It's not like they aren't doing anything. It's not like they don't contribute to society.

And this includes taking care of people who have done this for the bulk of their working life and are now old or unable to work.

Scandinavia springs to mind. They have made the imaginative jump to provide services that used to be provided by the village and the church in the old agricultural model.

Industrialization changed the pattern of family settlement and support for the very old, the very young, and the infirm. Our culture has insisted on holding on to the old model, which doesn't work with the new pattern, because the old model is cheap. Well, it's cheap in the short run, but ultimately the cost is enormous in human terms.

We have a patchwork of inadequate care for young children, strictly dependent upon the parents' income: those with money can afford better care, meaning that children with more advantages get even more and children who already start with little get less. [sarc] This is, of course, the children's responsibility, because we all choose our parents. [/sarc]

We have absolutely no financial security for people who decide to stay home and care for their own children. We have precious little in the way of financial incentive and security for people who work in the child care business, either.

We also have no organized training and no support for the people who do care for children in an isolated setting, apart from crisis lines for people who are within inches of a violent outburst against a child. I can attest to this, because I'm part of the haphazard support system for parents without more formal structure, like a family group or a support group based on social connections.

Eldercare is another whole issue which I won't address here, even though it's part of the same pattern. It's enough to make a person want to die at 70.

It's a mess out there.