I'm going to guestblog at Feministe in September. I am going to concentrate on the intersection of parenthood and politics. It will be fun to take our discussions here and bring them to a new audience. I have a few ideas about what I'll write about there, but I would like to get input from you all. What policies and reforms do you think would help you the most?
20 thoughts on “Keys Issues in Politics and Parenthood?”
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Apt. 11d 
Congrats! I hope that means you still be blogging at 11D?
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Yeah. It’s just a one week gig.
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Social security, childcare (especially for kids with special needs).
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health care/insurance, not specifically tied to a job.
tax reform treating independent earners independently.
permitting the pro-rating of benefits costs so that they don’t raise the cost of part-time workers (taking health care/insurance out of this equation will help, but retirement and other costs need to be pro-rated, too).
(note that the last two might actually result in less transfer of wealth to women — I just think they would better align work with pay).
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Maybe I spend too much time reading Atrios and Free-Range Parenting, but I think some of my parenting goals are definitely tied up in issues of the environment I live in. I don’t want to raise my kids in the suburbs. I want to raise them in a small city/an area of some urban density.
So therefore I suggest the issue of school funding, no longer linking it to property taxes. In a burst of ignorant, still-post-partum panic, I ended up putting roots down here in CorruptSmallTown (which is really a ‘burb), but I really wish we were living in the city where I work.
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In an age of helicopter parenting and two-career couples and organization kids (just to throw out some of the usual catch phrases), I’d like to see a focus on what political matters either allow us or get in the way of our situating of our lives and using our time as parents. So, zoning, before and after school day-care, parks and public facilities (including public transportation), part-time work arrangements, etc.
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“…but I really wish we were living in the city where I work.”
Seriously over-rated.
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Here’s a little one: rationalize car seat/booster seat rules. I have had many headaches involving them over the years. Several years ago, I came across the claim from the Freakonomics crew that booster seats do not provide much value-added beyond wearing a simple seat belt. In view of the limitations that bulky booster seats impose on families (choice of vehicle, etc.), I’d like to know if this is true, and if so, I’d like to see changes in state law.
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Put all textbooks in use at public schools online, with the exception of answer keys, tests, etc. If the publisher doesn’t like it after selling a gazillion print textbooks, they can do business elsewhere.
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Enforcement of the 40-hour work week, regardless of salaried or non-salaried status. Wouldn’t that revolutionize parenting?
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If the new administration is going to be looking at Social Security, I’d love to see some kind of social security benefit for stay-at-home parents. Not only did I sacrifice income during the years that I was home with my infant/toddler, I lost any credits for Social Security that I might have earned during that period. Yes, I know that I won’t be able to live on SSA anyway, but I note that my domestic partner, who was bringing in the cash at the time, didn’t have to make the same sacrifice.
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“…but I really wish we were living in the city where I work.”
“Seriously over-rated.”
Why do you say that?
Full disclosure: I am not a parent. But I know that my sister, who is a parent, says her family’s move to a town 10 minutes (one way) from my brother-in-law’s job has greatly eased matters for her during the “arsenic hour(s).”.
He had been working an hour (one way) from his office, which left my sister to juggle meal preparation and two-child-wrangling alone from 5, when she came home from work, until at least 6:30 or 7, when he came home.
The trade-off: She quit a high school teaching job that she’d had for 5 years and had to work part-time at a middle school until a full-time opening came up at that same school. But now each of them works just 10 minutes away from home, and it’s been worth it to have her husband able to share “arsenic hour” duties and do the morning drop-off at preschool/day care.
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Just to clarify, it’s not completely a matter of commute. I like cities. I like walkable cities. I like the older houses you find in cities as opposed to the fugly 1960s ranch we have. I like the idea of raising my kids in a place where they can walk or take public transit. I like having neighbors who don’t spend all their time in their backyards on their decks.
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“Why do you say that?”
I’ve probably complained enough about Pittsburgh for one blog. I could leave the city without adding ten minutes to the commute I have now.
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“So therefore I suggest the issue of school funding, no longer linking it to property taxes.”
This is largely true in my state — the majority of school funding comes from the state (which in turn gets most of its revenue from sales tax). I used to think it a panacea, too. And, I do think its better than the property tax system where huge iniquities could exist (ala the Texas court case). But, equalizing (rather than equitizing) state funding doesn’t solve the suburb/urban divide, because the students inside cities are less homogenous and more costly to educate (urban services, like counseling, crime, english language learners, . . . ). Some of that extra cost is supported from federal sources (for free lunch, title I funds, etc.). But, it still leaves a divide between suburban and urban schools that is noticeable. You also get significant disparities within a city.
I’m with Amy on the car seat thing. I’ve read the Freakonomics report, as well as some of the original studies. I think that the benefit of bulky car seats does not justify the legal requirements for them. And, I think the effect of car seat on vehicle choice is huge, and has significant environmental consequences. We bought a minivan because of car seats.
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MH: why don’t you leave? Are you bound by a requirement to live in the city? That was the case in Chicago, where city employees were required to live within the city limits. Was, in the 1980’s, 1990’s, don’t know if it’s still true. At the time, I was annoyed by the rule (remember thinking how unfair it was to 2 earner families, where two cities could conceivably make the same rule). But now, I find it pretty questionable.
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“Are you bound by a requirement to live in the city?”
No, just the high cost of moving.
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Re original question: why, oh why, does the school day end at 3? Why can’t we have year-round school (with the longish breaks between quarters instead of the 3 months of summer), 8:30 to 5:30, to more closely match work schedules, or at least to make it conceivable that two parents working 40-hr-per-week jobs could handle both ends of the schoolday?
Oh wait . . . the teachers unions . . . that’s why.
And believe me, I know that the teachers do work outside of the school day, but with a longer schoolday, perhaps with more arts/music education with specials teachers, they could get that done between 8:30 and 5:30?
Plus, the schools don’t seem to think that the hours between 3 and 5:30 are any of their business AT ALL. In my local school’s aftercare program, although it’s physically based in the school, it’s almost as if it doesn’t exist in the minds of the administration/faculty.
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if you’re still looking for ideas here…better incentives for employers to offer quality on- or near-site childcare. Or how about Canadian-style maternity leave?
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How about some funds for school to run all day, rather than end at 3? Most after care programs are run by separate organizations, not the schools themselves, with crappy budgets. I wish I knew where to get the $$ for this. My partner runs an afterschool arts program that operates in some of the poorest schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is funded by grants from private foundations, as no parents have money for after care there, and if the grants don’t come through, the kids are just kept hearded in the gym or sneak out to get in trouble.
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