15
votes
This is the most balanced take on the parenting discourse that I have ever heard
Link information
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- Title
- Chappell Roan's comments about parents pissed people off | Has the discourse gone too far?
- Authors
- Psychology with Dr. Ana
- Duration
- 21:46
- Published
- Apr 7 2025
Full disclosure: This is a video from a YouTuber who I have been subscribed to for a long time. The video was released yesterday.
Here’s the TLDR:
A famous singer, known professionally as Chappell Roan, went on a famous podcast entitled Call Her Daddy. That episode was aired on March 26. At some point in the show (sorry, I don’t care for it, so I didn’t try to find the time stamp), the host asks the singer a question about parenting. A clip of that conversation went viral and sparked a debate about the topic.
Now to the take from Dr. Ana Yudin (the YouTuber from the link in this thread):
She first points out how the clip was taken out of context, and how the full conversation does not make the singer appear as disgusted of parenthood and children as many assume. She just acknowledges that parenting is challenging.
Then Dr. Yudin dissects how the broader discourse around parenting has become polarized in recent years (as with almost everything else) and stripped off its nuances (idem.). She notes how there seem to be two camps now: There are those who idolize parenthood, make it out to be the purpose of life, and pretend that it is easy and always fulfilling. And then there are those who demonize parenthood, make hyper-individualism the purpose of life, and insist that everyone who has children is either miserable or pretends not to be.
From there, she then gives a balanced take on parenting: It’s OK to want it or not. It comes with high ups, low downs, and everything in between (like almost any other major life choice). And it can be fulfilling for some, though not for others.
Then she concludes by saying that the discourse around parenting needs to change. Not only do we need to stop antagonizing those who choose to remain childless (no matter their reason), but also stop vilifying those who choose to have them. Most importantly though, we ought to develop a society that is child friendly.
Having watched the video, I'm curious about your own take: how polarized is your local area + your social circle on kids vs no kids? What's your guess on how representative that is on wider population?
I'm quite some distance from the debate between Child Free vs Idealized Parenthood, now that we're in teen years AND I do not social media about parenting anymore. From that many years ago, I remember some pretty strong rhetoric from within the infertility / child free / breaking mom breaking dad / one and done / multiples communities, for the reasons the video presenter highlighted: positive experiences are unwanted or deemed invalid because they're not realistic or representative, whereas negative experiences drive engagement and algorithmic focus. It can certainly feel like every view point is open to attack, and every status polarized between being ignored or else go viral. IF, CF, single, multiple, homeschool, private school, rich poor US Europe etc etc: either no one wants to talk to you, or else the entire Internet is arguing about you.
(Note: the breaking parent communities circa 00s were places where people who "are in hell" can talk about the difficulties in dramatically negative tones, with the underlying unstated understanding that they super love being parents and love their children dearly. They were a breakout alternative from the sugary sweet everything is rosy and unicorn sunshine sparkles kind of parenting forums. I haven't been there for a very long time so I don't know if they exist / are different now).
I think....at the end of the day, society as a whole is in need of a big big hug. That people want love and acceptance and affirmation and be understood and supported, wherever we find ourselves. If we're having a hard time and want change, we what to be told there's better days ahead, hang in there, you're not alone on this journey we don't want to be on anymore/for much longer. If we're having a hard time because we don't want change, we want to be told that's perfectly fine and we won't regret it because we're young or that we're selfish or judgemental or somehow immoral. If we're in flux and kind of scared of both staying and moving, or afraid that it's too late, we want someone to hold our hands and just breathe deeply in this moment, to acknowledge both wanting something and deeply afraid of it at the same time. If life had other plans for us and our dreams are permanently dashed to pieces, we want for someone to come howl at the heavens with us, to shake our fists together and curse the wind and not be told "nah that thing you wanted isn't all that good anyway" or "that's your fault the door has closed".
It used to be that it was easier to have friends. Our friends knew how/when to keep their hot takes to themselves, to celebrate the most trivial of our victories and fake enthusiasm until they catch it from us, and to desperately wish something for us that they would walk over hot knives to avoid for themselves.
Which circles back to my question: is this a hotly debated topic in your circle? :) what does your friend group think, and has this issue driven your group closer together or further apart?
oof
I’m not sure that I can give you a concise answer to this question and (trigger warning) I’ll have to talk about my Christian religion.
I think that I can answer this one very briefly. Since 2018, I have been living in my wife’s country—Latvia. As with the rest of Europe, the trend towards political polarization that came from the US has arrived here as well. This is obviously an anecdotal observation, but interacting with the locals, I get the sense that the older generations are becoming increasingly pro-natal, holding favorable views on parenthood, and younger generations are becoming increasingly anti-natal, holding negative views on parenthood.
So, I’m a Christian. I go regularly to church on Saturdays since about 2004-ish. My wife is a member of the same denomination as I am. As of 2021 there are close to 22 million members in our denomination worldwide. A little over 3,500 of those reside in Latvia. We’re a small group here, so we pretty much all know each other. Almost my entire social circle these days is made up of members of my religion.
As you’d expect, Christians, in my denomination included, would lean towards socially conservative ideologies. This is true about parenthood as well. It is a known but little-discussed fact that there is a bias towards married couples with children in my church—and I say this with all the love that I have for my religion. It is a bias nonetheless, and it is a bias that “hurts” my wife and I, because she had a hysterectomy in 2022 (complications due to leukemia, long story), so she’s now 34, I’m 35, and we’ll be forever childless. We also happen to be poor, so we can’t even foster or adopt.
