Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 1001 posts

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

#361

Post by sangnoir »

atoav wrote: post #321
echelon wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The narrative on Twitter/TikTok that every Millenial and GenZ is starving to death and on the brink of being homeless is really exhausting. The algorithm has turned (some) people into whiners and doomers. It really sucks to watch them take defeatist attitudes on everything in life. I see lots of these young 20-somethings on Reddit thinking their lives are over. It's absurd. They have their entire lives ahead of the…

As someone who is doing well financially I don't think you found the reason. The gist of it is: There are worlds and circumstances into which people want to bring kids. We mostly failed to create that world and those circumstances. If tou want to know what a solution looks like look at western democracies with high birth rates. E.g. France, Ireland, New Zealand, Denmark. The rest is probably due to individualism. Kid…

> Kids cost time and energy and capitalism tells us we should live our best lives.

Thought experiment for all the unrestrained free-market folk: how can the free hand of the market can solve for low birthrates? Bonus points if the solution doesn't involve government-issued visas.

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

#362

Post by defrost »

Biologist123 wrote: post #356
ako wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was also concluded by Hans Rosling: the higher the education of people, the fewer kids they have. Best way to address overpopulation is by increasing education worldwide. https://www.teesche.com/bookshelf/hans_rosling_factfulness

I wonder if Rosling’s conclusions are confounded. The human and environmental systems in which we swim are complex, not simple. Education being the key driver of population numbers strikes me as overly simple.

It's more likely you're imagining an over simplified version of Rosling's "conclusions".

He has presented hours of thoughts on data spanning multiple decades from countries across the globe and comments identified correlations.

Education being highly correlated with reduced population growth is a data confirmed observation, and not a declaration of prime causation.

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

#363

Post by naniwaduni »

kenjackson wrote: post #277
hmcq6 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misconstruing what census.gov says. If you look into the "definitions" section it defines "Housing Unit. A housing unit is a house, an apartment, a group of rooms, or a single room occupied or intended for occupancy as separate living quarters." and "Householder. The householder refers to the person (or one of the persons) in whose name the housing unit is owned or rented [...]" 49% of people aged 30-34 aren't…

> 49% of people aged 30-34 aren't homeowners, 49% of us are homeowners or renters. Wait, this is saying less than 50% of people aged 30-34 live in a home that is owned or rented by them (or their spouse)? I can't imagine a region where this is close to true, since probably near 100% where I live either own or rent. Is there a regional breakdown for this? And where do these people live? With their parents or in a shel…

"Homeownership" rate is a bit of a misnomer, since it's the proportion of occupied housing units which are occupied by their owners.

Homeownership by age of householder restricts the reference set of housing units to those which are occupied by a householder in the specified age group.

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

#364

Post by brailsafe »

keiferski wrote: post #346
brailsafe wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're responsible for yourself in either the U.S or Canada, and have built some kind of a life as an adult in a place that isn't right next to where your parents still live, assuming they're still together, then children are an expensive liability rather than necessary and relatively cheap labor used for supplying the rich ones with chocolate. Likewise, access to free in or inexpensive birth control and sex educa…

It’s a liability only if consumerism is your only value. Which for a lot of people, is absolutely the case. And it’s only logical if you only care about your own individual desires. It almost isn’t worth arguing about, though, because the reality is that society is ultimately made up of people that have kids. All the rationalizations in the world won’t change the basic facts of biology.

> It’s a liability only if consumerism is your only value.

It's a liability if it's a liability. A consumerist liability is buying a brand new car with a loan if it seems like my income might disappear before the payments do. Not knowing how long you'll be able to keep paying rent in the place you've spent your entire adult life is just a logical consideration. Though people are obviously choosing to be consumers too, often it's just the basics that seem out of reach.

However, if you've always wanted kids and it's always been your biggest priority, and there's never been any contravening forces that would make you question that, and you've lucked out and found someone who's completely on board with that, and your income has been stable, and your expenses are manageable, and your parents are nearby and still together, then sure you're choosing to consoom over having kids.

