But what is the Child Outsourcing Industry you ask?
And why should we care?
Well young lieutenants, aspiring economists, and agents in the field, pour yourself a cocktail and let Uncie Cappy explain.
It all started long ago in the late 60's and early 70's when two variables or trends were taking place. One was the 2nd wave of feminism that was educating (then) young girls about independence, equality, and (for some of the more extreme elements) how they did not need a man. Women could do anything men could do. And not only could they do that, they could "Have It All" (TM) - a career, an education, a retirement, a husband, and children. Of course even though this was a trebling of the amount of work that would be required to technically have "everything," the number of hours sadly, did not treble. Which meant an increase in one of these "things" would necessitate a decrease in another.
The second thing was no-fault divorce. This allowed husbands and wives to divorce without there being any wrong doing by one of the parties. In other words, you could divorce for any reason. So frivolous could the reasons be, people often called it "frivorce." This resulted in a BOOM in divorce for the first generation to be married under it - the baby boomers. And just as Jackie Robinson made baseball a hallmark of black athletes, the baby boomer generation made divorce an Olympic event. Divorce rates skyrocketed to where 1 in 2 marriages ended in divorce, and worse, it now seems this "All American Pastime" has passed onto Gen X and Gen Y.
Now these two trends or "variables" at the time were likely well-intentioned. Why wouldn't you want women to have all the opportunities and successes of men? Who wouldn't want to have it all? And why ruin or even inconvenience your life if your marriage is no longer working? On the face of it, they seem very logical, even libertinely American. But sadly they were quite myopic. For there was one insy, winsy, teeny, weeny, nearly borderline microscopic problem.
Children.
For while the people at the time were very much focused on their own lives, they failed to account for what the two aforementioned variables would do to any would-be
You see, the problem with children is apparently they take not only resources but TIME as well. And to deal with these inconvenient parasites society, in nearly ALL parts of the world, naturally evolved a familial structure or system based on the division of labor.
ONE parent would work to earn the resources to support the family, while
ONE parent would stay at home and take care of the children.
This system worked for 2 million years, 3 billion if you include preceding evolutionary relatives of humans, and still works for the vast majority of mammals on the planet today. However, the people of the 60's and 70's were too busy focusing on themselves to have an ounce of foresight, selflessness, or just plain common sense about how this would affect children. And so the two aforementioned variables delivered a one-two punch to the families, but mainly children, of America.
By the mid to late 70's children were being brought up under broken homes. By the mid 80's any social shame in being a single parent was expunged. And today, it's gone so far that the nuclear family is mocked, while women turkey basting themselves are celebrated as "heroic." Never mind that children from single parents or broken homes do worse and suffer more on pretty much every other variables. Society was adhering to the two aforementioned variables and that trumped all.
But there was a problem, especially for the women.
Precisely how were they supposed to "have it all" with these damn parasites running around? Apparently, you can't just leave them to fend for themselves. They need to be tended to, taken care of, fed, and entertained. And what if there's no other spouse in the house? By golly, that just really throws an inconvenient crimp in one's career and social life, doesn't it?
But never fear, the Child Outsourcing Industry is here.
The Child Outsourcing Industry was originally just a loose network of grandparents, friends, families, and loved ones that would occasional watch over your inconvenient parasites should you and your spouse need a night out and a little adult time. In its undeveloped and unenlightened stage, it operated from the premise the people who brought the parasites into the world would be responsible for said parasites. However, such naivety and ignorance was quickly abolished as the desire for "women to have it all" and parents to get out of inconvenient marriages trumped the needs of their children. And thus, over the past two decades the Child Outsourcing Industry went from mere baby sitters and grandparents to a multi-trillion dollar, government subsidized industry, full of professionals, social workers, and babysitters-posing-as-teachers who would take those nasty, disgusting parasites off of your hands, and raise your kids for you while you pursued a career and filed for divorce.
Of course, this industry does not come cheap.
With the job of parenting now outsourced to the state, the full cost and burden of rearing these unwanted parasites falls on the taxpayer.
Baby sitting masquerading as "daycare"
Baby sitting masquerading as "pre-school"
Baby sitting masquerading as "elementary school"
Baby sitting masquerading as "before/after school activities"
And shucks howdy, let's not forget all the other euphemistic ways the Debbie Turrentine's of the world help take care of your parasites
Special ed "teachers"
Social workers
Guidance counselors
Nutrition specialists
Community centers
Summer program coordinators
School lunch coordinators
School breakfast assistant diversity counselors
When you ad that up, by gosh that's some serious dough!
But thankfully in a very Keynesian way, this is a BLESSING, not a curse. For you see, people like Ms. Turrentine with their worthless liberal arts degrees in
There is however, one slight, minor drawback.
In order to finance all of the Child Outsourcing Industry the taxpayers need to shell out around $2.5 trillion annually. This necessitates that BOTH parents work to pay the extra taxes needed for the Child Outsourcing Industry. Thankfully, women wanted to have it all, which means instead of suffering at home raising their own children, they are enjoying a rich, rewarding life, hard at work being "equal to men," stuck in traffic, commuting 2 hours a day, working soul-sucking jobs, bucking for that promotion, kissing their boss' ass, and paying that much needed 50% tax rate (of course, don't let the fact the majority of women major in and pursue careers to merely raise the children of other women, and thus are still being mothers, making this whole industry redundant, kick you in the teeth).
