chlodwig (u/chlodwig)

chlodwig commented on The most banned books in U.S. schools pen.org/top-52-banned-boo... · Posted by u/FigurativeVoid

_vqpz · 3 months ago

Probably when it's the parents making the decision for their own kids, not another authority.

chlodwig · 3 months ago

Except the definition used in the article, a ban is when a parent group disagrees with the authorities (the librarians) and does not want the book in a tax-payer funded library: "PEN America defines a school book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished."

So if a librarian goes to a conference and learns, "hey we need to remove these books from the lirbary because they are bigoted/racist/problematic" and they do so, that is not a book ban. But if parents say, "hey this book is not appropriate for our kids, this should not be in a school library", and they raise hell to get it removed, that is a book ban. The whole framing is dumb.

chlodwig commented on The most banned books in U.S. schools pen.org/top-52-banned-boo... · Posted by u/FigurativeVoid

chlodwig · 3 months ago

Reminder: a "book ban" is simply when a there is book that is acclaimed by the establishment, available in book stores across America, on the shelves of thousands of school libraries, but somewhere, some school board, or parent group does not want it in their curriculum or a tax-payer funded library. A "book ban" is parents and taxpayers overriding curation the decisions of government librarians.

It is simply a Russell conjugation: librarians curate books; parents and school boards ban books.

Personally, I don't trust librarians or school boards, and I put a lot of work into curating reading material for my own children. Many of the books I value are out-of-print, or unavailable in any public library, whereas almost all these so-called "banned books" are available in most public libraries. So yeah, these lists get a giant eye-roll from me.

chlodwig commented on New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care governor.state.nm.us/2025... · Posted by u/toomuchtodo

benterix · 6 months ago

> I am curious though, would this job that mom goes back to actually be more "productive" than taking care of a four year-old and two-year old human child?

Actually, any job she likes? In this case, it's not for the baby, it's for her. Being with a child 24/7 has its toll, and people are social animals, they like being with others. In this case, work - especially white collar - is a kind of rest for parents. At least this is the attitude of many fresh mums (and dads) around me.

chlodwig · 6 months ago

Taking care of a baby can be very social ... as long as the other mother's aren't all at work.

And what exactly are these jobs that are a rest compared to taking care of a baby? Are they actually economically productive or are they bureaucratic fake jobs?

I have noticed that many of my peer parents make parenting more stressful than it needs to be, and don't invest enough in learning techniques to make it less stressful. Like, some parents don't even invest in baby-proofing and then they are constantly chasing their toddler around. But, the first year of baby is always going to be stressful because everything is so new, just as the first year at a brand new job is always going to be more stressful than a job one is highly experienced at.

chlodwig commented on New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care governor.state.nm.us/2025... · Posted by u/toomuchtodo

fragmede · 6 months ago

> Who gets to be sleep deprived?

The live-in nanny. A high-paid lawyer and a sr software engineer together make, let's presume they make $500k/yr combined. They should take some of that money and hire someone else to do it for them. The question shouldn't be to compare one mom's job vs taking care of two children, there should be a team of professional adults taking care of a cadre of children. Amortized over that, the numbers look a bit better.

chlodwig · 6 months ago

> there should be a team of professional adults

Look up how much housing costs, and how much professional nannies cost, in a location where the software engineer and lawyer are making $500k combined. And you'll need at least two nannies, one overnight, one during the day. I don't think the math is going to work out very well. Also, there are a lot of greedy jobs that don't pay nearly as well as $250k, especially early in career.

chlodwig commented on New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care governor.state.nm.us/2025... · Posted by u/toomuchtodo

bryanlarsen · 6 months ago

I've never seen a daycare with more than 5% of staff doing admin. Either it's a small daycare with a handful of workers and everybody doing care, or it's a large one with one person doing admin.

chlodwig · 6 months ago

It all adds up. On average, daycare in USA costs $18k a year per child ( https://www.care.com/c/how-much-does-child-care-cost/ ), which is the best measure of the total resources that it takes up, all-in. Median income for a 30yo man is $55k and for a woman $45k. So even with just two kids, the lower earning parent with the non-greedy job is not clearing much if anything over the cost of the daycare.

chlodwig commented on New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care governor.state.nm.us/2025... · Posted by u/toomuchtodo

bryanlarsen · 6 months ago

That only works if you have at least 5 kids. Otherwise the ratio of kids to caregivers is higher at the daycare than with a stay at home parent.

chlodwig · 6 months ago

No, because you have to count all the employment going into running and supplying the daycare, which includes facilities, equipment, administration, extra staff, etc. You have to look at the all-in cost.

chlodwig commented on New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care governor.state.nm.us/2025... · Posted by u/toomuchtodo

bryanlarsen · 6 months ago

1 greedy job + 1 non-greedy job + daycare is surely better for the economy than 1 greedy job + no job, isn't it?

If the economy is what you're trying to optimize for.

chlodwig · 6 months ago

I don't want to optimize for the economy... but if I did ...

Instead of having the second parents work the non-greedy job painting a house or what-not, and then third-parties working in the child care industry ... just have the second parent take care of their own children and the third-parties painting the houses or what not. Your equation leaves out that the parent taking care of their own kid frees up the workers from the daycare industry to do something else. So their is no net loss in output. It only is a net loss if daycare is so much more efficient at taking care of kids that one day-care worker can free up multiple parents to work non-greedy jobs, but when you look at the all-in costs of daycare including administration and facilities and floaters that is not really the case.

chlodwig commented on New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care governor.state.nm.us/2025... · Posted by u/toomuchtodo

hellojesus · 6 months ago

Yes, but that should be the point. Public goods are defined as nonrivalous and nonexcludable. Subsidies fail these conditions. On what grounds should we delegate nonpublic goods/services be provided by the government and not the private sector?

chlodwig · 6 months ago

The argument is that producing children has massive positive externalities; there is value created for society that is not captured by the parent. In economics terms, all gains-from-trade for the child's future labor is a positive for society that the parent will not capture. Or for illustration, imagine nobody had any children. You would get to retirement age and find you could not buy food because there was no one to farm, you could not get healthcare because there were no more doctors and nurses or construction workers to build hospitals.

Of course the tricky thing is that not all children produce positive externalities, some have massively negative externalities and a naive subsidy might encourage the wrong kind of reproduction ...

Anyways, if you don't want any subsidies, one policy change is to eliminate general social security and simply have each retiree get the social security money paid only from their own children. Social security is not a savings plan or insurance, what it actually is is a socialized version of the current generation of children paying for their parents retirement. The non-socialized version is just the parents getting money of the kids that they raised themselves, and if you did not put in the work of raising kids, you don't get social security.

chlodwig commented on New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care governor.state.nm.us/2025... · Posted by u/toomuchtodo

tempfile · 6 months ago

I was with you til the end, so now I need to ask what you really mean by "greedy jobs". I took it to mean jobs that are all-consuming, no fixed hours, high pressure, high stress. If that is what you mean then I seriously doubt your claim that there are few non-greedy jobs that contribute to the economy. The vast majority of jobs are non-greedy by this definition, unless the US has really regressed so far from Europe as to be unrecognisable.

chlodwig · 6 months ago

If that is what you mean then I seriously doubt your claim that there are few non-greedy jobs that contribute to the economy.

What I said is "that contribute to the economy enough to be of more value than childcare" Picking up trash or painting houses are important jobs that contribute to the economy, but they are not more valuable than caring for children nor do they pay more, so there is little point in a second parent going back to work as a house painter and then paying for daycare, or having the state subsidize daycare.

In a medium cost-of-living city in America, two kids in daycare will cost $40k-$45k. There aren't many non-greedy, non-sinecure/subsidized jobs that will pay enough after taxes and commute costs to make entering the workforce worth it. And I don't see the point in actively subsidizing the childcare versus giving all parents some assistance and then letting them choose the more economically efficient path.

chlodwig commented on New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care governor.state.nm.us/2025... · Posted by u/toomuchtodo

ndriscoll · 6 months ago

It's not a crab bucket mentality. Subsidizing one group that competes in the same markets (e.g. only dual income families, who compete with single income families for housing in desirable areas to raise kids) actually increases costs for the unsubsidized group. It doesn't just make them relatively worse off, but absolutely worse off. It shifts the margin of who can afford a single family lifestyle, all else equal.

Since it's subsidizing specific behavior and not merely being poor or whatever, people will naturally look at whether they think that behavior ought to be incentivized, or whether the government should stay neutral.

My wife is also a stay at home mom, and I've argued before that an increase in the child tax credit with a phase out for high income (so we might not qualify) makes more sense than a childcare credit/deduction for this reason. Then you're just subsidizing having kids, which seems fine to me (assuming we're subsidizing anything) since that's sort of necessary to sustain society.

chlodwig · 6 months ago

Yea, more dual-income families means:

- Bidding up the price of housing

- Fewer parents active in overseeing the schools, volunteering to fix up the community, etc.

- Less general slack for parents to help each other out

- Fewer mom friends around during the day, less social life for existing stay-at-home moms

- Peer pressure and implicit societal pressure to work a career

- Parents sending their kids to camps and aftercare, rather than having kids free-range around the neighborhood and play with friends, so fewer playmates for the non-camp/non-daycare kids.