The last few decades in the US have seen a shift from 1 parent working sufficing to support a family to 2 parents working beening needed for middle class living, and longer hours than before. And more kids have only 1 parent in the household. There simply isn't time for participating in the community-building activities that filled the gaps before. So we are more isolated, and people's lies are in a more fragile balance.
> The last few decades in the US have seen a shift from 1 parent working sufficing to support a family to 2 parents working beening needed for middle class living
The last few decades have seen an increased marketization of labor such that it is more likely that two parents will need to do wage labor to support a middle class lifestyle, where previously a middle class lifestyle involved one parent working at wage labor and one parent doing labor outside of the market.
And who can blame them? I love being a parent, but child care is messy, often gross, and physically exhausting. It's blue collar work. Across the economy, people eschew physically-demanding blue collar work for service jobs, even when the former pays more. So it's totally unsurprising that, given the choice, women (or men for that matter) would rather go work, even if most of the money goes to child care, instead of staying home with kids. You don't need to create a false rationalization about the economy forcing both parents to work to explain the labor trends.
But before that the majority of human history has either both parents or both parents and the children (as they are able) helping out to sustain the family. We need to be sure to survey a long-enough time-line to understand the actual norms and what may have been a relatively small period of recent fortune.
Average annual hours actually worked per worker has decreased over the past few decades, not increased [0,1]. Household size is decreasing as well [2], lowering the percent of households with multiple workers.
I suspect that all the programs meant to help people are actually a part of the problem. Not directly, because helping people doesn't really hurt (except maybe in a "don't feed the wild animals" sort of way, but most consider that negligible). But more in a "somebody else's problem" or a "bystander effect" sort of way.
In other words, the existence of programs to help people in need -- and worse, large federally funded and administrated programs -- make people feel as though it's not their problem and also that they're already doing something to help: paying their taxes and not voting against these programs. I say large federally funded programs are worse only because that makes the responsibility far more diffuse and the ability to influence ever more limited.
So the programs to help aren't directly bad, but the knock-on psychological effect is that they absolve people of any personal need to help (since they're already helping in a very vague and miniscule way) and that leads them to not take any (additional) direct action.
It feels like the inverse case of the tragedy of the commons.
But we've had thousands of years of testing of your hypothesis, and no, individuals do not step up in any great number to solve massive societal problems of poverty.
Which is why we invented governmental action to solve them. Which has proved extremely effective.
A strong, common culture is the only historically verified way to escape the prisoners dilemma of social interactions. We've done a pretty good job of destroying that for the last fifty years in the west.
Yet violence has dropped impressively in the west in the last 50 years, both in crime statistics and in the absence of wars between major powers. And the last 50 years mark many incredible advancements in society: civil rights, gay rights, women's rights, the first attempts to take sexual violence seriously, etc. etc. etc. I'd much rather be a random American today than 50 years ago.
The key to well functioning kids is involved parents.
The key to involved parents is less time spent working.
Americans need to get over their fetish for hard work and start staying home more. Or just stop having kids altogether and use work as the primary source of joy.
That sounds great from where you may sit but what about those families where the parents have to work long hours just to provide?
I know there are some that are definitely not in a financial position where they can do that. Working less is just not an option when you are barely making ends meet. And trust me, they would love to spend more time with their kids.
[+] [-] dzdt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dominotw|11 years ago|reply
We have stigmatized staying at home and raising children as a society.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|11 years ago|reply
The last few decades have seen an increased marketization of labor such that it is more likely that two parents will need to do wage labor to support a middle class lifestyle, where previously a middle class lifestyle involved one parent working at wage labor and one parent doing labor outside of the market.
[+] [-] rayiner|11 years ago|reply
And who can blame them? I love being a parent, but child care is messy, often gross, and physically exhausting. It's blue collar work. Across the economy, people eschew physically-demanding blue collar work for service jobs, even when the former pays more. So it's totally unsurprising that, given the choice, women (or men for that matter) would rather go work, even if most of the money goes to child care, instead of staying home with kids. You don't need to create a false rationalization about the economy forcing both parents to work to explain the labor trends.
[+] [-] wavefunction|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisLomont|11 years ago|reply
[0] http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS
[1] http://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/
[2] http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0884238.html
[+] [-] gress|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msandford|11 years ago|reply
In other words, the existence of programs to help people in need -- and worse, large federally funded and administrated programs -- make people feel as though it's not their problem and also that they're already doing something to help: paying their taxes and not voting against these programs. I say large federally funded programs are worse only because that makes the responsibility far more diffuse and the ability to influence ever more limited.
So the programs to help aren't directly bad, but the knock-on psychological effect is that they absolve people of any personal need to help (since they're already helping in a very vague and miniscule way) and that leads them to not take any (additional) direct action.
It feels like the inverse case of the tragedy of the commons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Else%27s_Problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
[+] [-] Kurtz79|11 years ago|reply
In my opinion most people would just try to rationalize it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
Government funded programs might be inefficient and open to abuses, but are better than the real alternative that would be doing nothing at all.
[+] [-] jellicle|11 years ago|reply
Which is why we invented governmental action to solve them. Which has proved extremely effective.
[+] [-] germinalphrase|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carsongross|11 years ago|reply
"We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
[+] [-] saturdaysaint|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] littletimmy|11 years ago|reply
The key to involved parents is less time spent working.
Americans need to get over their fetish for hard work and start staying home more. Or just stop having kids altogether and use work as the primary source of joy.
[+] [-] thehoff|11 years ago|reply
I know there are some that are definitely not in a financial position where they can do that. Working less is just not an option when you are barely making ends meet. And trust me, they would love to spend more time with their kids.