Now, I want to make it clear that no one mistreats us for not having children. A lot of people sympathize with us, and there are some others who can’t conceive too, so they empathize with us as well. I should add that our relationships within our church are actually all very positive and supportive. Ironically, when my wife and I couldn’t afford the literally life-saving hysterectomy that she needed, the church just paid for it, over $3,000, no questions asked. We have a lot of people who look out for us (and we give back as much as we reasonably can). It’s a good environment and there isn’t any serious drama ever taking place in our midst, thankfully.
That being said, childless couples are looked down upon. It’s worse even if you’re a single male. And if you’re a single woman, then you’re basically the absolute lowest. People are still nice to each other and supportive, but you can feel the disdain. It’s difficult to explain what this looks like in practice if you have never experienced it. You can also feel the questions in people’s minds: “Why hasn’t she gotten married yet? What’s wrong with her?” And with childless couples, these questions could be: “Why don’t they have children? How can they live such meaningless lives just selfishly enjoying themselves?” I’m caricaturizing and exaggerating a bit, but this is the culture of the church, generally speaking.
As a consequence, it becomes harder and harder for childless couples and single people to be integrated in the inner circles of church administration as we age. Naturally, the duties and responsibilities are passed down from one generation to the next, but my wife and I are not being given many opportunities to participate, and I know that one of the reasons is that we don’t have children (some others being that we don’t have an education, are poor, and I’m a foreigner with limited language proficiency). I can feel that a lot of church members don’t take us very seriously because we don’t have experience raising children. Somehow, parenthood is equated with greater maturity. (And that is despite the fact that Jesus never married or had children Himself. lol) I will say that I do believe that becoming a parent can (emphasis on can) boost your maturity, but it also largely depends on your attitude whether you will take in the lessons that you learn along that journey or not. Taking on responsibility can only help you to mature if you allow it to.
Funny enough, my closest friends for the last few years have actually been a couple with children. They first had a daughter, then a son, and now they’re soon going to have another daughter, that was an “accident”. lol Anyway, they are very good friends. We hang out often. When we do, the children are always there and I enjoy their presence. I act as sort of an “uncle” towards them. They’re good kids. I find it curious that you asked me these questions, because parenthood is something that I discuss with these two friends of mine all the time. They tell me that they love their children over everything. However, they will also admit that they feel completely burned out from raising them. They’re still small, rowdy, and very dependent. They often complain to me that they have no time left for their hobbies or interests, and especially the mother has confessed to me that she does not feel “fulfilled” from having them. She says that she “would do it all over again”, but at the same time, she eagerly awaits the time when their kids will be more independent so she can go back to her career as an interior designer, which is what she says actually makes her feel fulfilled. The father would equally love to return to photography (he’s amazing).
I can tell you with confidence though that the majority of adult church members is married, has children, and at least outwardly claims that having them and raising them properly is the meaning of life (some go as far as to say that it’s what God expects from us). There is very little nuance to this debate. And I find that sad. I find it sad for the many church members who can’t have children or choose not to have them for sensible reasons. Funny enough, there was a lady in 1800s, one of the founders of my denomination, who wrote dozens of books, a lot of them on the topic of parenthood and education. I have read several. They’re good stuff. I will never forget that one time I read a statement she made, where she counseled people against having children unless they had the means and energy to raise them properly. Sounds like common sense, doesn’t it? Given the immense influence that her writings have in my denomination, you’d expect that the members would take this nuanced statement to heart, but they don’t. lol She actually made similar statements about marriage, meaning that it isn’t for everyone, and that’s OK. But she was an abolitionist (she was American), and even labored in the temperance movement (when women nationwide tried to rally against the epidemic of alcoholism). She was ahead of her time, I guess.
Anyway, the point that I wanted to make is that I feel that Christianity has somehow conflated religion and politics, and “appropriated” parenthood an ideology. This can be felt in my denomination as well. I don’t think that this amalgamation of religion and politics is a good thing, and I don’t think that this ideology is nuanced enough. And I say this as someone who has cried because he can’t have children. I very much would like to have my own if I possibly could.
Now, as to how representative my denomination’s general opinion on parenthood is in the wider population (of Latvia), I would say that it is a minority. I’m just guessing here, but I think that a minority of Latvians thinks of parenthood as an important, let alone needed milestone in life. A low birthrate was a trend here long before it became an issue elsewhere. Latvians don’t “breed” a lot. lol However, Latvians in my denomination have unusually large families (often three children or more). Latvian Christians are doing their part to keep their ethnicity and their population from dying out. lol
Is it a hotly debated topic? I wouldn’t say so. I hear people in my denomination often comment on parenthood, but the comments almost always boil down to: “Yeah. People should get married and should have children. That’s the purpose of life. If you don’t do that, then you’re selfish.” There isn’t a “debate”. Everyone just nods in agreement. Maybe I should pay closer attention to these discussions and offer some pushback sometime. But then again, my level of Latvian proficiency is maybe too low for that (I’m Portuguese).
Has this issue driven us apart? No. We’re all pretty united on it. I have a more nuanced opinion on this topic than most of us, but I also still believe that parenthood is a valuable experience that a majority of people should enter in, if they have the means and the attitude necessary to it right.
May I briefly use this opportunity to go on a tangential rant about something that really bothers me?
