Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

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SimpleLife
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Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by SimpleLife »

It seems like if you don't have kids, you are somehow a second class citizen. Everything is geared toward "families". Whether you have kids or not, in my area half your property taxes go to support schools.

Tax benefits for having kids, the more kids you make and the lower your income, the more money you get! Tax payer government subsidies available mostly to those who have kids rather than those who don't.

Then there are the families themselves, where mom and dad act like their loud and obnoxious kids are not a problem, as if they are at home eating dinner, when in fact in a nice restaurant, while their kids scream, yell, and run around their table without regard for others. It's as if we should all be thankful that these people have graced the world with their poorly behaved children, as a result of the parents inability to raise their children.

Same thing for kids at the store, at the movies, etc. It's as if the rest of us who either chose not to have kids so we could go to the movies are being punished by society. These people with infants will still show up at the movies with their crying kids, ruining the entire experience for the rest, while we work to subsidize this idiocy.

chenda
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by chenda »

Indeed. It's not like children will ever be of any use to society.

billc
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by billc »

this may be a little deeper than you planned for this post - but the thread about global population issues spends some thought about why a western society promotes population growth. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5416&hilit=global+ ... ues#p78174

At least in USA, our economy and social services rely on a productive population in future. Today's children are tomorrow's consumers and tax payers. given this framework it's logical for society at large to encourage reproduction and educating those children once they show up (assuming they are born to households where it's probable they will pay into the system more than they withdraw). While denizens of this board have likely provided for their future when age has limited their productivity most Americans are going to rely on the next couple generations to support them financially (via social security, medicare, etc)

As for rude parents and misbehaving kids. I think it's generally better to assume people are trying their hardest to raise well-behaved kids. (obviously many are not trying hard, but what's the sense in being bitter about it?). Raising kids is really hard (in my opinion)

disclosure: I have two small children (2 years and 6 weeks).

Edit: not suggesting USA model is sustainable, but it's the model society as a whole has selected.

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GandK
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by GandK »

SimpleLife wrote:It seems like if you don't have kids, you are somehow a second class citizen. Everything is geared toward "families". Whether you have kids or not, in my area half your property taxes go to support schools.

Tax benefits for having kids, the more kids you make and the lower your income, the more money you get! Tax payer government subsidies available mostly to those who have kids rather than those who don't.
Most of our tax law is based on encouraging behaviors we (as a society) want, and discouraging those we don't.

Politically speaking, having kids is not really about procreation. It's about social stability. We financially encourage kids for the same reasons we financially encourage home ownership: MANY studies have indicated that people who have a family are more engaged in society and are less likely to exhibit antisocial behavior. (Google "bare branches" for all kinds of scary research on this topic.)
SimpleLife wrote:Then there are the families themselves, where mom and dad act like their loud and obnoxious kids are not a problem, as if they are at home eating dinner, when in fact in a nice restaurant, while their kids scream, yell, and run around their table without regard for others. It's as if we should all be thankful that these people have graced the world with their poorly behaved children, as a result of the parents inability to raise their children.
:lol:

Part of this is going to be cultural. When I was in Hawaii, and largely surrounded by Asian families, I was appalled that people would ignore all small children who threw tantrums. But the view was that kids who act like that are trying to get attention, and if you give them attention, you're basically encouraging them to do that more. Instead, during a tantrum, they'd deliberately lavish attention on nearby kids who acted well, snubbing the tantrum thrower. And damned if that didn't work... by the time those kids were 7, 8, 9, all of them were extremely well-behaved. But that only works when everyone in the society is on board with it.

The bigger problem, though, is that most of today's young kids are the children of Millenials, who (a) were rarely told "no" themselves because it might hurt their feelings or damage their self-esteem or something, and (b) don't believe in the value of having social "best practices" because any such behavioral rules are discriminatory in some way, or moralizing, or confining, favor one group at the expense of another, etc. So they don't really care if you and I are uncomfortable in a restaurant or movie theater if making us comfortable would take away some of their children's "freedom." That would be discriminating against the children! So, the next generation of special snowflakes is born...

However, you can't always jump to the conclusion that the parenting is flawed when a child acts up. There might be an underlying medical issue. It may also be the kid's personality. My oldest was so easy to raise. He's 15 years old and has never told me "no" or talked back to me, ever. I used to wonder what the hell other parents were doing, and I'd sit back and just soak up the compliments on what a gentleman he is, and how I was doing everything right, and what a model parent I was especially for a single mom, and I felt all kinds of smug and self-righteous. And then I had my youngest. That boy came out of the womb saying "no" to me, and has been talking back ever since. And he Never. Shuts. Up. It's a wonder that child is still alive, I've been tempted to kill him so often. Now, he does behave in restaurants most of the time, and say "please" and "thank you" and "yes sir," but only under threat of torture (read: inability to play Minecraft).

