this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025

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179

Child care expenses top the cost of rent in dozens of U.S. cities, analysis finds. See where. (www.cbsnews.com)

submitted 2 days ago by throws_lemy@reddthat.com to c/news@lemmy.world

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[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 37 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Dr. Pippa Malmgren, an economist wrote a book called Signals.

I'll give you the gist of the book, in the context of this article; this is everybody's signal to not have children.

[–] P1nkman@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Haven't read it, but glad my wife and I decided to not have children, but I'll see if I can find this book!

Also, don't let your dog drink coffee.

[–] Regna@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Also, don’t let your cat drink coffee!

Or eat chocolate. Or fun stuff.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 days ago

It's not me. The dog buys and makes her own. I keep telling her to stop her daily cup habit, but teenagers, whaddya gonna do?

[–] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Caffeine is toxic to most animals besides humans.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago

Technically, it's toxic to humans. We just metabolize it easier/faster. But the effects of large caffeine doses are not pleasant, and can ultimately be fatal.

[+] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world -8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

this is everybody’s signal to not have children

That's absurd. Market mechanics have poisoned the brains of western liberals. You're literally staking out the next 20 years of your life based on the spot price of daycare.

Anyone who has grown up in an extended family home knows why daycare used to be cheap. That's what grandparents did in retirement and unemployed aunts/uncles filled in on. But you ran off to the big city, you're renting an expensive apartment and carrying a huge car note, you're chasing that bag straight through six figures of college debt. And you think the market signal is "Don't have kids" rather than "Stop running the rat race, there's no cheese at the end".

You're turning yourself into a cog in the industrial machine so you can give Elon Musk surplus cash to pump out a dozen more babies of his own. The signal shouldn't be to starve yourself of human connections or castrate yourself in the name of economic necessity.

It should be to eat the fucking rich.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

It should be to eat the fucking rich.

We agree on something.

As to the rest, the days of large families where some grandparent or aunt can take care of your kids is long gone. My grandparents had 7 kids. My parents 3. 1 or 2 for my gen and I expect my kids will have none. Not by choice, just priced out of household formation. My family are too busy taking care of their family to take care of mine. It's odd that you just assume you can impose on family like that and take it for granted without respect for their decisions.

It's also odd that your vision of a world would deny labour specialization that drives people to move where their specialized jobs are. Without specialization, our economy would collapse.

The world you dream of is long gone and can't come back until a couple of generations of rapid degrowth. Degrowth only happens when a great many of us stop having children for a while, until our numbers are back in check with our environment.

[–] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A+ comment. OP just thinking they could dump their kid off by their parents or sibling for free daycare is extremely selfish thinking lol.

[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's literally how societies function. We're seeing it collapse in real time where that's not an option.

[–] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

It's a great idea don't get me wrong, just like having multiple generations living in the same house to split costs. And it is collapsing in front of us, but what if your sibling/ cousin/ friend just expected they could drop their kids off at your house? Especially if you had your own kid(s) to worry about?

If someone was a stay at home mom or dad, and offered their time to watch kids of friends/family for a very small fee that's one thing, but just expecting someone you know to watch your kids for cheap is not the answer either. It's the EXPECTATION that someone else will watch your kids that I have the issue with.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

until our numbers are back in check with our environment.

I don't even know how to approach this without dropping a massive essay nobody will read, but this isn't going to happen. Not the way we want it at least.

Our numbers aren't the problem here, and if they drop too low our society will literally collapse and we will fall too far backwards into basically dark-ages for a large number of people. The lowering birthrates are not a good thing, so don't get confused when people like Elon Musk scream about it being a crisis. It actually IS a problem, he's just trying to leverage this very clear and present danger to society as a race issue because he's a giant nazi. A lot of the shittiest people will continue to co-opt this real problem to further their own goals.

We have to find balance, yes, but if we just chop off a limb, the body may die. If we lose too many productive, young people, vital institutions and logistical networks will collapse. Millions could starve or go without medical care and so on.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is it impossible for you to just imagine smaller? No one is talking about knocking down key foundations and toppling systems, just building a smaller civilization with a circular economy that preserves the living systems on earth, while maximizing well being. The movement is called Degrowth. It's goal is sustainability.

Chopping off limbs? No. Degrowth is just the opposite of growth, a gradual ethical reduction of people and consumption until we fit on our planet. I say ethical because the principle mechanism is just having less kids. No one killed, just fewer born. Those people not born don't consume and we are closer to our goal. Sustainability is much much easier when you aren't blowing past limits.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

gradual

What's happening right now isn't "gradual," and unless it levels off it's going to be rough at some point. I don't think we really even have the data to predict when that worrying trend starts turning into closed businesses and empty homes, but it's hitting some countries worse than others and with our interconnected economies and supply chains, everyone will feel it as soon as one area feels it.

Sustainability is also easier when you don't have a modern society and everyone is struggling to grab the last antibiotics because the pharmacies closed down, but I don't know if anti-natalists really know what they want.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I don't think you understand sustainability. Fewer people need fewer antibiotics. Fewer mines, less waste, less infrastructure etc...

