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The window for great-grandmothers is closing

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Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#251

Post by [deleted] »

sublinear wrote: post #201
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…

Isn't the ultimate goal of parenting that your kids shouldn't have to trust anyone but themselves? Parents who don't have a plan and need help shouldn't have had kids. The grandparents and great grandparents would just get in the way of these goals. There shouldn't be anything magical about getting to know your family. If you got to meet them, great, but you're your own person and developing that is so much more impo…

[deleted]

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#252

Post by throwaway6734 »

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…

We just had our first child at 33 and I wish we had done it at 24 or 25, although it's hard to predict if we'd be as happy as we spent those years changing jobs, going back to graduate school, and traveling

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#253

Post by mgkimsal »

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…

My mom's parents were relatively old when they had her, and my dad's parents were relatively young when they had him. I had a set of 'old' grandparents, and 'young' grandparents.

My mom's parents were gone by the time I was 24 - I didn't really ever get a chance to interact with them as an adult. My dad's father passed away when I was 39, but I had many visits with them as an adult while he and my grandmother were still pretty active. My grandmother is now 94 and not in great health, but still with us, still mentally there. When I was in 5th grade, they came to 'grandparents day' at my school, and she won 'youngest grandmother', but wouldn't come up on stage to accept the award! ;)

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#254

Post by dalyons »

vidarh wrote: post #242
angarg12 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 massi…

But it has gotten harder in some important ways, housing costs as a % of median income have risen by multiples since then. Shelter being thing that probably makes people feel the most insecure

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#255

Post by thaumasiotes »

rayiner wrote: post #240
sublinear wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best part about being a mature parent is that you have much more control over how you raise your kids. No way in hell did I ever trust teachers, grandparents, coaches, etc. over my actual parents. My parents were in their 30s when I was born. Their skepticism not only decoupled them from depending on people they didn't trust, but their perspective rubbed off on me and set me up for success. Older parents have no…

[flagged]

> It’s just something old white guys said in the 1960s without support, like Jungian archetypes and things like that.

It is that, but it's not just that; the concept is attested farther back.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Loyola#Disputed

> Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.

If Voltaire invented it from whole cloth, that's still the 18th century.

Though on your topic, Piaget is an amazing example of someone just inventing a completely ridiculous theory, doing experiments that fail to support it, and getting it enshrined as wisdom anyway.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#256

Post by dgacmu »

serf wrote: post #214
crimsontech wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had my first daughter when I was 20 and grew up very quickly, I can distinctly remember it hitting me like a bus that I was now wholly responsible for a human. She is an adult now and I couldn’t be any prouder of all she has achieved in life so far. I also had two more kids in my 30s. It’s harder when you are older, but I’m financially better off so they can have things I couldn’t afford in my 20s. I do have more w…

>I can distinctly remember it hitting me like a bus that I was now wholly responsible for a human. the problem of course being that some individuals never hit upon that realization -- and the statistics regarding the matter make it look like that revelation is more likely to come to an individual who is older, financially secure, and mentally well. > It’s harder when you are older, but I’m financially better off so t…

We had our first kid when I was about 37, and our second when I was about 43.

The part that's harder is that particularly with #2, I'm just a bit more tired, and he needs a lot of energy. It's not drastic, but I notice it.

The part that's emotionally harder is that I'm sad I won't be there when my kids are approximately my age. I'd love to be around longer to help if they have kids, etc., but statistically, I don't think it's too likely. I lost my own mom two years ago and that was very hard. Barring some advances in health care, my kids are likely to lose me in their 30s-40s as well. Losing a parent is never easy, but I think it would be easier a little later. My kids only have one grandparent left and I wish they still had two.

The part that's easier is exactly what you note: Life is pretty stable. We're financially sound. We've had years of growth and therapy to learn to communicate well and have a healthy relationship with each other and our kids. We can afford to support our kids well, be that with high quality daycare when they were young, or an emergency mid-year school shift (that was interesting), or medically, or whatnot.

Lots of tradeoffs. I plan to make the most of my time with them while they're still young. There's no clear answer on the balance other than doing one's best.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#257

Post by sundalia »

pimlottc wrote: post #95

For pete sake, don't break up the flow and over-complicate your very first sentence with irrelevant asides like this: > A friend and I were talking about our families today when I realized that my grandmother (this grandmother) became a grandma (not my grandma) at 45. I got confused and distracted trying to solve the riddle of why his "grandmother" was not his "grandma" [0] when it had nothing to do with the point he…

Not everything has to be clear and to the point. The sentence's murkiness adds emotion to the text. I'm not a native speaker (just like the writer isn't) and maybe that's why we're not so bothered.

But this comment is exactly what I expected from HN.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#258

Post by paulryanrogers »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #195
paulryanrogers wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably you can chose other teachers and coaches and daycare

What about crappy parents?

Exactly. That's the distinction. While you can chose other people in most roles for your kids, you cannot pick their grandparents.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#259

Post by Dalewyn »

zachmu wrote: post #144
decafninja wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternately, you could be giving both them and yourself a better quality of life by waiting until you’re more ready. Obviously you don’t have forever to do this.

I think this is the story people tell themselves, but as far as I can tell it's mostly just a story. Kids are resilient and don't need the material wealth college educated people tend to assume they will to have a good childhood. And as for parents, there's really a lot to be said for raising kids while you're young and energetic, it's just easier. The problem is that it's nearly impossible to convey to a childless p…

>The problem is that it's nearly impossible to convey to a childless person how meaningful parenthood will be to their life.

Why does that even need to be conveyed? Whether you have kids or not is none of my business, and vice versa. If anything, the more I hear some variant of "maek keedz und haev famili" like some broken record the more I find the notion preposterous.

Just leave everyone to their devices. Those who want or are interested in kids will have them and those who don't won't, regardless what anyone feels obliged to tell them.

As for me personally? I consider the notion of romantic love a mental illness. I find the concept of marriage to be fundamental violations of an individual's human rights. I find the proposal of continuing my bloodline, and more broadly the human race, without value. I am happy to be single and without issue until my dying breath and I certainly couldn't care less what others do in their bedroom, so kindly take your high horse and please leave for greener pastures.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#260

Post by lotsofpulp »

em-bee wrote: post #125
jwells89 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the component that is getting lost in our culture, which in other cultures is still more present is that grandparents play an active role in helping the young parents to raise their children. in chinese culture for example the young couple moves in with the husbands parents, and so grandparents are always around to give advice and help. when our first was born we moved to live a few km from the grandparents, and ther…

> in chinese culture for example the young couple moves in with the husbands parents, and so grandparents are always around to give advice and help.

Same for Indians. And 90% of Indian dramas are about mother in laws butting heads with daughter in laws.

Obviously, a daughter in law that earns sufficient money herself is not going to give up her agency, and many in laws who are expecting the deference they had to give their in laws when they were young are going to have trouble meshing with the new power dynamic.

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