You may be wondering why I don’t have friends outside of the church. It’s not that I don’t want to, but it’s extremely difficult to connect with people outside of a “bubble” these days. I actually don’t have “non-church in-person” friends at the moment. That would be nearly impossible. What would we do to hang out and spend time together? I have no interests that people outside of the church share with me. If I wasn’t poor, then I’d go back to bouldering, which is a sport that I enjoy and has a great community. I would certainly make real-life friends there very quickly. But that’s out of my reach for now. I have “online acquaintances” that I frequently text with, but as you can imagine, me being a Christian, I have to tiptoe around certain topics so that I don’t offend them. I kid you not, some of these people look down on me just for “being Christian”. I can interact with them, and they’ll tell me that I’m “surprisingly nice for a Christian”, but that’s as far as the compliments go. I will say that I have some very good interactions with many of them, but there’s always a tense air around a few others when I enter the chat. Still, I intentionally go to places where people have a completely different worldview than I do (Tildes included), because otherwise, I would literally just be locked inside a bubble. But as you can imagine, there are certain topics that are taboo in those online circles. I can’t speak my mind or present any nuanced opinions. And I can’t bring up religion, because almost every time I do, I get told that I’m an idiot for believing in a fairy tale. (It doesn’t bother me. Been hearing that for over two decades.)
There are so many reasons why we don’t mingle more with people who disagree with us these days. It’s partly the loss of “third places”, people being chronically online, the polarization of society, etc. One phenomenon that I have observed over the years, which is also exemplified by the subject of parenthood, is the “co-opting” of ideologies by certain groups of people. So, for example, my denomination, a Christian religion, has “co-opted” pro-natalism and pro-parenthood (for lack of me knowing a better term) as literal ideologies. As a consequence, religion and politics have blended. It’s an amalgamation of the worst sort, if you ask me, and doesn’t benefit society nor my denomination. And it’s almost treated like a badge of honor, so that when Christians get “accused” of being pro-natal and pro-parenthood, we beat our chests and stand with pride. It’s so silly that it makes me laugh. It’s an ideology, for crying out loud. It isn’t a medal or a trophy. And it isn’t a nuanced ideology either. Political ideologies should have no place in my religion (or any religion). That’s my belief. Also, I’ve read the Bible from cover to cover three times in my life (working on the fourth one) and I didn’t read a single verse stating that God expects us to “adhere” to either a pro-natal or anti-natal ideology. Ideologies have nothing to do with character development, which is what I believe religion is supposed to be about.
Another example (and I’ll finish my rant with this), is diet. In these last few years I have observed that more and more “Christian influencers” (yuk) have co-opted a carnivore diet as their new hill to die on. It’s supposedly healthier, more “natural”, and, get this, “anti-woke”. lol It also ignores everything that is written in the Bible about diet. So now, you’re not a real Christian if you’re not a carnivore, or at least, consume a lot of meat in your diet, unlike those “woke” and “weak” “leftists”, who are “all” vegan. Well, it just so happens that veganism and vegetarianism (this will blow your mind) is the preferred diet of the members of my denomination. I’m serious. I’ve been vegan since 2009. And when I tell this to people, they’re in shock. “How can a homophobic, transphobic, sexist, xenophobic, racist, genocidal, white supremacist... [the list goes on] ...nazi of a Christian [because Christians are all those things now by default] be vegan!? That’s not possible! Everyone knows that Christians only eat meat!” I’m just exaggerating for humor here, but this is, to some extent, the reaction that I get. Why? Because somehow the political left has co-opted diet as a part of their “culture” (imagine that, blending politics and culture, wild). “You’re vegan? Well, you must be a communist then. Give me a hug, comrade!” It’s just so silly.
So, anyway. I do what I can to befriend people not of my religion, stay nuanced, and not co-opt ideologies into my culture or religion. And with parenting, my take is as I wrote it previously:
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Hey friend,
I don't know you from Adam, but it seems like you're a nice enough fellow. I'd like to say thank you for sharing what you have and opening a bit about your struggles. It's always hard being in a new environment, surrounded by a new language, and feelings of isolation suck. We've all been there at one point or another, in one way or another, and my heart goes out to you.
Without knowing more than what you've said about your life, and not intending to tell you your business, I suspect I may be able to help you understand and perhaps even empathize with the struggles you face making friends. You see, I am very familiar with your branch of Christianity, and have had friends and neighbors who are adherents of your denomination my entire life. (I recognized it pretttttty much immediately, having grown up within 100 miles of its founding locale.) Without knowing you, I suspect that (as we all have blind spots) there may be attitudes or behaviors you espouse may confuse those outside your religious community. Without communication, there can be no community, and if you are communicating in a foreign language (figuratively as well as literally), it is very hard to build community. I believe you are in earnest in welcoming and not judging others for their lack of belief, but there may be things you are saying (reflecting what others in your denomination have said) that would belie that intention. What's below is a little about me and a little bit about what impression others of your denomination have left on me.
Growing up, I described myself as, "Christian, but not a jerk about it," to a lot of folks who were not religious, or who had experiences of persecution from religious persons and organizations...which I think is a sentiment you would also express. Indeed, the veganism/vegetarianism and respect for all humans regardless of adherence that are hallmarks of your denomination speak to the desire to be Godly and kind on earth (in part inspired by the Millerian Millennialism in the 1840s and a desire to enter Salvation with a holy Spirit). I adopted that language of self-description, because, rightly or wrongly, many people hear "Christian" and expect a certain kind of treatment. Namely, mistreatment. Put another way, like Gandhi said, "I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians."
If your self-identity is Christian first last and in all things, that's going to come with certain expectations from the label. We can describe ourselves a however we want, but words have meanings to folks. As one of my favorite shows repeats, "first impression's a lasting one." If you enter into every interaction with a person you'd like to hang out with as, "Damn the torpedos, full steam ahead, I'm a Christian," some folks won't be interested in learning more. That's either because of bad experiences with people who described themselves similarly, or because of a general social skepticism in your country that isn't helped by those people. I say this because, in your answer, you repeatedly talked about being a Christian as a barrier to knowing folks...might it be that you're bringing up your religion in a way that is easily misunderstood in your context?
