When I was in mainland China, my parents used to sometimes leave me at home alone with my (older) brother, and my maternal grandmother would watch us, but sometimes she’d be unavailable, so me and my brother were kinda just left alone at home with no adult supervision. This happened until I was 8, and until my brother was like idk 13? And of course we fought a lot.
Then we came to the US, I was grade-school age, and my parents had to work long hours, so they can’t pick me up from school, and I wasn’t old enough to walk home by myself, and minors aren’t legally allowed to be home alone without adult supervision, so my parents just put me in after school programs run by a Chinese-American non-profit, so I effectively had 7AM to 6PM school days, I had zero friends, go bullied a lot, and it honestly felt like a prison, I was always the last one to get picked up, that was so depressing. The majority of the hours I was awake was at school, I think this experience sort of made me more introverted, you know, the “social battery” never got a break.
Childcare only fullfills basic legal requirements, doesn’t exactly solve the emotional needs of kids.
What I’m saying is: Work hours are too long and that’s a problem, since parents have zero chance to spend time with kids.
I still have problems with my relationship with parents to this day. I don’t think we were ever close. Same problem with my older brother.
I don’t know how people have normal relationships when long work hours tear family apart.
The part I hate the most is that shorter work hours have been proven to actually lead to an increase in productivity. It’s so likely that if you genuinely cared about productivity then the risk/reward of trying it would be the safest thing you’ll ever do in your career.
But we don’t do that, obviously. The only two conclusions are that we are either astronomically stupid or the cruelty is the point. There’s a fun third option which, honestly, is probably the reality and that’s a combination of the first two.
When I was in mainland China, my parents used to sometimes leave me at home alone with my (older) brother, and my maternal grandmother would watch us, but sometimes she’d be unavailable, so me and my brother were kinda just left alone at home with no adult supervision. This happened until I was 8, and until my brother was like idk 13? And of course we fought a lot.
Then we came to the US, I was grade-school age, and my parents had to work long hours, so they can’t pick me up from school, and I wasn’t old enough to walk home by myself, and minors aren’t legally allowed to be home alone without adult supervision, so my parents just put me in after school programs run by a Chinese-American non-profit, so I effectively had 7AM to 6PM school days, I had zero friends, go bullied a lot, and it honestly felt like a prison, I was always the last one to get picked up, that was so depressing. The majority of the hours I was awake was at school, I think this experience sort of made me more introverted, you know, the “social battery” never got a break.
Childcare only fullfills basic legal requirements, doesn’t exactly solve the emotional needs of kids.
What I’m saying is: Work hours are too long and that’s a problem, since parents have zero chance to spend time with kids.
I still have problems with my relationship with parents to this day. I don’t think we were ever close. Same problem with my older brother.
I don’t know how people have normal relationships when long work hours tear family apart.
The part I hate the most is that shorter work hours have been proven to actually lead to an increase in productivity. It’s so likely that if you genuinely cared about productivity then the risk/reward of trying it would be the safest thing you’ll ever do in your career.
But we don’t do that, obviously. The only two conclusions are that we are either astronomically stupid or the cruelty is the point. There’s a fun third option which, honestly, is probably the reality and that’s a combination of the first two.
And we just let it all happen.