Dec 21st, 2008 at 9:36 am
Home Alone
Funny movie concept, not-so-hot social policy concept:
In the Prince George’s County community of Riverdale Park, town officials have noted a distressing sign of the national economic downturn: more children left home alone to fend for themselves by working parents too strapped to afford child care.
The problem was discovered by code enforcement officers who inspect apartments in the town of 7,000. They used to come across such cases once every couple of years. Then, six months ago, they found one child left alone, followed by another and another.
Have I mentioned that in Finland there’s a commitment to making high-quality child care services universally available and universally affordable?
40 Responses to “Home Alone”
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December 21st, 2008 at 10:07 am
You got laid over there didn’t you?
December 21st, 2008 at 10:14 am
I have been beating this drum for years.
Around 2:30 most elementary schools are emptying. After school child care is a pressing need. Put the two together along with a grandparent volunteer program and keep schools open until 6PM manned with folks who have raised children and perhaps are looking for something to do. Throw in a couple of teachers,some HS and college kids who are looking for extra income. And voila!
The children can do their homework, some new skills can be taught and everybody wins. Wonder why this hasn’t been done? Not a difficult plan, but maybe the educational politics get in the way.
December 21st, 2008 at 10:14 am
I suppose it’s often better to leave your kids alone than to quit your job to take care of them, but this is yet another reason why I never wanted kids.
December 21st, 2008 at 10:31 am
Around 2:30 most elementary schools are emptying. After school child care is a pressing need. Put the two together along with a grandparent volunteer program and keep schools open until 6PM manned with folks who have raised children and perhaps are looking for something to do.
We’re talking about 6 pm as “after-school time,” that is, optional, not as a mandatory requirement that kids stay until 6, right?
December 21st, 2008 at 10:32 am
I wonder what percentage of children in Finland are born to single mothers who did not finish high school. Unless you are going to import millions of upper middle class whites to Prince Georges County, I doubt that any high trust required European solution will work in a county that is majority black.
December 21st, 2008 at 10:40 am
Once, we were called latchkey kids. As a person who spent lots of time as a child home alone while my single mother worked two jobs, I’m not completely sure what the big deal is. Sure more freely available childcare would be a boon, but oftentimes kids who fend for themselves, or supervising younger siblings (as I did), can ultimately learn skills (cooking, cleaning, time management, responsibility). Then again, I had rules: pick up little bro from elementary school, homework done before mom got home, take out such and such frozen meat, etc.
Then again again, I think kids today are over-organized and thus highly wussified.
December 21st, 2008 at 10:43 am
To clarify, I work in higher education administration, and you wouldn’t believe how many 18 year olds have no idea how to take care of themselves.
December 21st, 2008 at 10:45 am
Seems to me like the real problem we are facing is getting people into the jobs that are needed in the economy.
We have high unemployment, yet we are lacking for teachers, day care workers, truckers, skilled craftsmen, health care workers, and on and on. Seems to me like we should start at the root cause of these problems, and instead of providing government subsidies to get these services, we provide government subsidies to train workers to work in these programs.
Stop sending our kids to college to get philosophy and art history degrees and start sending them to get teaching degrees, voc tech schools, nursing degrees, and so on. I think when Obama proposes increasing funding for higher education he should only do so for degrees which are most in need, and not a single penny should go to an art history or philosophy degree.
December 21st, 2008 at 10:48 am
Andrew Fly:
The key is what age the first kid gets left home alone. We’re talking kindergarten age kids with no siblings left home here.
(I’m an only child and “latchkey kid” but my mother did a lot to make sure I was watched over until I reached an age where I wasn’t likely to injure myself accidentally.)
MattY: Well this is where the rubber hits the road. People in the US either don’t realise how different things are elsewhere, or they are not voting using that knowledge or the system is not putting great weight upon their votes. You’re helping by writing about Finland to disperse the first issue, but I wonder if it’s the others that are really the problem.
December 21st, 2008 at 11:15 am
Stop sending our kids to college to get philosophy and art history degrees and start sending them to get teaching degrees, voc tech schools, nursing degrees, and so on. I think when Obama proposes increasing funding for higher education he should only do so for degrees which are most in need, and not a single penny should go to an art history or philosophy degree.
The most popular major in the US is already business. Education is third.
This is not an issue — this is your personal preference dressed up as an issue.
December 21st, 2008 at 11:34 am
And right in between that we can see “social sciences and history” as #2. Psychology and Communications also both rank high up there and are fairly useless without further education.
December 21st, 2008 at 11:35 am
Plus, it’s usually rich kids getting those degrees, often at private universities, and thus not people getting federal financial aid.
December 21st, 2008 at 11:37 am
Also, education degrees tend to be useless. They teach theories that can’t really be applied in a real classroom. Among teachers who have gone through them, they are usually a joke. You want to be a good high school history teacher? Then major in history. Oh wait, JimboSlice informs us that social science degrees are evil.
December 21st, 2008 at 11:47 am
You are operating under the assumption that we should be teaching 3 or 4 years of history in high school. I am operating under the assumption that we should replace history with another science, engineering, technology, or math related subject.
Education degrees are good for creating quality educators, and are particularly good for those wanting to teach elementary or middle school.