I now know without a doubt that a ton of this is nature. It's made me way more tolerant of other families. I can also now see how an overwhelmed parent who either has other things on his mind or desperately needs an escape might not bother to keep his ducklings in a row every time he's in public. I'm usually too self-conscious not to correct my youngest, but every once in a while I've had one of those days when the only person's stress I have the strength to mitigate is my own.

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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by jacob »

Lots of different motivations ...

If you're running a dynastic corporate conglomerate, having children is about future consumers ...
If you're the leader of a country in perpetual conflict with the neighboring nation, having children is about future soldiers ...
If you're the GOP or the Democrats and pay any attention to Hispanic demographics, children is about future voters ...
If you're a major religion with an eye for the future (and you didn't get to be a major religion if that wasn't the case), having children is about future worshippers ... Strangely religions that encourage widespread celibacy don't tend to last long. Go figure!
If you're running a pension fund, you obviously need someone to pay for all those promises in the optimistic Ponzi scheme you built a few decades ago...

And if you're like most humans I've seen, you're just genetically disposed to go "Uuuhhh Ahhhh Baby! (click to share on facebook)" .... also if you're like most humans, your future planning horizon when horny is about 10 minutes, and for some biological reason that tends to result in such babies 9 months later.

The first players have set up a lot of rules, laws, etc. to take advantage of the last player.

After all, in the end, the species with the most biomass wins!

So come on now ... we almost got those damn ants beaten!

7Wannabe5
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I think it' sort of ironic to complain about the members of our society who have not yet been overly socialized on a forum devoted to the cause of overcoming standardized socialization. I enjoy hanging out with very young children sometimes for just that reason. They are still free and honest in their expression. Not all beaten down or boxed in by the system or the man yet. They're also interesting to observe if you have any knowledge or reason to concern yourself with the topic of human growth and development. As GandK implied, they pop out of the womb exhibiting their own unique personality which will evolve in different sorts of patterns. My daughter sang herself to sleep from infancy and was actually referred to as "a perfect angel child" at a parent-teacher-conference, but my INTX son was a raw bundle-of-nerves terror as a toddler. The only way I could keep him from engaging in such behavior as screaming on the bus was to ask him questions such as "What letter is that?" or "Do you see that car? Is that car like Grandpa's car?" and there was no way in hell he was going to participate in "circle time" at the co-operative nursery when he was 4. His early tendency towards total stoicism made him almost impossible to punish through "conventional" means. He would somehow manage to climb up and throw himself out of his crib before he could even stand-up and he would just stare at the wall and use his imagination if I took away a toy, and on one occasion he was thoroughly pummeled by a larger boy because he could not refrain from commenting on the other boy's lack of spelling ability, but then he refused to cry "Uncle "when beaten, thereby thoroughly infuriating the other boy. Of course, as his nervous structure further developed, he eventually grew into the very reserved, very polite INTX man he is today. One of the funniest things was when he suddenly developed the social skill of shaking hands with other men at a young age. I clearly remember turning to my ex-husband and asking him "Did you teach him to do that?"-lol

Therefore, my suggestion for most members of this forum would be that on the next occasion you see a child screaming or running about in a public setting, you should seriously consider, at the very least, sending your own mother an "I love you" text.

bradley
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by bradley »

SimpleLife wrote:Whether you have kids or not, in my area half your property taxes go to support schools.
The idea is that an educated public is a benefit to all: more brains to invent and foster change, a more informed citizenry, etc. etc. You can argue whether or not this goal is being achieved and what exactly "educated" means, but an informed populous is the "ideal"... hence, mandatory schooling and its support from taxes. (That whole system creates imbalances anyway, because wealthier districts get more money than poorer ones, but that's another argument).

Your property taxes also pays for libraries and garbage collection and parks and road maintenance and other town/county services. My landlord doesn't use the library and just the other day complained about how they were "bleeding him dry" for a useless service that nobody cares about. I told him I use it, and he said, "Great, you should pay the taxes for it!"

