The way it worked: There were 6-12 stations, each with a recipe to follow: All the ingredients were laid out at each station, with measuring devices. You’d follow the recipe, seasoning to your own taste, leaving out things if you wanted to, or adding more of one thing, then you’d put the completed meal, uncooked, into a bag with a label on it–identifying the meal and how to prepare it. We used large plastic zip lock bags. The beauty of this is that you can stack 24 of them in layers in your small freezer, believe it or not, and still fit in some ice cream and Lean Cuisines! At dinner time, you pull out one of the healthy meals, throw it in the pan to sautee, or in the oven, and you have a home cooked, healthful, non processed, hot meal in 15-30 minutes. (Some dishes could be put in a slow cooker or stew pot, or on a grill). Of course, three or so meals could be put in the fridge–the ones you’d eat in the proceeding few days. The other benefit is–no multiple dishes, utensils, pots, pans it would have taken to prep the whole thing at home. Also, if the recipe required rare ingredients–you didn’t have to run out to buy them once, then waste the rest. Anyway, like I said…. 24 meals in a few hours, and talking with friends as you do it (each station fit 2-4 people). Even Netflix took many years to catch on (I remember my cousin told me about Netflix 13 years ago, and it sounded ridiculous–movies by mail), but any really good idea will become popular eventually. Here’s hoping!

I have a friend who had the most stressful job–on the stock market floor, with non-stop demands, people stressed, mad, barking at her, and not a moment to breathe, working 10 hours per day. She’s now a stay-at-home mom and loves it. I totally get that! For me, I have the perpetual frustration of never getting it all done–either my job suffers, or the quality of family meals does, or the house is a disaster, or I’m sleep deprived and then I get sick because of it, or someone is mad at me for something. This is the single thing that makes the difference between entirely loving parenthood, and only loving it when I’m not being pulled in 80 directions and can actually keep my eyes open. I love my work, love my kids, love my garden, love my pets, really don’t even mind driving or cleaning… but when I have 30 hours of stuff to do in 24 hours, day after day, year after year, it’s tough.

You make one really good point… that they get their socializing during work. That’s huge. While the business lasted, I was doing social meal preparation. In three hours, I made healthful dinners for 24 evenings, to bring home and refrigerate and freeze. It was wonderful to get so much done, and while socializing to boot. There were two places, actually, Let’s Dish and Dream Dinners. If anyone has one near them, I HIGHLY recommend them, and I’m praying one will come back near me! Equal or less money spent, less planning, less grocery shopping, and better health and weight control, plus many kid friendly options. *sigh*

I sometimes dream of living in a commune where all child raising, cleaning, cooking, etc. is shared.

This means that the kindergarten teachers don’t have to work as hard.

Imagine if every child went to preschool. Could we have a slightly larger class size? Or maybe start first grade material sooner? Would it wind up costing the school district less money in special education later down the line? Would our high school be able to churn out more students that were immediately employable?

I think my issue with some of our positions are working parents who really could use more help is that we talk about it so…. self-revolvingly (is that a word? ha). It’s about how difficult it is to deal with a sick kid, or pump in a broom closet. We don’t do a good job talking about how good childcare probably has a direct impact on future business in the US. About how I am far more likely to return to my company after my somewhat paid maternity leave, which protects their investment in me over the years. Instead, we tend to focus on how tired and stretched we are personally because we chose to have children.

I hope I am making sense. I am not against programs that make long term financial sense for myself and my country. I am against paying an extra, let’s say, $5K per year in taxes and fees for my entire life to support a nation of families that may not be making good decisions about their family spending rather than $5-10K per year for the 5 years my child is in full time daycare when I worked extremely hard to find a life that could (most of the time!) roll with the punches of parenthood.

As for links that you asked for, here is one of the best reports I’ve read describing the problem as it affects low, middle, and high income families, as well as some solutions: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/three_faces_report.html

And one more solution story, from Sweden: http://wp.me/pVKXl-j7

Looking at Denmark’s tax rates compared to ours on this page, how is giving up another 15% of our income to the government going to help make life easier?: http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/taxes/p148855.asp

Trust me, I don’t think we’re invincible. Last year, my doctor was arrested in a horrific child abuse case which threw my family into a tailspin for months and changed the way I think of myself as a parent forever. And we weren’t really inolved. You think you are a together parent, and bang, life kicks you in the head. Who knows. We could lose our jobs tomorrow, have everything we worked for suddenly disappear. I can only arm myself the best I can without depending on some program to be there to pick me up. If am hanging by a thread and tragedy strikes, its my fault for not seizing opportunities I had to be proactive for the past 12 years of my “adulthood”. (If adulthood starts at 22 )

I am not sure of the solution, but I still remain unconvinced that more regulation is the answer. I’d love to see more companies decide on their own (like mine does to some degree) that maternity leave and somewhat flexible work arrangements are good for business, while keeping the government out of it.