> In my country you can find child care located directly in apartment buildings.

Wow, that's very forward thinking. I'm curious what country this is. In my country, you can find child care literally in your own home!

We have this crazy system where instead of blowing all your money on status-seeking expenses like residing in the "right" neighborhood, monthly vacations, eating out all the time, luxury vehicles, golf outings, designer clothes, a closet with $35k of footwear that is valued only because of the name on the label rather than the build quality, daily microbrews and lattes, you and your partner make the decision in which the higher-earning partner works and the lower-earning partner stays home, and you budget accordingly.

I know this sounds like a very radical idea, that the long-term future of the children could be prioritized over what Frank would think about you not renewing the country club membership, but in my country, the law actually permits it!

Just be aware that there can be an evil microagression lurking in the details. If you are the sole source of income for the family, and you are male, you will be committing a Misogyny with a Capital M, because it's EMPOWERING to take orders from, and earn money from, a man in a necktie with whom one is not personally affiliated with, but earning money from a man IN PAJAMAS, from whom taking orders is optional, is PATRIARCHY. So, be aware of the pitfalls of taking this option.

I recommend looking into your country's laws to see if it is permissible to have a single-earner household.

In my country, there is also this brand-new legal structure called "marriage", in which the non-earning party is compensated by law in the event of dissolution. Judges will consider the financial impact of the dissolution on the non-earning party and issue a transfer payments order to the earning party.

But again, be aware of subtle patriarchy in this arrangement. When an employee is fired without cause by a man in a necktie after walking into their cubicle, is is extremely EMPOWERING, and the man in the necktie has no legal financial obligations to the employee beyond accrued paid time off. But if a man in PAJAMAS fires a non-earning partner because the non-earning partner was impregnated by an attractive man at a nightclub, and a judge requires the PAJAMA MAN to pay the non-earning partner half of their assets in addition to 30% of their salary in perpetuity, that is PATRIARCHY.

Please consider the options available to you in your country. I understand that not all countries have these novel legal structures, and I myself have only recently been informed of their recent development in my own country.

I have heard, however, that the wild notions of "not living an extravagant lifestyle to impress others", and "raising your own children might provide more life satisfaction than writing spyware for adtech companies", and "marriage" are catching on in other regions, so I'm optimistic these may be options for you soon!

That said, I fully understand if you still opt to outsource childcare. Sure, the risk of physical and sexual abuse is significantly more likely at the hands of a random daycare facility employee than by the child's own biological parent, but I empathize that this is a small price to pay for exercising your God-given right to take orders from a man in a NECKTIE, who has no personal allegiance to you, who can fire you for no reason, with no further compensation than a corporate severance check in the amount of $1372.16. That ought to buy at least a few sessions of therapy to deal with your toddler's abuse at the daycare facility and the fact they barely even saw, let alone knew, either of their parents, so that's good!

---

When you're retired, remember that your teenager dying of a fentanyl overdose in a random alleyway because it was the only way to escape his pain of knowing that making a Powerpoint slide deck to pitch a way to force MORE ads down the throats of your fellow humans was more important to you than making him a PB&J sandwich and playing Uno with him - that was just a blip in the statistical noise of humanity. And you can die happy knowing that at one point in your long and storied career, before your necktie-wearing boss was caught in that whole embezzlement scandal, the market capitalization of Panopticon Corp ticked $1B, for just a few trades, but it happened. You won the Super Bowl of careerdom, for just one glorious moment. Sure, your options expired deep under strike a few years later, and you got laid off in 2029, and the GFC of 2037 wiped out all your savings, but god damn it, you did it, once.

The robot nurse is scheduled to bring you Standard USDA Meal #46 in 6 minutes, to Retirement Pod 842H, and you're hoping it's at least warm this time.

You sacrificed everything for that man in a necktie, god his hair was perfect.

It was all worth it.

Fuck them kids, amirite?