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Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

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Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#151

Post by dotnet00 »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #83
bongodongobob wrote: post #75

You're baffled people aren't having kids? What bubble do you live in? People straight up can't afford housing much less children. The avg American is completely priced out of owning a home right now. Edit: the replies - y'all are out of touch. Visit an average family in the Midwest with a household income of < $100k/yr that doesn't own a home yet.

Have you noticed that much, much poorer places often have a much higher birth rate? I think there is something else going on. And I mean poorer in terms of actual living conditions on the ground.

When you're poorer, especially in countries with less well enforced legal systems, you're not as negatively affected by having more children. Your priority is simply being able to stay fed and taking what work you can get, not buying a home in an area conducive to your highly specialized career. More kids are just another mouth to feed until they become capable of contributing to the family finances (typically at much younger ages than in the West).

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#152

Post by masklinn »

aaomidi wrote: post #138
ekianjo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don’t think it’s selfless or selfish to have or not have kids. It just is. There’s no reason to say it’s selfish tbh.

Seems the opposite of selfish from the point of view of “world does not exactly look good and getting better”.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#153

Post by meowkit »

maxdoop wrote: post #144
ekianjo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

How is it selfish to not have kids? Selfishness implies another party; if the kid doesn’t even exist, what is selfish?

It can be construed either way.

If you want kids, its selfish to bring the other party into existence. Life isn't all great, and you don't have a choice in whether or not you're born.

If you don't want kids, its selfish because you are not supporting the society (other party) that supports your existence. If we don't have kids above the replacement rate, society doesn't continue. If you are fine with that great, but its hypocritical if you plan to continue to benefit from society in your own life.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#154

Post by em-bee »

scythe wrote: post #120
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #16

Anecdata: I am 31 and have 3 young kids. They have 0 cousins and, on top of that, 0... second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids. My kids are my grandma's only great-grandkids. And I have... 6 cousins. On top of that, at my last job, on my team of 15, I was the only one with kids, and only 1 of those 15 engineers were under the age of 30. At my current job, my team is 8, and again…

>It baffles me. My hypothesis, which I rarely hear anyone else mention, is that we no longer look to our children for entertainment. Life used to be really boring. Kids are excited by things adults find painfully dull. Having a weird little person around who is overjoyed playing with a stick is a pretty great thing in a world where there isn't much else to do. Today people often seem to regard interacting with childr…

My hypothesis, which I rarely hear anyone else mention, is that we no longer look to our children for entertainment. Life used to be really boring.

while there is some truth to that with stories of a sudden baby boom 9 months after a significant power outage, i'd rather rephrase that as

"we no longer look to our children as the only thing we care about"

there are now so many other things (hobbies, causes) that we can put our energy into that they take away the focus from having kids. after all, once you have kids you will have to put aside some of your other activities for some years.

sociopolitical explanations of falling birth rates have been refuted by the present trends

i think birthrates don't so much correlate with wealth but with education. my guess is that education improves faster than wealth, so this could explain the development better.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#155

Post by vidarh »

dalyons wrote: post #102
haimez wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s be a little charitable here- having and raising children has been a much, much more dangerous proposition health wise even at your parents generation to say nothing of your grandparents generation.

There’s not a lot to be charitable about in the parent comment. Some poorly researched race replacement bs? You personally are right, it has never been safer health wise to have children. It has never been more expensive either, win some, lose some.

Expensive relative to expectations. Not in terms of what most people could provide.

That's not bad. It's fine that people expect more and want to be able to provide more before having children (and I do agree the commenter who argued this is somehow confined to the Western world is way out there).

But we need to understand that across most of the developed world - there will be exceptions in pockets here and there - it is not the ability to afford children that has dropped, but that we're not willing to give up what we have to have children at a living standard that was considered good before.

E.g. when I grew up we always had food, but the food we had was dictated by cost in a way I never think about, and wouldn't want to deal with. We lived in less space, and I want more space, not less. Our living standard when I was a kid was fine; far above average for most of the world, about average for where I grew up. But if what it took to have more kids was to go back to that, I wouldn't.

The commenter above can call that soft all they want - I don't feel bad for wanting to enjoy life more than I want more children (I have one son; I might well have another child, but because I'm at a stage where my girlfriend and I can afford it without sacrificing our standard of living and that does place me in a privileged position)

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#156

Post by aantix »

maxdoop wrote: post #144
ekianjo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

How is it selfish to not have kids? Selfishness implies another party; if the kid doesn’t even exist, what is selfish?

There’s literally thousands of generations prior that have made someone’s life possible.

And then they wash their hands of the matter and say “nope, I’m not giving anyone else a chance at life. I’ll enjoy mine but it ends here”.

That is selfishness.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#157

Post by sneed_chucker »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #99
bongodongobob wrote: post #75

You're baffled people aren't having kids? What bubble do you live in? People straight up can't afford housing much less children. The avg American is completely priced out of owning a home right now. Edit: the replies - y'all are out of touch. Visit an average family in the Midwest with a household income of < $100k/yr that doesn't own a home yet.

I'm baffled my peers , who absolutely could afford to, still have no interest. These are people making 150-200k (and at my prior job, 200-400k).

The societal norms and structures that promoted natalism are gone in western countries for much of the population.

Raising kids is hard work. Ideally you have them young and live close to your family so that you have grandparents to help with childcare.

But our society tells people to wait as long as possible to have kids, and to prioritize career over other things - so once people do have kids, if they ever do so, then often grandparents are too old or far away to fill that traditional role. So lots of people are stuck paying thousands a month for daycare.

Just one of many ways that our system finds innovative ways to extract money out of people for things that used to be free or part of being in a community.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#158

Post by lumost »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #16

Anecdata: I am 31 and have 3 young kids. They have 0 cousins and, on top of that, 0... second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids. My kids are my grandma's only great-grandkids. And I have... 6 cousins. On top of that, at my last job, on my team of 15, I was the only one with kids, and only 1 of those 15 engineers were under the age of 30. At my current job, my team is 8, and again…

I've been doing this math frequently of late. I'm 35, have one child and of my high school class ... maybe 25% have children? there is certainly a bias from polling social media. But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#159

Post by shiftpgdn »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #16

Anecdata: I am 31 and have 3 young kids. They have 0 cousins and, on top of that, 0... second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids. My kids are my grandma's only great-grandkids. And I have... 6 cousins. On top of that, at my last job, on my team of 15, I was the only one with kids, and only 1 of those 15 engineers were under the age of 30. At my current job, my team is 8, and again…

I am currently on a team of a dozen people, I am one of two who are married and who has children. It is challenging to say the least.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#160

Post by dotnet00 »

ekianjo wrote: post #121
bongodongobob wrote: post #75

You're baffled people aren't having kids? What bubble do you live in? People straight up can't afford housing much less children. The avg American is completely priced out of owning a home right now. Edit: the replies - y'all are out of touch. Visit an average family in the Midwest with a household income of < $100k/yr that doesn't own a home yet.

[flagged]

Having children when you're rebuilding/are going to your potential death, is a very different circumstance. It's a lot easier to have kids when you have nothing left to lose.

Indeed, such ignorance on HN these days.

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