381–390 of 434 posts
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There are more grandmas alive than ever in past. What is stopping you from doing it now ? Go live with grandma.
Grandma is either still working or far too busy living her own healthy and active life to want to be an unpaid full time nanny.
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Why is it that birth rates have gone down though? Many factors, mostly economic, which should be addressed instead of importing millions of people who will soon be replaced by automation anyways.
People used to have many more kids regardless of whether they were facing good or bad times. I'd say the change is less economic and more due to culture - both men and women want less kids. There is economics in the cultural change - as people get wealthier and government welfare becomes more reliable the forces behind maintaining and growing the family decreases. Wealthy people in the past still had many more kids t…
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Yes. A friend of mine is very much an uninvolved father. His wife handles all the child-rearing and housekeeping, while he plays videogames, often while drinking. I've mentioned to him that he should probably be more involved, but it's not my place or responsibility to tell him he's failing as a husband and father. In his defence, he's still a better father than his own father ever was, but that's not exactly a high…
We know a couple like this, and if I were the wife, I'd leave him. He's a nice guy and all, but he's utterly useless, and I've told him that a few times. I'm just a friend though, and his wife puts up with him. I just don't get it -- she's a smart, educated woman, and he's quite educated as well, but I don't see how a grown adult can act like he does. Their marriage feels abnormal though, and I can see it breaking ap…
If the kids small, and they can’t work, then it’s possible to get trapped in a marriage for financial reasons...
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> Thank you, just to be clear: there is no obstacle to a Protestant sponsoring a child's baptism in the Catholic Church as parent or godparent? Strictly speaking, there is a distinction between "sponsor" and "witness". The sponsor must be a Catholic, the witnesses can be non-Catholic Christians. However, in my personal experience (having had one child baptised Catholic, and the other will be baptised soon), everyone…
My understanding is there needs to be a reasonable expectation the child would be raised to be Catholic. A typical heuristic is at least one Catholic parent. I guess "be Catholic" in this context means "will go through confirmation" or something to that effect.
One Catholic parent is the usual heuristic but it isn't actually the rule so isn't absolutely binding. For example, if a non-Catholic is known to regularly attend Catholic services, but for whatever reason is hesitating in formally converting, a priest may very well agree to such a parent's request to baptise their child.
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Systems of water sanitation, unless you want to count cholera and dysentery as losers.
Arguably those don't create winners, because the concept of "win" necessitates triumphing over others.
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> If things don't go awry, you'll be paying her half of your post-tax income I have no intention of getting married, so: No I won't.
> I have no intention of getting married, so: No I won't. No offense, but that is a silly attitude. Marriage isn't about love, it's a legal contract two parties agree to. It entitles you to rights like power of attorney, ability to make health decisions for each-other, inheritance, etc. In addition, it also has non-trivial tax benefits, especially if one of you isn't working. Honestly, having kids without getting mar…
And you're right: This isn't the place for relationship advice, nor was I asking for any.
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Unfortunately many areas have outlawed living 10 together in tiny houses and apartments. Boarding houses have become illegal, and their modern equivalent of micro apartments are in danger of becoming illegal [0]. To add a personal story, when I was college we had about 20-30 people living in a medium sized single family home. We were mostly students, but there were a couple of kids, and a grandmother too. Our neighbo…
> To add a personal story, when I was college we had about 20-30 people living in a medium sized single family home. How many bed rooms and how did the actual sleeping work? A "standard" 3-bedroom house would have 7-8 people in it per room (assuming you use the family room as a bedroom too) which means either bunk beds or wall to wall sleeping bags? Also 30 people sharing two bathrooms doesn't sound fun.
First world problems...
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Costs in terms of time and money. In the past, kids could work on the farm or in a factory and generate money, now you have to send them to daycare and buy them toys and they cost money. Previously, more people would jump straight out of high school into blue collar jobs and raising families. Now, men and women are delaying kids to focus on college and building a career. And mothers would more often stay home to rais…
In the past, kids were essentially indentured servants/slaves in other words.
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The biggest counter argument I hear, regularly, is that the "tide" of illegal labor you speak of is NECESSARY. Who will pick strawberries? Who will clean your hotel room? Etc. It's the classic who will do "X" dirty job argument.
> Who will pick strawberries? Who will clean your hotel room? Etc. There is a seasonal / migrant worker visa for this reason. For instance, near me, Kiawah Island's resorts are partly staffed with Jamaican guest workers because the seasonal nature of the job. In high school I worked as a bagger at a grocery store on another island that was incredibly seasonal, so we had Russian guest workers during the summers. Some…
The poor here just aren't willing to do that work at that price. The supermarkets aren't willing to pay more for the produce. Something has to give and in both countries I'm sure it's going to be the rules on visas.
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I think that's due to immigration - not birthrates.
There's also a lag associated with fertility rate decreases. Even if the children-per-woman rate has decreased sharply, the population can still be increasing for decades afterwards, because there are still a sharply higher absolute number of women in the relatively-lower-rate birthing generation, thanks to the rate having been higher in the past when they were born. Not caring about lower fertility rates because you…