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

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

#401

Post by poulsbohemian »

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.

>The avg American is completely priced out of owning a home right now.

But this is always the case... ~20 years ago when I bought my first home, interest rates were close to 8%, it took a big chunk of my income, and we had to move way out to the sticks in order to afford anything. People are always having to make compromises if they want to buy a home, save for retirement, start a business, have kids, and all the other high-risk things that people want to do in order to seek a better life. Yes house prices are higher today than they were 20 years ago -- and incomes aren't necessarily better -- but if someone absolutely wants to buy a home, there will be options and tradeoffs.

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

#402

Post by steve1977 »

the_gipsy wrote: post #376
steve1977 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that women being part of the formal economy is also out of an exploitative playbook.

No. Women working AND rearing children (or taking on the majority of that work), is.

Yeah maybe I should have worded this better. "Forcing (potential) mothers to have a job" would probably have been more clear.

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

#403

Post by Duanemclemore »

Defletter wrote: post #336
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…

It's wild that, not too long ago, you could afford a house and a car on a single income as a mailman. That is unthinkable today. We understand there are ways to be successful, but it's like that saying: anyone can be successful, but everyone can't. I know a lot of people who spend their money on experiences because they genuinely believe they won't get a retirement, so they might as well enjoy their life while they c…

>mailman

Is a bad counterexample, as that's still a good, high-paying (union!!!) job. But aside from that tiny gripe you're not wrong about the rest.

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

#404

Post by somenameforme »

vidarh wrote: post #333
somenameforme wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scroll down the World Bank's fertility numbers on this page [1] to get to data by region. You can add the entire Arab World, Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia as having sustainable fertility rates. And places like Latin America are in decline, but still in the realm of realm of being saved at ~1.9. The only places currently in catastrophic collapse at the EU (1.5), North America (1.6), and East Asia (1.5). Fo…

> Scroll down the World Bank's fertility numbers on this page [1] to get to data by region. You can add the entire Arab World, Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia as having sustainable fertility rates. You can use metrics from different groups and slice and dice sections and find ways of getting above 2.1 (replacement), sure, but it's not affecting my main point at all, which was that it's not contained to the…

> "The world as a whole is headed for a relatively gentle flattening of population growth"

You know something that's really weird to think about? In 1950 Africa's population was 227m! [1] The US at the time had about 160m, nearly as many people as the entire African continent! Fertility rates are hard to intuit because they're not only exponential, but systems where the effect is delayed from the cause by several decades, but then once it starts - it starts rocketing off uncontrollably, be that in loss or gain of population.

The world's population may start to level off at some point, but sub-replacement rates will cause Western nations to start losing population at an exponential rate. It will be the equal but opposite of what happened to Africa over the past century. And this doesn't level out or even slow down, except when people start having children again. So for instance many people know Japan now has > 10% of its population over 80, but I think a lot of us have this sort of concept that 'Well sure, but as they start to die off - then things will probably start to look a bit more sane.'

In reality, it's the exact opposite. As this group dies off, they're going to be replaced by an even larger group of 80+ year olds, leaving Japan in an even worse state, as one can immediately see just glancing at Japan's population pyramid. [2] Right now Japan's losing about 1 in 200 people per year, and this will never stop until either they go extinct or they start having children again. And it will actually get substantially worse until they hit their 'fertility equilibrium point' where all living generations have/had comparable fertility rates (picture the sides of the population pyramid having a constant slope). And that's what's waiting for the entirety of the Western world, if we don't turn things around.

And this is also likely a vicious cycle because as age ratios and demographics get all screwed up, economies will start to collapse, which will make it even more uncomfortable to have children.

---

[1] - https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/africa-popula...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan#/media/F...

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

#405

Post by Tade0 »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #16

Anecdata: I am 31 and have 3 young kids. They have 0 cousins and, on top of that, 0... second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids. My kids are my grandma's only great-grandkids. And I have... 6 cousins. On top of that, at my last job, on my team of 15, I was the only one with kids, and only 1 of those 15 engineers were under the age of 30. At my current job, my team is 8, and again…

I have two siblings, but most likely will be the only one with kids, as we're in our mid to late 30s and I'm already a parent.

Me and my SO made it happen by moving to a much smaller (albeit still 500k+ inhabitants) city, where real estate isn't as stupidly expensive as where we grew up in.

My co-worker has six children and all the people I've met who have four or more follow the same pattern: living in the middle of nowhere on a single income working remotely.

It appears that real estate is the biggest concern, because I've also settled on having two instead of three, since my daughters will be sharing a room anyway.

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

#406

Post by coldtea »

It changes the experience of being human, from what once was a solitude for orphans, and refugees, to a common experience. There's no extended family (and increasingly, no base family either, e.g. no siblings, or divorced or indifferent narcissistic parents) to take refuge to, strengh from, and so on: you're on your own.

Even your friends, if you get to have any, will be a more shallow, and mostly online presence (what with the "loneliness epidemic" and everything), and will increasingly be people who have not learned the art of being with others, unless it's fully on their own terms (think spoiled single children vs children growing up with siblings).

You get to cling and bow to careers, employers, state, trends, peer groups, and so on, as a survival mechanism.

[1] We can spin it as a good thing, by cherry-picking families which did terrible things to their kids as representative of family life at large.

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

#407

Post by vander_elst »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #401
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.

>The avg American is completely priced out of owning a home right now. But this is always the case... ~20 years ago when I bought my first home, interest rates were close to 8%, it took a big chunk of my income, and we had to move way out to the sticks in order to afford anything. People are always having to make compromises if they want to buy a home, save for retirement, start a business, have kids, and all the oth…

It seems that the tradeoff is not having kids.

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

#408

Post by voidfunc »

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…

If we really want to go down this route we should do away with parenting. Children our are future therefore the government will be responsible for producing and raising children to meet our necessary societal workforce quotas. Parenting is a messy business that introduces too many quality control issues. Our glorious future means we must have only perfectly standard issue babies that conform to exact government measurements and standards. Men must donate sperm and women will be artificially impregnated until we can figure out how to grow test tube babies.

Glory to our future!

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

#409

Post by Rapzid »

somenameforme wrote: post #145
dalyons wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, nevermind the most expensive housing, education and healthcare ever, even in inflation adjusted terms. No it’s the children who are wrong. you might look at the birth rates in china or almost any other Asian country, and see how your vague rant holds up.

In the past, if you could not afford to feed your family, you could literally starve to death. And people saved money by doing things like crafting clothes out of feed sacks. [1] It became common enough that companies would start selling their feed in sacks with floral designs, specifically with the intent of then being reused as clothing. And that's just one among a vast array of lifestyle differences. Now a days th…

That would have aged like milk if you'd said it when the stats were fresh.

The point here being the rate is actively crashing pretty much globally. The outliers would be anywhere it's not.

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

#410

Post by toasterlovin »

tlivolsi wrote: post #174
toasterlovin wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be religious, right? This is the dream for us. We reverted to Catholicism after it became apparent that the secular world was incompatible with us, then eventually found our way to a high fertility parish. It’s incredible. Kids everywhere. Average family size is 5-6 kids. Really hoping our kids choose to remain in this lifestyle and we get to enjoy dozens of grandkids.

I take it you attend a FSSP or ICKSP church?

Naw, just a reverent parish. Mix of English and Latin. Somewhat conservative, but not super conservative.
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