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The window for great-grandmothers is closing

memoirsandrambles.substack.com

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Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#321

Post by rglullis »

shiroiushi wrote: post #300
rglullis wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And somehow we've done it through hundreds of generations. > just need to solve this "aging" disease. Oh, please stop. This is the rhetoric of stunted men with Peter Pan syndrome. If you are too scared to face this type of responsibility, plenty of other men rose to the occasion just fine.

>If you are too scared to face this type of responsibility, plenty of other men rose to the occasion just fine. According to the most recent fertility statistics, they're not.

You are trying to make a point against old values using "most recent statistics". Do you realize how illogical this is?

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#322

Post by AtlasBarfed »

My kid didn't get to meet his grandmother (my mom). She had me at 30, I had him at 46, one year too late.

One of the problems with capitalism is that the highest achieving people (somewhat likely the actual "fittest" people in terms of genetic selection) don't have kids until they are much later, if at all. I don't want this to get too elitist, but this country (actually the entire first world aside from France) needs to figure out how to incentivize productive people to have kids.

I always thought what we should do with the people in retirement for longer and longer periods of time is encourage them to provide some child care, even if it isn't their own. Especially in some countries (Japan, holy shit South Korea) that really are imbalanced.

Although, tangentially, I think South Korea will solve its demographic bomb by toppling North Korea's government and immigrating a massive number of shellshocked North Koreans.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#323

Post by shiroiushi »

rglullis wrote: post #321
shiroiushi wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you are too scared to face this type of responsibility, plenty of other men rose to the occasion just fine. According to the most recent fertility statistics, they're not.

You are trying to make a point against old values using "most recent statistics". Do you realize how illogical this is?

You seem to not be living in the real world, instead pining for "old values" which obviously not many people still live by.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#324

Post by lotsofpulp »

tuatoru wrote: post #275
jwells89 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost and support networks are both big factors here. 30-somethings are probably more likely to have replacement rate or more if it’s affordable to do so and there’s family/friends around to lend a hand, but few enjoy such circumstances. Things like remote work could’ve helped here, allowing couples to live near family instead of wherever the best employment prospects exist currently, but the RTO push prevented that.

The (lack of) social prestige for pregnancy and motherhood among UMC women is a bigger factor. Women have been indoctrinated to place career first and only. Try saying "soccer mom" with an admiring tone instead of a sneer if you want to understand this.

Is it possible women could want financial independence without being indoctrinated?

Or are they incapable of desiring power over their own lives, perhaps unlike men?

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#325

Post by navane »

Afton wrote: post #90
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 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…

I'm sure you could handle nights with little sleep fine in your early twenties. Being up all night. Dealing with childish drama. Vomit.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#326

Post by michaelhoney »

The author says that shorter life expectancies in the past means that there weren't many great-grandparents back in the day.

I don't think that's the case: the shorter average life expectancy is due to infant and youth mortality. As long as you didn't die from what would nowadays be a preventable disease, people still got old: that's where the term "three score years and ten" comes from.

So I think there were probably many 70yo great grandparents.

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#327

Post by rglullis »

shiroiushi wrote: post #323
rglullis wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are trying to make a point against old values using "most recent statistics". Do you realize how illogical this is?

You seem to not be living in the real world, instead pining for "old values" which obviously not many people still live by.

Your "solution" to the problem that adults now are claiming to be unable to become parents is, literally, "cure aging".

Mine is "accept that you can not do it on your own and have them at a age where your parents can still help you."

The fact that people are forgetting these "old values" is what is bringing to this unsustainable state, and instead of accepting the reality of our limited lifespans and that people have managed to start having kids in the early 20's (or before that) for centuries just fine, you want to double down on the idea that "no one should have kids before their 50s"?

Who is "not living in the real world"?

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#328

Post by 082349872349872 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #293
selimthegrim wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am shocked, shocked that Josephine Mutzenbacher didn’t reflect reality

Wait, given the age differences described here, the book very much reflected reality, no?

No, what I took away from Zweig is that 19 yo men were very much interested in 19 yo women, but (although some were for rent) they couldn't successfully date them due to competition from men "of substance".

EDIT: hmm, was it really a change in mores, or did WWI just kill off enough 20-40 yos to reset this dynamic?

Re: The window for great-grandmothers is closing

#329

Post by bell-cot »

jimbokun wrote: post #262
Afton wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Interesting how until recently people in their early 20s were perfectly capable of raising children, but today they’re not.

True. Though until recently, children were usually allowed some adult-level duties and responsibilities before their early 20s, so they could actually grow up. My mother did all the cooking for a family of 6, on a wood stove, before she was 12 years old. In an era (and economic circumstances) when "we need more bread" meant "check that there is enough flour in the bin, and get some water from the well...".
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