Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!ora!ora!daemon From: xrarp@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Aliza R. Panitz) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: (Sharing the costs of) Child making and rearing Summary: Not parents vs. non-parents Message-ID: <3047@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> Date: 8 Aug 90 00:20:56 GMT References: <10848@cs.utexas.edu> Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz) Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Greenbelt, MD, USA Lines: 28 Approved: ambar@ora.com In article <10848@cs.utexas.edu>, turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin) writes.. >[...] Parents are the ones who benefit from these, and >non-parents are the ones who will collectively pay. [...] >these benefits are not really a man vs woman issue, but a parent >vs non-parent issue. >What has yet to be explained is why parenting requires more >subsidization in this society. Do we have too few children? >Do parents feel that the material sacrifices of parenting are >too great for the rewards of this choice? No! We are not subsidizing the *parents*. We are subsidizing the *children*. Although the subsidies end up disproportionately in the hands of the voting-majority middle class, I would be willing to argue that the greatest INCREMENTAL improvement in standard of living is to lower-class and poor children. For example, parental leave and subsidized day-care become much more important in a single-parent home. Those of a sufficiently mercenary mind-set to be bothered by the cost of helping children can simply note that it has been proven, in many different ways (sorry, no references at hand) that helping children is cost-effective to society as a whole. High school dropouts rarely become substantial taxpayers. - - - - Aliza R. Panitz Obligatory Wasted Bandwidth xrarp@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov