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Most of my immediate family voted for Trump, but I'm still having trouble imagining anything he says or does increasing the social status of parents.
I guess if he actually succeeded at revitalizing jobs by which a man of modest ability can support a family of five. But even among the evangelicals and Christian homeschoolers of my youth that ship had already sailed, and the families with decent status needed the father to be an engineer at least, so that he could support his six children and still go on retreats that cost some amount of money, and send his wife and children likewise. Several of my friends also have at least three children and may have voted for Trump, and I still feel like if we got awards we would all laugh and think "that's so weird."
But you have several children in an environment where you're bucking the trend. Maybe such a recognition would be more aimed at encouraging people like me (one and done) to have more? Wouldn't have worked. I know my limits. But I know folks who wavered on the second/third who might have been budged by messaging that doing so was "good" in some way. I wonder though if making access to fertility treatments cheaper/easier might not work more if you want more kids. While having kids younger would make some of that less necessary, at our current state of later marriages and child bearing, it has to play a significant role.
Yeah. I had a second partly because I wanted someone to eventually play with my older daughter. But I'm living in a 2500 sq ft mobile home on a half acre, with a wagon/SUV that fits three child car seats already, so have different costs/benefits than someone in a dense city with expensive housing.
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I'm not sure this is possible? The reason one can't support a family of five is that our standards have gone up. All the material goods you need to support a child are cheaper relative to median income than 100 (to say nothing about 200!) years ago.
Yeah, that's why I don't think it's likely to work out.
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I have four children and I'm with you on this. Yet I think there may be something to the discomfort in accepting the thanks / reward for doing something pro-social that not enough capable people are doing.
What is the source of the "that's so weird" discomfort? It feels a bit like embarrassment to me. I'd rather heap shame on the childfree.
It's probably related to America not generally having many meaningful awards outside of the military, so it would kind of feel like it was coming out of left field. It would seem less weird to be part of some sort of ceremony involving the Georgian patriarch, even as an American, since he already belongs to an extremely ceremonial church (and culture more generally).
I think that's part of it, to some it sounds like the, Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter, something Nazi's would do.
Is there a form it could take that would be not weird?
If the award was a free 7 or 8 passenger SUV that let you buy untaxed fuel and park in handicapped parking spots or a license to buy gold from the gold window at 1971 prices.
If it had real tangible benefits to the recipient is it less weird?
It would be less weird, but much, much more expensive.
I'm not sure what the government could do at this point to get me to have another child. Maybe a year of maternity leave at my full salary and a vehicular upgrade. I absolutely did not like going back to work with a month old newborn, and having to hand deliver a check to pay back their side of my insurance for that time.
There are countries with significantly more maternity leave and public health care, still with low fertility.
Could you be tempted to have four or more children if the government canceled / retired your student loans / and or mortgage debt? No income tax for the rest of your life? The elderly giving up their seats for you on public transit, boy scouts, police and other public servents saluting you? You get the veterans and first responders discount at Lowe's?
I did not take out loans. They have so far offered $0 payments to my husband for having children in his household. We will be in bad shape if they rescind that, but it's not like we can take the kids back.
Maybe! But that sounds like the sort of thing that wouldn't be long term sustainable, due to the market adjusting.
I'm pretty sure I'm net negative in this respect already. And to the extent that in the future I make more money while having less children at home, this will not be good for them. If they're going to subsidize me later, it should be directly, not through the government.
That sounds embarrassing and awful. But, also, my area doesn't have functional public transport.
Ugh, no, that sounds like a negative thing
Meh. I don't consider things to be on sale until they're at least 30% off, but also I don't think we've bought anything from Lowe's in years, and don't have any plans to do that. I bought a bag once with a Peace Corps discount of 40% off or something. Best bag I've ever bought, I still use it every day. Apparently there are already teacher discounts that I don't bother using.
I was trying to imagine modern and US centric versions of the benefits of the Cross of Honour of the German Mother (Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter) Wikipedia describes them as
It should be noted that many of the women to receive this award were already 60+.
I like the idea of debt retirement, if my wife had accrued 250k in debt through medical school and post graduate study, we'd have fewer children. But as we don't see countries with 'free' education producing higher fertility I suspect it's a minor factor.
I think Russia is actively working on something like that, so maybe we’ll get another chance to see how it works out.
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I mean, lots of people would take a free car and $.40 off per gallon no matter how weird it is.
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