Would it be possible for some colleges to run 24 hour daycare systems?

[Boojatta]

Some faculty or other employees and some students might require daycare services. Having daycare on campus can be convenient. However, beyond mere convenience, there would be an opportunity for faculty specializing in child development to conduct observational studies. Note: that means no experimentation, just observation. Of course, if anything seemed amiss, then there could be intervention by notifying daycare management or parents or guardians or law enforcement authorities.

Financing is a concern for some women who choose abortion. However, if a pregnant woman had her health checked and made statutory declarations about her practices during pregnancy (e.g. she didn't use any substances hazardous to the fetus), then a college-run 24 hour daycare center could accept responsibility for the baby.

The responsibility would be, first, to attempt to arrange adoption. If that failed, then the 24 hour daycare center would provide as much or as little direct care as the mother/family/guardians wished, at no cost to the mother.

Perhaps the general idea above is already too specific and too flawed. However, it seems to me that people (such as Huckabee) who complain that there are too many abortions might consider something like the above rather than the tyrannical approach that was practiced in Romania when it was essentially a colony of the USSR.

[Warpy]

1. Some women just don't want to risk their health or their lives

producing babies they don't want. That's the bottom line.

While day care would help all working women in school and out, it won't stop the need for abortion. That will always be there for women who don't want to go through pregnancy and childbirth.

[Boojatta]

2. Re "babies they don't want"

Did you mean "don't want to raise" or "don't want to give birth to"?

Note: you wrote "Some women just don't want...", but the Original Post neither proposes that abortion should be eliminated nor proposes any plan that would be expected to eliminate abortion.

[Warpy]

6. No, that they DON'T WANT

much the way you don't want a toothache or two flat tires at the same time.

[Boojatta]

10. I still don't know whether you mean "don't want to raise" or "don't want to give birth to."

[Warpy]

13. Both

[noamnety]

16. Apparently some people

are confused and interpreted your earlier remark to possibly mean there are women who want to get pregnant and then raise the resulting offspring without ever giving birth to them. :D

[Warpy]

21. Huh?

:crazy:

[noamnety]

24. Maybe I didn't word that well.

I was just particularly amused at boojatta trying to force "some women don't want a kid" into an either/or binary question: They don't want to raise one, or don't want to give birth?

As if he thought there might be some category of pregnant women who wanted to do the former, but not the latter.

It was more a statement on his post than yours - yours made total sense to me. Perhaps the absurdity of it, of how I saw it, didn't translate well to a written post, sorry!

[Warpy]

29. Actually, it was an equal opportunity

:crazy:

Sometimes threads just sort of decompose that way.

[BoneDaddy]

35. I don't think it is that simplistic

but if you need to tell yourself that...sure...go ahead. The illusion of the radical right is their ignorance of a woman's right to choose. The illusion of the left is that it is a "toothache or two flat tires".

[Raejeanowl]

3. Sound Like A New-Wave Orphanage To Me n/t

[Boojatta]

4. During all 24 hours, there would be some staff at work.

However, would any child stay 24 hours of every day? Are there a lot of women who want to give birth and then abandon their babies?

Are there are a lot of healthy babies born in America and available for adoption, but not adopted?

[Boojatta]

11. To be more clear:

I think that there's a difference between putting a baby up for adoption while retaining some choice in who adopts (such as at least some amount of veto power) and putting a baby under the care of people who are merely doing a job that they are paid to do.

Putting a baby under the care of people who are merely doing a job that they are paid to do would be the less likely outcome and would exist as a safety net, not as the original intent. You don't buy fire insurance because you are bored of your home and want cash so you can shop for a new home. You buy fire insurance so that you can safely buy rather than merely renting from a big organization that owns a diversified portfolio of property.

[noamnety]

5. Or

since half of all pregnancies in this country are unwanted, we could put a little more energy into actually making birth control accessible.

When you are interested in free day care because you are interested in promoting WOMEN'S RIGHTS and fighting gendered poverty rather than as a tool of an anti-choice agenda, then this might become an appropriate post for the WOMEN'S RIGHTS forum.

[Boojatta]

7. Are you suggesting that of options A and B, only B is a choice?

If only B counts as a choice, then A doesn't count as a choice. In that case, there are not truly two options. If there is only one option, then there is no choice.

Unless I misunderstood my own Original Post, it didn't propose free daycare except in cases where both of the following occur:
1) The woman and fetus both pass health tests; and
2) Adoption is anticipated to be feasible, and is only later discovered to not be feasible.

Also, even in cases where daycare is provided at no cost to the biological parents, the parents would have already contractually obligated themselves to allow unlimited observational studies to be conducted on the premises of the 24 hour day care. That loss of privacy is a kind of cost, although admittedly it cannot be easily measured in dollars.

[noamnety]

8. Neither.

I was suggesting that you posted this in the wrong forum, as it is not expressing a concern for women's rights.

I believe you were looking for the fetus rights forum.

[Boojatta]

9. Neither?

Well, if you accept that an abortion is a choice and taking steps to not get pregnant is also a choice, then at least you are describing a situation where there are more choices than just "one choice."

However, I don't understand why pregnancy followed by birth and adoption cannot be considered a choice. Nor do I understand why if some institutional changes would allow women, during the early stages of pregnancy, to make that choice risk-free, then those changes would not serve to expand choices for women.

[noamnety]

12. When you want to talk about an agenda free way to improve women's rights

this will be an appropriate place to hold that discussion.

[Boojatta]

14. How do you determine whether or not an expansion of choices

is "agenda free"?

[noamnety]

15. Same as I approached my analyst job in the military.

We look at the language being used, and we assess it against the language and behavior the speaker/writer has used in the past, and we compare and contrast it to language being used by other groups.

(linguist here)

Lots of things are said in coded language. I'd like to flatter myself to think all that special training paid off, but probably 98% of the time you don't need to be a trained analyst to pick up on things in this forum.

[Boojatta]

17. In other words, you're like an expert astrologer and cannot explain things in layman terms,

but must simply be trusted. Of course, it goes without saying that there are no differences of opinion among astrologers. Why they haven't been replaced by computers is anyone's guess.

If the proposal in this thread appeals to some of the people who support Huckabee, then isn't it possible that some proposal along these lines might help win votes away from people like Huckabee?

Maybe not. Maybe this particular expansion of the available choices for women would be contrary to the One And Only True Agenda. In that case, any vote attracted by proposing such a policy would be an evil vote. It is our duty help ensure that the evil votes go to Republicans, right?

[noamnety]

18. If you were truly concerned about "expanding choices"

you'd be proposed that communities or employers make affordable round the clock child care available to men and women. EOM.

You wouldn't be tying this shit to a woman's right to medical care, and slapping yourself on the back for coming up with something that isn't as "tyrannical" as other people who oppose abortion.

You wouldn't be tying child care needs to a default position that we demand all those irresponsible women prove during pregnancy that they aren't using drugs in order to get affordable child care.

You would have figured out by now that there is no asshat male supremacist, including huckabee, who will be satisfied with lowering the abortion rates as a compromise. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together, and a basic concern for women's rights, has figured out by now that "lowering the rate" is not their goal.

And you wouldn't be posting threads in the women's rights area using language like "abortionists" and suggesting that that those poor stupid childlike women are so vulnerable to doctor's suggestions that it should be ILLEGAL for doctors to even discuss certain options (that some people disapprove of) with them, lest their delicate little brains turn to jelly.

If you have a history of using the WOMEN'S RIGHTS forum to reduce women to childish irresponsible beings that need your intervention in the form of legal restrictions against providing them medical information, and need your intervention during their pregnancy to make sure they aren't "damaging their fetus" if they want access to affordable childcare down the road, then the readers here hardly need astrology charts to figure out what your agenda is.

