

We’ll then, there’s your answer

There are lots of reasons why raising children is becoming harder, and ironically I haven't seen anyone here say the HN classic: scale.

As some things have to be constant, the fewer children we have the more time-consuming and expensive it become to tend to each one. I remembered when I was young that children could be tended in groups, which allowed most of their parents some free time. Now every couple has to do everything by themselves.

When I run for President of the world, one line of my manifesto will be

- all children will be able to walk or cycle to school on car-free physically seperated paths

Freedom to try things and fail is a great gift.

Universal non-chronic prenatal, neonatal and pediatric healthcare seems like a moral and financial no-brainer for our country.

I think CA pretty much provides this, if your employer's health care doesn't (via MediCal and such). I wonder what other states do as well.

The science is in and it confirms that our values are objectively correct

This article accidentially exposes a lot about what's wrong with the US and or western countries in general ... but ... well ... dominantly the US.

Touching the title in a minute, "even when it means permitting them to bike in the rain." already gives a great insight into how utterly clueless she is about what's wrong with her.

*There is nothing wrong with having your child biking during rain.*

"But the kid could get wet and sick." Yeah, well, so what? Congratulations, you're experiencing Life. What if it doesn't get sick? What if this is actually great for the immune system? What if the kid's body "hardens up" a little and it won't get sick next time? Ever thought that through? No? Why?

Anyhow.

"it’s the Dutch social safety net that permits parents to feel safe and secure enough to allow their children this broad freedom and independence."

It is scary that the person who wrote that article actually has no fucking clue what a family is, what friends are, what the word community actually means.

She writes about stuff that used to be the norm and, in most of the rest of the world still is, as if she never experienced them, and ... she apparently didn't.

For the most part of my life, where i live, nobody cared about feeling safe and secure. That's just the obvious US bias she has, because she fucking doesn't.

To actively desire feeling safe and secure one has to live in fear. Where there is no fear, there is no need to desire feeling safe and secure. The whole idea is foreign.

Before the people of the US started living in constant fear, kids played outside. Kids were allowed to hurt themselves. Kids were allowed to play on the road.

People actually trusted each other. They trusted each other with their kids, too.

Anyways, this is all wrong. The happiest kids in the world are those who have parents that raise them with things like curiosity, integrity, dignity, respect, responsibility, a sense for self-improvement. You know, what people often refer to as "values". Sprinkled with actual empathy, instead of morals.

Instead, in the USm they raise their kids to become narcissistic, self entitled, insecure wannabes who care more about their opinions and ideology than about reality and the truth. They raise their kids to lie about literally everything, because an honest thought or feeling expressed towards someone might "hurt" them.

They raise their kids into believing they can do what they want, they can be what they want, they can get what they want, without ever teaching them how to actually know what they actually want and how to achieve what they want.

And how should they? Why should they? Where's the sense for self-improvement supposed to come from, when everyone's supposedly equal and the losers get Participation Trophies so they don't need to feel bad?

The one thing, feeling bad about losing, is literally one of the biggest drivers of self-improvement. "I want to be better than that" turns into a completely foreign idea when everyone constantly being told they're great and even the losers get Trophies anyway!

People with talents aren't talented, they're gifted. The idea, that someone actually might self-improve, is being removed in favour of the idea that one has literally nothing to do with it.

Anyhow!

"But what seems to be frustratingly glossed over in these case studies is the acknowledgment that it is an economic luxury to raise happy, confident kids who pay attention to the environment around them."

No. It fucking isn't. Again, not her fault, she has no clue.

Money doesn't raise good kids. Good parents raise good kids. Period.

It does not, in any way or form, have anything to do with economic luxury. Good parents raise good kids. Period. They can be poor and good parents, they can be rich and good parents. Asshole parents can be poor, or rich. Doesn't matter, they'll be assholes regardless.

Making "economic luxury" a requirement for raising good kids into good adults is greatly underlining that she has no fucking clue what the fuck she's actually talking about. I have little doubt that she never experienced actually good parents, never experienced being raised into a self-responsible, self-confident, self-improving personality and never experienced the base level of human normalcy most of the rest of the world has not yet actually forgotten.

And that's not only not her fault, it most likely also isn't her parents fault. Can't blame people for being raised into a fucked up, artificially created normalcy.

This author is delusional.

The statement "it is an economic luxury to raise happy, confident kids..." is utterly false. American parents (regardless of their economic status) have the ability to choose - where they live, what school their kids attend, what friends they hang out with, etc. That kids would be growing up unhappy or lacking confidence is a failure of parenting ... NOT society or lack of "social safety nets".

