481–490 of 1001 posts
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I dunno, kids may be incompatible with a lot of lifestyles, but I wouldn’t call them inherently expensive. You just have to adjust your expectations.
Even in super socialized Sweden the first child costs around 180 000 USD (2021) [1] for the median example family. Second child is probably less expensive. [1] https://seb.se/privat/livet/att-skaffa-barn/sa-paverkar-ett-...
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We have a societal problem when the rational individual choice (to provide your children the best head start) is to wait until your fertility declines to have children.
It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are. The main exception I can think is family support; having younger grandparents and great grandparents could be an advantage, I guess? I'm not sure I'd look at a society where people have lots of children so they can put them to work and say "yeah, this is the way socie…
Interestingly, genetic mutations from the mother are roughly constant regardless of her age. Paternal genetic mutations rise with age. IIRC a 38 year old man's sperm has double the number of mutations a 28 year old man has.
My wife and I have a beautiful daughter about to turn 2. But she wouldn't have existed if it weren't for IVF (in vitro fertilization). Had to stab her stomach with needles for a while to make hormones to mass produce eggs and then they took my sperm to put into her eggs and see which ones took. Five viable pairings happened. Three were put into her and out came the one kid. Other two are in cryo for future use, and h…
Another lesson from your story (similar to many of my friends’) is to just have kids younger. It sounds like you started at around 35 — if people started at 30, even, fertility is higher.
My wife and I have a beautiful daughter about to turn 2. But she wouldn't have existed if it weren't for IVF (in vitro fertilization). Had to stab her stomach with needles for a while to make hormones to mass produce eggs and then they took my sperm to put into her eggs and see which ones took. Five viable pairings happened. Three were put into her and out came the one kid. Other two are in cryo for future use, and h…
Glad it worked out! My daughter is 8mo now and we had concerns going into the 'getting pregnant' phase. If you can't afford IVF or want to do it another way, there are things you can try to do before you start trying to avoid surprises - the main goal is to try to assess your status so you can align expecatations. It's frustrating to 'get started' and think 'it should take about X months' and then not seeing it happe…
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> alcohol, caffeine and meat one of these is definitely not like the others... An all-meat diet I would bet is the best to conceive, because it's the best for hormonal health, judging by the countless anecdotes (e.g. women regaining their cycles after many years) I'm seeing. Anyway, I just wanted to point that out, it's still shocking to me that people still believe that meat is detrimental to health.
Ahh, anecdotes about consuming meat, I can't think of anything more scientifically rigorous and less influenced by sentiment. My own anecdotes tell me that eating meat vastly decreases your fertility rate. Some anecdotes add that it's because of the animal hormones you consume, others state that it's because meat-eating is associated with other health conditions which interfere with conception (obesity, high choleste…
I did my Master Degree in Organic Chemistry where we tried to develop a male contraceptive pill. I spend a lot of time studying sperm so here is a short list of thing to avoid regarding sperm quality (not ranked): 1. Eating and drinking from plastics (This includes aluminum cans which are plastic lined) [a] 2. Heating food in ANY type of plastic [a] 3. Caffein intake [b] 4. Sugar intake [c] 5. NOT exercising regularl…
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Fertility isn't the only consideration with having children when you're old. Skin elasticity and athleticism decreases with age, and that translates into worse tearing, and more difficult births, longer recovery, and more trouble keeping up with a baby after all that. Then, on top of all that, your parents are entering their sunset years rather where you have to help them rather than having grandparents young enough…
Can you imagine having two generations of kids at 20 years old? ‘Grandma’ will be 40 when she has her first grandkid.
Now we only need a vaccine against HIV and STDs in general and we can finally do away with condoms.
I can't remember the last time I talked to a gay man who wasn't on PrEP. It's arguable that in reasonably responsible circles, HIV these days poses little-to-no risk, even among sexually promiscuous people. And most other common STDs are completely curable. The big exception is herpes, the spread of which is not prevented by condoms.
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It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are. The main exception I can think is family support; having younger grandparents and great grandparents could be an advantage, I guess? I'm not sure I'd look at a society where people have lots of children so they can put them to work and say "yeah, this is the way socie…
> It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are. When I was born in 1991 and my sister in 1995, a simple police officer and a nurse in half-time could provide for two children with ease, in one of what was even back then one of the most expensive cities in Germany. Today, me (IT worker) and my s/o (public health a…
Energy, on the other hand, not so.
Extinction, seriously? Why is it necessary to be so hyperbolic with writing these days. Humanity has increased 8x in the last 200 years and we have plenty of artificial means to have children. I seriously doubt low sperm count is going to lead to our extinction.