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

#365

Post by religiousnut11 »

nostrebored wrote: post #226
voidfunc wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't have any interest in kids. They're expensive and they require a ton of sacrifice. I'd rather travel, golf, do hobbies and generally enjoy my life. The only people that seem to want me to have babies are my parents so they can have grand kids... too which I've told them "Thank you for having me, but that's not a valid reason for me to sacrifice my life". I don't really care about the preservation of the h…

You’re benefiting from other people’s sacrifice. Your end of life care is entirely dependent on other people having and raising functional children. And these are all pretty weak reasons — people with kids do all of the things you’ve mentioned.

[dead]

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

#366

Post by religiousnut11 »

nostrebored wrote: post #235
ekianjo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's only more difficult if you are paranoid.

No, it is tangibly more difficult. There’s a complete lack of other children in many cities. We live directly next to my oldest kid’s school, and we have no other kids within a mile. The nearest park has no regular group of kids who show up. I live in one of the largest metro areas in the U.S. Community is gone.

[dead]

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

#367

Post by epivosism »

It applies to all types of kin relations. Dramatically fewer people have a same- sex sibling. The number is probably down from say 0.9 to 0.4 or less.

Few people have friends with brothers and sisters to compare them to, to understand heritability.

We are becoming more and more tolerant of obviously unrelated people playing relatives on tv. I say that because when you see a real family resemblance in person, it's intense.

The only experience of having g a much older or younger sibling must be nearly nothing, now, too. It's sad that all these effects seem to make people even more likely to perpetuate the trend when their own time comes.

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

#368

Post by afarviral »

caturopath wrote: post #200
bongodongobob wrote: post #75

You're baffled people aren't having kids? What bubble do you live in? People straight up can't afford housing much less children. The avg American is completely priced out of owning a home right now. Edit: the replies - y'all are out of touch. Visit an average family in the Midwest with a household income of < $100k/yr that doesn't own a home yet.

I think this is very confused. People these days are really rich compared to people in the past who had more kids, poorer people in countries like the US have more kids on average than richer ones, and poorer countries on average have more kids than richer ones. (People don't seem to have fewer kids because they're poor; they seem to have fewer kids because they're rich!) Despite major housing issues, people live in…

Yeah, this seems obvious to me. However, out of ethical concerns, it is not obvious that the solution is to stop educating people.

Perhaps just reminding would-be parents that if the educated and resilient stop reproducing, they are depriving the world of a thriving and resilient new generation. A clear directive that under-population is a growing concern and a few additional incentives for parents would go a long way too.

Taking a philosophical angle, why is it the "right" choice to serve our genes, the economy, or to create a younger generation to care for the elderly? It is not unethical to unburden oneself of those obligations today, but you can imagine a future where it is.

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

#369

Post by HL33tibCe7 »

caskstrength wrote: post #320
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Technically, that makes you a sort of parasite. You have no trouble taking your share of the benefits that come from living in our society, but refuse to do your part to create the next generation of people who would comprise that society. The benefits of living in society are generally paid for by OP's tax money, not some imaginary bonds that theoretical children will repay some day afterwards. On the other hand t…

The benefits OP will take in his old age will largely be paid by the children of his generation.

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

#370

Post by anonymous »

remarkEon wrote: post #265
voidfunc wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't have any interest in kids. They're expensive and they require a ton of sacrifice. I'd rather travel, golf, do hobbies and generally enjoy my life. The only people that seem to want me to have babies are my parents so they can have grand kids... too which I've told them "Thank you for having me, but that's not a valid reason for me to sacrifice my life". I don't really care about the preservation of the h…

Whenever I encounter this attitude I like to remind that person that they should have no voice, whatsoever, in what happens in government and politics anymore. I don't want people who are self-selecting themselves out of the future having any say in what happens for my children. It's fine that you don't want kids, enjoy the golf course I guess. But in general I will discount your opinions to zero on anything else of…

No post body was provided.
Post reply on HN