Some people still get pregnant with 14, and the next generation makes the same "mistake", as that led to not an ideal family situation and wise parenting. (German here, so no foul play / illegal intercourse happening in most of such cases.)
The window for great-grandmothers is closing
101–110 of 494 posts
Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
A vast supermajority of the entire inhabited human planet is so far below replacement-level fertility that human extinction is now closer than the ice caps being completely 100% melted. This has been the case for several years and is a trend that still accelerating. Fun fact: human fertility per person is shrinking faster than GHG emissions per person are growing. Even with a handful of countries still breeding like…
I posted links because I've had this conversation many times over. The short version is: yeah, I used to be a techno-utopian too, 20 years ago. But none of those magic technologies are realistic, we aren't on the path to them being widely deployed, the population and emissions and resource consumption are all worse, as summarized in the conclusions of the experts who put together the Earth Overshoot Day report. If yo…
It's estimated that green ammonia costs between $800 and $1500 per ton today to produce [1]. While this is higher than conventional ammonia, it is less than how much ammonia cost in the 2022 energy crisis [2] and likely to decrease further in the future.
Massive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer are wasted because it's so cheap [3]. There's headroom for bringing back crop rotation of nitrogen-fixing crops. Nitrogen-fixing microbes are an emerging technology [4].
I am not convinced that we're all going to die.
[1] https://itif.org/publications/2023/04/17/climate-tech-to-wat... [2] https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2022/09/fertilizer-prices-... [3] https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/06/07/nutrient-challeng... [4] pivotbio.com
Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing
#103If 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…
The upside is that I was a total basket case in my 20s, completely incompetent to be able to raise a child. I'll leave it to my children on how it turned out in my 30s. Generally I'd expect older adults to have done a lot more maturing and increased ability to emotionally regulate, which is a really critical ability when dealing with the 4th day of 3 hours of sleep and a colicky baby (for example). Also no point. But…
Not a parent, but I feel the same about myself. Having a kid at 22 would’ve been a mess to say the least. Looking back at that age halfway through my 30s, at that point I wasn’t much more than an overgrown 16 year old that could legally walk into a bar who wouldn’t get his head screwed on quite right for another 6 years or so at minimum.
Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some see people as burdens, some as assets. I think this is a very important world view conflict.
The situation can be far more nuanced than this. It's not the people, it's the cars, cows, planes, land, and fuel they consume.
Earth can sustain a far larger human population. More humans is absolutely a net-good.
Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
A vast supermajority of the entire inhabited human planet is so far below replacement-level fertility that human extinction is now closer than the ice caps being completely 100% melted. This has been the case for several years and is a trend that still accelerating. Fun fact: human fertility per person is shrinking faster than GHG emissions per person are growing. Even with a handful of countries still breeding like…
> 2100
Too bad hundreds of thousands of species are going to have gone extinct by then. Hope we don't kill the wrong ones.
Just a sidenote, I know.
Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing
#106Later, fewer kids. Another more prominent trend is the death of the cousin:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/cousins-decline-canada-1.7103...
Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing
#107If 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…
The wording here is a bit odd, almost like blaming people for delaying childbearing. The world is complicated and a number of factors have produced this outcome in the developed world.
My parents were factory workers and they encouraged me to study a university degree as a sure way to a successful career. I finished my degree well into my 20s, but then the economic collapse of 2008 happened and I spent several years living paycheck to paycheck, lucky me who at least had a job.
In my late 20s I finally broke from economic stagnation by moving abroad. Then I spent the next 12 years moving countries every 2-3 years, which isn't good for stability. In fact I didn't meet who would become my wife until my mid 30s.
Now I approach 40 and have a good paying job in tech. However I'm in the US on a non-immigrant visa and my company has done waves of layoffs that I luckily survived. We are seriously considering having a child, but the prospects don't look great. Everything else aside, we don't really know anyone or have a support network here.
I know most of this is moaning and if we "really wanted" we could make it work. But it doesn't discount the fact that it's easier to start a family for someone with a stable job with a support network.
Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing
#108It's a very parochial article I think. Sure, there are some numbers for the trends and such, but I suspect that people will continue to have kids both when they are younger and when they are older to some extent. Which is more likely for you is probably heavily influenced by your socioeconomic status. This is just going to vary significantly from person to person. Examples from my own family:
A great grandmother to my children died last year. Her oldest great grandchild at the time was 13. She missed meeting the youngest by a couple of months.
This same oldest great grandchild also has a living great grandmother still, and one that died in 2003 and one that died in 2005. So even within the same family, and even for the same person, the experience of having a great grandmother can be quite different.
Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing
#109If 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…
I only got to meet one of my great grandparents, my great grandmother, though she died when I was five years old so I don't remember her terribly well. I am the oldest kid in my family, and my mom had me when she was 25. My oldest sister also got to meet my great grandmother, but my two youngest sisters never did.
I still have two living grandparents as well, both grandmothers, one I won't talk to, and one that I like a lot. My oldest sister had a kid almost three years ago, and he got to meet his great grandmother last October for her 90th birthday.
That grandmother is still in pretty good health for her age, so I certainly hope she lives a lot longer, but realistically she probably doesn't have that much time left. I'm not having kids, but my other sisters are planning on it and it seems unlikely that they'll get to meet their great grandmother.
Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing
#110US Rep. Lauren Boebert is a grandma at 37, and her mother (if alive - I don't know) will turn 56 this year.