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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32824 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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Right, I don't think the current system is working even if me and my fiancé seemed to have done not too badly given the shape of things, we'll have two or three kids and do our part but I won't say it wouldn't have been better if we had them during like college years. We have some but not as much as I'd like family nearby to help a bit but are still working out how daycare and the like will work. I'm a software engineer and have been playing around with the idea of reducing my workload and finding a purely work from home gig to be a stay at home dad. We're pretty blessed/privileged to have the kind of solvable problems we have and I do think we need more practical changes.

I am not pursuing a similar lifestyle to yours, but I've never actually understood why people even consider paying more for daycare than they would for a nanny(who is not in a position to make ~$100k/yr, or anything close). Kinda off topic, I know.

Maybe we would get a nanny, and I interpreted the 100k/year estimate as hyperbole. My ideal situation would be to have my and her parents take turns watching them on the ~3 days a week I go into the office. Realistically it's going to be an evolved system where we try things and learn.

Are you planning to spend the other two days WFH while multitasking the childcare? If so, don't. Some people (including my wife and I) did WFH with kids during the pandemic because they had no other options, and it was a disaster for productivity, kids, and sanity (we now have a nanny). Responsible employers are now asking WFH parents about childcare arrangements in order to make sure that people are not WFH with uncared-for kids in the house.

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