What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another? • Hacker News Board

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

#621

Post by wink » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 8:51 AM UTC

angmarsbane wrote: post #238

MisterTea wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Costs $2500-4000/mo for infant care where I am. That's what grandparents are for. Growing up my immediate family lived in the same neighborhood. My mother's parents lived two blocks away and walked over. My fathers parents lived ~15 minutes away. Everyone worked locally. Baby sitters were always named grandma :-) Now you have to move across the country for a lucrative tech job, leaving behind your support network.…

I have been in tech for 7 years and it would be a stretch to afford the house I grew up in. Plus the commute to the city from my parents has increased from 45 minutes to 2 hours over the last 30 years. My high school recently closed down because families can't afford to live in the neighborhood.

The house my parents bought in the early 90s (after local inflation) would cost between 1/3 and 1/4 of what such a house goes for right now. Big surprise I didn't buy one, but I suppose with 2 incomes we would have bought one for that price.

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

#622

Post by evilsetg » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 9:15 AM UTC

teitoklien wrote: post #466

kelseyfrog wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

We have to find a new equilibrium for fertility that does not depend on opression of women. This could very well mean we need more rights, most of all more stable, plannable lifes i think. The old opressive ways of ensuring fertility are gone and without major societal upheaval they will not come back. I think that is good and we should focus on alternative solutions.

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

#623

Post by Mawr » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 9:24 AM UTC

ivape wrote: post #458

Aurornis wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe it has something to do with the “you are not good enough” treadmill the modern world has everyone on. I don’t think people of yesteryear contemplated if they were ready to start a family. I don’t think they contemplated if a job was the “right fit”, and I doubt they scoured the world looking for their soulmate. So, if you live in our current time period where you are never “complete”, then you may have a hard t…

No need to contemplate anything if your run-of-the-mill average job lets you support your entire family and purchase a house.

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

#624

Post by listenallyall » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 9:25 AM UTC

pempem wrote: post #529

teitoklien wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

Have you ever seen that meme about having less days off than a medieval peasant? Yes, I can get chicago, new york, italian, or tokyo style pizza from my phone, in about an hour in a city that is none of those places. Still even my weekends include work. A strong effort in high school, college, grad school and at my jobs has led to fairly regular weekend work and working after putting the LOs down for bedtime, not con…

Lol, what you define as "work" is not even close to the "work" assigned to a medieval peasant. In his eyes, you have 7 days off a week.

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

#625

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 9:28 AM UTC

crtified wrote: post #178

My anecdotal experience, which illustrates how changing societal norms may be contributing. Around 1960, my grandmother scandalously fell pregnant with my mother in her late teens. The child was adopted out - well, not out - in. To her own grandmother, to be raised as a "younger sister" to her own mother. Around 1980, my mother scandalously fell pregnant with me, in her late teens. Despite family disapproval, the chi…

> scandalously

Yes. Society hates teen pregnancy. Some societies will carve out an exception for married teens, which is a whole other can of worms. This is not a change in norms, it's the victory of the norms. People have been told not to have children until they are ready, and finally compliance with that is pretty high.

There were even worse alternatives, like the mass grave at Tuam or the Victorian practice of "baby farming". https://www.bbc.com/news/extra/4ko2zsk2tb/Tuam

The short way to get a baby boom is to make it OK to be a less than perfect parent.

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

#626

Post by juanani » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 9:29 AM UTC

slaw wrote: post #305

lisbbb wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You all created this economic disaster with high taxes and high cost of living via your voting patterns and you own it now. I'm sure I'll be downvoted to hell for saying this, but it is, in fact, the truth.

If voting could change something, it would be forbidden. See Romanian presidential election.

[dead]

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

#627

Post by Mawr » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 9:33 AM UTC

wl wrote: post #358

mapotofu wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don’t know how you can say this. When my son was born, we were asked enough times about circumcision that it seemed like a battle to get to “no”. (USA) The system has a system and a narrative. If you’re working against the narrative you have to be very prepared.

It's less that hospitals are pushing circumcision and more that there's a discharge checklist everyone is working from and the circumcision question is on it. The repetition is some combination of verifying your answer and/or people not reading the notes other people have written when they document your answer. If your answer were "yes, we want a circumcision," they'd be asking you repeatedly just the same until they…

It shouldn't even be legal, much less on a checklist. Doctors will swear up and down on their oaths or whatever other high horse when it comes to euthanasia, but mutilating children without their consent is all good!

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

#628

Post by evilsetg » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 9:34 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #446

crtified wrote: post #178

My anecdotal experience, which illustrates how changing societal norms may be contributing. Around 1960, my grandmother scandalously fell pregnant with my mother in her late teens. The child was adopted out - well, not out - in. To her own grandmother, to be raised as a "younger sister" to her own mother. Around 1980, my mother scandalously fell pregnant with me, in her late teens. Despite family disapproval, the chi…

Having kids when you are young and financially not established is just irresponsible, but particularly female bodies don’t do well having kids older when you are established enough to do so responsibly. I’m having this problem right now with my spouse (we have a kid, but are thinking about another), it’s just super hard to get pregnant without medical help.

Maybe we as a society should decide that having children is fine when you don't have a stable career yet and finance it as such. The contradiction that our most fertile years are also the most unstable is something society could and should balance.

EDIT: typo

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

#629

Post by TFYS » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 9:35 AM UTC

thinkingemote wrote: post #597

The main thing is a rejection of oneself and the prioritizing of others. For those in the past this was normal, this was life itself. The dwindling number of parents of today may be able to see this. Parents sacrifice their life for their children. That the baby boom happened during a time of great sacrifice (war) is very significant. For most of us today this is horrific to think about! Our life is ours! We don't wa…

This is probably one part of it, but I'm not sure it's a very big part. Sacrificing yourself for the group is still a part of some east asian cultures but they aren't doing any better in this regard.

I think we've always been this way, but before easily available birth control the need to have sex has been enough to keep the birth rate high. Now that sex no longer has to lead to reproduction, humanity will have to evolve some other way to increase birth rates. We will start seeing cultural and/or biological evolution; cultures and personalities that have more kids even when birth control is available will survive, and the rest will die off. Future humans might have a weaker physical desire for sex, but a stronger psychological desire for offspring.

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

#630

Post by Mawr » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 9:47 AM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #417

giantg2 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument works both ways - many men can't find women they feel are qualified to be mothers.

+1. I'm 38 and the overwhelming majority of women I had relationships with had the maturity of a teenager well in their 30s. Barely able to take care of themselves financially, mentally, physically, let alone of a family. I seriously felt, except once, I had daughters rather than significant others. Mind you, I might've been unlucky, but the narrative that women are more mature than men, might be true on large statis…

That you've consistently chosen immature women to have relationships with tells us nothing about the average woman. You weren't unlucky, you specifically made choices that led to these outcomes.

Had you chosen women purely randomly, it'd be a different discussion, but you hadn't.

You've done the equivalent of consistently driving above the speed limit and subsequently complaining about the police being too eager to give out speeding tickets.