[Boojatta]

20. I'm not sure that we're reading the same thread.

something that isn't as "tyrannical" as other people who oppose abortion

The point is that it might appeal to some people who would be happy if there were fewer abortions. If you believe that it isn't as tyrannical as other proposals, but that it is nevertheless tyrannical, then perhaps you could point out in what way it is tyrannical.

demand all those irresponsible women prove during pregnancy that they aren't using drugs in order to get affordable child care

No, proof was not proposed. What was proposed was simply a legally binding declaration. The declaration would not be in order to get affordable child care. It would be in order to qualify for participation in an adoption service. The daycare is a safety net in case adoption isn't feasible.

You would have figured out by now that there is no asshat male supremacist, including huckabee, who will be satisfied with lowering the abortion rates as a compromise. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together, and a basic concern for women's rights, has figured out by now that "lowering the rate" is not their goal.

Well, it's possible that I have only one brain cell. I figure that voters almost always settle for less than their doctrinaire ideal unless a majority of voters all share exactly the same dogma.

And you wouldn't be posting threads in the women's rights area using language like "abortionists"

I apologize. I will in future speak of "doctors who perform abortions", although it is somewhat long-winded.

it should be ILLEGAL for doctors to even discuss certain options

It was a question asked to spark discussion and it did spark discussion.

If you have a history of using the WOMEN'S RIGHTS forum to reduce women to childish irresponsible beings that need your intervention in the form of legal restrictions against providing them medical information (...)

Your summary of the question proposed in that other thread is far from satisfactory. If you have anything to say about what is in that other thread, then you are welcome to do it in that other thread. You know, the idea is to discuss the issues rather than engage in personal attacks.

and need your intervention during their pregnancy to make sure they aren't "damaging their fetus" if they want access to affordable childcare down the road,

Intervention wasn't proposed. The daycare wouldn't be merely affordable, but free in money terms. However, the offer is for adoption and the daycare would be provided by the new daycare institution only in cases where adoption isn't feasible.

then the readers here hardly need astrology charts to figure out what your agenda is.

Good rhetoric!

[knitter4democracy]

19. What would be the point of a 24 hour daycare?

If you're thinking of an orphanage, then call it that. If you're thinking of a daycare facility where students can drop off their children while they are in class or in the library, then call it a daycare (and I can't see why it would need to be 24 hour--classes aren't).

If you're wanting some "modern" version of an orphanage, I can't see why a college would want to tackle that cost and liability while their budgets are so strapped. Do you really think all they'd do is observe and never, ever experiment in any way? Doesn't observation change the behavior of the observed anyway?

If you're trying to cut down on the number of abortions, it makes more sense to me to go after the causes. Many women cannot afford to have another child. Free national health care and child care would help with that, though perhaps not eliminating it. Many women abort because of health reasons, and you really can't eliminate that reason, though national health care would help a bit. Many women abort because it's just the wrong time for a baby, and better access to birth control would help that.

Go after the causes. Don't lock up the children and have psych majors "observe" them.

[Boojatta]

22. I can't think of a title for this.

If you're thinking of a daycare facility where students can drop off their children while they are in class or in the library, then call it a daycare (and I can't see why it would need to be 24 hour--classes aren't).

Some students stay up all night to get some assignments done before the due date. Some students travel on weekends or holidays for various reasons. Some students have accidents or illnesses. Students aren't simply machines that go to classes and libraries.

Do you really think all they'd do is observe and never, ever experiment in any way?

Yes, that would be a strictly enforced rule.

Doesn't observation change the behavior of the observed anyway?

Are you talking about quantum physics or human behavior monitored by hidden cameras and hidden microphones? Behavior would be somewhat affected by the knowledge that there are hidden cameras and microphones, just as people are less likely to rob banks without covering their faces if they know that the banks have cameras inside.