We are not anywhere near sustainable right now. We have grossly exceeded our planetary boundaries.. Having exceeded our planetary boundaries puts us in a state of ecological overshoot.. The concept is not well understood outside of ecology circles, but it means a clock is ticking. Every day that we aren't in equilibrium with our environment is a day that the environment degrades. Our bodies are full of microplastics and PFAS while the climate is rapidly changing and biodiversity is dropping rapidly. It's hapening now, but in slow motion compared to human perceptions.

Human civilization is in an existential crisis. Any potential window for managing this crisis is rapidly closing. I have yet to hear any other credible means to address this crisis that is not a thinly veiled attempt of the rich and powerful to hold onto the system that made them rich and powerful.

The scientists used to scream for change. Now they cry because money buys billionaires an outsized voice compared to the quality of their arguments.

Edit: Anti-natalist is also likely a disingenuous mischaracterization. Degrowth is about fewer births, not no births, just until we fit our environment then stabilize. Detractors who can't engage honestly to the discussion love to use misleading terms. I hope this isn't you.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world -2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I just think you're raising un unrealistic argument that whatever is happening will lead to good results. It will lead to BAD results because a lot of people are going to struggle or worse, and that leads to things we don't like, like authoritarianism and deaths. Sure it might eventually balance out, but the interim will be fucking bad for a lot of people. I highly encourage people with this attitude to PLEASE learn a little about supply chain and economics and sociology, it's so much more complicated than "fewer people = good."

I can't say it more simply. I am dropping the "anti-natalist" trigger word because there are a lot of people out there who fit that moniker who secretly LIKE the idea of millions or billions of people suffering if it means we get some delusional fantasy solarpunk world after. I hope this isn't you.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Unsustainability is condeming countless numbers and future generations to death, and possibly extinction.

If you have any better plan for sustainability let's hear it.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm all for sustainability by lowered populations in some areas but those kinds of solutions require a far more gradual change to population levels or you have crashes. If you think crashes are good we have nothing else to talk about, I don't like suffering and death even if things "get better" after. It's no different than any apocalypse fetish or death cult.

Meanwhile, we can handle our population load and a lot more, we have more than enough land and space and production capacity, the bottleneck in almost every region is always the stranglehold on capital and worker production and the defensive lack of willingness to cooperate with neighbors and create policies that directly address sustainability and better outcomes for large populations. We can change that, albeit slowly, with more community involvement and better elected officials as long as we have democratic processes. (Again, something that goes away when systems crash.)

Our infrastructure and logistics is a very slow-turning boat, adjustments you make now can take a century to have full impact, so rapid population collapse crashes entire economies that vast numbers of people depend on for basic needs like food and medicine because the damn boat doesn't turn fast enough to adjust.

I am just here warning against "abandoned cities" as a solution. It won't make things better for people. Don't advocate for less people or drift into anti-natalism. If you're standing in a nuclear reactor about to push a red button that says "restart" and engineers tell you "it's not that simple, please don't push it, it will be a disaster" you don't respond with "Oh yeah, what button DO I push then?" Just understand that the reactor has a lot more going on than it looks like and maybe learn both sides.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Meanwhile, we can handle our population load and a lot more, we have more than enough land and space and production capacity.

No we don't. Most of earth's wildlife has been converted to human biomass or our food in the 6th great mass extinction. There are virtually no wild places left. Your body is full of microplastics, PFAS and and an ungodly cocktail of other bullshit. This shit is in the rain, from pole to pole. The whole thing has an insatiable apetite for finite resources and is powered by non-renewables. We have pushed past 7 of 9 planetary boundaries. This is the scientific way of saying we're fucked unless we can figure out how to live within our means fast. Scientists are saying we are deep in crisis and you casually blather than we can hold everyone and more. We can't. We can't hold what we have now. Sure we could rebalance wealth to end excesses of the rich and poverty, but unless you get consumption and waste way, way down, its still cataclysmic destruction of the biosphere.

Deserted cities are indeed a long term consequence of degrowth. Land will be reserved for wildlife to flourish unmolested again and instead of continually mining virgin lands for resources we can mine our former abandoned cities while we work out the details of a recyclable, circular economy.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think you have overindulged in apocalypse porn, there are ways forward without mass deaths and I am tired of being read passages from other doomer posts about the climate that I know by heart already. I am pretty much done here, I repeat that I encourage you to read other angles of the problem and our situation and stop praying for calamity to make life better, it's nihilistic and kind of dumb.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

there are ways forward without mass deaths.

What are they? You get really vague here, presumably on purpose.

I propose mass not-births as part of the answer of degrowth. Anyone that proposes anything unsustainable is the one calling for mass deaths.

doomer posts about the climate that I know by heart already.

Here is a fact. For roughly ever degree of of Global Average Temperature above our pre-industrial average we lose about 10% of global food production. How are we feeding everyone again? 2024 hit 1.5°C and we're on track for 2.5 to 3.5C at least. What are we all eating?

