Who Americans spend their time with, by age • Hacker News Board

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#261

Post by programmertote » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

yboris wrote: post #150

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.

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 am with you. I grew up in a below-middle-class family raised by my widowed mom. My dad passed away when I was 12. I have two younger siblings.

As I look back on the last ~40 years of my life, it's mostly about struggles sprinkled with brief periods of joy lasting no more than a couple of days at most. Most of the time, I'm studying to get good grades so that I can get scholarships, without which I'd not be able to go to college; helping my widowed mom with her chores (including taking care of younger siblings) because she is occupied with making money to survive; and even now that I'm an adult with a stable income, I spend most of my time working for someone (selling my 8+ hours a day to my employer) while worrying about if I'll have enough money saved by mid-50s when I hope to be able to enjoy life a little more (e.g., going on vacations) with some spare money to spend.

All I'm trying to say is that life is a struggle for most people (the poorer family you were born into, the truer that statement becomes). We never have moments of peace because we have things to worry about constantly. I'd never bring another human being into this mess unless I can have a discussion with my future progeny before s/he is conceived (which is, of course, impossible). In other words, unless some ghost/spirit is begging me to let him/her incarnate because s/he see value in this rat race, I'd not make this decision one-sidedly.

As a tangential note, I am a strong proponent of euthanasia and hope that one day, it'll be commonly accepted by the society.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#262

Post by Firehawke » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:04 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #248

cm2012 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This model works when you have a nice family. It sucks horribly when the family is a toxic one.

"You can choose your friends, but not your family." Not sure when I first heard that quote.

I chose to make my friends my family and to stay well away from most of my blood relatives. There's at least one part of the country I'd need to be careful of not giving out my last name because one blood relative has made it problematic there.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#263

Post by Barrin92 » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

frakt0x90 wrote: post #83

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 experienced this first hand when I visited my wife's family in Vietnam. All 10 or so of them live in homes side by side on the outskirts of Saigon. Everyone woke up in the morning and cooked for each other. Every day was like a little party. It was so nice to have that much support around all the time. I have never experienced anything like that in the US. Of course having family literally at your doorstep has its…

I posted this David Brooks piece here before in a similar discussion, addressing both the dire economic consequences in particular for the lower classes and social consequences of the advance of the nuclear family and the replacement of the extended family. I think there's a very good chance that it's the single most damaging cultural change the US has ever gone through.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuc...

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#264

Post by gehwartzen » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

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…

The older I get the more I enjoy spending time by myself. I'm not sure its universally a bad thing.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#265

Post by hannasanarion » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #125

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…

> living in a nice little garden home far removed from any day to day life going on Don’t you have neighbours and normal community areas in this case? Doesn’t that count as day to day life? What else are you expecting?

Not if those neighbors spend all day every day at schools, workplaces, community centers, and shopping areas that are 2-5 miles away and accessible only by car.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#266

Post by CubsFan1060 » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

gehwartzen wrote: post #264

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…

The older I get the more I enjoy spending time by myself. I'm not sure its universally a bad thing.

I'm amazed I had to read so far to see this. The older I get, the more I realized I don't like people that much.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#267

Post by iso947 » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

vollmond wrote: post #91

Swizec wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom always said ”Move far away enough that your parents can’t visit in their slippers, trust me you don’t want that kinda meddling” I moved to USA. “Damn it I didn’t mean that far” ~ mom My sister lives with her boyfriend in his mom’s house. There is indeed a ridiculous amount of meddling even though they’re technically separate households.

This becomes even more likely with internet communities, etc. I met my wife online, and our hometowns are 1200 miles apart. It's impossible to live less than an 8 hour drive from both our families. We lived near mine for 4 or 5 years after getting married, now near hers for about 10. It's hard to feel close to both, and have that support network.

I’m from NW England. Wife is from Cornwall - 6 hour drive away. We met at uni, 2 hours for her, 4 for me.

Then my parents moved to Greece, we moved to London for career and bounced around the south east.

Eventually though we settled in Cheshire, and the parents followed - one is a 10 minute walk away, the other is 20 minute drive. It’s amazing what having grandchildren does.

