Chasing your toddler for an hour is fun. Chasing your toddler day after day, hour after hour because you have no one else to help you might not be so fun.
There is distinct difference in the fun of raising children in a village where there are tons of other kids with low risk of cars so they can play outside freely, and raising children 24/7 because they cannot be left without supervision and there are few other kids on the street and the adults do not trust each other enough.
Just having functional grandparents or aunts/uncles to take them off your hands once in a while would probably make a big difference.
The bit of advice I got from another parent before I had kids was golden: parents need time off the clock. Sometimes you need to hear your kid screeching about something and know it's someone else's problem. We don't have family around, so we give each other breaks on the weekend, usually one day where my spouse and I give each other half-day breaks. Idk what it's going to be like when he's older, but for now it works.
Same here. My wife likes to sleep in, I like to wake up early.
Our typical Saturday involves me and my son spending 7A-nap time together outside the house while my wife sleeps in, lounges around and does her hobbies.
When we get home, she’s totally refreshed.
Another thing we do sometimes is drop him at daycare and we take an afternoon off to do something together.
Works great for us. We don’t have any family within 3000 miles of us, so solutions were needed.
Exactly. It seems that most of the "childfree" arguments are based on this terrible modern, industrial, low-trust worldview that assumes that parents are solely responsible for their kids.
Unless both parents come from a really dysfunctional family, this should never be the case.
>Unless both parents come from a really dysfunctional family, this should never be the case.
Why? Many people immigrate away from their families for a variety of reasons other than them being “dysfunctional”. For example, economic opportunities.
I know a quite a few couples that moved from places with low economic opportunities to places with better opportunities, and one of the downsides is that they have to navigate parenting by themselves. It is a cost they are incurring to give their kids a higher probability of success when they grow up.
I'm from Brazil, my wife is from Greece. We are both living in Germany. So I'm well aware of what you are talking about.
Yet:
> one of the downsides is that they have to navigate parenting by themselves.
That's not true. Our families may be away most of the time, but we have a constant rotation of our parents (and my wife's Giagia) coming to stay with us. When our second kid was born, I don't think we were by ourselves for the first six months. Even today, we get someone visiting us at least every other month.
> kids a higher probability of success when they grow up.
This is increasingly becoming something we are asking ourselves. I think our kids would benefit more from being able to grow up close to their families than in a place with a culture and values that we don't really share. For us (and me specially) living in Germany has been more of a "tolerable" than a "desirable" situation. With remote work becoming a reality, I think we can have our cake and eat it too.
>That's not true. Our families may be away most of the time, but we have a constant rotation of our parents (and my wife's Giagia) coming to stay with us. When our second kid was born, I don't think we were by ourselves for the first six months. Even today, we get someone visiting us at least every other month.
I would guess money is a frequent issue, plus visa and other family obligations such as other siblings great grandparents. Health issues too since grandparents are older than in previous times.
Apologies in advance for the (slight) moving of the goal posts, but to me the problems you mention do point to very dysfunctional aspects of modern life and common family structures:
- "Older grandparents" is a sign that people are waiting too much to have their own kids.
- "Other family obligations", like what... Work? Perhaps we should rethink our globalized, modern economy that makes dual-income families a necessity. I really hope that by the time my kids get to have their kids, my wife and I are in condition to dedicate ourselves to help them as much as our own parents helped us.
- "Visa issues" is mostly an American thing, which unfortunately I also I am very familiar with (lived in the US before coming to Germany). The US is only going to sort this out after it solves the Milton Friedman dilemma: it can be either a country of Open Borders, or it can be a Welfare State. Until it tries to be both, it is doomed to these catastrophic policies.
Yeah Brazil at least has Mercosur. It's pretty crazy North America doesn't have something similar considering capital can mostly freely flow between NAFTA countries. (although we do have something similar with compact free association i.e. micronesia / palau / marshall islands)
Why do you assume "dysfunctional"?
Flying costs money. Having apartment big enough to accommodate 3 adults plus one or two kids costs money. Family members have to work too.
There is no black and white here.
There is distinct difference in the fun of raising children in a village where there are tons of other kids with low risk of cars so they can play outside freely, and raising children 24/7 because they cannot be left without supervision and there are few other kids on the street and the adults do not trust each other enough.
Just having functional grandparents or aunts/uncles to take them off your hands once in a while would probably make a big difference.