Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that the main promise of AI and automation and whatnot?
We are promised flying cars since the 50s as well.
Smartphones and the Internet are at least as sci-fi as flying cars.
What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
461–470 of 927 posts
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Agreed, the consequences of a car-dependent society are far reaching, and this is a very insidious one.
I'd also add that it may even be illegal in some places to let your kids outside by themselves at all. Even when it's not illegal, it just takes one busybody to call the police and you've got a potential charge waiting for you, all because you let your kid walk a couple blocks to school. And of course, this just exacerbates the problem further.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some men are stepping up. but others aren't. Many women don't want to have kids because they can't find a qualified partner they feel will be a good dad and good husband.
This argument works both ways - many men can't find women they feel are qualified to be mothers.
True. Personally I’m struggling to find women that want to be mothers, qualified or not.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an unusual take. People in the past made 4-10 babies per family and they did it by being celibate until marriage. Sex positivity and casual relationships were not normal, and grandparents encouraged marriage before sex, probably because the grandparents knew they’d be partially responsible for raising the kid and wanted to ensure two parents to help care for their grandchildren
That time period is so markedly different from ours, the comparison is useless.
It was just 60 years ago, and most cultures in the world today still practice this form of sexual modesty.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an unusual take. People in the past made 4-10 babies per family and they did it by being celibate until marriage. Sex positivity and casual relationships were not normal, and grandparents encouraged marriage before sex, probably because the grandparents knew they’d be partially responsible for raising the kid and wanted to ensure two parents to help care for their grandchildren
That time period is so markedly different from ours, the comparison is useless.
It worked for hundreds, or maybe, thousands of years. What we’ve been doing for just some decades is already leading to talks of population collapse.
Maybe that way wasn’t wrong.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
it is heavily politicized, atleast for the forseable future, until society reaches a conclusion, people will lie with statistics, smear their opponents in discussion as bigots, sexists, whatever. But sooner or later it needs to be asked and acted upon. Should society structure itself to penalise abortions, and reward births of children. Did our old religious and conservative societies where parents and grandparents h…
When people feel the game is unfair, they quit. When the game is society, the society ceases to exist. It's wild that we find it harder to change the system than to walk away from it entirely. People opt out in a thousand small ways - refusing to have kids, refusing to participate, numbing themselves with distractions, or just mentally checking out. If the core pitch of society is "keep grinding or suffer," it’s not…
Things should be made better I agree,
But at the same time.
Every single generation before ours had worse life outcomes in everyway than us. They had lower lifespans, struggled with food insecurity, Lack of travel accomodations, no access to education for the majority, nothing.
Yet if you speak to anyone from those generation or even from our generation who have lives similar to them, they have far more positivity and energy. (and higher fertility and birth rates)
More things, "non meritocracy", "bootstrap fantasies", those things arent the problem.
People of our generation and the one before, are just always whining complaining, too lazy. I dont want to believe that either, but it is the truth.
Our freedom to do anything and everything, abort children easily, control birth planning easily, making casual sex the norm, etc, making housing unaffordable to keep this stupid real estate based bubble alive for banks, and politicians alive under garb of "Regulation" and "NIMBYism".
Are 100% much more contributing to all of this. Than nihilism, doomism, etc.
Give people better things, more money, better lifestyle, and more freedoms and no societal pressure to have kids, people are just opting for the "DINK" philosophy, Double Income No Kids.... , spend on expensive cars, better homes, more travel, but no... no kids.
Go observe every major society, the top 10% of each society in almost all of them have a pretty decent life with good savings and sense of security, freedom to not overwork too much. This is the top 10% populist politicians villify as having everything.
Now go look at the birth rates of that top 10% in EVERY major society its lower than the rest of the 90%.
More money, more affordability are not linked to birth rates at all, except for a teensy minority who overthinks things and calculates 1000 different decisions from climate change to their wealth to their partner's loyalty, to decide if they want kids. They are not the majority
No amount of motivation, higher incomes, etc will reverse this trend of birth declines, (however governments and society should strongly work towards giving people higher income, less overworking, more motivation to be optimistic not for boosting birth rates, because it wont, but simply because its the duty of public servants, politicians, policymakers and the state that serves the society in return for the society serving the state with loyalty)
TLDR; make better society yes, but even that will just lead to even fewer kids, make a more responsible society while improving people's lives.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#467Why not pay women a competitive (not $10/hr) salary for raising a child, collected from taxes from people who don't have children under 18? To make building a family more profitable than working a job. It seems that politicians (calling for ban of abortions) want to have a cake and not pay for it.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
Abortions are not the primary reason why teen pregnancy is way down. There's actual data, you know. Fewer teen pregnancies is a reason why birth rates in the US are declining. But it isn't driven by abortion. And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place.
It’s strange to see that anecdote so highly upvoted when it’s so trivial to look at birth rates by parental age. Reduced teen pregnancies are not the driving factor in recent fertility rate declines at all. It is interesting how an appeal to emotion with a difficult story can lead so many to overlook the obvious shortcomings in that explanation. Honestly this entire comment section has a lot of people making guesses…
The data doesn't exactly support your argument though:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/births-by-age-of-mother
Just looking at raw number of births by age of mother:
* 15-19 peaked in 1989 and has decreased 35% since then
* 25-29 is higher than at any point in the 20th century
* 30-34 is higher than at any point in the 20th century
* 35-39 is higher than at any point in the 20th century
* 40-44 is higher than the 20th century except the 1960's
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an unusual take. People in the past made 4-10 babies per family and they did it by being celibate until marriage. Sex positivity and casual relationships were not normal, and grandparents encouraged marriage before sex, probably because the grandparents knew they’d be partially responsible for raising the kid and wanted to ensure two parents to help care for their grandchildren
Also, pro wrestling is real.
Yes..people in the past were celibate until marriage - what? Maybe some were, like som are now.
From World War II into the 1960s, the median age of a married woman in the US was 20. So maybe many were virgins, if they didn't get together with their fiancee. The median age of first marriage for women in the US is now 28.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#470Why not pay women a competitive (not $10/hr) salary for raising a child, collected from taxes from people who don't have children under 18? To make building a family more profitable than working a job. It seems that politicians (calling for ban of abortions) want to have a cake and not pay for it.
For example, a Russian millionaire, Pavel Durov has 5 children, although it seems that they are raised by his ex-girlfriends. Once there is enough money, problem is solved.