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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?

#411

Post by PeterisP »

nox101 wrote: post #266
smallmancontrov wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only in the Western first world is this now normal It ain't just us, my friend. Births Per Woman: 1.64 USA 1.34 Japan 1.28 China 0.84 Korea > we've just been raised softly and do not value children Now that women are part of the formal economy and everyone has options for entertainment other than unprotected sex, the mechanism by which the formal economy used to offload the entire cost of child rearing while reapin…

Maybe this is the great filter.

Not really - there are various self-correction mechanisms which simply aren't active (yet?) because the low birth rate isn't actually resulting in a shrinking population (due to immigration) so there is not problem to fix (yet).

Many people mention housing and real estate as a problem, well, if there was a population problem, we'd see loads of available empty homes and falling prices of real estate - we're not, so this is a clear signal from the society truthfully voting with their wallets (no matter what they misleadingly signal verbally) that we have more than enough people.

It's similar to some industries saying that there aren't enough workers - if there was an actual shortage, we'd see loads of unfilled vacancies together with noticably rising salary offers for these positions, and if we aren't, that's a clear signal from that industry truthfully voting with their wallets (no matter what they misleadingly signal verbally) that they actually do have more than enough potential workers.

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

#412

Post by coldtea »

Runways wrote: post #263
voidfunc wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has a blindness for the vast land area of America that isn't The Bay Area, NYC, Seattle, Boston, and a handful of other insanely expensive locations. Home ownership has probably plummeted in those markets (I don't have the data) but it leads to certain types of comments being passed around as fact. The narrative on Twitter/TikTok that every Millenial and GenZ is starving to death and on the brink of being homeless…

Texan here. Your ad hominem attack is BS. Our house prices, North of Dallas and deep in the suburbs - far from the bay areas and Seattles, have doubled. That includes my home. People in our profession usually have to live by big cities, like Dallas. But the homes are ridiculously priced and it's insane. My juniors have no hope of owning a home that is big enough to raise a family without years of saving. And they're…

>Texan here. Your ad hominem attack is BS

Ad hominem means "against a specific person". He made a general argument. Might be good or bad, but in no way it was an ad hominem. Arguing how a group of people conflate or tend to misrepresent this or that, is not an ad hominem.

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

#414

Post by Rapzid »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #162
afavour wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also kind of resent the implication that pops up in these threads that people without kids are living some kind of immoral, selfish life I don’t see that implication in OP’s post at all, I’m sorry. This feels like projection.

You could be right. Although looking a few comments down the selfishness talk is ever present.

Everyone is living a selfish life; some people are also assholes.

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

#415

Post by vander_elst »

khazhoux wrote: post #384
conradludgate wrote: post #353

Why are people so obsessed about it I have children? I'm married and we've decided we don't want to have kids. It really bothers me when people say "oh you're missing out, that's such a shame". Please think about what you are saying. It doesn't matter if I'm gay, infertile, poor, depressed, or just don't want them. Please keep your judgements to yourself or even just stop judging others.

> It really bothers me when people say "oh you're missing out, that's such a shame" Do you have any friends or relatives who refuse to try ramen or pho, no matter how many times you tell them that it's the best food ever, and that you also thought it seemed weird to put steak in a broth with noodles until you finally gave it a try and then you couldn't believe how delicious it was and you wish you'd tried it years ea…

Except that kids change your life in major significant ways and there's basically no going back. So it's not exactly like that.

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

#416

Post by auggierose »

jimbob45 wrote: post #360
sneed_chucker wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The societal norms and structures that promoted natalism are gone in western countries for much of the population. Raising kids is hard work. Ideally you have them young and live close to your family so that you have grandparents to help with childcare. But our society tells people to wait as long as possible to have kids, and to prioritize career over other things - so once people do have kids, if they ever do so, t…

Raising kids is hard work. I would bet this plays a large part - people today respect the difficulty in a way past parents previously did not. Birth rates are certainly declining but I would bet the rates of accidental infant/toddler death are down as well. That said, I personally know parents that are just taunting SIDS with the way they ignore infant sleeping best practices even though they’ve read the books to kno…

That's just the thing, isn't it. You can try to oblige to all best practices and have zero kids in the process, or you can just have the kids and figure it out as you go. No matter the kid mortality rate, the second approach still wins.