Many women cannot afford to have another child. Free national health care and child care would help with that, though perhaps not eliminating it.

Many people who can afford a first child (or another child) have a desire to adopt, but decide to adopt from overseas, despite the legal, financial, and other complications. If it's impossible to adopt American babies, then why not give Americans free international adoption services? There's a tax credit for a taxpayer who gives to a charity for children overseas. The charity itself takes some of the money. Doesn't a properly screened adoptive parent do a lot more for a child than send a check in the mail? Why not cut out the middleman?

On the other hand, multiple flights overseas, lawyers, translators, etc. would be a big expense for taxpayers. Why not increase the supply of American babies available for adoption by expanding the choices available to women who are already pregnant?

[knitter4democracy]

23. You're talking about children. Yes, observation changes behavior.

What a great way to screw them up, hidden cameras and strangers coming and going in and out of their lives asking questions and writing down answers. :eyes: Read up on some psych history and educational psych before you think it's a great idea to observe children like that and think it won't affect them in the long run.

I'm a stay-at-home mom. I take classes for fun at the local university. Yes, I've stayed up really late to work on a paper--that's when the kids are sleeping (like now) and is a good time to work. Why would I wake my kids up, take them into a daycare facility, go to the library for something when I can do most of it on-line, and then wake them up again and drive home? That's crazy.

Students who are parents do have stuff happen. I've dealt with that myself. That doesn't mean that the college should fund and staff an orphanage. I don't expect my university to help me with childcare. I turn to my husband or my mom or my friends if there's a problem, and so do all the other parent-students I know. Those resources are free, and I can pretty much guarantee a college-run facility wouldn't be (is anything they do free?).

If you're worried about adoption, then deal with adoption law in this country. Yes, there are waiting lists for healthy white children in this country, but that doesn't mean we need to build an entire infrastructure of university-run orphanages. It means we need to fix the laws we have and the negative perceptions people have of our system.

[Boojatta]

25. Do hidden cameras screw up employees who care for senior citizens in homes for the aged?

What a great way to screw them up, hidden cameras and strangers coming and going in and out of their lives asking questions and writing down answers.

If you can present evidence that hidden cameras screw up employees who care for senior citizens in homes for the aged, then I will read what you have. Perhaps you have some reason for believing that children in daycare are as a group significantly less vulnerable than senior citizens?

Strangers coming and going in and out of their lives asking questions and writing down answers would be intervention. Yet you were already informed that there will be no intervention. Why do you think I specified that the cameras and microphones are hidden?

I didn't read beyond the excerpt quoted above. Maybe I won't read beyond it. Maybe I will. I will choose.

[knitter4democracy]

26. They're adults, though. You cannot compare children and adults.

Also, if you think something's fine but it ends up screwing the kids up massively, there will be negative press and lawsuits. That's pretty much what happened to most orphanages in the States. Having people care for children who aren't their parents (birth or adoptive) is highly problematic.

[Boojatta]

27. "Having people care for children who aren't their parents (birth or adoptive) is highly problematic"

What's the minimum amount of time per day or week that parents need to spend caring for their children? Is it not a matter of total time, but simply a matter of particular times of day?

Would you object to a daycare operation that is in all respects normal except that it has unconventional hours?

For example, consider a daycare with beds and open at the following hours:
from Sunday at 7:00 PM to Monday at 10:00 AM
from Monday at 7:00 PM to Tuesday at 10:00 AM
from Wednesday at 7:00 PM to Thursday at 10:00 AM
from Thursday at 7:00 PM to Friday at 10:00 AM
from Friday at 7:00 PM to Saturday at 10:00 AM
(Closed from Saturday at 10:01 AM to Sunday at 6:59 PM)

If I'm not mistaken, that's a total of 5x15=75 hours per week. Is that too many hours of availability? Perhaps availability is okay, but you would like to propose a maximum acceptable number of hours per week that any child could be in such a facility?

