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The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

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Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#231

Post by em-bee »

salamandersss wrote: post #228
7thaccount wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the commenter is saying you can't be happy without children, but it's a kind of experience that you either have or you don't, and it's hard to understand if you never had children. I'll add some context below in case you're interested in hearing about my own perspective. I was pretty darn happy as someone who got to go read a book each weekend at a coffee shop and workout 3x per week. I eventually had a…

Meh I mean it's true for some not others. I had a kid and never particularly found the richness and depth emotional feeling. Of course if you express the opinion you find parenting to be basically another duty you must fulfill to the best of your ability despite finding little to no joy from the task, it will be taken poorly. So you internalize the lie, buy into it the best you can to pretend to yourself you don't ha…

actually, i believe this experience is more common for fathers at least than people want to admit. especially in western society fathers are generally expected to be more involved, and have a hard time when they come from a family where this wasn't the case (so they don't have a good role model) nor have a partner that encourages them to be involved, or worse a partner that actually discourages them.

i have been struggling with this too, especially because i had quite different expectations going in.

but the thing is that what gives you joy very much depends on your own expectations, and you can change those. i believe it's the same thing as with a job. there are people arguing that you should love your job, and if you don't you should not be doing it, while others claim that most people don't have a choice but to take a job that they don't enjoy.

finding that joy may just take some searching.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#232

Post by salamandersss »

em-bee wrote: post #231
salamandersss wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh I mean it's true for some not others. I had a kid and never particularly found the richness and depth emotional feeling. Of course if you express the opinion you find parenting to be basically another duty you must fulfill to the best of your ability despite finding little to no joy from the task, it will be taken poorly. So you internalize the lie, buy into it the best you can to pretend to yourself you don't ha…

actually, i believe this experience is more common for fathers at least than people want to admit. especially in western society fathers are generally expected to be more involved, and have a hard time when they come from a family where this wasn't the case (so they don't have a good role model) nor have a partner that encourages them to be involved, or worse a partner that actually discourages them. i have been stru…

I think it's ok if you don't find joy. Personally I had a very involved father and supportive partner. I understand my duty and am fulfilling it with full acceptance and gravity, I just keep this one piece of independence for my sanity-- the right to the validity of my emotion regarding how that duty makes me feel.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#233

Post by 15457345234 »

vladgur wrote: post #209
15457345234 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the best thing you can do for the world Is to not have any children so the population gets back down to sustainable levels

You need to watch Idiocracy https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ When some people stop procreating and educating the next generation, the world population does not simply go down. Instead it gets replaced by those who do continue multiplying.

> those who do continue multiplying

So we have to stop the ones who can't stop themselves, fine.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#234

Post by 15457345234 »

rpmisms wrote: post #217
fingerlocks wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a fictional comedy, not a documentary. That’s not how evolution works

Please explain how, because if stupid people have more kids, there will be more stupid people.

The heritability of intelligence and other factors is highly variable.

You want people who will care diligently for their children to have them. Not people who will be largely indifferent to them, whether they're smart or dumb.

The Musk 'I'll have ten and scatter them to the wind with bags of money, the odds will take care of the rest' strategy is not really one that works out well in real life.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#235

Post by em-bee »

4death4 wrote: post #207
em-bee wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i would guess quite the opposite. from what i have seen in places that i have been to women are doing most of the work, like selling food at the market while i saw more men hanging around doing nothing. i guess some of the men that did work went elsewhere for the better jobs.

Listing some specific places would be a good way to validate your anecdote with actual data.

not really. it would still just be the experience of one person in one place. not enough to generalize. someone made a guess, and i countered with a different guess. i am however not ready to go on a deeper exploration here until i have had more opportunities to observe other similar places and spend more time to talk to some of these people to get a better understanding of their situation

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#236

Post by Apocryphon »

15457345234 wrote: post #233
vladgur wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to watch Idiocracy https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ When some people stop procreating and educating the next generation, the world population does not simply go down. Instead it gets replaced by those who do continue multiplying.

> those who do continue multiplying So we have to stop the ones who can't stop themselves, fine.

Ah, the Thanos approach to eugenics

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#237

Post by em-bee »

salamandersss wrote: post #232
em-bee wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

actually, i believe this experience is more common for fathers at least than people want to admit. especially in western society fathers are generally expected to be more involved, and have a hard time when they come from a family where this wasn't the case (so they don't have a good role model) nor have a partner that encourages them to be involved, or worse a partner that actually discourages them. i have been stru…

I think it's ok if you don't find joy. Personally I had a very involved father and supportive partner. I understand my duty and am fulfilling it with full acceptance and gravity, I just keep this one piece of independence for my sanity-- the right to the validity of my emotion regarding how that duty makes me feel.

i do find joy, just not only in the way some people may expect it. (like i enjoy playing with the kids, but i don't enjoy not having much time to do so)

i think the primary problem is expectations of others. i may be lucky, that i do have a supportive family and partner that do not push any specific expectations on me, so i am free to find the enjoyment where i like. and a strong part of that for me is that i enjoy that i have been given this responsibility and am able to take care of my family to the best of my ability. in other words: i wanted this life and i am thankful to have gotten it, even if it turned out different than i thought it would be.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#238

Post by em-bee »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #175
em-bee wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s somewhat trivial to determine where to live to avoid children given the discussions of how much more housing most cities need, i actually think this is not trivial at all. not wanting to live near children pretty much comes down to not living near people.

I will think on how to improve this.

i am not exactly sure where you are going with this, so i am curious what you have in mind.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#239

Post by 4death4 »

em-bee wrote: post #235
4death4 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Listing some specific places would be a good way to validate your anecdote with actual data.

not really. it would still just be the experience of one person in one place. not enough to generalize. someone made a guess, and i countered with a different guess. i am however not ready to go on a deeper exploration here until i have had more opportunities to observe other similar places and spend more time to talk to some of these people to get a better understanding of their situation

> not really. it would still just be the experience of one person in one place

If you provided a location, others could research the labor participation rate among men and women in the area you’re talking about. It would literally be the exact opposite of “the experience of one person”.

Re: The key to mother and child well-being may be many caregivers

#240

Post by temporarara »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #199
15457345234 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the best thing you can do for the world Is to not have any children so the population gets back down to sustainable levels

massive population collapse will be disastrous for modern societies. Who will do the work required to care for the elderly population?

I'm all for having as many children as you can raise, and caring about old people, but interpret the following how you wish. It is a highly anomalous thing in the history that ordinary people receive real medical care when they are unable to do basic tasks themselves. You might have some basic care if your children care about you, but that's about it, and that might be our future and there's very little we can do about it except enabling policies that make having children viable option for those who want to have children.
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