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Who Americans spend their time with, by age

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Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#331

Post by felipemnoa »

alashley wrote: post #194
Swizec wrote: post #146

Earlier 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”

Yeah being told "it's time to go to bed now" as a 27 year old man is a special kind of silent death.

A lot of people won't admit it but I'm sure it has happened to lots of them here. The thing is, some parents hate to admit that their kids have grown up. Some narcissistic parents hate to think their kids have surpassed them, and as a result they try find every single flaw on their kids' life to use as proof that that is not the case.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#332

Post by abnercoimbre »

programmertote wrote: post #261
yboris wrote: post #150

Earlier 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 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…

I did a sabbatical that's coming to an end, ~10 months long.

I turned 29, so I used this time to build a tiny bit of self-sufficiency through side businesses. Still have ways to go but there's finally meaningful revenue coming in -- enough to quit terrible jobs and take sabbaticals, but not enough to quit forever yet. It's so hard.

Have you considered this? Building out multiple sources of revenue? Your story resonated with me, and our upbringings have been difficult.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#333

Post by yboris »

tyrust wrote: post #292
yboris wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We've been going through this decision making process, as well. All of your points are good, there was just one I wanted to follow up on. >I think that's a better use of my money than taking care of one human being. I don't think this is necessarily true. Your child(ren) (and their child(ren) and their's, etc.) also have the potential to earn and donate money to effective causes. Those donations might end up greater…

Just sounds like passing the buck further.

I'm more altruistic than average. Regression to the mean says my kids will be less altruistic. And it would be rude to manipulate them into doing anything. I would surely do my best to instill the values I think are good, but in the end, it would be their individual choice.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#334

Post by rakkhi »

9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #329
pavlov wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the choice to do something else and were not reared since early childhood for a lifetime spent cooking and cleaning after others.

But men didn't have a choice either, they had to do physically much more demanding and dangerous jobs. Women entered the workforce when we had comfortable office jobs around not when your granddad was plowing with an ox. And it still is that way nowadays, SV men don't experience it but men in general do the shitty a dangerous jobs and die doing it at astonishing rate compared to women.

This is a good point and often ignored.

Also something I was thinking about lately: in every other human endeavour there has been increasing specialisation and humanity has benefited from greater productivity. Why is domestic duties (cooking, cleaning, looking after kids) something where we cannot have specialisation? I don't really care if the man or woman does it but would we not benefit from one partner doing most of it efficiently rather than both doing it badly in between stressful jobs?

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#335

Post by gamechangr »

rootusrootus wrote: post #241
polka_haunts_us wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is both fascinating and sad to watch. My family has split along political lines, with half despising Trump and half worshipping him. Each side hates the other sufficiently that we just avoid talking anymore, so it's like having two distinct families. I don't know the solution other than everyone agreeing not to talk politics, ever. And even better, actually deciding that politics is pretty insignificant and only s…

We meed to work to repair this.

No matter who wins the election, we are likely to see half of the USA saying "not my president".

We need the families to be stronger.

We need more patience for things we disagree with.

We need to love and enjoy those who we disagree with. To have deep conversations that help others better understand different points of view. That's how real change could actually happen, instead of tribalism and every four years a new political party removes all the progress from the previous four years - so that nothing truly changes

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#336

Post by devdas »

abduhl wrote: post #76
kenjackson wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it that poor? During the pandemic my son has stayed in touch with his friends on the phone in these big group chats and smaller chats as well. I’m amazed at how natural it has become for them. They talk, gossip, play games (Roblox, Fortnite, nba 2k), and even watch YouTube and TikTok together. I think the model they created will persist into post Covid, with the addition of physical connection.

It is a poor substitution. Online groups nowadays are inherently exclusive and degenerative: they very rarely grow to include new individuals who were not in from the start and often will shrink over time as people feel slighted by something or another and disengage. There is no opportunity for growth. Social groups get crystallized and social growth stunted.

That's also common in meatspace.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#337

Post by thrower »

an_opabinia wrote: post #293
frakt0x90 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Everyone woke up in the morning and cooked for each other I am not passing judgement here. The women woke up in the morning and cooked for everyone else. > It was so nice to have that much support around all the time. People have written about this in books that are now almost four decades old. Everywhere women entered the workforce in a highly compensated way, this arrangement came to an end, the number of childre…

We often look nostalgically back to the past, but it’s a fair argument that for a lot of people things really weren’t all that great.

As a woman, as well as being in STEM, I see how tenuous my position still is. On my team I’m still the only female in an engineering role. I can’t imagine what life would have been like if I had been born 100 years ago.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#339

Post by tyrust »

yboris wrote: post #333
tyrust wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been going through this decision making process, as well. All of your points are good, there was just one I wanted to follow up on. >I think that's a better use of my money than taking care of one human being. I don't think this is necessarily true. Your child(ren) (and their child(ren) and their's, etc.) also have the potential to earn and donate money to effective causes. Those donations might end up greater…

Just sounds like passing the buck further. I'm more altruistic than average. Regression to the mean says my kids will be less altruistic. And it would be rude to manipulate them into doing anything. I would surely do my best to instill the values I think are good, but in the end, it would be their individual choice.

Fair interpretation. As you point out, the installation of your values would, perhaps, push them above the mean. But it's ultimately a dice roll.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#340

Post by irrational »

cgriswald wrote: post #324
irrational wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving away solves the problem if you move far enough away that they can only visit rarely. You don’t have to answer the phone and text messages can be easily blocked.

Until they show up at your door, decide to move wherever you moved, or even try to move in with you. You can't solve a boundary issue by not dealing with the boundary issue. At best , you can avoid it and hope it's no longer a problem. The underlying issue still remains.

Then you just cut them out of your life. Tell them to never contact you ever again and move once more.
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