BTW Social Science, History, Art, Acting, Communications, and Philosphy degrees are not evil, they are just useless to society in the quantity they are currently sought.
December 21st, 2008 at 11:50 am
“For many fields, the differences between the proportions of graduates earning postsecondary degrees in the United States and other OECD countries in 2004 were relatively small. In education, physical and biological sciences, computer science, and mathematics, the United States was within 1 percentage point of the OECD average. In contrast, the United States was 7.7 percentage points higher than the international average in business, social sciences, and other fields combined1 (47.7 vs. 40.0 per-cent), and 3.8 percentage points higher in arts and humanities combined. The U.S. proportion of degrees in business, social sciences, and other fields combined1 (47.7) was higher than in any other reporting OECD country, except for Hungary (49.3) and Poland (66.8). Fields in which the U.S. proportion of graduates earning degrees was somewhat lower than the OECD average included health (4.1 percentage points) and engineering (5.8 percentage points).”
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2007/section5/indicator43.asp
December 21st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Yeah, having Americans know even less about history is a great idea. The fact that you are asserting that education degrees actually make good teachers also makes me question your judgment on the matter.
December 21st, 2008 at 12:27 pm
@JimboSlice
You said:
You would be right if the Purpose in life was pure materialistic. Sadly, that is what is wrong in our society.
Reckless Consumerism with no regards for the consequences it has on our Planet and the 3th World will have to stop..Not in some distant future, but NOW.
Finnish education is No uno in skills, but very competative and has had its share of the “Coloumbine-syndrome” The Norwegian system is ranked low in skills, but a clear winner in selfcondidence and social skills. I prefer the norwegian system for my children, would you ?
December 21st, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Jimbo, it is the ultimate condescension to assume that day care workers, et al don’t need the social sciences and the humanities. My understanding is the federal government subsidizes community college through financial aid just as it does traditional college education, so I’m not sure exactly what policy change your supporting. The end to financial aid for student whose choices you don’t agree with?
December 21st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
We’re talking about 6 pm as “after-school time,” that is, optional, not as a mandatory requirement that kids stay until 6, right?
I used 6PM because that is usually the time parents have to pick up children from day care. Not a mandate. The program would be for families who need it.
December 21st, 2008 at 12:39 pm
We have high unemployment, yet we are lacking for teachers, day care workers…. instead of providing government subsidies to get these services, we provide government subsidies to train workers to work in these programs.
You don’t know any teachers or day care workers, do you? Trained teachers have trouble getting jobs, and if we don’t have enough day care workers it’s because day care workers are paid poverty wages. Which means the solution is to subsidize those services, to increase the supply and demand at a given price. Training more people to perform these services won’t do anything if there aren’t enough jobs in those field because not enough people can afford to purchase those services.
December 21st, 2008 at 1:05 pm
@ Reality Man.
Most of my friends on the net are americans. I’m really surprised how little they know of World History and Geography.
I am sure you would perform better if you based the foreign policy on knowledge instead on corporate greed and religious belief.
December 21st, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Is there a teacher shortage? I don’t think so (except maybe on a purely local and limited basis). I have a friend with a teaching degree who has been unable to find a job after two years of searching.
December 21st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
It’s far from clear that having a degree in education is all that helpful as far as actually teaching. There’s some evidence that people from bachelors teaching programs make some of the worst teachers. This probably because of a lack of rigor relative to more arcane subjects and people self selecting based on this.
It would be possible to create good education programs, and there probably are good education programs, but taken as on average people with education degrees are worse than people with many other degrees at educating (though that’s hard to measure objectively).
December 21st, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Maybe safe neighborhoods with some older kids and adults around make better day care than day care.
December 21st, 2008 at 3:34 pm
As in: I think there must be some kind of social scientific law stating that the kids can be left alone for 72 hours before the lord of the flies effect kicks in
December 21st, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Young kids home alone is one serious problem, from a safety standpoint. I too was a latchkey kid from about 5th grade on and I now have teenagers.
The world has changed – older kids home alone get into a lot of trouble.
Back in the 70s my brother and I used to make Chef Boyardee ravioli after school, watch the Flintstone, and fight.
The older latchkey kids now get high and drink after school (and all that goes with that) on a routine basis. If anything my 15 year old requires a lot more after-school supervision than my 6th grader.
December 21st, 2008 at 3:49 pm
“The older latchkey kids now get high and drink after school (and all that goes with that) on a routine basis.”
That sounds like fun. Maybe we should all go home at 3.
December 21st, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Re: The older latchkey kids now get high and drink after school
Back in the late 70s my teenage half-brother and his friends (entrusted with my care occasionally) used to sit around drinking, smoking pot and even doing coke. So things really haven’t changed all that much.
December 21st, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I was a latchkey kid from age 7. That lasted a couple weeks before my parents came home and I had half the neighborhood kids playing in my house. After that I was shipped off to daycare for the rest of elementary school. My little bro and I were lucky in that Mom was a teacher, so she got home about 4:30, only 1.5 hrs after us, so not long enough to get in trouble.
Some sort of neighborhood thing with older kids and adults around to take care of the little ones would be good, but American culture focuses too much on the home as a fortress and nobody should be able to come close, which doesn’t bode well for any unofficial community-based care.
My town had the Boys & Girls Club, which sounds suspiciously like #2’s proposal.
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