For the most part, the real solution to child abuse or mistreatment is to deal with the parents. America does a poor job of providing adequate support to parents. We have a lot of family unfriendly policies.
The US is on a short list of countries that don't provide maternity leave. All the others are dirt poor. We have no such excuses.
We have terrible healthcare policies. At one time, it was somewhat common for dad to be the primary breadwinner and have a decent job with benefits, including healthcare for the wife and kids. Mom worked part time or was a homemaker.
Now, even if both parents work, the kids may not be automatically covered on either parent's healthcare policy from work. They may have to pay extra for that. (Though I'm not clear how much Obamacere changed that.)
In much of Europe, it is still somewhat common for the extended family to help raise the kids, daycare is generally more readily available, maternity leave is the norm, etc.
You don't have to try hard at all to find countries with better family-friendly policies than the US, even without having sophisticated, well-thought-out ideas about what that should mean.
As I'm from Northern Europe and have lived in Western Europe (In a country where I speak the language) for some time I'm wondering what kind of basis you have for your claim.
It's especially the following part that I'm curious about as that has not been my experience but if you have statistics then I would be happy too look at them.
"In much of Europe, it is still somewhat common for the extended family to help raise the kids...."
In the United States, 24% of children under five have been cared for by grandparents in the previous month (Laughlin, 2013), and a study of 11 European countries showed that 58% of grandmothers and 49% of grandfathers looked after at least one of their grandchildren aged under 16 in the preceding year in the absence of parents
I've read extensively on such topics over the years. Sometimes, my stats are a little out of date because I did a lot more such reading in my twenties and I'm now 54.
But, overall, my understanding is that what I read about differences between women's rights and family-friendly policies between the US and Europe when I was a homemaker in my twenties trying to figure out why the hell I didn't magically end up with the two career couple family I had imagined would happen has not really changed all that much. The gap in some things is less wide, but it's mostly a matter of degree, not kind.
Are those numbers directly comparable? The US figure is “in the past month” for “under five years old” and the European figure is “in the past year” and “under 16 years old.”
Having lived in several countries including the US, the UK, and Switzerland, there doesn’t seem to be much difference. It’s pretty common for older kids to visit grandparents everywhere, and somewhat less common for grandparents to look out for younger kids while the parents go do something.
Among people I know, grandparent living in the same city taking care of child when parents cant is quite normal. It is not thought as "raising the child", but more of as helping to parents.
Every dollar spent on helping to care for the nation's children that are below a certain age saves several dollars on down the line on things like incarceration.
This is a penny wise, pound foolish attitude. If you want to be a "stingy bastard," the "stingy bastard" option is to take care of the kids so they don't become bigger problems down the line.
(Not intended to name call. Just intended to characterize a certain position.)
It feels like there's some kind of weird amnesia that a lot of people experience, where for part of their lives they forget they were ever children.
They read about a child friendly policy and think about "other people". Somehow their mind doesn't click in such a way that they can generalise and understand that such measures might be universal and benefit every future person[1]. And that they would have helped them too.
[1] At least, those lucky enough to have families.
I know it's difficult to disagree, but please don't strawman.
Obviously I know everyone was a kid. But we agree as a society that parents are responsible for the financial burdens of their offspring. It isn't fair to make people who choose not to have kids to pay for those who do.
And maternity leave isn't really a benefit for the child--it's a benefit to the parent. No one will ever remember their first 8 weeks of life.
Just like it isn't fair to make people who don't take vacations to pay for those who do.
I don't believe one has a right to have children in the same sense that one has a right to fair trial or healthcare. If you cannot afford to skip work for 8 weeks, then save money or don't have a kid.
I'm sorry that I unfairly characterised your position.
My perspective is that universal worker's rights (like the 40hr week, paid maternity leave, minimum yearly vacation weeks) help prevent the "trap of moloch" (context: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/). The kind of system traps that ends up screwing human beings. The purpose of work, money, capitalism, government is to benefit human beings. When the pursuit of system goals ends up getting in the way of human needs then the system is broken and needs to be fixed. When we define good baselines there is no competitive penalty for organisations that provide sane benefits.
Taking vacations as an example, we need laws to define some vacation minimum because it seems self evident that all human beings need some level of downtime in their life. If we don't define a minimum then competitive pressure will squeeze this out such that only the well off ever get time off.
Our systems need human-shaped holes carved out in them to prevent the things that make life good from being optimized away.
My perspective is slightly different than yours; I suppose I believe that every child has the right to enjoy their first few weeks of life in as peaceful an environment as can practically be arranged and that all parents deserve time to physically and mentally recover from childbirth and have time to adjust to the reality of a new child.
I think this is absolutely beneficial to the child and I still maintain that in the steady state it is not actually redistributive because everyone receives the benefit and everyone pays for every other person to get it.
I wonder how many kids end up costing "several dollars" down the line because they had good, responsible parents who just had to work and couldn't be there as much as they wanted because they had to put food on the table. Versus kids who had absentee parents who didn't even want to be there in the first place, or abusive parents.
Basically, I don't think it's a given that there will be huge dividends down the line if you just provide free child care to people.
> Versus kids who had absentee parents who didn't even want to be there in the first place, or abusive parents.
While always a risk the fact remains many parents who would like to do better for their kids cannot. Finances are a huge part of that. Taking off some of that pressure means the would-be-better parents can be better.
And for those who would game the system or prove unfit there is CPS. Obviously CPS cannot be perfect itself. Still we should try our best to get as close as we can; individually, as institutions, and as a society.
It is not just whether you are there x amount of time. It is also whether when you are there you lash out of stress or whether you are happy calm stable.
It is also whether you are so overworked and tired that you cant think of kids problems vs you had time to think through kids behavior and figure out there is an issue. It is whether you are isolated in bubble of own head or whether you get to meet variety of people to understand how society works and have experience with it.
It is whether you are high confidence and mentally ok to discuss issues with kids friends parents, or whether you are low confidence on end of rope generally so you cant (or botches it).
There is no such thing as 'paid leave', other than in exceptional circumstances they all come out of your paycheck.
You can't make an employer pay for your leave. Market competition is already ensuring that all the money he could give you, he is giving you through competition. Making a 'paid leave' law does not reduce his profit margin.
Not true. Well I'm not sure of the US implementation but generally the state pays parental leave. The amount can be tied to a persons salary up to a point.
Salary has to be competitive for those that don't want kids anyway.