Trouble is we’d feel guilty about moving to New Zealand now.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#268

Post by OJFord » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

abetlen wrote: post #258

ragazzina wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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'm not sure if you're from outside North America, but I don't think nursing homes here are likely to have LAN parties unless we make some big medical breathroughs in the next few decades. According to this survey of Canadian nursing homes, around 87% of residents suffer from some kind of cognitive impairment such as dementia, alzheimer's, or stroke related trauma [1]. Even assuming that you still have any friends ar…

> According to this survey of Canadian nursing homes, around 87% of residents suffer from some kind of cognitive impairment such as dementia, alzhymer's, or stroke related trauma [1].

That sounded extraordinarily high to me, and I think because of the subtle difference in implication (not that what you said isn't correct) between your 'such as', and [1]'s 'including'.

In the table below, by far the highest 'characteristic' (82%) is 'Dependence in ADLs (Activities of Daily Living Hierarchy Scale ≥3)'. 'Dependence in Activities of Daily Living' is basically a description of why anyone would be in assisted living in the first place.

But also, there's 'cognitive impairment', and there's cognitive impairment, as it were. I don't think if you populated a table with 'reasons residents aren't gaming' that 'dementia et al.' would be high on the list, and the games those that were played wouldn't be shooters & GTA so much as puzzlers and adventure type games. At least, my grandfather enjoyed Spyro, Zelda, Animal Farm, that sort of thing.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#269

Post by AlanSE » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #216

urban_strike wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Longer on average, yes, but I highly doubt healthier. I think we'd be in awe of the average health/fitness of a 30 year old hunter gatherer from 100,000 years ago, compared with the average corresponding human in modern times.

Most likely we would not. There are whole classes of sicknesses that dissappeared last 200 years which were caused by lack of various nutricients. Both difficulty to get them and lack of knowledge played role. Add to it easy to cure sicknesses, injuries that are nothing more and would kill you back then, their higher chance to contact said injuries and it is unlikely they would be so much healthier. Also, there is re…

> Also, there is reason why agrarian societies pushed away hunter gatherers - it is just easier to stay alive and healthy.

No.

Agriculture exists because it supports more people per unit of land than what the traditional way of life did (on average). This is as hard of a fact about history as you're going to get.

Now, you need to be savvy about what the statement is not saying. It is not providing a reason for an individual, or group of people, to make the switch from hunter-gather to agriculture. History did not lay that choice upon the discretion of people. It plays out in a much more complicated way.

Since the relatively natural land will only support so-many humans per acre, what happens when there are too many children? They move. Okay, what happens when that next region has too many children? Do they start making farms based on their ledgers of expected food production to population ratio - NO. The people who have political decision power are not the same people who starve or get their heads lobbed off as a result of their decision. If anything, a leader would prefer the neighboring tribe lose a few heads to adjust for the starvation problem. Do people start "switching" to farms anywhere in this? No. Only over a vast period of time, many climates, lots of movement, tribal reorganization, do people start... semi-nomadic animal husbandry. One day this will lead to agriculture.

All of this is vastly more complicated than it is on the surface, and the newly-established farmer occupation, when it comes around, could possibly be seen as the sucker at the table. There was constant tensions between "civilized" societies and their tribal neighbors, and only over the super long term does the higher calorie density of civilization win out. Even if their soldiers are shorter and stupider, there are more of them. We don't read about this, because recorded history picks up at a time when superior organizational capabilities of civilization is starting to give them a quality advantage as well (and as a side-effect, writing).

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#270

Post by Fnoord » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

mwfunk wrote: post #218

AlwaysRock wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The further I have moved from Family the more I have started to wish I was closer to them physically. Especially this year when our normal yearly gatherings were disrupted.

This is a well known phenomenon :) The best way to get closer to family is to move away, absence makes the heart grow fonder. If you want to have positive and constructive and long-lasting relationships with your family, move away from them, even if it's just an hour (whether that means an hour drive or a different time zone depends on the family).

Depends.

We don't have a network for our (young) children. Because their aunt and grandmother live 1+ hour drive away. Things like that severely limit your freedom. If you can park the children at grandma's easily, or have grandma visit easily, it allows you to even get things done for which otherwise one would need to stay at home, or you'd have to take all children to the appt.

Luckily, we got really nice neighbors, but we try to not play that joker card until inevitable. Its not something to rely on on the long term. Family is reliable.

If you live near each other, you just need to make proper appointments. Something with scope & boundaries...