[deleted]
Who Americans spend their time with, by age
231–240 of 432 posts
Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
My grandma sold her house and we used some of the money to convert our garage into an apartment for her so that she could live with our family. Certainly not everyone can do this but living with your parents/grandparents as they get older does seem like a reasonable “fix” to me.
It's nice that you feel this way about your parents and grandparents, but this is a nightmare scenario for me. I hope I die suddenly before I have to rely on anyone else to support me in any way, and if I'm being honest, I hope my own parents go out that way too.
Might be best to make the suicide plans now. Do be sure to inform your parents that you'd rather not help them through their elderly infirmity.
Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age
#233I cannot wait until the nursing home lan parties. During pandemic I have rekindled relationships with 2-3 friends, some out of state, and we've played games at least 2x a week. The opportunity for casual interaction (via discord) while focusing on another task (the challenging game), perfectly mimics the environment to build deep longlasting relationships through shared struggle, trust building, communication, feedba…
>I cannot wait until the nursing home lan parties. I've seen this sentiment a lot on the internet, but after having visited many nursing homes, I don't think it will ever happen. Maybe nursing homes are different in the US, maybe I've seen the wrong kind of nursing home.
I would guess nursing homes haven't developed LAN parties because the people who grew up doing LAN parties are currently in their 30s and 40s. Not quite nursing home age yet.
Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age
#234I find it fascinating that time with children goes up significantly while time alone stays steady 20s to 40s... that in no way mimics my life :D
I've had a ton of "quality me time" when single; and a fair amount once I got married; and have absolutely zero since we got the little ones :)
Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to have kids. I'm 35 years old; my wife and I (10 years together now) revisit this question yearly - neither of us want kids or wanted kids in these years. We're most likely never going to have kids (by choice). The way I see it, bringing a sentient being into this mad world needs to have a good personal reason, it shouldn't be the default that you need to find a reasons against.
I know this is highly subjective but what is a "good personal reason" for having kids?
On the moral side, there may be good reasons to be an anti-natalist ("Better Never to Have Been"). I think it depends on the quality of life ahead. If the earth was a utopia, I'd be more interested in having a child.
A good personal reason to have a child, I think, is having an intense desire to have a child, and an intense desire to nurture and help your child grow into a good human being.
I give at least 10% of my income to cost-effective charities (see GiveWell.org for recommendations; see GivingWhatWeCan.org for a community of others doing the same). I think that's a better use of my money than taking care of one human being. I get more time for myself (no need to take care of my own children). I help in cost-effective ways to help the next generation live a better life; it's a good balance for me. Needless to say, having a child wouldn't conflict with giving to charity, but it's easier.
Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends where, but in western Europe for the last thousand years, probably not. I think the best data is for England, and centuries before the industrial revolution, the pattern is very strongly not multi-generational. Young couples expected to set up new households together, not to live with their parents. (The royal family & such of course were different, and still are.)
> Depends where, but in western Europe for the last thousand years, probably not. This is definitely not true. At minimum you placed span from 1020, which means middle age, feudalism, powerty before French revolution and after, industrial revolution which meant completely overcrowded housing. Living in multi generational household was normal, expectation to care about parents was normal. Building new house at the tim…
There is pretty good data on this from pre-industrial England.
What you are asserting is what historians widely believed before they actually looked at the data, around the 1960s. They said this by looking at the more recent past of less developed places (like rural Russia, pre-1917) and assuming that the far past of England looked the same, and thus that nuclear families became common only recently. And they were wrong.
Of course, there are many places even further away than Russia. Lots of other cultures did have multi-generational families as the pattern, and many still do.
Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age
#237The 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 there’s an easy fix for this, and that makes me sad.
I mean, there is, which is to reintroduce mixed use zoning. You essentially allow people to operate small businesses out of their homes.
This changes the dynamic very quickly because the change can happen before the new construction. As soon as it's allowed, someone buys a house on your street, or one of your existing neighbors does this, and it becomes a bistro from the hours of 6PM to 10PM. The neighbors gather there on a regular basis and get to know each other.
Then the house across the street converts a room to a convenience store, and now you can walk to a convenience store instead of having to drive to Walmart.
What makes these things viable is that the proprietor still lives in the house, which reduces their operating costs and allows them to compete with the big guys. But it's currently prohibited by zoning.
Really what might do something great is to have a new class of zoning designated for owner-occupied small businesses, i.e. you can operate a business there but only if someone who owns at least 30% of the business also lives there. Then rezone the majority of residential properties as that.
Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age
#238The 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…
The mobility of labour has some part to play in it. A lot of younger folks move to where the jobs are, and start their families close to their work. But their parents don't move with them since their current home, which they've lived in their whole lives, is too familiar and comfortable to leave. Just living in the same neighbourhood dramatically increases the chances of meeting up.
Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it’s definitely meddling when you’re 30+ and your mom waltzes into your kitchen and says “Mmmmm are you sure that knife goes in that drawer? And when’s the last time you did the dishes anyway look at this mess”
And then heaven forbid if you have different political views from them, especially in 2020. My mom treats me very weirdly, not because I actually voted for Trump, but because I don't spend my days ranting about how he's Satan incarnate like she does. My sister aligns politically with my mom and she moved to MONGOLIA to get away from her. I'm glad for people who truly like their families, but not all of us won that pa…
I agree with most of this
One thing I've learned in my 30s is its not a genetic lottery. There are definitely very irrevocable dynamics but many can be molded with a level of concern, effort and boundary setting that we usually associate with work added with a dash of true sincerity and deep care.
Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can't mix together residential and commercial properties in the US (anymore) due to zoning laws, so walkable cities are effectively on life support and are only going to get more and more rare as time goes on. Each time a mixed-use building is demolished, another piece of a walkable city dies that likely won't ever come back. Suburbs and unaffordable metropolises are poised to kill off the ability to live without…
> We can't mix together residential and commercial properties in the US (anymore) due to zoning laws You make this statement like there are national zoning laws. Doing exactly this is common in northeastern New Jersey, and the result is pretty dense and walkable suburban areas. That said, much of this is due to momentum; many of the suburbs were platted before car ownership was widespread and the later ones continued…
Actually the rise of suburbs was subsidized by the federal government.
Separately a lot of state and local legislation that is contentious can be copy pasted and sent along by lobbying groups.