I repeat that I encourage you to read other angles of the problem and our situation and stop praying for calamity to make life better, it's nihilistic and kind of dumb.

I'm sorry unpleasant truths couldn't be delivered with a happier, more cheerful messaging. For what it's worth, skulls are always smiling.

Again, your type is always disapointing. You can only mischaracterise what we say because you can't discuss rationally. "Praying for calamity" tells me you have not listened or understood anything being discussed.

We are done here.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

the days of large families where some grandparent or aunt can take carebof your kids is long gone.

My wife's mom was pivotal in getting through the first six months of my son's life. But that's because she lived 15 minutes away and had all the time in the world.

I got in a conversation with a friend who talked about how she was raised by her aunt, while the rest of the family worked to pay the bills for the home. They lived well not because they individually got rich, but because they learned how to share the wealth they had.

It’s also odd that your vision of a world would deny labour specialization

Privatization isn't specialization. Having a daycare on your block doesn't mean you need to tip out some outrageous vig to the local loan shark. If you're dead set on dividing people up into economic casts, where some people spend their lives taking care of everyone else's kids, you can achieve that kind of professionalization and then pay the people rather than paying the landlords.

The world you dream of is long gone

It's alive and well. We've just denegrated it and punished those people who still pursue it.

We don't have to live this way. But we will if we continue to let billionaires bully us

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Privatization isn't specialization.

Nobody is saying this but you. I was clear and said specialization.

We don't have to live this way. But we will if we continue to let billionaires bully us.

I agree that there are a million better ways to organize civilization. Our current path is dystopia then extinction. It would be good to do better. Having more children on a planet going through an anthropogenic 6th great mass extinction is probably not the good move we're looking for.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Nobody is saying this but you.

That is the structure of the modern economy. I'm not magically speaking it into existence

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But the conversation wasn't about models of ownership or economic modalities. Nothing I said is invalidated by capitalism, socialism, communism, democracy, authorotarianism etc... Degrowth is a simple, known method that is ethical and requires no magical thinking of hail-mary techno-inventing some just-out-of-reach-but-never-quite-here technology that all the growth based schools of thought seem to depend on. It works under any modality.

Let a little air out of the balloon before it pops. Not complicated.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Degrowth is a simple, known method that is ethical and requires no magical thinking

That's got nothing to do with individuals having or not having kids. Neither does high daycare costs.

Let a little air out of the balloon before it pops.

The problem with these metaphors is that they never have any material grounding. An economy isn't an air bubble. "Letting the air out" isn't "having fewer kids". And I'm not even sure what you think "popping" is supposed to be.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is a really disastisfying discussion. You can't see how degrowth has everything to do with daycare prices and birthrates, so I can only assume you are new to the concept and haven't bothered a cursory glance to wikipedia.

In the same breath, you post how you don't like metaphores meant to characterize arguments to lay people.

I think we're done here.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world -2 points 2 days ago

You can’t see how degrowth has everything to do with daycare prices and birthrates

Because there's not even a correlation, much less a causation.

you post how you don’t like metaphores meant to characterize arguments to lay people

Not when they're hollow, no

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't understand where all this money is going. Those attendants get paid dirt. But there's like a dozen kids per adult at these things, and each one is bringing in 1-2k/month.

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Please stop linking to CBS News.

CBS is simply another far right propaganda outlet now and does not need audience/clicks.

[–] WindyRebel@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

What is the approved list of what we want articles to come from? I see the “stop linking…” and I wonder, “what do you want me to be linking then?”

Not everyone knows the nuances of every site or company, so it’s time to start making a list of good and frowned upon sources. Maybe sticky that?

[–] ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

13 years ago when we needed child care it actually would have cost me more than a weeks pay for a week of child care at the highest rate a line cook could get in my area. I was getting $13 an hour as a cook and putting in 45 hours a week. Child care was more than $600 a week for the cheapest option.

It's the fucking regulations and high insurance premiums that force child care centers to charge too much. Then again I should have been getting way more since my job was ungodly busy.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

It’s the fucking regulations and high insurance premiums that force child care centers to charge too much.

No it isn't. It's real estate costs and business loans. If you look at what these businesses are actually paying in terms of labor and compliance costs, it pales behind what they're paying in rents and interest on debts.

You can find surprisingly cheap daycare options if you just identify a daycare center that owns its own building. That's one reason why daycare through my local church is so cheap. All they're paying for is people's time (and they're not paying much). But the people running that daycare are... very weird. And I don't feel comfortable leaving my son with them eight hours a day. So I'm out an extra $1k/mo taking them to a secular center in downtown.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

sounds like corporate daycare, ive seen private ones only, mostly chinese/asian ones that are alot smaller

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Can confirm. I also pay more in daycare than rent.

Of course, I got in on the 2021 era of 3% mortgage loans, so this might be less of a bell weather than you'd otherwise think.