The private sector could offer all these services, but there are dangers of leaving things up to the "free market" to resolve.

enigmaT120
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by enigmaT120 »

I'd rather pay for schools than cops. I don't have kids and don't really like them, but I don't dislike them.

unno2002
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by unno2002 »

We never tolerated our daughter being a “nuisance” while out in public, and now she expresses the same sentiment about others who ignore a child being a “nuisance”.

Opinion: The world is over-populated. All incentives to have more children need to be eliminated.

peerifloori
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by peerifloori »

I don't know that society caters to people with kids, so much as two-parent families with kids.

Single Parent Families in Poverty

Lack of affordable childcare, gendered difference in pay, no guaranteed maternity leave.... One could argue that there are lots of way that society punishes people with children.

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Ego
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by Ego »

peerifloori wrote:One could argue that there are lots of way that society punishes people with children.
How?

7Wannabe5
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I agree with peeriflora. A young single mother with kids who appears to have a low income will either be shunned or "rescued" by society. I know from experience that I can support myself on around $8000/yr or myself and two children (or one unemployed husband-men demand more meat and alcohol than kids) on around $12,000/yr., but the appearance I projected while doing the latter would make a huge difference in how people would respond to me. For instance, because I lived in an affluent college town when my children were toddlers, and they had two well-off shop-a-holic grandmothers who bought them fancy clothing, based on my appearance/age, people frequently assumed that I was the hired nanny of my own children if I was riding a bus with them in the middle of a weekday. Another example would be that I assume that the young woman who lives across the street from me in my current low-income neighborhood, is collecting government support because she is home during the day and she has 4 kids under the age of 6, but maybe she is ERE. Having any kind of husband with any kind of job still makes a huge difference in how society responds to your choice to have kids, and more than 2 is considered to be "too many" unless you are quite affluent or maybe live on a farm.

BeyondtheWrap
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by BeyondtheWrap »

SimpleLife wrote:Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?
It's probably a variation on the "It takes a village" concept.

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Sclass
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by Sclass »

I guess society does this to maintain society.

Look at Japan with its aging population and ballooning govt debt.

the machine needs fresh meat to sustain itself. Resistance is futile.

peerifloori
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by peerifloori »

Ego wrote:
peerifloori wrote:One could argue that there are lots of way that society punishes people with children.
How?
peerifloori wrote: Lack of affordable childcare, gendered difference in pay, no guaranteed maternity leave.... One could argue that there are lots of way that society punishes people with children.

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Ego
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by Ego »

@peerifloori, punishment is one thing. Not helping people to overcome challenges that they themselves created is an entirely different thing. Society does not provide dog walkers for new dog owners. That is not an example of society punishing dog owners.

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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by luxagraf »

Ego wrote:@peerifloori, punishment is one thing. Not helping people to overcome challenges that they themselves created is an entirely different thing. Society does not provide dog walkers for new dog owners. That is not an example of society punishing dog owners.
Not sure I would use the word punish, but we've certainly elected *not* to get rid of a whole set of obstacles -- like those mentioned -- because they fall outside the ideal cultural value model, i.e. nuclear family, largely WASP values, etc.

Hannibal
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by Hannibal »

Society caters to people with kids because kids become the new society. A society that doesn't replenish itself will cease to be so. Likewise, a culture that encourages progeny will, over time, snuff out a culture that does not.

On top of all this, Social security and Medicare are basically large government enforced generational Ponzi schemes. You can't afford to pay for all these retirees without a ton of young blood paying into it.

Peanut
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Re: Why does society cater to people with kids and shun those without?

Post by Peanut »

SimpleLife wrote: Same thing for kids at the store, at the movies, etc. It's as if the rest of us who either chose not to have kids so we could go to the movies are being punished by society. These people with infants will still show up at the movies with their crying kids, ruining the entire experience for the rest, while we work to subsidize this idiocy.
Are you watching Pixar movies? In which case one can't complain too much about kids being there. Or are parents really bringing infants to MI: Infinity and Superhero: We unearthed another one?

Whether or not support for families is either too much or not enough, I think American culture generally has little love for children. This becomes obvious when you go to other countries where strangers regularly fawn over kids and are happy to make all kinds of little allowances for parents and children (cutting to the front of the line, etc.). Here, it seems to be mostly African-Americans and Latino/as who are largely appreciative of children. White yuppies and hipsters in particular can barely stop themselves from rolling their eyes when a kid crosses their path. These folks tend to be the most annoying parents when they inevitably have their own, since they mostly seem to do it for the trophy bragging rights.

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