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JulianMorrison comments on Our House, My Rules - Less Wrong
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Any age that could coherently express an intent in words: "I want you to be my mommy instead".
For babies, this would work like expedited parent-initiated adoption. Probably anyone still holding the baby a month after the birth is determined to make a go of it.
After children start to socialize they would be exposed to this as a pervasive cultural thing among their peers. "Yeah, I traded up to Miss Smith, she's really nice", "Bobby got given away, and he doesn't like them, so he's been asking around, but I think he'll have trouble because everyone knows he's rude".
You were raised in a culture where you get an allocation of at most two parents and that's it. Instinct insists that if they die you starve - naturally the thought of abandonment panics you. I think what this system puts in place instead is more like a tribe where the aunts and uncles chip in with the parenting and the child runs to whoever is closest when they want a hug. Leaving a parent might be a terrible wrench, but the feeling would be there that "I could go back, I could have both at once if they agree, nothing's final".
But of course I'd have to see it run.
You are implying that a child's need for security in the form of having stable caretaker figures, guaranteed not to disappear no matter what happens, is a learned cultural thing. While this is in theory possible, every intuition I have gained from my exposure to developmental psychology disagrees, and quite strongly so. E.g. attachment theory - yes, there may be several attachment figures, but that doesn't mean that being betrayed by any in the form of abandonment is going to be any less shocking. You also haven't addressed the feeling that ensues from the thought that you can never really rely on anyone, knowing that anybody could at any time choose to abandon you, and the effect that is going to have for forming commitments later on in life. Or the constant pressure to be "good enough" not to be abandoned that children in such a scheme would constantly be exposed to. Young children are distressed by even such minor things such as disruptions in their evening routines, to say nothing about the knowledge that your entire home might change at any moment.
Wow, I'm surprised by the number of comments supporting this baby-swapping opt-out-of-mommy nonsense using self-reference as evidence. First of all- we were NOT like most children in our intelligence or rational abilities. Developmental psychology clearly demonstrates that there are many concepts most children are incapable of grasping until reaching certain ages. Do you really think an entity without basic object permenance can decide who its mommy is going to be? OOH That mommy has CANDY!
Also, we might NOT correctly remember how we reasoned things out as children. My mother tells me how I would make up ridiculous stories (once saying my father ran me over with the car) that I actually believed. I have no memory of this.
Finally, in a somewhat Burkian argument, there are many cultures with different ideas of child-rearing, but all of them privilege the parent-child relationship. Over all the irrationality surrounding feelings and human relationships, this seems to work and to last. The implementation of any of these thought experiments would involve massive government intervention into something very personal and natural. And I know no one here really wants that.
There is clearly a lot of bitterness here about having been both rational and powerless as children. However, I would guess that more damage is done in our society from its extended adolescence, keeping twenty- and thirty-somethings financially dependent on mom and dad than from children not being able to 'swap up.'
I'm not surprised. There are certain axes along which many Less Wrongers are just weird (incorrect and slightly tilted from reasonable). The view of children as suppressed, oppressed small-sized adults is one of them. My hypothesis is that Less Wrongers draw from a couple dominant sources: people who had an overly authoritarian upbringing and thus see things like "Santa Claus", normal parental controls and religion in an overly negative way, and people who are socially impaired enough to not recognize when others are getting these ideas consistently wrong.
Instead of cultivating an insular world where like-minded individuals try to figure out what they don’t understand in the ways that they endorse (ways that are proving to NOT WORK on certain kinds of topics), they should try to encourage people who think differently (but smarter on those topics) to explain it to them. And then, it would be useful to look and check if endorsed methods could have (in theory) found that answer or if there are certain topics for which rationality just doesn't do the job, yet.
While I am somewhat surprised at how close the suggestion came to being seriously discussed I haven't seen large numbers of people supporting the baby-swapping opt-out-of-mommy nonsense out of self reference. In fact, I haven't seen a single example of that, even if self reference came up in tangents. Although to be fair a few replies may have slipped by 'recent comments' without my awareness.
As someone who considers his childhood to have been remarkably empowered I am a little wary about just where you are waving your generalisation stick around, I am sure to catch a splash here or there. I don't think the interest shown in the comically absurd child liberation proposal is evidence of bitterness. A complete detachment from reality maybe, but not necessarily bitterness.
I think you're right.
Not exactly - I'm implying it may be a contextual instinct. That is, a highly nuclear family pushes different buttons from a highly extended one.
The feeling of being a rolling ball on a narrow hill ledge is different from the feeling of being the same ball in a valley bottom. Children would tend to fall out of unstable families and into stable ones. Having lived my childhood in an unstable family, let me assure you that the feeling "this is teetering on the precipice" is not assuaged by the inability to swap.
Or stuck with a less-than-averagely-attractive baby, with bad genes or something, because supply of babies for adoption will almost always outgrow demand.
That's why you'd want to legalize infanticide.
Within a short time of birth, certainly. I'd be in favor.