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The window for great-grandmothers is closing

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Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#41

Post by BurningFrog »

titzer wrote: post #25
cool_dude85 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pointing out differences in age of first child for different groups (race, class, etc.) is not necessarily classist. It's the part that so often comes next, "therefore, we should..." that causes offense. Anyway, what's wrong with having 6 kids? People used to do it all the time and society was fine. Why shouldn't we set up our society in a way that allows this as a reasonable possibility?

Because of ecological overshoot ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_overshoot ), which is a real problem ( https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/earth-overshoot-da... .). Gradual population decline through declining birth rates is the least jarring and least fascist way of getting human population down to sustainable levels.

Some see people as burdens, some as assets.

I think this is a very important world view conflict.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#42

Post by vel0city »

parpfish wrote: post #33
earthscienceman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see, the thing is, it's deeply classist. It's also misplaced outrage. The poors have been doing this for millenia and we still have a society that progresses rapidly and much of the heavy lifting that moves us forward is done by folks you and others here are denigrating. If they believe the things you disparage it's because the governments and systems that the "smart" and wealthy have created have utterly failed…

yeah, the classism in the "poor/uneducated people are having too many kids!" always has this assumption that class and values are perfectly presevred across generations and ignores the social mobility and the fact that children are capable of making their own path and not just following in their footsteps. children raised in big families by uneducated, closed-minded parents often rebel against their parents and espou…

Of the big households I've personally experienced that most would consider closed-minded parents might have a few of their kids complaining about the backwards views, but not necessarily the majority of the kids. I'd be interested in seeing some actual statistics other than assuming the people ranting on reddit about their families are the majority of that population.

The kids who agree with their closed-minded parents probably aren't going online to rant about it.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#43

Post by juujian »

The article got one thing wrong. Life expectancy of 45 doesn't mean that people drop dead at that age. High infant mortality is one main reason for low life expectancy. That's why you have many people of old age even in the middle ages when life expectancy was abysmal. So I am not convinced that great-grand parents is such a recent thing.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#44

Post by silverquiet »

keiferski wrote: post #32

It's interesting to compare this some research which says that children of older fathers and grandfathers live longer. If I understand this article correctly, it's saying that if the paternal grandfather was also older when becoming a father, that's even better. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-18392873

Huh, anecdotal as heck, but my great-great grandfather (the only one I know about) had the line that led to me in his 50's after his first wife succumbed to Spanish Flu. I buried his youngest daughter at the foot of his grave 154 years after he was born; she lived to be 94 and so did my grandfather.

Thinking about it even more, the women on that side of my family also had no problem having kids into their 40's.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#45

Post by psychoslave »

Not necessarily false, but the author jump a bit quickly to the conclusion with the data it takes for granted. It’s well known that life expectancy was far lower before due to high rate of child mortality. This means that the main cause of the life expectancy is more people reached adulthood.

All the more, great-grandmothers always had far less chance to die early by being turned into a cannon fodder or driven to suicide through toxic masculinity social pressure (though it’s not like having more chance to be raped by invaders or beaten/abused/repudiated by your own relatives was much more fun). Still to this days, on the average women have generally a higher life expectancy in most countries.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#46

Post by anonym29 »

CalRobert wrote: post #3
binarymax wrote: post #2

I (and I'm sure others) call this the idiocracy bias. While your friends are mulling over the ideal age and economic circumstances to have children, there are plenty of other families not thinking about this. They're having kids in their late teens and early twenties. That doesn't mean we're doomed to live out the idiocracy future, but it explains this blog post.

Absolutely, but for some reason pointing this out is considered massively classist in some quarters. I don't really think it's classist to say that if people who don't value science, think climate change is fake, fear outsiders, etc. have 6 kids, and people who hold different have 1 or none, it will have a large impact on public policy in a generation.

What about the wealthy assholes that think climate change is fake, pay thousands of dollars to have the catalytic converter removed from their own vehicle to deliberately increase it's exhaust emissions, eat hundreds of pounds of top-grade beef per year, are flying around seemingly constantly on their private jet, but have zero children?

Are those otherwise-horrible people comparatively cleansed of their sins solely from their decision to not have kids?

Is it not classist to hold more contempt for the poor rednecks in some flyover state with the traits you describe than the conservative millionaires and billionaires hiding among us?

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#47

Post by mrbgty »

CalRobert wrote: post #8

If you haven't read the article, it's about how people having kids later means you won't meet your great grandparents. My mom had me when she was 23, and her mom had her at 22. I'm in my forties and still have two living grandparents, and am very grateful for them. I remember a lot of days where my grandmother watched me and my sister, and she was able to do that because she was only in her late 40's herself and plen…

Good points to think about. One I consider is that traditions and family roots are often good for people to feel connected and find meaning although traditions should be questioned from time to time.

I think having family members of varying ages alive at the same time does help people feel connected, safe, and confident in having meaning and purpose. (Not that people can't have those things otherwise, it's just without that support)

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#48

Post by jncfhnb »

cacheyourdreams wrote: post #5

Aren't life expectancy at birth figures heavily skewed by infant mortality rates. I think this is quite a commonly misunderstood statistic for this reason. So while it's true that in the past a new born baby's chances of becoming a great grandparent were much lower than they would be today, that would mainly be due to the low chances of them ever reaching adulthood and becoming a parent at all, rather than the chance…

Pretty sure the probability of making it to adulthood has never been below 50% excluding war, plague, or famine (which were common, so hard to normalize)

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#49

Post by commandlinefan »

My kids got to meet four of their great grandparents, although they were still very young when they did pass away - I have pictures of them with their great-grandparents, but they don't have any memories of them. Mine were all long gone before I was born... I don't know that anything is being "lost" in the sense that it was something we used to have. Meeting one's great grandparents was very rare in generations past and continues to be.
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