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

#417

Post by toasterlovin »

LoganDark wrote: post #260
toasterlovin wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment seems to be coming from a genuine place, but you could really use some historical perspective.

The only real perspective I have is that a bunch of today's issues didn't exist in my own childhood, and a bunch of my childhood issues haven't been solved. That means there's been a net increase in issues. For example the internet is much unfriendlier to children nowadays, social media is far more predatory than it used to be. The housing crisis is worse (the exact same place is nearly twice as expensive as it was w…

Read some history! The last 500 years are humanity’s Golden Age of Golden Ages. 100 years ago half the people you love would‘ve died in childhood.

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

#418

Post by echelon »

vundercind wrote: post #290
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They really are. I'm 50 this year. I've been an avid reader all my life, and back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I'd read the newspapers my grandfather would bring home. I would've still been in highschool (at the latest), so call this 1990 +/- 1 year. Even then I remember the classic newspaper article, claiming how much it'd cost to raise a child to age 18. I think back then they were calling that number $250,…

I have three kids. I reckon the first cost more than $200,000 by age 5. No major medical problems (kids are also a reverse lottery ticket, in that regard—sometimes they just take all your money indefinitely because they’ve got a serious chronic illness). And we were far from extravagant in our spending. The bulk of it was in the three categories I listed. [edit] I agree with you, actually, that there are a lot of dum…

> I have three kids. I reckon the first cost more than $200,000 by age 5. No major medical problems

That is certainly not typical.

Most of the people having kids where I grew up don't even see that amount of money. They're having kids just fine.

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

#419

Post by echelon »

DavidPeiffer wrote: post #275
Spivak wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even the schools that have that dynamic first. Lots of daycares are sketchy as hell and they also charge crazy high prices so you can't just pay for better. You have to take time out of your day and go suss them out and dig up inspection reports.

Availability is another big issue. You find a daycare that's great for your kid and safe. Then some staff turnover and you're not thrilled with it anymore. In my area, the wait is around 18 months for a slot in a different daycare center. In-home daycare offers a lower price and some better availability, but are often unlicensed. You are best off signing up for a couple waitlists before you plan to have a kid and hop…

> In-home daycare offers a lower price and some better availability, but are often unlicensed.

This is the problem. You're wanting a first class experience for your kid, and this probably causes you to overlook other viable options that are less expensive.

> In my area, the wait is around 18 months for a slot in a different daycare center.

Wait lists? There's likely service available, you're just setting a quality threshold.

> And of course, switching childcare providers is way harder than switching grocery stores. Your kid has feelings, grows attached to the caregivers, and make friends.

We have de-risked our species so much that we now care about children's daycare preferences.

Some other commenter mentioned spending $200,000 on their five year old kid. This is not typical.

As a species, we used to have multiple kids because we just accepted that some of them would die. We are so far on the other end of the spectrum now that children are being treated as princes and princesses.

Kids can be as expensive as you want them to be. People are buying their dogs and cats ridiculous things like treadmills these days, so of course it figures that some parents must be doing even crazier stuff for their human children.

This is learned consumer behavior.

Children are being over-invested in to a degree that some would-be interested people just aren't even bothering to get started (one of several reasons this is happening). I'm not saying don't love your kids, but it looks like having them has become a perfectionist goal that can't be reached.

Accept imperfection and less than perfect.

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

#420

Post by namdnay »

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…

> 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.

to be fair it was unthinkable the day before yesterday too. in the history of human civilisation, that kind of setup has only been possible in a handful of countries, for a few skin colours, for a couple of decades. fueled by burning cheap fossil fuels taken from poorer countries

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