[blackeyeblitzar]

The reality is that raising a baby requires full time attention of one person and really even more than what one person can give. Our social and economic systems have not evolved to recognize this reality and support it properly. Even with one person full time, you do need help to catch up on chores or to just take a break or to keep yourself in a good mental state. Otherwise, you aren’t going to be able to give what is needed. Anything less, and you are definitely dropping the ball SOMEWHERE to make it work - you’re either hurting your own health or depriving your child of parenting/attention or whatever else. There’s no shortcut and I simply do not believe anyone says everyone just makes it work. Sorry they only do that by providing a reduced amount of parental attention to their baby, full stop.

[tptacek]

No it doesn't. That wasn't a norm historically and it's not a reality for probably most working families.

[blackeyeblitzar]

> That wasn't a norm historically and it's not a reality for probably most working families.

The norm historically is that people lived in homes with extended family like grandparents. There were always multiple people taking care of young children. I get that you want to defend your own parenting experience, but I think you are ignoring what you left on the table.

[tptacek]

I don't think that's been true in the United States for a very long time. In fact, multigenerational households are at a high now, from a low over 50 years ago.

[the_mar]

in the 1990s ~50% of women were in the workforce. in 1970 it was 40%, married women with children having to work is a recent phenomenon.

[tptacek]

Standards of parental attachment, caregiving intensity, early childhood enrichment, and quality time with parents outside of working hours are radically different today than they were in the 1980s or the 1970s. The 1970s were not a golden era of intensive mothering; in fact, in a lot of ways, the norms of early childhood parenting we know now are reactions to 1970s parenting.

At any rate, I was just making a comment about the prevalence of multigenerational caregiving. I would contend: it was also not a major thing in '70s and '80s America (though it probably was much earlier in the 20th century, and in other countries).

[popalchemist]

That doesn't make it any less true; you simply need to widen your gaze to include more of history. Multi-family homes was the case for more of history than it wasn't; the nuclear family arose with modernity. Further back, as in millions or hundreds of millions of years, prior, we also lived in tribes.

[tptacek]

Yes, you're right, I have paid insufficient attention to the parenting norms of hunter-gatherer societies and their implications for work-from-home software development jobs. Thank you for the note.

[foobarian]

It's in the old "it takes a village" adage. Extended family and neighbors.