In more religious environs, professions of faith, testimony, and even explicit evangelism are often welcomed in the public sphere. In other spaces, the only people who really talk about their own faith are those seeking to proselytize those who are disinterested, or who promote political ideology that is exclusionary for some populations. Either situation would be off-putting to many, but that's all that many people experience. If you use language that reminds people of, "that one guy who keeps harassing me about the end of days," it may be that others will mistakenly consider you to be like them, even if you're just a chill dude who wants to play video games or make craft sodas. Even as a person raised in a more faithful community than I'm in now, someone who's like, "yeah it's hard to make friends because I'm Christian," is kinda...worrying to me. Like I'm expecting the other shoe to drop.
You can't change your society alone. You don't have to change who you fundamentally are to fit in. But if who you are perceived as is different from who you are, your language and approach can change to reconcile the two. Maybe I'm way off base (and if so please forgive me), but that might help you understand?
As someone who was raised Christian (somewhat non-denominational, we attended service at a few different local churches over the course of my childhood) who now considers himself agnostic, I would echo this sentiment. I try to withold judgement but I would be lying if I said that someone bringing up their religious affiliation as a leading statement or early on in the process of becoming acquainted doesn't put me a bit on guard as a result of those childhood experiences. The churches in the area around my hometown carry a certain pushiness and hostility towards those outside the group which can be unpleasant, and that’s only gotten worse since I was young (all that was relatively mild in the 90s compared to today).
Oh, absolutely. I am fully aware that starting a first interaction by labeling myself as Christian is a sure fire way to get people to turn around and never talk to me again. I did mention it here in the context of the question that I was answering, but believe me, I never introduce myself as a Christian up front. Haven’t done it for years.
The barrier isn’t “knowing” folks or even “meeting” them, it’s “hanging out” with them in person, specifically. Like I said, I just don’t have a lot of the same interests that others do. Just to give an example: I don’t care to leave the house past 9 PM to go to a bar or something, not personally, and not morally. But a lot of people like to hang out at night, in bars, restaurants, etc. That’s the obstacle to interacting with them more frequently. On the Internet though, I interact with a lot of folks from completely different strokes, because our “hangout” is this, the forum.
You’re absolutely right though. The label “Christian” is a heavy one, and people have their experiences with it.
That’s an interesting aspect that you bring up there. For years now, I have lived by the mantra of “be interested, not interesting”, when interacting with people in person, focusing my attention on them, and asking them questions, rather than talking about myself. Builds good rapport 100% of the time.
No problem. I agree with what you said and it would have been very good and useful advice when I was younger. I’ve learned the hard way. Warm hugs my friend!
Agreed with a lot of the things in the video. Especially the part about the costs of raising a child. Parents would be a lot less miserable if everything didn't cost so damn much and there was better financial support available to them (at least in the US, can't speak for other countries). Childcare, formula, diapers, children's clothes, babysitting, car seats, strollers, etc. etc. etc...
There are things that you know will be expensive before you become a parent, and then there are things that only become apparent after you become a parent (pardon the pun). Like 40 bucks for a diaper rash cream, or that one specific formula that your kid needs because they're allergic to regular formula, or the surgery that mom needs a year later because delivering a fully fledged human being takes its toll on the human body (my wife needed two separate wrist surgeries directly as a result of having a baby, yes you read that right - her wrist tendons got messed up because of the swelling from the last few weeks of pregnancy).
Oh and my favorite surprise expense of the bunch: all your anticipated hospital costs are basically doubled when you go to deliver a baby. Even with decent insurance (if you could call it that), all of our costs that we planned for turns out were just for the mother. At no point in any of the pregnancy and all of our research and doctor's visits did anyone ever mention that the baby gets their own set of hospital bills completely independently from the mother. So a hospital fee for the mother, and an equal-but-separate hospital fee for the baby. A doctor's fee for the mother, and a pediatrician's fee for the baby. A delivery/surgery fee for the mother, and yet again the exact same delivery/surgery fee for the baby. Luckily we were fine, but a few extra thousands of dollars is a tough pill to swallow when you're blindsided by it. And again, all of this is with insurance throughout the entire pregnancy, and a relatively straightforward delivery. I can't imagine what it would have looked like if there were complications, or if we didn't have insurance or had bad insurance. I could rant on this for hours, but suffice it to say that insurance sucks and desperately needs a reform in this country.
As for the parenting side of things, the one thing that I'll add relates to this that you mentioned:
This makes total sense, but I think it's hard to truly understand the pros and cons without actually having been there. And I don't mean that in a gatekeeping sort of way, I just really feel like something changed in my brain, chemically, when I had my child. It's hard to explain, like obviously I knew that people loved their kids, and there were plenty of people and pets that I loved in my life before having a child. But then when we actually had our daughter, holy shit there must be some evolutionary drive or something that just signals to your brain 'hey see this thing, it matters x100' and that signal just overrides everything else. Like don't get me wrong, it's still stressful as hell, and the sleepless nights are a nightmare, and now that she's starting to walk and run around everywhere it's a pain in the ass. I never used to be a baby person (I never looked at a baby and though 'ooh how cute', they're just babies), but now I look at my child and get this immense feeling of joy that is hard to put into words. Anyways, this is something that I never would have considered before having a child, because it feels like something has fundamentally altered inside of my brain. So how could I have possibly weighed the pros and cons correctly then, knowing how I feel now.
