My take on the motherhood issue:
Our society is immensely hypocritical about it. On the one hand, it is seemed vitally important that women not only bear children but devote the bulk of their time and energy to caring for them. The social pressure on women to put their children first, always, and if that means cutting their own education short or stalling out their careers, well then so be it. Because raising children is vitally important...
...but not so important, apparently, that we as a society should bother compensating women for doing it. A woman who does what she is supposed to, and gives up her career in order to be a full-time mother, is rendered financially dependent. Her joy in her children and her satisfaction in knowing that she is contributing to the next generation of society, are supposed to be all the compensation she needs. And if godforbid she doesn't do this all-important, worthless job exactly right, if her children ever misbehave in public or suffer emotional problems or get bad grades in school, she is castigated. It's all her fault.
No wonder more and more women are going childfree.
Actually, it's my understanding that under common law, women who are involved in upkeep of the family and the hold are considered to have contributed to the value of an estate and that's factored in with such things as divorce-such as once one immediately becomes a doctor.
It's been too long since my last Economic Analysis of Law course though.
Who the heck is going to pay her wages for being a wife and mother? Her husband?
If you say "the state", well, a market economy is in every way superior to a command economy.
“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard^ And in case the last 50 years of welfare moms, Chav families and more isn't evidence enough, the more you reward having children at the state level, the more dependence you breed into society.
I'm not against kids or whatnot but a line has to be drawn at free money from the government just for having a baby.
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^^Begging the question, obviously, since this is precisely the circumstance under which we're asserting why a non-market system is required.
^Straw man, I guess, since it takes an earlier idea and runs with it. I guess that might be a slipper slope thing though.
edited 5th Jan '11 6:54:05 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
Why don't you tell me, Rott? Is full-time motherhood so important that women must be pushed into performing it whether they want to or not, or is it worth so little that they must not expect to be paid for it? The answer may be "neither" but it cannot be "both."
edited 5th Jan '11 9:44:04 PM by Karalora
Of course we do pay people for having children
, for the sensible reason that we want to keep the country populated.
Fun game: Name anyone you've known who has deliberately lived off of welfare!
Anyone?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Me neither.
Karalora: Why can't it be both? Cognitive Dissonance is something that humans tend to be really, really good at.
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw^^ My brother in law works at a welfare office in Seattle. From what he told me during Christmas, he could name 15 or 20 off the top of his head. (also a few people with hilarious names, but I digress)
I would not consider this an acceptable substitution for more than an hour or so after school. Daycares are not exactly shining bastions of discipline.
edited 5th Jan '11 10:35:51 PM by Pykrete
@ whomever it was: The mother staying at home doesn't necessarily mean that she's looking after children. My mom was a "housewife" for the first 11 years of my life, and I don't remember ever seeing much of her. She was always either washing clothes (no running water -> no washing machine) or weeding the fields or preparing meals. And neither me nor my brother are even remotely dysfunctional. There are millions of children in this world whose mothers are too poor and too busy to have any time for them, you aren't going to say that all those children have psychological problems, are you? Especially since just a few hundred years ago, almost ALL mothers on the planet were too busy looking after livestock and weeding the fields to spend ridiculous amounts of time taking care of their children. The "a parent has to be at home" thing doesn't make any sense, because it would mean that for the most of human history, children have been growing up dysfunctional, and you aren't going to claim that, are you?
edited 6th Jan '11 1:13:42 AM by fanty
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Remind me, why is "discipline" important to a child? Self-discipline is important later on, but that comes secondary to self respect and being able to function with others.
All too oft people seem to think that strictness and petty tyranny make a child more "disciplined", all it did in some of my friends cases was want to make them drink till they can't see.
Children do indeed need some sort of discipline. I've met little girls who simply did not take no for an answer. Learning to respect other people is never a bad thing.
It's not so much discipline I would worry about, though - there's a general lack of attention given to children in daycares.
edited 6th Jan '11 1:52:16 AM by LoniJay
Be not afraid...This topic actually came up in one of my classes a few years back - did you know that in some European countries, not only is paid parental leave available to both the mother and the father, but it some countries it is a requirement that both parents take at least some time off?
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I can say that the UK does some paternity leave, both Maternity and Paternity leave is for 26 weeks paid. You can't as a household claim both at once as far as I can make out.
edited 6th Jan '11 8:46:07 AM by IanExMachina
By the powers invested in me by tabloid-reading imbeciles, I pronounce you guilty of paedophilia!It is. Daycares are a nigh-unmitigated clusterfuck.
Regarding doing what you're told, children are not known for being rational, altruistic, and respectful 100% of the time. You were, you understood safety the first time, you weren't an asshole, great. I knew several too, and the daycare would've been utterly unbearable without their presence. I also knew a lot that were manipulative fucks who perfectly understood such concepts as reciprocal altruism (even if they didn't know the exact words) and saw it as an opportunity to exploit people with impunity. Very little effort was spent to curb this in any way in daycares, and very little could have been anyway just because of how many kids there are compared to how many supervisors, most of whom are too busy trying to keep the less-bright bulbs from eating paste.
Regarding learning self-discipline, this is highly unlikely to occur from a harried daycare supervisor that barely has time to talk to you if he/she even bothers learning your name. While it is certainly possible to pick up on it without a persistent parental figure, one is vastly preferable.
edited 6th Jan '11 12:34:01 PM by Pykrete

Besides, if Breast Milk is so good, then just invest in Momma's Pride Human Breast Milk.
Baby yourself-with Momma's Pride.