So, as you see, Ms. Turrentine is right. If the taxpayers don't shell out more dough, some people may actually be FORCED to dirty their hands parenting their own parasites. Parents would have to look away from Narcissus' pool and contemplate such distasteful things like altruism, selflessness, compassion and love for their
Enjoy that decline, people. Enjoy that freaking decline.
Aaron Clarey is an evil, right-wing, libertarian, racisthomophobesexistCISgenderedwhitemaleophile, who believes in Western-civilization-centric concepts like empiricism, morality, independence, self-supportation, reality and other hate-based concepts. He is the author of a lot of mean books, a podcast that should be banned, and a YouTube channel where he spreads his hate. He even charges for his hate with his consulting division "Asshole Consulting." He lives in his mother's basement and oppresses people different than him.
13 comments:
the whole situation is appalling
Fred Reed has explained the economical factors for all this in a single column over on his site.
Suffice it to say it's worth a read. I would like to see your evaluation of his work, Cap.
Best essay yet Cap. And I too would love to read your views on the best writer on the web - Fred Reed,
Well done again, cap.
This stuff absolutely bums me out. I bust my ass at sea for 8-10 months a year to live in a wealthy town, send my kid to a good school and allow my wife time as a stay-at-home mom. Just like most of my neighbors, who all have well-adjusted, relatively happy kids.
OTOH, you get the yay, diversity kids with their 400-lb EBT card-slinging moms and low-voltage IQ's, and a history of neglect (what else can you call having a god-damned stranger raising your kid for you?) bussed in and killing test scores and dragging down the learning pace...
But you know, my kid's fine. Too bad there's not much competition for him academically, but the school still separates kids by ability, something that doesn't get done anymore in most of the country. Having 2 parents in an intact nuclear family is no longer normal, so it becomes a massive leg up for kids. Marriage Privilege?
Actually this column lays it all bare pretty well.
Aaron Clarey is an evil, right-wing, libertarian, racisthomophobesexistCISgenderedwhitemaleophile, who believes in Western-civilization-centric concepts like empiricism, morality, independence, self-supportation, reality and other hate-based concepts. He is the author of a lot of mean books, a podcast that should be banned, and a YouTube channel where he spreads his hate. He even charges for his hate with his consulting division "Asshole Consulting." He lives in his mother's basement and oppresses people different than him.
Hahahah. I love you Cap!
There may be a conservative opportunity here.
If women want to abandon their child-rearing responsibilities let them. Then provide credible father figures, and sane mother figures in daycare and private schools.
Make them all cheap, and solicit donations to keep them cheap.
If you won't raise your kids, WE will.
I don't know where you get that children are parasites of nature.
Rather, they've become parasites by social design.
Donald Trump started working at the age of 3, helping his father with construction chores.
Back in the agrarian days, children worked on the land and helped their parents with farming and growing chores. They created value.
After an argument with his father, my grandfather left the home at 11 and started lumber work. He grew to become a professional chauffeur-driller.
All that was possible back then, before the 1950's.
Also, consider that in tribal times, the more able bodied MEN you had, the stronger your tribe became. So children were viewed as an investment, not parasites.
Back in the 1950's there was high demand for workers on the one hand and low barriers to entry on the other.
In our heavily regulated, credentialism burdened and consumerist society, we have placed too much barriers to entry in the work force.
Some of today's children are parasites way in their 30's.
There are even current laws being studied in Canada that forbids teenager work until the age of 18. Their logic is to force teenagers to focus on their studies.
But a Forbes article has shown that teenagers and children who work part time and earn some income fare much better when they become adults.
Well said although in the past the idea wasn't the gender-neutral "one parent" stays home. There were sex roles enforced by law and accepted by society which required men to support their wives and children. These laws got bastardized in the 60s and 70s to force both husband and wife, mother and father, to equally be financially responsible for the family which gutted the original meaning of marriage in the first place, which was women caring for the home, children and others while being supporting and protected by their husbands and living under the authority of husbands. This is also the source of the "gender wars" that have been raging for decades now.
On the face of it, child outsourcing makes economic sense. One adult can probably take care of way more than two or three kids at a time, or at least, the marginal effort needed to care for a few more might diminish the more you have.
But that's just economics. The social aspect on child (and mother!) well-being is of course another.
Epidemic is how I portrayed the "Outsourcing" of child units. The consequences have been visible for a long period of time,for those like yourself,who paid attention. The disintegration of the family unit has always been the key to the rotting of the carcass from the inside. I remember vividly, Nikita Krushchev banging his shoe and telling us what he was going to do. I believed him then and I believe him now.
Would eliminating income tax for parents of kids under 12 or 13 help parents spend more time with kids and not need a second wage earner?
I figure ~50% of the second wage earners money goes to child care. Eliminate the tax and you break even by staying home.
Eric
Don't forget that, for the benighted few who cling to the old ways, the child outsourcing industrial complex has an answer: child "protection" agencies. Don't let a bureaucrat see your home too "dirty". You may lose your kids.
Once established, such an institution becomes intolerant of any competition, particularly of the home-grown variety. And as long as we put up with their impositions, we will see more of them.
Post a Comment