Solve problems

I just returned from a stake self-reliance council meeting. It was a good meeting. I am only going to talk about the annoying part at the end. We got on the topic of childcare for people to participate in self-reliance groups. Someone suggested that maybe young women could do childcare for a group, taking turns over 12 weeks. I vigorously shook my head from the utterance of the words "young women" until the person stopped talking. I am ready for this to stop being our first idea. It's problematic on so many levels.

Why do we always ask the young women? Why don't we consider the opportunity cost to them of not being able to do whatever the young men are doing during that time (homework, relaxing, sleeping, spending time with their families)?

Why don't we ever ask the young men? Why don't we consider the opportunity cost to them of not developing child development skills to the same extent as the young women? Do we not also hope that they will become parents one day?

Why is the solution to this problem an imposition to my family's schedule (speaking as the parent of young women for the past 14 years, with 4 more to go)?

Why are we asking children to solve the problems of adults?

Why are we not willing to leave the responsibility for solving this problem with the parents, where it belongs? We don't know what's going to work for their children and their family. I am happy to have conversations, put it on the organizing meeting agenda so we can consider options together, but ultimately this is not my problem to solve. And no one will solve a problem if they don't believe from the beginning that there is a solution. It has to be worth the effort to them to find it. (Or it may not be the right timing for them to participate. Either is possible.) Solve problems is one of the principles of self-reliance.

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