Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

derekthompson.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 927 posts

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#271

Post by lisbbb »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #255
pantalaimon wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it depends on age. Men in their 20ies don't want kids because they still want to enjoy life without responsibility, but by the time they are in their 30ies they are ready to settle down and the idea of having a family becomes more and more appealing.

Yes and that is too late and in the meantime have wasted 10 fertile years of 2 or 3 female partners.

Oh good god! Get over yourself! Those 2-3 female partners were willing participants, not being led on. If you believe they were being led on, then you are not saying very much about women and their level of intelligence!

I don't feel as though I wasted any of the "fertile years" of my female partners who ended up not wanting to marry me!

I had a couple of different long-term relationships in my 20s before I found a woman to marry and start a family with, which we did just fine in our 30s despite having two miscarriages in between kid #1 and kid #2.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#272

Post by wolfgangK »

dividefuel wrote: post #207
PakistaniDenzel wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No - being a mom and having to work full time sucks. Being a full time mom probably isn't that bad.

If you read forums of new parents (e.g. parenting subreddits), the common consensus is that being a stay at home parent is far harder than a job.

"is hard" ≠ "sucks"

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#273

Post by wolfgangK »

beefnugs wrote: post #201
PakistaniDenzel wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No - being a mom and having to work full time sucks. Being a full time mom probably isn't that bad.

All modern problems are capitalism problems

You forgot the "/s", or do you actually believe that it's capitalism's fault is a mother taking care of her children is "unpaid labor" ?

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#274

Post by [deleted] »

itake wrote: post #241
swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women can leave and get alimony, child support, and often times greater custody of the kids. Men don’t want to take that risk, so many men opt out of marriage as well.

Alimony is temporary and fixed, whereas careers are not only life-long, but have compounding growth. There is a significant financial gap between a divorced woman in her 50s with only five years of alimony remaining and a career woman in her 50s with a $400,000 401(k) balance.

[deleted]

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#275

Post by anon291 »

Aurornis wrote: post #45
bdavbdav wrote: post #19

(Purely anecdotally, my own and my peers experience) We’re seeing educated people waiting longer in life to have children. Fertility drops, assistance from older generations drops, the village has gone, nursery and care prices are ridiculously high, support from the government (UK) is a bit of a farce if you’re earning anything more than a living wage in cities, the opportunity cost of a parent putting a (more develo…

> this, however people know what the sacrifices are, and very understandably don’t want to make them. My anecdote: As a parent, when I talk to people my same age or younger without children they often greatly overestimate the sacrifices necessary to have children. I can’t tell you how many times I've heard people (who don’t have children) make wild claims like having children means you won’t have good sleep for the n…

That's because they've been raised to believe it's hard.

And seeing the various lists of what is required of parents .... I guess I agree. But here's the kicker... You don't need any of that.

For example, we have three (soon to be four kids). My neighbors have one. I can't imagine how hard their life is parenting their one kid compared to ours simply because of how all consuming their parenting is. Every behavior of little Jimmy has to be scrutinized. Copious books are consulted for the best way to do every little thing. Jimmy must be reasoned with instead of just instructed. Old ways are rejected outright instead of adopted as methods that successfully formed our generation.

Take for example potty training. They started at the 'right' age of three years old. Their kid has taken months to potty train. Little Jimmy has to be reasoned with and convinced to use the potty. Every mistake results in an elaborate ritual they read about in a book.

Meanwhile, we have three kids all of whom potty trained around the 1.5 year mark. We never read books. We just did what our parents did. We stuck out a potty and let them run around naked and every time they made a mistake we stuck them on the potty.

I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to change diapers for 3 years.

There's numerous examples of this. For example, little Jimmy has a whole menu and there's a ritual to introduce new food to him that they read about in a parenting book

They were shocked to see us feed our 8 month old whatever we had on the table that was safe for them to eat.

They have various 'rules' for other babysitters, including grandparents, for little Jimmy. Meanwhile we just trust our parents.

The entire thing results in them spending a helluva lot more time on little Jimmy than we do on our kids. And because of this, little Jimmy is not only overparented but also the family does less. We camp, ski, kayak, vacation internationally, etc with our kids (same age as little Jimmy). For them, they cannot without breaking their various protocols.

