3 karma · joined January 10, 2020
And again, I am all for fathers taking time off to spend with their kids. I just think the narrative is harmful.
Harmful to women, actually, who tend to be forced out of their motherhood privileges by well-meaning laws.
As for "fathers feeling uncomfortable", I am not buying it. That is just in people's head and could be remedied with a little propaganda (some TV shows telling people it's fine to take time off as a father). Finances on the other hand are a real world issue.
Seriously, you would forego spending time with your children because it makes you uncomfortable that society might frown upon it? There are no real repercussions, just a mild feeling of uneasiness?
Businesses are not at fault for their employees getting pregnant, so why should they have to shoulder the risk? If society wants to protect mothers, society should pay up, not the individual businesses.
Are you saying people shouldn't run childcare facilities? Or only huge childcare facilities are allowed, which certainly wasn't the intention of the laws for maternal leave?
Example: our childcare facility employs two people, and replacements are VERY difficult to find at the moment.
I'm all for fathers spending time with their children, but this kind of framing annoys me.
The feminist narrative, which governments seem to swallow, is that fathers don't want to spend time with their children, and force mothers out of their careers.
The reality is probably that it is primarily a financial issue. Fathers spending more time with their children means less money for the family, in most cases. Not only is the compensation usually lower than the salary, many dads also fear disadvantages in the job when they stay away for too long, which would also result in less money for the family.
And yes, there are also reasons why it is expected primarily of fathers to provide for the family. It is not just an arbitrary social construct.
Just because people have been trying to convince us of that theory, doesn't mean we have to believe it. Ask yourself who is doing the convincing and what might be their motive.
Anybody who has ever used Social Media knows that in general, bots don't simply get access to your timeline. First they would have to get you to follow them, a much harder problem than running thousands or millions of bots.
Likewise for shills - first you have to get people to follow you.
The notion that we would all be happily in love with each other, if it weren't for bots and chills, isn't really worth investigating.
People are angry online because there are fights over real issues. It's not just Mac vs PC anymore, it is about money, land ownership, power, control... People tend to get angry if you try to take away their stuff.
As a simple example: many people like video games. Other people came around claiming video games are sexist, and try to get game makers to change the games. That is some serious meddling with something many people hold dear. Of course that makes them angry.
People on HN believe that? The web has changed...
Nobody can really be surprised by that, though? Meaning people who sign up are aware that it could happen eventually?
Not that I see the point of the particular project, but I also think not every possible kind of fun should be illegal because of "privacy".
A better example would perhaps be Pokemon Go. Lots of people enjoy playing that game. The question is how does Niantic use the data, but a game like that would not automatically have to exploit the data.
The evil information that can be extracted from the location data may also be exaggerated.
Not sure if you are aware, but if you don't like them anymore, there are ways to get rid of them. You could send them to a boarding school (or at least to a school where they have to stay at school all day), hire a nanny, or give them up for adoption, for example. If your parents are still alive, you could ask them to take over, too.
As for feminism, the whole discussion only exists because of feminism. Therefore, yes, it is about feminism.
Childbearing is of course not the only cost of having a child. Custody and parental leave just make it a bit less expensive (at least for some).
However, the initial investment is usually mostly by the mother. Other expenses come later. I think you could discuss who has the right to the kid if, say, the mother abandons it after birth and the father lovingly raises it for 10 years. I suppose that is also what happens in custody lawsuits?
I like this comparison, but only because I haven't found a better one yet:
Suppose you dream of sailing, and you start building a sailing boat. You work on it for a year, building the boat with your own hands.
The day the sailing boat is ready, your husband takes it from you, says "thank you, now you may go back to your normal career again", and sails off to unknown lands with your ship, while society applauds his sacrifice for the sake of your career.
I think technological progress has freed women to do other things than, say washing clothes and other household chores.
That doing other things can of course benefit society, if they so chose. A washing machine saving 16 hours of labor per week can bring society a benefit of 16 work hours per week.
As for childcare, I am not sure I agree that organizing childcare so that fewer people can take care of the children is necessarily a benefit. It can be, but there seems to be a limit, too. For example few people would say "one person is enough to take care of 100 toddlers", which would free 99 people (mothers, mostly) to do other things than childcare.
Also, if we think in terms of "benefits to society", wouldn't there be other worthwhile targets? For example, what if instead of watching TV, people would do something useful for society? It would be a huge net benefit - so maybe we should outlaw TVs?
Meaning we neglect that people may have children because they like having them, not because they want to provide a service to society.
Essentially, the going theory seems to be that society would be better of if it would delegate childcare to less people per child, contrary to the "traditional" one on one of mothers and their children. (Thinking about it, in the old days mothers had more children, so it was rarely one on one either).
Also, it seems to consider having children merely as a productive factor for society, rather than something people do for its own sake.
I like to compare children to Ferraris, as both are expensive (children probably even more so than Ferraris).
So in analogy, people like to buy Ferraris, but society would be better off if those Ferraris would be parked in somebody else's garage. Think about all the time people waste driving their Ferraris, which they could have otherwise put to productive use for the benefit of society.
It's not even a question of "I can't help you with that because of your privilege", it is that the question is not even the question.
Of course there are dads who wouldn't like to stay at home, or who don't even consider it because of societal traditions. Likewise mothers who don't want to stay home (less often). Overall, it is a question of money (privilege), and a private matter between the parents.
There are also changed expectation, although presumably those can be managed. But once daycare is available, pressure can be on women to actually work. Where I live, you get strange looks if you don't give your kid to daycare from age one.
Apart from that it seems to me if somebody has a well paying career (like Amanda), they should be able to afford daycare anyway. If they don't, I'm not sure if society should pay for daycare just so that somebody can go to work to satisfy their ego (if their work yields less than the cost of daycare).
And if you believe the feminist narrative that it is dads forcing mothers to take care of the kids, consider that most women chose their jobs and the expected salary long before they meet the future father of their kids. Man choose careers that pay less, so the fathers end up having to earn the money. Them staying at home would simply mean less money for the family, often not enough money.