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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?

#211

Post by [deleted] »

riku_iki wrote: post #207
lolinder wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is unnecessarily confrontational and inaccurate. According to census.gov, the current national homeownership rate is hovering at about 66%, which is about the same rate that it's been (+/- 3%) since they started tracking in 1964 [0][1]. This isn't restricted to old people either: 49% of 30 to 34 year olds and 58% of 35 to 39 year olds owned a home in Q4 2023 [2]. There are certainly regional differences in housi…

> According to census.gov, the current national homeownership rate is hovering at about 66% majority of those 66% are older generation who benefited dramatically on homes prices increase. New gen is priced out.

[deleted]

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

#212

Post by nicbou »

echelon wrote: post #167
lumost wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Kids aren't expensive. They're a distraction from dopamine and career advancement. My peers are all wealthy and they'd rather jet set than settle down. By all means they could raise families of two to four kids and still be incredibly comfortable. Vacation home comfortable. Instagram is the anti-child. Instagram and the endless feed of social media, internet, and things to do. Once you have children, the dopamine end…

This is rather judgemental.

I don't follow anyone on social media, and I don't post anything about my lifestyle there. It's not a driving force in my life.

I just don't want children. Even if I was bored out of my mind and incapable of travelling, I still wouldn't want them.

People's values have changed. Having babies isn't everyone's cup of tea.

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

#213

Post by vundercind »

echelon wrote: post #197
vundercind wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kids aren't expensive. They're a distraction from dopamine and career advancement. They really are. You can pay for some of it by letting your and their quality of life suffer, instead of with money (cram 3 kids into the 2-bedroom you already own; don’t worry that the schools are bad and dangerous and that’s why the place was cheap; that kind of thing) but not all of it, and most people don’t find making those comp…

> cram 3 kids into the 2-bedroom you already own; don’t worry that the schools are bad and dangerous and that’s why the place was cheap; that kind of thing Everyone used to do exactly that.

Yes. And if you do that today, it’ll reduce one of the major costs. You still have the rest.

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

#214

Post by lolinder »

riku_iki wrote: post #207
lolinder wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is unnecessarily confrontational and inaccurate. According to census.gov, the current national homeownership rate is hovering at about 66%, which is about the same rate that it's been (+/- 3%) since they started tracking in 1964 [0][1]. This isn't restricted to old people either: 49% of 30 to 34 year olds and 58% of 35 to 39 year olds owned a home in Q4 2023 [2]. There are certainly regional differences in housi…

> According to census.gov, the current national homeownership rate is hovering at about 66% majority of those 66% are older generation who benefited dramatically on homes prices increase. New gen is priced out.

I see you didn't get further into my comment than the percent sign.

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

#215

Post by em-bee »

afavour wrote: post #123
silverquiet wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From experience, I can tell you that women are far more attracted to the beer-swilling bros who jump out of airplanes than the quiet, introverted engineers who retire each night to their homes to relax while cooking dinner and watching TV. That doesn't make for a particularly interesting date. So it goes.

As a quiet introverted engineer who went out on many dates and got married I couldn’t disagree more. Maybe it depends on age. What you say is probably true at age 21, by 29 most of the women I met were very set on meeting a serious life partner, not a bro. I found that actually talking to them about their interests and engaging with that did wonders, even if my introverted instincts didn’t tell me to.

As a quiet introverted engineer who went out on many dates

as a quiet introverted engineer who almost never went out on dates i have to agree with GP ;-)

actually talking to them about their interests and engaging with that did wonders

completely aside from the topic, this is very important relationship advice.

love means to care about your partner and their interests and goals.

finding a compatible partner means to look for someone whose goals and interests do not conflict with yours. (the need or should not be the same, but it should be possible for each partner to continue to pursue their goals with the strong support of the other partner.)

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

#216

Post by zztop44 »

dotnet00 wrote: post #160
ekianjo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

> It's a lot easier to have kids when you have nothing left to lose.

What does that even mean? I also don’t think “nothing left to lose” was really the attitude of the post-War world and (especially) the US.

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

#217

Post by riku_iki »

lolinder wrote: post #214
riku_iki wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to census.gov, the current national homeownership rate is hovering at about 66% majority of those 66% are older generation who benefited dramatically on homes prices increase. New gen is priced out.

I see you didn't get further into my comment than the percent sign.

your comment doesn't contradict to what I said from math point of view.

35yo still could catch low rate mortgages, and lower prices homes 10 years ago. Today's 20yo (new generation) is in very larger scrunity.

Also, you didn't support your numbers about age distribution with any kind of references.

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

#218

Post by beaned »

esafak wrote: post #203
beaned wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will admit that I was a bit off-the-cuff in terms of the Western aspect of my comment. There are lots of factors, of course, and the trend isn't limited to only the west. Though it has certainly become a more normal trend in developed and developing countries than those with a higher level of poverty and poor. I still contend however that it has never been easy. My grandparents had four children starting at age 20.…

The human population is expected to peak at ten billion, and that's in the latter half of his century. We have no reason to fear declining birth rates in an existential sense.

I think this is probably true. Historically children would provide for their elders, but that role is fulfilled now more by technology, so in practical terms, they are less needed. It's an emergent trend of humans+technology that acts as a natural limit to our growth, so that as a species we don't just eat all the carrots and die like the rabbits would.

I do fear that Idiocracy might be a little accurate though. The people reproducing currently are the ones who do not consider their future or economics, while the smart ones who do, have less children.

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

#219

Post by dotnet00 »

xyzelement wrote: post #202
dotnet00 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By socioeconomics, I'm referring to all those different factors. The point is that "I don't want to have children because I'm worried about the impact of climate change" (social) or "I don't want to have children because I think it'll be too expensive" (economic) is not caused by biology and thus there is no selecting such concerns out of the gene pool. Not even mentioning that evolution doesn't even meaningfully wor…

I see. I didn’t mean literal genetic evolution. Cultural if you will. Parents who fail to instill love and desire of family into their kids won’t get to be grandparents. A few decades ago maybe you could take it for granted “everyone ends up having kids” now it obviously is a dead end unless you really help your kids through it. It feels to me like the next generation will have parents who will be intentional about t…

I don't think so, their kids are not robots that can be programmed, they will still choose based on if/when they think they're able to provide for kids.

It'd take regression back to a society where women are considered to have no value outside of being child factories, for parents to be able to indoctrinate their kids into reproducing with no concern for how good of a life they can actually give those kids.

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

#220

Post by nicbou »

em-bee wrote: post #204
silverquiet wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they just never met the right lady. Calling it "fucking weird" seems a bit over the top, and contradictory to your statement about working with plenty of them.

if you don't meet the right lady by 40 then you haven't been looking hard enough. meaning, you were not really interested or focused on getting married. i am the only male among all my cousins that i know of to be married with children. and i am your proverbial geek who has a hard time meeting women. which my cousins or brothers are not. they had more opportunities to meet women than me (as far as i can tell), but fo…

Maybe they're just not into it? Some people enjoy living alone without a committed relationship.

A lot of users in this thread assume that everyone's goal is to marry and have children. A lot of people are not interested in that, partly because they have other interests, and partly because the social pressure is not as strong as before.

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