[conanbatt]

Babysitting a single child is economically very inefficient. Its something teenage girls can do while they watch tv. A full grown adult with skills is worth considerably more to society working than babysitting.

Its not an economic necessity that both parents work, the incentive to do it is extremely large and probably pure conservatism had been keeping it at bay, if at all.

[linkregister]

This perspective ignores the drastic difference in the quality between one caretaker and another. Among middle-class parents, the cost of an engaged preschool provider or nanny with a good teacher:child ratio that can match the quality of care of an invested parent meets or exceeds the median salary.

Especially for parents with multiple children, it is economically rational to have a parent at home to provide that customized 1-on-1 care with the child. The benefit is improved learning and opportunity for experiences (daily trips to museums, sports activities, classes) at the expense of less structured socialization with a peer group and a loss in net household profit.

Though the tax break afforded for day care should not be disregarded, there are plenty of situations where it makes sense to have a parent stay at home with children.

Most parents choose to have children so they can spend time with them. Maximizing this at the expense of some net household profit can be rational, given certain living situations. One could argue it is a luxury, and they would likely be right. Having children at all in advanced industrial societies is, in the individual case, usually a luxury.

[lieut_data]

Society underestimates the long-term economic value of a child raised by a full-time, invested parent. Parenting and babysitting are apples and oranges.

[conanbatt]

No it doesn't. Otherwise, every single teacher, caretaker, would quit their jobs as soon as they had a child and would get the same economical benefit.

If it were a productive investment it would be common because those that do it would easily outclass the rest.

[milesrout]

They don't do that because they can't afford to do that. That's sad and unfortunate.

[conanbatt]

Or because its simply inefficient, and you must bear the price of doing it if you want it.

[inimino]

Not everything that matters in life is captured by our economic system. If you have kids I can only hope this will become clear to you.

[milesrout]

It's not inefficient. It's not efficient. It's got nothing to do with efficiency.

[conanbatt]

? Of course it is. If every man and woman spent 18 years without producing anything at all to take care of their children, we would probably go extinct. Having 1 person take care of 10 at a time increases productivity by 19 people!

Of craouse we would all like to have the option to take as much time as we want to take care of our own, its akin to wanting to amass enough wealth to never have to work again.

[onion2k]

Being a parent is not babysitting.

[conanbatt]

Its mostly babysitting. You can divide the effort to raise a child as nursing, teaching and babysitting. The parent is most invested into doing it, but he cannot get very good as a nurse or a teacher (if its not his profession) and babysitting is very low value. You definitely cannot spend 8 hours a day teaching a baby things, and most of the things you teach are quite low skilled (exercise, playing, reading, etc).

If the parent can earn a lot more income by delegating responsibilities he will do it, or rather, most will do it.