Also one last thing before his gets too long. The video mentions an example like 'what if instead of having a baby it was something else like becoming a physician, and the response was that everyone you know who's a physician is miserable...' and funny enough that's almost exactly my experience in the world of academia. I'm not in the medical field at all, but when I was in grad school, the resounding consensus about my field (history) was that 'everyone is miserable', career options suck, academia sucks even more, only do it if you really love it or if you're doing it to get better pay as a teacher, and even then prepare for disappointment. Like even today if you ask about being a history major on online forums the general consensus that I find seems to be "Don't".
Is this in the US? It blows my mind that one needs to pay to be born. Someone please hit this planet with an asteroid. We have failed basic humanity.
You know it. Land of the free, baby! Freedom to pay insurance companies thousands of dollars and then pay doctors and hospitals and medical facilities thousands more despite having insurance! You pay a premium each month to have insurance and then pay again when you actually need to use it. You're paying for the privilege of being able to pay more. If that ain't winning, I don't know what is.
I won't derail the thread with my complaints, but here's a quick and 'funny' story for ya. My daughter happened to be born like two weeks before our insurance period reset, yet when they went to enter her details for her health insurance coverage to take effect, they put it as effective the date of the renewal rather than the day she was born. So when her bills came for the delivery and brief hospital stay, it showed that her insurance hadn't started yet (basically she had no insurance). Less than two weeks of living and she already had a bill for 15,000 dollars! After many many MANY phone calls, I was finally able to correct the issue about three months later and ended up paying the 'correct' amount of 'only' about 2,000 dollars (for her, plus another 3,000 or so for mom's bills).
God bless America!
Anyone who defends privatized healthcare is either misinformed, a sadist, or both.
Dang. Imagine this. You are born, and already in debt. Props on you for having the patience to call around until they corrected the mistake. I think that a lot of people (me included) would just have given up. That’s probably another way that they exploit us. I just cannot comprehend how there hasn’t yet been some kind of revolt over these things, in a country that was literally founded on anger over a slight tax increase on tea.
I hope you don’t mind me pushing back on this statement a little bit. As it is in the US, I agree with you that the private sector has been allowed to run roughshod over the American people. However, I can’t imagine that the federal government would be competent enough to run the healthcare system.
I lived in Japan for one year. They probably have one of the best healthcare systems in the world. My wife and I worked at a bakery for the duration of our stay (long story). We fell into the lowest income bracket (we made by). My wife needed a laparoscopy (surgical intervention to remove ovarian cysts due to endometriosis). Not only did we pay very little for what would have been a surgery that would have costed thousands of dollars (I think we paid like $500 if I remember correctly), but they also provided everything else for my wife for free, and the quality of the service at the Gunma University Hospital was out of this world. Every time we went there, we got some kind of “card” at a machine. The machine then gave us instructions on where to go to get the card (digitally) “punched” at a different machine, in order to check in for the next appointment. We would go from one doctor to the next, and be attended on the spot. It was super efficient. Sure, we needed a translator with us all the way through, but it was still so much easier than elsewhere. How easy the Japenese have it there is extremely enviable.
But then take Portugal, the country that I was born and raised in. It’s a member of the European Union. “Europe has amazing healthcare” and all that jazz, right? Well, no. The European Union is much more a “conglomerate” of countries as than the US is a conglomerate of states. Sure, California and Idaho are two very distinct places, culturally, economically, etc. But Portugal and, let’s say, Germany (where I lived for five years), are two separate universes, in every metric.
So, let me tell you about the national healthcare service in Portugal (Serviço Nacional de Saúde). It’s bad. It’s so bad. And it’s been getting worse by the minute ever since I was born. In fact, I was born in a hospital that was closed just a few years after, forcing local residents to drive very long distances across winding mountain roads to get access to healthcare. Hospitals and clinics have been closing the country over. The government has been severely underpaying all medical staff for decades. There are too many sick people and not enough doctors to attend them. All healthcare professionals are completely burned out (I know several). As a consequence, you literally get yelled at and shoved around by the people who should be helping you. The few hospitals that do exist, operate at a level of inefficiency that makes third world countries look like developed nations. There is also a weird bureaucratic burden imposed on patients that makes things like setting up appointments more complex than it needs to be. And of course, while you pay less than in the private sector, you still pay a fair bit. Portuguese students seeking to enter the medical field have been fleeing abroad en masse. There is an inconceivable brain drain. Then there’s insurance. Insurance in Portugal is a complete scam. My father was entitled to all sorts of insurance when he got hit by a distracted driver while crossing the street a few years ago. He lived to tell the tale, but he has wasted countless hours since then fighting a legal battle with the insurance company, which refuses to pay for his medical bills. He ended up having to pay out of his own pocket. Everyone I know tries to avoid going to the doctor if they possibly can, because it’s going to rob them of all their time, patience, potentially even cost them a fair sum of money, and not help them to get any better. I mean, some people there are literally dying while waiting for the healthcare that they need. Finally, due to a steep rise in immigration, and the previously mentioned brain drain, our hospitals and clinics are now run by underqualified foreigners, who in some cases don’t even speak the language (I had to deal with a Spanish doctor once). (Side note: I’m not pooh-poohing on immigrants. But this is the reality of what’s going on there.)
Now the kicker: This state of things has been developing under a government that has been mostly leaning left throughout my existence. I’m not saying that I lean right. I don’t lean at all. I have distanced myself from partisan politics a good while ago because they have become completely devoid on nuance. But this state of things in Portugal is not what you would expect from the parties who decry private healthcare. The real problem, of course, isn’t the ideology though, as much as it is the culture of corruption. I mean that literally. Deep seated corruption is a trait of Portuguese culture. We call it chico-espertice. I have no clew how to translate that, but the connotation is that you basically do everything you can to get something for yourself in every situation. You look out for yourself. It’s survival of the fittest. Dog eats dog. No one will look out for you. And it’s not just healthcare. Portugal has become a complete cesspool in almost every aspect other than climate and cuisine. Jobs, housing, cost of living, safety, you name it.