Should it be illegal to establish a daycare for children whose parents work graveyard shifts?

[knitter4democracy]

28. You're mixing two different things together. Which is it: orphanage or daycare?

Are you talking orphanages for unwanted babies or realistic daycare options for parents who want to keep their kids? You seem to be mixing the two up, and I think that's leading to our confusion.

If the example you gave is for a daycare, then whatever hours are fine. By definition, they would be self-limiting--parents wouldn't leave their kids there 24/7 50 weeks out of the year. That's not being a parent. I think you'd find economies of scale becoming a problem (third shift workers aren't the majority, and many of them have a partner at home to take care of the kids), and transportation and location would also be huge issues to deal with. Either way, if you're thinking of this solely as a daycare for children who live with their parents, then whatever hours you have enough kids to keep the doors open and pay the staff (hoping you find some for those hours) are fine.

If the example is for an orphanage or you try to mix together a daycare for paying parents and an orphanage, then it makes no sense.

[Boojatta]

30. Perhaps it would be clearest to call it "childcare plus adoption."

Earlier I used the term "daycare", but it suggests that no childcare is provided at night. That is misleading.

As I wrote earlier, some children cared for would be those of college faculty or other employees. Other children would be those of students. There could also be some children whose parents live in the neighborhood, but who are not associated with the college. In addition, there would be the capacity to serve as a safety net for women who, in the early stages of pregnancy, make appropriate statutory declarations to the Childcare Plus Adoption establishment.

Are you assuming that if a pregnant woman agrees to have her anticipated baby adopted and if she has some degree of decision-making authority regarding who adopts the baby, then she will completely abandon the baby if it is later discovered that no qualified caregivers are willing to adopt? That it's open 24 hours doesn't imply that any child will be there every day, 24 hours a day or even for one full 24 hour day. It's a safety net.

Do you consider it impossible for one establishment to be involved in these three areas: childcare, observational studies of child development, and arrangement of adoptions? Of course we're talking about a combination of different functions, but do you have reason to believe that those functions are actually incompatible?

[knitter4democracy]

31. I don't see people going for that. Childcare, yes. Adoption with it, no.

I don't see many parents trusting that kind of place, frankly. You're dealing with three sets of staff: licensed day care providers, psychologists, and social workers. In order to get paying clients, you'd have to offer top-quality preschool-level childcare, but people who pay for that probably wouldn't be comfortable with the study aspect or that some children live there, waiting to get adopted out.

If a woman gives a child up for adoption, there are often major reasons behind that. Look at how many kids are in the foster care system because their parents giving them up, taking them back, and having them taken away again. It messes kids up to do that. Children need a stable, consistent environment.

Have you not read anything on the foster system, orphanages, or known anyone dealing with any of this? You post stuff like this, supposedly to get people thinking, but it sure seems like you haven't done the work on your end to know what you're talking about.

[Boojatta]

32. "some children live there, waiting to get adopted out."

Can you explain how you arrive at the conclusion that some children would live there? Keep in mind that the adoption function of the institution will involve arranging adoptions for anticipated babies while women who request the adoption service are still in the early stages of pregnancy. I will assume for the sake of argument that the effort to arrange an adoption might in some cases need to continue even after the baby is born. However, I still don't see how you conclude that some children will be living there.

Perhaps you could write an explanation designed for someone (Boojatta) who is perhaps not quite as intelligent as your intended main audience. You could start with the basics and try to leave little to the imagination. You might aim for something like the most elementary part of Euclid's geometry, but including the modern axioms that Euclid omitted and giving examples that motivate clever reasoning before the reasoning is first explicitly provided.

[knitter4democracy]

33. You're asking me to explain? It's your idea.

:shrug:

I'm thoroughly confused. You talk about a round-the-clock childcare place that does adoptions, and now you're saying the kids wouldn't actually live there, that all adoptions this place would do would happen before the child's birth? Um, then why would a daycare do that? Then you added in psychology studies done by a university, and it just gets creepy.

