You missed my point. Putting children in childcare is not 'having time for them' before the pandemic. They didn't have the time required even before the pandemic, it's just that there was a way to cover up for that lack of time before.
I'm pretty sure a kid only interacting with their parents for their whole childhood is a good way to get some really messed up kids. One of the things I've noticed really heavily during this pandemic is how much kids miss out from school and social interaction. Childcare isn't just "store children until I get off work", it's engagement. It's that child getting a variety of structured and unstructured time with educators and other kids.
I could have all of the free time in the world, and childcare would still be better for the kid than entirely time at home.
> I'm pretty sure a kid only interacting with their parents for their whole childhood is a good way to get some really messed up kids.
That is not an argument I am making. That is a good way to beat a strawman.
My point is not that they shouldn't be in childcare at all, but that society should support such economic conditions that parents are allowed to spend more time with their kids without having to compromise their economic prospects and so that when they cannot send their children to childcare, say because of a pandemic, it is only a minor inconvenience, rather than a significant burden.
> Childcare isn't just "store children until I get off work", it's engagement. It's that child getting a variety of structured and unstructured time with educators and other kids.
That's the ideal. When you're well educated, have the means to pick up the best childcare for you kid you can find, have done the research, but there's lots of families for whom, yes, childcare is precisely just "store children until I get off work", not out of malice, but because their economic situation hardly allows them to think about it much.
> How is this different from buying farm-grown produce at the grocery store rather than raising it in a garden?
It's different in that you're not directly affecting the well being of people dependent on you by making that choice, apart of course from them being living beings.
> don't buy an unsupported argument that says that everyone "should" do it that way
Am not saying what anyone should be doing, you do you, just that I think many parents don't realize how much responsibility is it to have children and even if they do, the current way society is set up doesn't allow them to do their best, in most cases.
> It's different in that you're not directly affecting the well being of people dependent on you by making that choice, apart of course from them being living beings.
Can I infer that you think constant engagement with parents produces the best outcomes for children? Why do you think that?