But it gets better: The state of the national healthcare service has been so dire, that people have been literally fleeing to the private sector. I kid you not. Private healthcare is on the rise in Portugal. And guess what? Yes, you pay your eyeballs out, but you actually get the help that you need there, and a quality service at that. Even my parents have on occasion gone to private hospitals and clinics. People are blowing their savings and pawning off their possessions to be able to seek help from the private sector. Isn’t this just absolutely insane?
What is the solution here?
I don’t know.
I mean, I do know. Politicians, ought to stop being corrupt and actually put the interests of the people ahead of their own.
Hahaha. That was a good one, right?
Anyway, my point is that it’s all bad, everywhere, and in different ways. lol
But hey, my wife and I have been living in her country (Latvia), which despite being another member of the European Union, is very poor. We struggle to find work and make ends meet. But at least, the healthcare system is “good”. And I choose that word intentionally. It isn’t nearly as good as the Japanese one, but leagues ahead of the Portuguese system. It’s cheap, accessible, easy to navigate, and local professionals are, well, professional. Come to Latvia. It’s a great place to live in if you make an American income. Putin won’t be nuking us any time soon. I think we have a few more years left.
Fair enough, I'll amend my statement:
I did not know the situation in Portugal was so bad with regards to healthcare. Though I would argue that the solution there is not unchecked privatization of healthcare, but rather the fixing of the existing system. Tall order, I know. I just feel like two wrongs don't make a right. The public healthcare there being a mess doesn't necessarily mean that private healthcare should be the goal.
Good healthcare needs to be 2 things: high quality and affordable to the masses. In the US, we definitely have access to high quality care, but fail miserably on the affordability end of that scale. In Portugal, seems like it's the opposite, where it's available to all, but terrible quality. Latvia seems like it has a mix of the two, which on the surface appears to be much better than having one or the other. Japan seems to be balanced as well based on what you've mentioned (side note: quite an interesting mix of countries you've lived in there, Portugal, Germany, Japan, Latvia, must be tons of cultural differences and unique experiences).
One thing I'll ask though, about the Japanese healthcare that you brought up. When you and your wife paid for her laparoscopy, did you also have to pay a monthly premium prior to and after that? Or did you just pay for the surgery and that's it? I ask because the system in the US involves paying a monthly fee for the privilege of having healthcare, but then all that does is make it so that when you go to get some sort of medical service, your insurance tells the hospital/doctor/lab/pharmacy how much they can charge you. All the fees are SEVERELY overpriced, and then insurances serve as the middlemen looking to skim a bit of the money while appearing to 'save' you money.
Look up the definition of a cartel ("a collection of independent businesses or organizations that collude to manipulate the price of a product or service") and then realize that that is exactly how the healthcare system in the US works. I've literally had hospital billing staff tell me to my face "Well your insurance says that the most we can charge for an ultrasound is $800, so we're going to charge you $800." I paid it, because we really needed the ultrasound to see what was going on with our soon-to-be baby, and no amount of arguing with the lady made any sort of difference, but then spend the next 7 months arguing with my insurance over the phone about it until finally they realized it should have 'only' been $150 and refunded us the difference.
But just think about that for a second. They literally told me flat out that they were going to charge me as much as they possibly could. With a straight face. That's the whole system in a nutshell. Profits over everything. Extract as much money as you can from people.
Do you know how much I paid to have healthcare that year that we had our baby? (Bringing this back to the topic of the financial stresses of child-rearing). We paid almost $16,000 in that one year for two adults and a baby that was born later on in the year. And that was just to have insurance. We also paid around $5,000 for the actual birth of our daughter. Then the following year we managed to find (though massive effort) some cheaper insurance policies for around $9,000-$10,000 per year, but it didn't include vision or dental like we had previously (we don't need glasses and we figured we would just do dental separately as needed). And then those two wrist surgeries that my wife needed as a consequence of the birth were about $1,500 total. Imagine how much easier and less stressful my life as a parent would be if I didn't have to pay over $32,000 in two years just for the ability to have a baby.
And if you're thinking 'well surely that's just an extreme scenario, I'm sure most people aren't paying that much...' well maybe. But consider this as well:
Medical debt accounts for 40% of bankruptcies in the US
This analysis shows that 20 million people (nearly 1 in 12 adults) owe medical debt. The SIPP survey suggests people in the United States owe at least $220 billion in medical debt. Approximately 14 million people (6% of adults) in the U.S. owe over $1,000 in medical debt and about 3 million people (1% of adults) owe medical debt of more than $10,000. While medical debt occurs across demographic groups, people with disabilities or in worse health, lower-income people, and uninsured people are more likely to have medical debt.
Households with children under age 18 (24.7%) were more likely than those without children (16.5%) to carry medical debt. <- a quarter of all American households with children have medical debt.
The CEO of the largest healthcare company in the US just got shot. And it didn't surprise me in the least given what I've experienced over the last few years of dealing with the American healthcare system. Perhaps in moderation, some sort of privatized healthcare system can exist in the world, as a supplement to freely-available and decent-quality public healthcare. But definitely not as a replacement. I'd rather public healthcare get better rather than private healthcare get cheaper, since insurance companies will always be there to skim some profits for their own best interests. There are some things that are too important to be left to for-profit companies, such as education, prison systems, basic utilities, and most of all: people's well-being.
