Rent a kid — or borrow one
I was reading an economics paper today on "consumption commitments" and risk. Postlewaite, Samuelson, and Silverman argue that long-term financial commitments have risks, making people more vulnerable to negative effects of sudden drops in income, but that they are often worthwhile, because they provide access to goods at less expense, or to a higher quality of goods. And then — mostly as a form of economist humor, I think — they write "Having a child is similar to committing to a long-term mortgage, but without the default option" and note that "the rental market for children is thin, if it exists at all, with a long-term commitment being the norm."
Actually, Greg at DaddyTypes just posted about a company that is supposedly offering kids for rent, aimed at men who think they’ll be more attractive to women if they pretend to be divorced fathers, along the lines of About A Boy.
But, if you can look past the issue about treating kids as consumption commodities, I think there’s an important point here. There’s way too few options* in middle class society** between becoming a parent — and making a 24/7/lifetime commitment — and not having any significant contact with kids.
Take me as an example. I literally can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I held a baby under the age of one before I gave birth to my own. That’s nuts, isn’t it? But I was both a youngest child, and the youngest of my cousins, so there were no babies in my family when I was little. I babysat when I was in high school, but almost never for infants. And I was among the first of my friends to become a parent (at 29 — which counts as young in the circles I hang out in). I was a camp counselor for a summer, and volunteered as a tutor, so I had some contact with older kids. But pretty much the only infants and toddlers I ever spent time with were those at the shul I attended. And I don’t think I’m some bizarre anomaly. (Am I?)
I wish there were more accepted ways in our society for people who don’t have kids, or whose kids are grown, but who like kids and enjoy their company to have ongoing nurturing relationships with other people’s children. I think it would be good for the children, good for the parents, good for the honorary aunties and uncles (or whatever you want to call them). But I have no idea how to encourage such relationships. Maybe they’re easier when kids are older, more verbal, and able to do things without their parents around. I don’t know.
*I recognize that there are some options short of parenting that I didn’t pursue — short-term foster care, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, even babysitting.
** I qualify this statement with the "middle-class" statement after reading Promises to Keep, where Edin comments on how much more hands-on child care experience her young subjects had than she did when she became a mother.
April 21st, 2005 at 1:17 pm
Hey Elizabeth —
As usual, you’re making great points.
I personally think one of the reasons the U.S. has become so unsupportive of families is that many of us just don’t know any better. We have no up-close contact with families with children; we have no idea what they’re going thru. That’s of course until it happens to us at which point it’s like a nuclear bomb went off.
In the old days people had their kids early; when they got to the point of having their time free again, they’d already been through it, and could relate. People also lived in more lifestlye-mixed neighborhoods, containing young people and old people and everything in between. These days people put off having kids, so during the years of focus on other things they’re completely clueless about family stuff. The costs of schooling are so high that families with small children congregate in school-rich suburbs, leaving the rest of us to enjoy the vibrant restaurant culture of our hip single neighborhoods. (So to speak.)
So what, you might say? I just think about my own experience in airports with my kids. In the airport the world divides between parents and non-parents. The parents help, they at least offer to hold the door for you. They say things like, “I remember what it was like when my kids were little.” The non-parents glare. Expand that example out and you start to see an entire *nation* where adults’ widespread lack of shared experience leads to family-hostile environments. I think the same numbers of individual people are having kids, aren’t they? But the cumulative years during which these parents-to-be behave cluelessly towards families has gone way up. If I’d had kids at 20, I would have spent 2 years glaring in airports. But as it is, I spent 14 years glaring.
Just one of the many ways I’m mortified about my behavior in my younger days. I also used to complain about the parents getting to leave work on time … ah, paybacks. I’m totally getting back what I gave!
April 21st, 2005 at 1:56 pm
How true! I often reflect on Spanish speaking friends of my parents when I was young, and how they and all of their friends would have parties with people of all ages. Lively dancing and late nights with kids, parents, and grandparents. Each age benefits from a party with the others. The old get to be young again. The parents get to relax and have a drink. The kids get early exposure to (usually) healthy grownup socializing. By comparison, I think of my college friends living in Manhattan, now in their late 30s, and not a child anywhere in their life. As they consider having children, it seems equivalent to jumping off a cliff from their current life.
April 21st, 2005 at 11:51 pm
Thanks for the economist humor. I needed that!
Somehow, I’ve always been surrounded by children. I’ve babysat since I was 12 and I’ve been doing the Big Sister program since I was 20.
Actually, I think I was a hell of a lot better at taking care of childen when I was 13 than I am now! I was a nanny for a whole summer for 3 kids under the age of five that summer. It was great fun. Now, I can hardly handle my own two kids!
There are many days when I wish I could time travel my 13 year old self up to the present day to give me a hand. I had way more creativity and much more energy back then….
April 26th, 2005 at 12:23 am
I think of my friends out at Twin Oaks, the commune in Virginia that was established in the 60s, partly inspired by the Spencer’s theories on human behavior. Communes like that offer some of the things that pyschologists insist lead to happiness: close-knit community, an abundance of close contacts, and lots of support for kids. I used to wonder why commune’s didn’t catch on more widely, when they offer things that in theory lead to human happiness. However, close exposure to communes allowed me to see their flaws. At Twin Oaks, the community decides how many kids will be allowed, and single people complain constantly that their are too many kids. Everyone at Twin Oaks has to work 45 hours a week, but in an effort to eliminate age-old bias against so-called “women’s work”, most household chores can count towards that 45 hour minimum. The more kids there are, the more non-monetary work there is for the community, versus the kind of work (making tofu for sale in organic health stores) that makes money. This creates a community-wide pressure for there to be less kids. The problem is one of reciprocity – the single people know what they lose when the community has more kids, but they don’t see that they gain anything.
Although communes are an extreme example, I think the same forces play out in society at large, forces that make America a place increasingly hostile to families. One might ask “Though communes go too far, can’t a less extreme solution be found that would allow parents to pool their resources so as to make child-rearing easier?” This does happen informally. The fact that it doesn’t happen formally more often suggests either a moment of cultural maladaption or that the same problems of reciprocity lurk here, too, in a less extreme form.