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American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)

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Re: American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)

#71

Post by mamon »

dudul wrote: post #15
ajmurmann wrote: post #8

I never understood the sentiment of valuing babies over all else. To me it always seemed obvious that fresh college graduates are most valuable to society, since we just finished investing a ton of money into them. Babies on the other hand are easily replaced. I get this is mainly an emotional argument, but it's still startling to me how opposite it is to the purely economic argument I made above. In fact usually peo…

In many "isolated" cultures, elderlies are actually considered more valuable than babies because of all their knowledge. When an old person passes away it is considered a great damage to the tribe, while losing a baby is meaningless since the baby didn't know anything.

This might have been true in Western civilization up until 18th century. Since industrial revolution started the pace at which the world is changing is so fast that by the time you reach your 70s most of your knowledge and life experience is already obsolete. That's why we leave elderly alone in nursing homes instead of keeping them close to use their wisdom.

Re: American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)

#72

Post by nommm-nommm »

davorak wrote: post #61
001sky wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shouldn't be downvoted, because its part of the argument. eg, still-born babies tend to have lots of emotional reprecussions. But the OP's point is that doesn;t make much sense. eg, the human female is programmed to reproduce every 28 days or whatever... but herein lies the heart of the issue...biology, rationality, and emotion, ane even culture are all (or may be) at cross purposes when it comes to this situati…

> This shouldn't be down voted, I at least down voted it because, the comment it was quoting from was supposed to be a "purely economic argument" and it acknowledged that most argument come from an emotional view point. There are valid points that go a long the lines of the comment and your follow ups starts to add them but: > Someone has never had a baby. Does not add that detail or those arguments.

I didn't care too much for the comment because it was smug superiority.

Re: American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)

#73

Post by bsder »

cesarbs wrote: post #64
jseliger wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend the book "The Two Income Trap". It basically tries to prove that the transition to dual income households damaged the financial security of many families A great book. It can also be read profitably in conjunction with Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High . School districts are weirdly tied to real estate in the U.S.; many places with good districts also have severe land-use control laws that…

> but two-earner households are often also more economically fragile Can you elaborate on that? It doesn't make sense to me. When we were on a single income in my family, it felt a lot more fragile than now that we have two incomes.

Most people on two incomes didn't decide to do so voluntarily. They did so because they couldn't afford not to.

So, instead of having a household where you have one parent working to support the family and another parent who can occasionally add income but doesn't have to, now you have lots of people where they are fully tapped out and both parents are working full time.

Re: American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)

#75

Post by cbo100 »

cesarbs wrote: post #64
jseliger wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend the book "The Two Income Trap". It basically tries to prove that the transition to dual income households damaged the financial security of many families A great book. It can also be read profitably in conjunction with Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High . School districts are weirdly tied to real estate in the U.S.; many places with good districts also have severe land-use control laws that…

> but two-earner households are often also more economically fragile Can you elaborate on that? It doesn't make sense to me. When we were on a single income in my family, it felt a lot more fragile than now that we have two incomes.

Potentially a two income household allows it's expenses to grow to take advantage of both incomes to some extent.

As a couple with two high incomes you actually have to try really hard not to let expenses get to the point where you can't live without both incomes. So in effect you now have 1 big income that you rely on.

In terms of the fragility, there is more chance of losing 1 out of 2 jobs (i.e. 50% of the income) than there is of losing 1 out of 1 jobs (i.e. 100% of the income). (I hope I explained this right - but it's how my thinking goes).

Re: American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)

#76

Post by vlehto »

>The origins of the parenthood religion are obscure

"The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex. It was ratified on 1920."

Womens suffrage has to reverb through political sphere. As a whole it's not good or bad, just different. Another thing coming from there: time passed since women gained vote seems to correlate with welfare spending.

I don't think religious fervor can be avoided in a society. It's just a matter of where it is directed.

Re: American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)

#77

Post by seansmccullough »

josephjrobison wrote: post #52

"Ayelet Waldman, where the author explained that she loved her husband more than her four children." Recently did some pre-marital counseling where they recommend that you put your spouse above your children. Seemed really strange to me and counter-intuitive. I don't know much about marriage at all, but if you think about it, the trickle-down effect does seem to make sense as setting an example is a good lesson for k…

I think this attitude makes sense.

Re: American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)

#79

Post by XorNot »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #59
ajmurmann wrote: post #8

I never understood the sentiment of valuing babies over all else. To me it always seemed obvious that fresh college graduates are most valuable to society, since we just finished investing a ton of money into them. Babies on the other hand are easily replaced. I get this is mainly an emotional argument, but it's still startling to me how opposite it is to the purely economic argument I made above. In fact usually peo…

> fresh college graduates are most valuable to society This seems to be a popular opinion on here and I really don't understand that. In fact its kinda fucked up. I can only guess there's a lot of fresh college grads on HN. It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. I certainly don't want a society made up of fresh college grads who think they know it all.

Valuable maybe not but they do represent the peak of societal sunk cost which we won't be recouping.

20 years into your career we've recovered a lot of that invested value, whereas right out of college is near or at the point that the handover of civilization between generations actually happens.

Re: American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)

#80

Post by such_a_casual »

cesarbs wrote: post #64
jseliger wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend the book "The Two Income Trap". It basically tries to prove that the transition to dual income households damaged the financial security of many families A great book. It can also be read profitably in conjunction with Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High . School districts are weirdly tied to real estate in the U.S.; many places with good districts also have severe land-use control laws that…

> but two-earner households are often also more economically fragile Can you elaborate on that? It doesn't make sense to me. When we were on a single income in my family, it felt a lot more fragile than now that we have two incomes.

It's explained in the book I mentioned. You would also need to educate yourself on personal finance by reading some other books to get a more holistic picture (The Millionaire Next Door is a good place to start).

There's three things you need to understand about personal finance:

1. The first is that shit happens and most people don't plan for it (because they haven't been educated on personal finance). Most resources suggest that you keep an emergency fund of 6-12 months of living expenses saved up for when shit happens. We know that most people do not have this. I'm not even going to bother providing a source because there are so many sources on how Americans don't save.

2. The number one expense for any given household is going to be housing (whether owned or rented).

3. While you can cutback on many things, you cannot cutback on a mortgage. So if there are permanent setbacks to your finances: someone loses their job and gets another one that pays less, someone gets hurt and can't work for a while or ends up on disability, someone has to stay home to take care of an unhealthy relative, etc, then you can be pretty much shit out of luck unless you're house has equity on it and you can sell and downsize (although most people will just take a loan out against their equity lol).

So these are the characters of our stage. If you get a mortgage based on 1 person's income and something happens, there is another person there to step up. This provides a powerful safety net for the family. If you get a mortgage based on both people's incomes, you are putting yourself at greater risk because if something were to happen to either person you would not be able to afford to keep your 15-30 year agreement. And the cost of getting out of that agreement is enormous (as we saw with the recent housing crash).

I encourage you to read more on personal finance. It's incredibly fascinating.

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