Oh absolutely. The pendulum would just swing to the opposite extreme. Like I said, people are throwing out their savings in the private sector there.
Can one talk about “balance” in these terms though? Because if the goal is to have quality healthcare that is also affordable, then we would ideally want both of those metrics to rise high, right? But how can countries do that? Japan did it through wealth and education, I suppose (I don’t know). Latvia’s healthcare system isn’t as good in either of the two aspects. But the education here is good, and I have a feeling that the government is generally speaking responsible with public funds, and even somewhat transparent about their spendings. So, they invest a reasonable amount on healthcare, despite the country being poor and the government not having a large budget. Maybe poorer countries need exactly this kind of “culture” (for lack of a better term) to be able to raise both the quality as well as the affordability of healthcare.
Haha. Yes. I got “lucky”. I spent my 20s traveling around and being irresponsible. I also lived two years in France, 1.5 years in the USA (Georgia-Tennessee, near Chattanooga), and spent a few months in Switzerland, Ukraine, and Finland. As a consequence, I didn’t get an education, am poor, and am now firmly stuck in Latvia. 😂 But those were all experiences of a lifetime, so hopefully I won’t regret it later when I’m dying and have no pension. 😅
I’ll probably get this wrong, and I don’t even know where I could look up the information to confirm this to you, but here goes anyway: From what I remember, healthcare in Japan is universally provided, so a lot of the services are free of charge, regardless of any other factor (residency status, employment status, insurance, etc.). We were employed, so we paid taxes (within the lowest bracket of the Japanese system), and I believe that we also had some kind of insurance, which you have to have in order to be employed. There is a “basic” insurance plan that you need to have to be allowed to work (you usually get it within the first few weeks after you sign a new contract, I think), and it covers almost all of the rest of “basic” healthcare, and isn’t expensive (though I can’t remember how much it was, but I feel that it was a small yearly fee). Either way, we didn’t have to pay a premium for it, there was also no “fee” that we needed to pay for the “privilege of getting healthcare”, and most services (and drugs, etc.) are completely or partly covered by the government. More specialized services like the laparoscopy, however, require us to pay some money, but the government covers most of the costs still (at least for the tax bracket that we were on). I hope this somewhat answers your question (and isn’t entirely inaccurate). I guess the Japanese government has their insurances under a tighter leash (more regulation) than elsewhere, maybe.
Dang. That makes real cartels sound support groups. Insane.
Man. That is just so maddening. And again, the phone calls. I think part of the reason why Americans excel at everything, is because they are raised to “fight to the bitter end”. You gotta be incredibly tough and thick skinned to survive in a system like that. I loved my time in the US, but I was living in a bubble (and didn’t have any accident or got sick). But if I had to actually survive there on my own, I’m not sure that I would have what it takes to make it. You’re a trooper.
Wow. I am so sorry. That’s just so inhuman.
Reading this almost left me speechless.
I’m sure that’s the GDP of a lot of countries in this world. lol
Ah, right. I totally forgot about that story. I vaguely remember that a lot of single women began fawning over the shooter. I think his name was Luigi something, right? Poor Nintendo. lol What a wild story that was, like something out of a Western. I hope they make a good American movie out of it in a few years. But jokes aside, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the revolt is starting. Sounds like it will be an ugly one judging from a CEO being shot in broad daylight.
Perfect. I couldn’t have phrased it better, especially the last statement. I guess the challenge with healthcare is always going to boil down how to get that high-quality, affordable public system, whilst also allowing for a supplemental private sector that doesn’t upend the balance between the two. Each country has different obstacles to remove in the journey towards achieving that balance. What I think all (or almost all) countries have in common though, is corrupt politicians and only “the better of two evils” to vote on.
Poor in the wallet, but rich in life experience and worldliness! And not a traditional and proper education, but there are things you learn from seeing the globe that you can't learn in a classroom!
And yeah everything you're describing about the Japanese system sounds infinitely better than what I'm used to. A well-regulated and competent system with some room for privatization to fill in certain gaps, all while remaining affordable and high-quality.
I didn't mean to just come in here and complain, I've just become drastically disillusioned and jaded over the insurance industry in the US (health insurance is just the biggest culprit, but other forms of insurance are a mess too, like homeowner's insurance, car insurance, business insurance, etc). In theory, insurance makes sense (everyone pools their money together and then those who really need it can benefit from it while others are happy knowing that they're covered if anything were to go wrong). But in practice, the whole industry is just a middleman sucking out profits from hardworking people and medical professionals.
I am in the process of trying to move out of the country, so I wouldn't say that, lol. The people here are no more resilient or tough than other people in this world. We're all just dealing with our own flavors of adversity. Some have it way worse. At least I have access to healthcare, even if it costs me an arm and a leg.
Would you agree with Louis Rossmann who calls (American) insurance a “consensual Ponzi scheme”? lol
ooh May I know where to? You can also just give me a vague region or a continent if you’d rather not go into detail.
Technically it's not a Ponzi scheme (where you pay early investors with new investors' money), but it definitely feels just as shitty. I'd equate it more to a leech or parasite (though I recognize that those are loaded terms with plenty of radical baggage). In essence it's a form of legalized corruption, but I'm no economist or health expert, just some dude pissed off at the system.