Anyway, listen to the wisdom of the ages. Children are very easy. Your entire body and psyche was made to make and raise them.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#276

Post by angmarsbane »

yieldcrv wrote: post #231

> between the mid-1930s and mid-1950s, the US maternal death rate fell by 94 percent that’s it so basically very few people - as in both partners - were consciously planning kids, they were just having sex, but the irresponsibility was curbed by nature, sanitation, as many of the resulting children died. of the people that were planning children, they also has to hedge with many dead children, but suddenly they were…

Do we still have sex? I keep seeing headlines that younger generations aren't having sex. My last relationship ended because my mid-30s male partner wasn't interested in sex.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#277

Post by boogieknite »

thrownawaysz wrote: post #250
itake wrote: post #161

My $0.02 is being a mom sucks. In modern relationships, men just want to work and come home to a cooked meal and clean house, but their wives are working just as many hours the men are. Having kids means tension in relationship, unpaid labor by the woman, and stress parenting kids. Even if the husband steps up, he still can't breast feed for 3 hours per day. Pregnancy is really terrible on the woman's body. Post-part…

The fact that this was written by a man is hilarious

its a reasonable take and expresses my opinion as a male

i have a long term spouse and let her make the call because i know it sucks too, i doubt i would sign up for it

theres always adoption. yes, i know the adoption process is rigorous and expensive

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#278

Post by like_any_other »

itake wrote: post #161

My $0.02 is being a mom sucks. In modern relationships, men just want to work and come home to a cooked meal and clean house, but their wives are working just as many hours the men are. Having kids means tension in relationship, unpaid labor by the woman, and stress parenting kids. Even if the husband steps up, he still can't breast feed for 3 hours per day. Pregnancy is really terrible on the woman's body. Post-part…

A generation looking for fulfillment in cubicles... let me show you how that works out:

In early 2017, with her 45th birthday looming and no sign of Mr. Right, she decided to start a family on her own. She excitedly unfroze the 11 eggs she had stored and selected a sperm donor. Two eggs failed to survive the thawing process. Three more failed to fertilize. That left six embryos, of which five appeared to be abnormal. The last one was implanted in her uterus. On the morning of March 7, she got the devastating news that it, too, had failed. Adams was not pregnant, and her chances of carrying her genetic child had just dropped to near zero. She remembers screaming like “a wild animal,” throwing books, papers, her laptop — and collapsing to the ground. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/01/27/f...

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#279

Post by anon291 »

salamanderman wrote: post #73
parpfish wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one of my theories for why we specifically see highly-educated people waiting longer or opting out is that it's a consequence of tiger-mom/helicopter-parent upbringings its a double-blow to deciding to have kids -- a) they were raised to pursue personal/career excellence which deprioritized becoming a parent, and b) when they look back at their parental role models they see an unsustainable level of over-involvement…

Agreeing with you, and connecting it to the link, my parents talk about their childhood as basically being feral. You had multiple kids in the house who entertained/babysat each other (possibly by beating each other up, but whatever) and you also had streets filled with kids doing whatever (baseball in a dirt field, playing in traffic). The rule was to be home by the time the streetlights came on. Organizing and tran…

Look at the way our cities are built. I live in a grid based streetcar suburb and my kids can be let out feral. If you live in a modern subdivision ... Good luck. The roads are too big, and there is nowhere for kids to go. Meanwhile, my local city has free lunch at the park for kids every day during the summer and kids can go unaccompanied. I see tons of kids out riding bikes and walking by themselves.

Impossible in modern developments. You'd have to cross a six lane road with 50mph traffic to get anywhere not safe.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#280

Post by swagasaurus-rex »

angmarsbane wrote: post #244
swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men are avoiding marriage due to the possibility of alimony, child support and courts favoring mother’s custody over children. It happened to my dad, my mom got over $1 million in 2011 when they divorced. Overall it seems like marriage is a bad gamble for both genders whenever divorce is easy to get.

Divorce laws vary by state. California is equal property, and alimony kicks in immediately (no minimum length of marriage). As a female, higher earner, I paid my ex-husband alimony for a 1 yr 9 month marriage.

Do you feel that this is a fair way to distribute earnings upon divorce? When no children are involved?

My interpretation is that one should not marry somebody who earns significantly less than them due to how courts will force payments with the possibility of jail time.

Post reply on HN