Look, it's this simple: you're mixing jobs up. To staff a daycare, you need trained and licensed daycare workers. They don't get any training in doing adoptions. That's what social workers do, but social workers don't get any training or licensing in childcare. So, you would have two parts to the facility: daycare and adoption agency. My question is why? Why put those together? It makes no sense. Parents who need a daycare rarely are in the market to adopt, and if they are, they would not go to their child's daycare to do it. They'd get an adoption lawyer and go to the right agency instead.

If you are upset I'm not understanding your idea, maybe you should be more clear in your description of it. At first, you made it sound like a psych lab run by a university where kids would live, like in an orphanage, or just be taken care of while their parents were at school or work. Then you said it's just daycare. Then you said it's daycare with crazy hours that does adoptions. Then you said there wouldn't be any kids living there, just adoptions before the baby's born with a daycare in the same facility. You're not making sense.

[Boojatta]

34. "Look, it's this simple: you're mixing jobs up."

Airlines did not originally offer movie screenings to passengers. Are they now mixing jobs up?

Also, I'm still wondering:

Are you assuming that if a pregnant woman agrees to have her anticipated baby adopted and if she has some degree of decision-making authority regarding who adopts the baby, then she will completely abandon the baby if it is later discovered that no qualified caregivers are willing to adopt?

[cap]

36. not everyone has the support system that you do

not everyone lives near their relatives or has friends who are available to fill in the gap... or even a hubby who's not working many hours.

that's why 24 hr day care is needed.

Not all programs are occasional all nighters... med school ... internship...residency.

Some people are in programs that are all-consuming... think MIT.

[noamnety]

37. I don't think anyone has a problem with extended day care hours.

The problem is exploiting people in poverty who have limited options by requiring that they offer up their own and their children's basic rights, turning them into lab animals for observation.

In a decent society (yeah, right?) we wouldn't take advantage of situations like this, treating humans as if their free will is something expendable, as if we have some sort of inherent right to exploit them if they don't have better options, if they weren't born into privilege.

And we wouldn't be harassing pregnant women, taking advantage of the fact that they are poor and in need of day care, to pressure them into having to pick between implicating themselves in illegal activities or lying on official records so they can have access to day care.

The oh-so-clever anti-woman brigade of course doesn't see this as misogynistic. It's right and normal that women in poverty should have to disclose their drug use - knowing that it will effect everything from possible jail time to their future employment - and will track with them right up until the day they die. It's not sexist, right? Cause if men (hypothetically - why's it always hypothetical?) ... if men had a uterus, we'd require it of the dads, too ... but of course in the real world they don't.

In the real world, the rich children won't ever need to "be observed" in the same way that poor people need to "be observed."

In the real world, it's just one more way of heaping more abuse onto oppressed classes, and breaking out the party hats like it's a big breakthrough they ought to be thankful for.

[knitter4democracy]

38. Boojatta was talking about a daycare/adoption service that experimented on kids.

That's what I was against. Twenty-four house daycare might really be a necessity, and a business would be smart to do a feasibility study to find out how many kids would need those kinds of hours.

I know not everyone has the support network I do, and I'm truly grateful for my bipolar mom's meds that she can help out with my kids as much as she does. I've also helped friends out when they've needed last-minute child care, too.

Oh, and as for the MIT thing, my brother got his second masters there. Even he admits that it wasn't as hard as Hubby's med school and residency. He didn't work 120 hour weeks, and those were pretty darn often during Hubby's residency. Hard is hard, though, and long hours are long hours. I know a couple whose son is one of my son's best friends: the wife works second shift, and the husband works third. They hardly see each other, and that sucks. I'm trying to help out with their daughter in Brownies to pick her up and have her over for dinner until her mom gets off work. That's what friends are for.