Imagine you need to hire a plumber. Some of your pipes broke, you reach out to a local plumber, and they come out to fix you pipes and charge you a fee accordingly, maybe $250. Now imagine if instead of that system, you paid $250 monthly to a separate company comprised of people with zero plumbing experience. Then when your pipes break, you go to the plumber and he says 'sorry you're not in my network, I can't fix your plumbing' or he fixes your pipes but then sends a massively inflated bill of like $5,000 to that third-party company who then says 'no way, you can only charge him $800 for the broken pipes, and we'll pay you an additional $500, we good?' and then that company comes around to you and says 'good news! we've just saved you 4,200 bucks so you only have to pay $800'. That's what it's like.
And we're planning on going to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. I have a lot of family there, and we currently have the opportunity to move there following some big changes in our lives, so we are taking it! Hopefully sometime next year. Some members of my family were shocked when we told them, because in their minds the US is a paradise first-world country where nothing bad happens. I won't pretend like some things aren't better here, but there are a lot of things about our day-to-day lives that would improve over there, least of which is our stress from all these insurance woes.
This is just a side note... that chemical change (or at least aspects of it) has been quantified scientifically. It's not just chemical, it's also structural, and no doubt the constellation of changes that happen aren't fully understood yet.
Most of the studies involve new parents but there's some indication that caring for and nurturing children, especially babies in the first few months, causes changes in any adult's brain, even if they're not the biological parent.
Of course anyone who's experienced it doesn't need studies to tell them it's a profound change, but it's useful for everyone else to have evidence that it's objectively real.
And, I think, good for society at large. One of the things that changes is an increased capacity for theory of mind. Parents have super empathy, which doesn't just apply to their kids (especially once they start sleeping again, years down the road).
I had a baby earlier this year and it's so fucking weird. I was expecting some of it, like having a new sensitivity to stories involving parents and children, but I genuinely went from not finding babies cute, like at all, to finding them adorable - but only if they're my baby's age or younger.
The freakiest thing, though, is that in the first couple of weeks when I woke in the night to feed baby I'd see nursing-baby-face pareidolia everywhere around the room. Like my brain would not let me forget why I was awake at stupid o'clock in the morning or something. Really glad that stopped after a while.
It's some sort of man in the middle attack on our software lol sensitivity dialed up to 13/10 for everything remotely baby related. I developed weirdness like hearing phantom baby cries even when not in the same place. my brain also interpreted my baby's whimper as five alarm fires: these days, strangers baby screaming on the plane for hours is nothing, they're all so quiet, how are they all so impossibly quiet when mine was so loud?
@fefellama I also had carpel tunnel in both wrists. Luckily I wore metal braces for a number of months and they got better. I still have a pelvic bone twisting pain thing occasionally though (my child is a teen now).
Did you also wake up randomly in the middle of the night and feel the need to check if your baby was breathing? Cuz I still do it constantly, even though she is a toddler now and perfectly capable of rolling around, standing, sitting up, and moving herself out of a weird position if needed. But those first few months when she was swaddled like a burrito and couldn't yet roll over were tense. Lots of late night staring at her to make sure she hadn't rolled over and that she was breathing normally, lol.
And ouch, godspeed to you and anyone else out there who gives or has given birth. After seeing my wife go through it, I know 100% my squeamish ass would never be able to do it if I were a woman. We're in talks now about potentially having a second, and I keep telling her that it's entirely up to her because I could never ask someone to go through that on my behalf. If she wants another one, great. If not, I completely understand.
And her wrist thing was technically De Quervain tenosynovitis, which we had never heard about prior. Her wrists swelled up a bunch right at the end of the pregnancy, which started the wrist pains. And then after having the baby, apparently the regular motion of picking up and putting down the baby exacerbated things to the point where she had to have an injection to each wrist, then when that didn't do much she had to have surgery on them one at a time.
And to bring it back home to the topic of this thread, about how stressed and miserable new parents are: During the recovery period for the two surgeries (3-4 weeks each), I had to take a lot of time off work to help out (since my wife couldn't pick up anything heavier than a coffee mug). So despite working a full-time job with plenty of benefits, I burned through practically all of my sick and vacation time, even having to come in on some weekends to finish some stuff major projects that were going on, and that's with the help of my mom who came by to help out on her days off so I didn't have to take those days off. So yeah, were we miserable as new parents? You betcha. We had the financial means to afford everything that life threw at us, we had a relatively routine pregnancy and childbirth, we had support from family before/during/after the whole process, we had a beautiful and healthy new baby that we loved more than anything, and yet we were miserable because the society we live in (USA) has a very individualistic 'survival of the fittest' attitude that doesn't give a shit about the well-being of it's people.
And don't even get me started on maternity/paternity leave... (or lack therof)
I did a bunch of crazy stuff at the time hahahaha
But I'm happy to report that sanity will be restored at some point. It's like watching the stock market: you won't know you've pulled out of a depression until you've got enough distance past, because of how many peaks and valleys there are in the thick of it. But it gets better all the time. they say bigger kid bigger trouble, but at least with us we mercifully never had terrible twos are three-eenger troubles. We don't have family help, so I'm glad it wasn't tough for us. But for sure there are different challenges for different families, we got lucky we didn't do anything to warrant an easy toddlers hood
Lol, I look forward to experiencing that some day when she's not waking up randomly every other night.
Yeah it's interesting that there's a measurable change. I definitely wouldn't have believed it before experiencing it for myself. There's so much that people tell you before you become a parent, and like half of it is spot on while half of it is total bs (or at least it felt like bs to me). But a fundamental shift in my brain practically overnight was not something I was expecting.
Can anecdotally confirm, neither of my kids are biologically related to me but I would kill or die for them.
One of my friends told me, after she had her son, “When I even just look at him, I get this feeling that I assume is what heroin is like.”
I feel probably the same thing, though more muted, for my dog. Sometimes I look at him and I’m just like, staggeringly overcome with a warm wash of feeling.