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Who Americans spend their time with, by age

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Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#131

Post by eeZah7Ux »

leesalminen wrote: post #26
dcolkitt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Western nuclear family is a very unnatural social arrangement. Anthropologists have found that in most hunter-gatherers, the average infant is held at one point or another by 30+ people in a typical day. The nuclear family has the twin downsides of putting tons of stress on parents of young kids, who shoulder the entire childcare burden, and deprives a lot of grandparents, aunts, cousins, and others of meaningful…

I’m the parent of a young child and I definitely feel some sort of internal pressure to be all babies all the time. I feel pretty guilty leaving him with anyone other than my wife. All I can think to myself is whether what I’m doing is really worth it compared to spending time with the baby.

Unfortunately the culture of helicopter parenting is harmful.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#132

Post by lotsofpulp »

wbl wrote: post #82
burlesona wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true. Unfortunately such places are almost all very expensive these days. So if you’re not already into late retirement age (and you moved there 40 years ago when it was affordable), then it’s not economically feasible for most people to get in now.

Places can change. There's nothing stopping suburbia from becoming more walkable and friendly to the elderly other than choices we made.

The very definition of suburbia prevents it from becoming elderly and walking friendly: large lots for houses with garages and multi car wide driveways, 6+ lane road crossings, parking lots spacing everything out.

I can’t imagine any elderly person with mobility issues being able to cross any road with more than a 25mph speed limit, especially the main roads that are 4 to 8 lanes wide at intersections with 40mph speed limits.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#133

Post by eeZah7Ux »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #126
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The western nuclear family is exactly what you get in agrarian societies of the past. Absolutely not - and I have direct experience of this. First: multi generational households are extremely common. Second: people, including children, spend tons of time with other people outside of the parent-child relation. Relatives, often cousins, granparents, and neighbors. This is still the case for most agrarian societies ou…

>Absolutely not - and I have direct experience of this. Everyone who has direct experience of this time has been dead for half a century at least. >First: multi generational households are extremely common. Define "extremely common". What percent of people in a given society in a given time period do you think grew up in one? >Second: people, including children, spend tons of time with other people outside of the par…

> Everyone who has direct experience of this time has been dead for half a century at least.

TIL: I'm dead.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#134

Post by jvanderbot »

dcolkitt wrote: post #18
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #11

I don't even want kids. I don't know why the 'time spent with one's children' line hurts so much, but it does. It sharply rises, before plummeting at age 40. That's got to be a jarring transition. No wonder so many folks have trouble with the 'empty nest' and mid-life crisis.

The Western nuclear family is a very unnatural social arrangement. Anthropologists have found that in most hunter-gatherers, the average infant is held at one point or another by 30+ people in a typical day. The nuclear family has the twin downsides of putting tons of stress on parents of young kids, who shoulder the entire childcare burden, and deprives a lot of grandparents, aunts, cousins, and others of meaningful…

A more "natural" arrangement occurs if we all don't run to large cities chasing glory and gold (which I have done, full disclosure, much to my child-caring woes). There is nothing wrong with nuclear families if you add in something like "nuclear communities".

In many small towns or suburban cities, 3 generations live nearby, with all the aunts and uncles. Help with care is always next door, and children are raised with dozens of frequent visitors or caretakers. I'm quite jealous of the quality of life of my inlaws / extended family for these reasons.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#135

Post by eulers_secret »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #16
toddsiegel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. But a silver lining of the pandemic is that my wife is now my office mate. As a result, we've spent the majority of most days together over the last 8 months and I could not be happier!

Yeah, I imagine this is testing some marriages, but I think my spouse and I are both happier for spending more time together. It really depends on living arrangements as well - just our office space is nearly as large as our first apartments entire living space so we can take the time apart we need.

It also depends on personalities - my wife and I share 650 square feet, have for years. This year has been pleasant even though there’s no “time apart” and no privacy. We also have a dog in that small area.

There’s more to it than just affording large luxury housing.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#136

Post by ed25519FUUU »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #42
_qulr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not defending the nuclear family, but I don't think our primitive past says anything about what's "optimal". For example, human life expectancy is much longer now. I'd much rather be a modern person with modern technology and medicine than a hunter-gatherer. Evolution != good. It's just history, and history is often ugly.

I agree with your general point, but much of the growth in life expectancy is driven by the massive drops in infant mortality. In general, modern advances have maybe added 10+ years to an average adult lifespan. The quality of the added lifespan is harder to assess though.

Even that increase in life expectancy is dubious, consider this passage from Psalms written in 1489 bc, which can basically be said about Americans today.

> Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#137

Post by darkwizard42 »

This article makes me think of a waitbutwhy post about how little time you have left with certain cohorts of your life: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html

Worth reading and of course feels different with how much things have changed in the last 10 months

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#138

Post by globular-toast »

burlesona wrote: post #36

The thing that seems crazy to me is how much time alone increases with age. There are many many reasons for it, but one thing I think is especially sad is how much this is a consequence of our built environment. If you live in a village with multiple generations of a family around, it’s much easier for grandparents to be involved day too day in helping with little things in the village, especially keeping an eye on t…

I don't think you even have to look back to when people lived in little villages. People nowadays are more likely to relocate for work and more likely to have children later, if at all. Why do so many people send their children to daycare when quite often there are grandparents who would love to look after the child? Most likely is the grandparents live nowhere near them.

I already spend the vast majority of my time alone, so I don't find it sad.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#139

Post by danenania »

_qulr wrote: post #128
danenania wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I'm not arguing for a return to hunter-gatherer society. But we should certainly consider the environment that our bodies and minds were developed and optimized for, and that our species lived in for 99% of its history, as we decide how to structure our current environment. To say that evolution is a "red herring" is absurd. It has literally determined every aspect of our being. You can't move forward wi…

> It has literally determined every aspect of our being. You can't move forward without understanding what got you where you are. So has physics. Why stop at hunter-gatherers, why not go back to the Big Bang? Would you argue that we need to study astrophysics to deal with obesity? It's not absurd at all to suggest that evolution is a red herring, any more than it's absurd to suggest that astrophysics is a red herring…

Biologists actually do have to study physics (including the most advanced and theoretical physics) to understand metabolic processes, and their discoveries directly inform medicine, psychology, and other downstream fields like sociology. So that's not as clever of an argument as you seem to think.

No one is saying that we should live exactly like our ancestors.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#140

Post by throwaway98797 »

typhon04 wrote: post #111
stronglikedan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way. I've demonstrably proven to myself that I'm happiest when I'm by myself. Social interactions are tedious, and draining, so I prefer to keep them to a minimum. I optimize for the right things in my life.

Even so, what do you do in that time? Isn't it providing some service or building a product for people... and a greater purpose? I doubt you are a hermit doing as little social interactions just to get by and only consuming without producing anything. If so... what is the meaning of it all?

1. Cooking your own meals daily (2 hours)

2. Gym (2 hours with commute)

3. Midday nap (30 min)

4. Eating meals, including slowly drinking coffee (2 hours)

5. Reading (2 hours)

6. YouTube (2 hours)

7. Self reflection (1 hour)

This is 11.5 hours so far of the 16 of non sleep time. This does not include any income earning activities, which I still spend time on.

I also go on long walks and think.

I’m not saying this is ideal, but it works for me right now.

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