Today we continue our series on Reddit parenting advice. Dear readers, you may think I look long and hard to find particularly egregious postings, but I assure you I generally take the first one that appears when I view the parenting subreddit. It seems there are plenty of people out there who need advice, but most prefer to rant about their situations rather than take responsibility. Today we have a rant about the cost of childcare.
So we pay $297 (USD) for my five month old to go to daycare 5 days a week. If we want him dropped down to 3 days (because we’re having a hard time affording full time) its $245. So it goes from $59 a day to $81. We only save $50 a week and still have to figure out where he goes the other two days. And we don’t qualify for government assistance. We both work full time with my husband working overtime every weekend and I work overtime every week day. America is great..
Let’s begin with what seems glaringly obvious. Why did this woman have this child? What is a five month old doing going to daycare 5 days a week? This is tragic. Again and again, I have seen this repeated. A couple struggles to have a child. Desperate, they try everything. Finally, they get the news they are pregnant. A beautiful child is born, and then a couple of months later, the mother is back at work. What is wrong with you? Why are you so desperate to bring a child into the world, and then equally desperate to farm him out to someone else to raise? It’s unnatural. Children are not accessories to your life. Why do women look jealously at others who can have children, only to become pregnant and then give their children to other (low-paid) women to raise? This is madness.
Next let me consider complaints about costs and children. This should not be something that needs to be said, but children cost. We used to believe the purpose of a husband was to provide for his wife and children so that the wife could attend to the sphere which God calls her – the home. This provided stability and loving homes where children were cared for by people who actually loved them rather than strangers. Now we have women complaining about the cost of childcare and that children get in the way of a career. This is completely backwards! A career should serve children, not the other way around. Children are supposed to cost you. We give ourselves to our children. A woman gives part of her body to a child for 9 months. Then that child is designed to need nourishment from her body regularly for at least a year. Psychologically she is necessary to him for a lot longer. Our bodies tell a story. A mother’s body gives life and nourishment to children. That is what she is designed to do. She is not designed to farm her offspring out to others while she shuffles papers for some pointless government bureaucracy.
A mother is designed to be used up loving children, not making money. Children do not take her away from what she really ought to be doing. They are what she really ought to be doing. Children are supposed to be her priority, not her career. And if a career is her priority, perhaps she should not selfishly bring children into the world. Contrary to the world’s ignorant maxim, a woman cannot have it all. Having children is about sacrifice. You are used up as they are filled. You can’t fill them when you are used up by something else.
Now let’s consider the husband in all of this. Husbands are meant to lead and provide for their families. Our bodies and nature tell us this, and if we weren’t so obtuse and blinded by societal and cultural egalitarian prejudice we would recognise this. Men need to ensure that they can care for the woman they marry and the children they father. This means they need to enter marriage with as little debt as possible, earn a good income, and preferably have a significant amount of savings or a house. Young women should not look at young men who don’t meet these basic requirements. Fathers, if you have any input into who your daughter marries (and you should!), encourage her to look for a man who can enable her to fulfil her calling as a wife and mother.