"it takes an infrastructure" - Socialist propaganda. The real truth is it takes _a community_ of people (parents) who care enough to make their community work. It used to be these communities centered around churches. Now families are transient, moving from place to place as their parents chase jobs. They're no longer grounded, which is a big reason so many people are asking for the government to intervene and create some sort of "infrastructure." It's BS. People need to wake up.

"only six weeks of paid parental leave" ... Wow. I have 4 kids and all the companies I worked for would have been hit HARD if I took that much time off. I would have been taking money out of my coworkers pockets to support that much time off. The most I ever got might have been 2 weeks. Projects would have failed, we didn't have backups or people who could just "pick up where I left off." So many businesses, especially smaller ones, can't afford that. Making those demands raises the cost of owning / running a business, OR, puts barriers in place when these business look to hire. Questions like, "is this person pregnant, or is there a chance of them or their significant other having a pregnancy" will become a huge blocker.

Utter socialist trash article.

My message to the author: Stop asking me to pay, with my taxes, for you to have a perfect life for your littler kids, when I am already spending so much on my own. I can't afford to pay for yours too. And not only will you be taking my money, you'll also be restricting my choices, as any time the government gets involved it will also remove or make more expensive competing options.

Get off your ass and go build the "infrastructure" you want to see. Ghandi was right. BE the change you wish to see in the world.

And the most successful ones?

By what measure of success?

I think that guy probably means "money"?

Whichever kid has the most when they die wins.

But yeah, there are way more dimensions along which to measure success. Almost every one is more important, in my view, than how much money you have when you die.

No, money is only one parameter (a very influential one) but looks and fitness and power and fame and health and temperament are also involved in the success equation.

Well that's a good discussion starter.

What about preventing the study and discussion to be myopic or monocultural?

What about a study with several cultures ranked by country? The successful criteria could be measured by how the status ladder is composed in each country and making the cultural cosmovision of each country explicitly defined.

It would reveal a lot.

What if you measured success as health + happiness + economic prosperity.

Yeah, but then you’re into utility weighting functions. It’s simpler to just reify wellbeing/happiness because the others are all essentially subsidiary. I think there is probably a Pareto optimum for wellbeing which is not a simple function of health and monetary prosperity.

Do you mean money-wise? What's the point if you're not happy?

The only thing I want for my kids besides them being happy, is that their happiness does not depend on the misery of other human beings. Funnily enough, "success" is often used as a synonym for "being a sociopath born with a silver spoon who does not give a damn about not making others miserable".

I've never much wanted my kids to be happy. I'd shoot them up with heroin if that's all I cared about. Instead, I want them to make and build things, to repair and improve already-made things. To be productive in a plainly measurable way. And if that means their lives are filled with doubts or misgivings, if they aren't ever quite satisfied, if there's never any time to indulge in ennui and existential navel-gazing... so what? I think the word "happy" as used in the present day is at best problematic, but maybe even profoundly pathological.

People who chase happiness seem to do so poorly at seizing it. I can't really imagine the shitshow that would result from an entire country pursuing it as some matter of policy, but if the results are what we see from one fraction of the country whining that we should pursue it to a far higher degree, then god help us all.

>unnily enough, "success" is often used as a synonym for "being a sociopath born with a silver spoon who does not give a damn about not making others miserable".

Perhaps. But I'm still working on getting the silver spoons ready for my grandchildren, and when my kids are old enough they'll work towards that goal too.

>The only thing I want for my kids besides them being happy, is that their happiness does not depend on the misery of other human beings.

Not a single sane person has ever suggested that success depends on the misery of other human beings.

I think the point is that - rather than deliberately wishing misery on others - our society is set up such that success often or always implies creating misery for others.

In the same line of though, happiness as dopamine addiction can lead to sociopathy regardless of wealth production or depletion capacity.

This is wise:

    their happiness does not depend on the misery of other human beings

That's a civilizatory idea.

What I love about these types of questions is that they come completely out of the blue

Like someone will rock up and ask for some stat that's completely irrelevant to the story, just "to make a point", without looking it up first themselves, just to imply something

And then later backtrack with "I WAS JUST ASKING" or something

Nah, go look it up yourself. Define successful for yourself, look up the statistic

Look for things like "happiest countries in the world", "GDP per capita", "life expectancy" or even "Big Mac index". Heck, make up your own index from a mix of them

I'd rather my kids be happy throughout life than "successful", however that is defined (wealth? prestige?). Of course, some success is necessary for happiness, but happiness should be the primary indicator.

I mean, isn't "happiness throughout life", in and of itself, success?

Maybe not the way the suits measure it, but still.

It's not the way American culture generally defines it, either. Wealth and influence are the primary metrics.

By this logic, fathers should be somewhat emotionally absent or abusive in order to produce an adult that is just broken enough to work hand over foot towards being very successful.

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