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The window for great-grandmothers is closing

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Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#241

Post by vidarh »

Merad wrote: post #38
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…

It's not just great grandparents, but the family calculus on grandparents changes significantly as well. If my parents were 35 when I was born, and I don't have children until 35, my parents are 70. With a life expectancy of 80, my children never really get a chance to know my parents. Whereas if each generation is having children at age 25, my children will likely be able to know their grandparents for 30 years. I h…

I realised last year that I'd reached the age (48) that my mums dad was when I was born. I remember him "always" being "old", but I also know that I have memories of him from before he turned 55 (he took early retirement around then, and I remember clearly the discussions about what would happen to his workplace that led up to the offer of taking early retirement). He lived another 32 years after that, and all of my grandparents were young enough through most of my childhood and teens that not only were they around but they had the energy to have us stay for whole weeks during the holidays and take us all kinds of places...

Meanwhile my son, at 14, has only one living grandparent, and it does feel weird.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#242

Post by vidarh »

angarg12 wrote: post #107
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…

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…

It's not that it has gotten harder to have kids, but that people come to expect and want to provide more.

I had a perfectly decent living standard growing up, but I also remember very clearly in retrospect the economic uncertainty and the things my parents did to save money, and no uncertainty I've faced has been anywhere near that. Of course it's not like that for everyone, but overall, living standards are up massively, yet fertility rates are down, and the two are firmly correlated.

If I were to budget like my parents did, I could afford many kids. But I don't want to budget like that. Not because I resent how we had it, but because I don't want to go back to that just for the sake of having lots of kids.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#243

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

GuardianCaveman wrote: post #233
zachmu wrote: post #136

Still think about this essay on the topic I saw on twitter a few years back: https://hmmdaily.com/2018/10/18/your-real-biological-clock-i... > If you intend to have children, but you don’t intend to have them just yet, you are not banking extra years as a person who is still too young to have children. You are subtracting years from the time you will share the world with your children.

I had kids older so I’m biased but imagining my kids grow up and move away how often am I going to see them and talk to them? Or rather how often are they going to want to see or talk to me. Hopefully a lot but so I have kids when I’m 18 for a type of life that may or may not exist. If I could do it again we would have had kids maybe 8 years earlier but that still doesn’t make a huge difference. There’s such a strong…

> imagining my kids grow up and move away how often am I going to see them and talk to them?

https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html

> It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#244

Post by ddfs123 »

zachmu wrote: post #163
crote wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just a matter of giving your kid a new laptop every year vs. every couple of years, or not being able to pay for college out-of-pocket. There are plenty of people out there who can't afford to live in anything larger than a one-bedroom apartment, who can't afford to clothe their children, or who can't even afford to feed them. Telling them to have kids because they are "resilient" and parenthood is "meaningf…

To accept this view is to accept the idea that most of our ancestors had "childhood poverty trauma". I just don't see how it's a useful frame. And really, it's not the actual poor who are delaying having kids into their mid-30s: it's the college educated who make way, way more money than them!

Where I live ( East Asia ) most early-child bearing parents are have wealthy grand-parent who could afford to fund the whole child raising cost. The less wealthy stay working until later in life.

The even more wealthy one marry and have kids right out of college. Delegate child-caring to grand-parent, and only then start working for their career.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#245

Post by skulk »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #74
anonym29 wrote: post #60

Earlier 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…

> This has been the case for several years and is a trend that still accelerating. Of course it will continue to accelerate. There's a mechanism that causes this. Some conspiracy theorists mistake this for an active, purposeful goal, but it may be as simple as children growing up in environments where childlessness has become a norm, internalizing that same norm. Since there are fewer children with each successive ge…

How does your second paragraph ("they design") not directly fly in the face of your first ("mistake this for an active, purposeful goal")?

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#246

Post by thaumasiotes »

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…

> 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.

My mother had me when she was 20. I am not yet in my forties, but I lost my last grandparent many years ago.

:(

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#247

Post by burnished »

kristopolous wrote: post #213
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the thing that kinda annoyed me about the article is that it even acknowledges this fact ("even though life expectancy at birth as I’ve used here isn’t the best proxy for this"), but then for some reason refuses to make the next rational leap that there were plenty of great grandmothers in previous generations, totally invalidating the article's main thesis. Obviously there have been huge changes in family size…

Personally when people make mistakes like that I stop reading. Not even the next word. I'm gone.

That is exactly what I did. I want to read things from people who have thought more about a topic than I have, not less.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#248

Post by burnished »

jobigoud wrote: post #73
modeless wrote: post #29

> this source for example claims global life expectancy jumped from around 47 to 72 from 1950 to 2022 I believe this is because of reductions in child mortality more than increases in adult lifespan. So it doesn't affect the number of great grandmothers that much. Having kids older is definitely a big change for society and individual families, though. Every day as a parent I wish I was 15 years younger and my parent…

When kids die as infants they don't have time to have any meaningful interactions with their great-grand parents so the point of the article still stands somewhat. The age of great-grandmothers is low infant mortality + parents making kids early.

They very clearly did not put that much thought into it, not sure why you are making this up.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#249

Post by skulk »

Unfrozen0688 wrote: post #155

Its sad and a crisis. However I have money saved and a comfy job. Yet I am exhausted. Domapnied burned out mess adhd riddled anxiety kissless virgin

I don't know if this is the right time for you to hear this, but don't establish your identity around things that you haven't done. Or fine, do it, but once you have done them, you'll immediately realize how dumb it was to let not having done them define you.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#250

Post by presentation »

balfirevic wrote: post #171
zachmu wrote: post #136

Still think about this essay on the topic I saw on twitter a few years back: https://hmmdaily.com/2018/10/18/your-real-biological-clock-i... > If you intend to have children, but you don’t intend to have them just yet, you are not banking extra years as a person who is still too young to have children. You are subtracting years from the time you will share the world with your children.

> you are not banking extra years as a person who is still too young to have children. You are subtracting years from the time you will share the world with your children It's obviously both?

Yeah, if you value your life before children at 0 it’s true but if you don’t then it’s valuable time many choose to enjoy, in the only period of their lives without huge responsibilities they’ll get while they’re young.

I agree sentimentally that people tend to overly avoid commitment and don’t really think about these things, but for me I don’t think it was an unfair trade.

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