School vouchers! (This may make me unelectable forever)

E.D. Kain's thoughts on the discussion about pushing for more preschool:

On the other hand, there is already a pretty solid system of private preschools and it would be enormously expensive to try to crowd these out with new public preschools. Since the infrastructure already exists, it makes more sense to give low-income families preschool vouchers to attend private preschools. It would be cheaper and it would result in less segregation by income.

Two issues to respond to here: 

1. I heard the Planet Money podcast The Case for Preschool (which is excellent, like most things Planet Money does.) And if pushing to get more poor kids in better preschool programs has good long-term outcomes, then I think Kain's got a good plan for a way to do that. I'm not convinced government needs to be involved with schools at all, so letting the private market do most of the heavy lifting is preferable to a big government system of preschools (which would probably end up a disaster anyway.) 

2. I am not convinced we should push preschool. I understand that for kids who aren't getting life skills at home, preschool can be a place to get those. But other research shows that too much school too soon is harmful to long-term outcomes. So universal preschool is not one of my political goals - particularly since I have no intention of sending my own children (someday?) to preschool and would resent having to explain to the government why not. 

Why a strict consumer model of health care can never work

Matthew Ygelsias: 

I think discussions of health care economics pay far too little attention to the question of pre-modern health care. People have been earning a living as medical professionals for a long time. And yet everybody knows that the invention of actually useful medical treatments is pretty recent development. Surely this tells us something about the nature of the health care consumer’s ability to find and purchase cost effective treatments.

This is something that Mark LeMoine pointed out to me when I was interning with him at Spectrum Health  - most health care is something that no one ever wants to buy. And when you're in a position where you do want to buy some health care (that is, you have a health problem that needs attention) you often don't have the time or resources to compare doctors/facilities, or make an informed choice about what is quality? and how much will it cost? 

So, even though I often unfavorably compare the health care sector to other service sectors, health care is not analogous. It offers a service that people don't want to buy, don't want to research, and often can't find accurate or helpful information on. 

ophelia...

From Alice in Motherland: 

I was having one of my angsty/poetic episodes that typically lasts me anywhere from three minutes to three years and frequently provokes me to open a volume of Norton' English Literature, wax melancholic, and revel in the company of dead sad chicks like Sylvia Plath and Hamlet's Ophelia (you know, Hamlet's bipolar girlfriend who falls/jumps from a tree branch and, due to the voluminousness of her inordinately poofy gown, drowns) while re-imagining for them wildly different outcomes. My Ophelia would float, breathe, put on a DVF shirtdress, and use the Force to kick Claudius' ass while tending to Laertes' and Gertrude's medical emergencies. En pointe.

Heck. Yes. I recently saw Hamlet for the first time at Calvin, and really didn't get Ophelia. Shakespeare sometimes writes really disappointing female characters. (Um, Desdemona? yech.) This is the DVF dress my Ophelia would wear: 

Diane von Furstenburg

Classic. Non-fussy. Getting things done. 

Also, I keep English lit anthologies on my bookshelf for just such purposes... 

If I were going to a royal wedding...

... this is what I would wear: 

Hat: 

Philip Treacy

Dress: 

Carolina Herrera

Jacket: 

Carolina Herrera

And red shoes. (Of course.) 

not a child bride

At What Would Phoebe Do:

The unfortunate fact of female sexuality in our society is that too-young is very quickly followed by too-old - to conceive, or even to attract many men in the first place. 'You're not allowed to date, young lady' (from conservatives) or 'You're too young to settle down' (from liberals) segues almost instantaneously into 'What, no boyfriend?' The elusive window-of-opportunity - not the Pill, not the tendency of 20-somethings in crappy relationships to end those relationships - is the problem. 

Solutions? Since the biological clock is unlikely to budge, it's clear we have to look, at least in part, at the younger end of the spectrum. As it stands, all long-term romantic commitments begun prior to age 30 are viewed as having rushed into things. Without reverting to a system where women are stigmatized for not having settled down by 21, we could shift to one in which 23-year-old couples wouldn't be treated like experimenting middle-schoolers. I wouldn't suggest encouraging those who wouldn't do so otherwise to marry or similar at 20. I would suggest removing the stigma that says that to be well-educated and impressive and so on, you have to find 'that special someone' at 29-and-a-half, marry at 31, and reproduce before (horrors!) 35. I'd instead encourage the happy couples 18-25 that exist anyway not to end their relationships simply because 'there's so much more to experience.'

via Andrew Sullivan

Phoebe thankfully acknowledges that these views - about when it is ok to marry - are representative of only a certain subset of Western culture. But she's right in saying that powerful voices in media/policy/culture often belong to this subset, so these beliefs influence a lot of people.

I completely agree that too-young is followed quickly by too-old, and that trying to fit a relationship into these narrow parameters is harmful to individuals and inhibits a stable society (creating doubt where it doesn't need to be and withholding support from relationships that could be stable and committed if they just had a little encouragement.)

It is particularly strange for people like me, who grow up and go to college in an environment where it is common to marry in your early twenties, and then live and work in an environment where it is common to marry in your late twenties, early thirties, or never. I've been called a "child bride" and overheard acquaintances saying "she's married and she's just a baby!"

jonathanstoner.com

I'll admit, before I agreed to marry Mr. V I wondered, "Is this a good choice? Is there more to experience?" And the thing is, yes, there is always more to experience. But in marrying - or in any big, definitive life choice - you close the doors on experiences #1-50 and open the doors on experiences #51-100.  And I decided, after much consideration, that I was more interested in experiences #51-100.

So it's strange that acquaintances feel comfortable questioning my judgement, right in front of me, because I married at 22 instead of whatever age is considered the "correct" age. But, it's also impolite and inconsiderate when acquaintances from other backgrounds ask, "Anybody special? Well aren't you ever going to get married? Your clock is ticking!" and imply that if you aren't married you aren't an adult.  We need a different metric of adulthood besides marriage - they are not interchangeable.

Phoebe's article was in response to a piece about declining fertility in the U.S. which is why she mentions that "the biological clock is unlikely to budge." And that is a frustration for another day....