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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?

#541

Post by miningape »

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.

Was effectively my experience. This on top of moving countries and not having many (any) friends at school lead to a lot of boring days.

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

#542

Post by sevagh »

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…

>it makes me feel bad (though not too bad at this point) that I have to log off at quittin' time, sharp, to go relieve my wife of some childcare and make a family dinner.

Nah, this part shouldn't be related to having kids or not. Even as a single person I have to log off to live my life, and overworking is not cool or hip.

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

#543

Post by anhner »

bowsamic wrote: post #388
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…

Every support system, from the "family home" where the grandparents have a bed, to the woman not working and taking care of the kids, has been systematically destroyed. Now everyone is expected to work and live alone/as a couple, and they have basically no physical support for raising a child.

I think this is the main issue right here. The others being increased housing cost (you need space for kids) and increasing costs (daycare, kindergarten, nappies etc.).

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

#544

Post by leoedin »

dotnet00 wrote: post #196
xyzelement wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely haven’t met anyone who deeply wanted children and then didn’t because of “socioeconomics”. I met plenty of ppl who talk about the climate or cost of housing as the reason for other ppl but I never knew of anyone making a decision this way. You know someone?

By socioeconomics, I'm referring to all those different factors. The point is that "I don't want to have children because I'm worried about the impact of climate change" (social) or "I don't want to have children because I think it'll be too expensive" (economic) is not caused by biology and thus there is no selecting such concerns out of the gene pool. Not even mentioning that evolution doesn't even meaningfully wor…

> The point is that "I don't want to have children because I'm worried about the impact of climate change" (social) or "I don't want to have children because I think it'll be too expensive" (economic) is not caused by biology

How do you know that? Are those really the reasons, or is the underlying reason "I don't really feel an urge to want kids, so I'm using this reason to justify it"?

Evolution works slowly, but that's because most traits have fairly minimal benefits. Marginally better eyesight might mean a 2% better chance of procreating. Assuming there's some genetic factor for "emotional desire to have children regardless of the circumstances", the chance of procreation rate for that is rapidly approaching 100%.

It's obviously far more complicated than that - it will be an interesting question for future biologists - if there are any!

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

#545

Post by elzbardico »

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.

Poor people always existed and they always had kids. I wouldn't be here replying you if that was not the case.

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

#546

Post by lm28469 »

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.

> 15 engineers

I'm pretty sure engineers can still afford kids, it's just very time consuming and you'll have to settle for less in term of vacations/neighbourhood/purchasing power/carrier/&c.

But yes, most people can't afford having kids that's a given

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

#547

Post by batushka3 »

ako wrote: post #328
caturopath wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

And some muslim comunities deliberately prohibid female education as a support for this theory.

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

#548

Post by skissane »

jiggawatts wrote: post #532
skissane wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here in Australia Australia has made a bunch of home-ownership-unfriendly decisions which the US hasn't – e.g. in the US you get a mortgage interest deduction on your primary residence, in Australia you only get it on investment properties (joint filing for married couples, which the US has but Australia doesn't, also helps here); in the US owner-occupier mortgages are normally no-recourse, in Australia they are al…

> suppose NSW moved its capital to (say) Dubbo or Bathurst? In a sense they already have, most NSW government departments moved their offices from the Sydney CBD to the Parramatta CBD, which is about 25km west. This helped a tiny bit. Meanwhile, my multi-millionare ex-boss is struggling to buy a house, because he's being outbid by chinese "students" (lol) to the tune of +$500K over the expected price.

> which is about 25km west. This helped a tiny bit.

It would help a lot more if they added a zero to that number

> because he's being outbid by chinese "students" (lol) to the tune of +$500K over the expected price

I believe that’s a real problem but only in certain suburbs. If you are a well-off Chinese businessperson or government official, and you want to get your money out of China - in case Xi Jinping suddenly decides he doesn’t like you any more - splurging on a residence for your kid at uni in Australia is a good way to do so while complying with the laws of both countries. Still, while it is a real issue in some areas, at a national level I don’t think it makes a huge difference - there’s lots of housing in Australia which isn’t that close to a university campus

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

#549

Post by lionkor »

kelnos wrote: post #507
khazhoux wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's absolutely not like that at all. Equating encouragement to try a new food and encouragement to bring another life into the world is... a bit silly.

Silly, but a good way to get across the point that you dont know what youre missing out on, or something

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

#550

Post by michaelt »

lolinder wrote: post #140
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.

This is unnecessarily confrontational and inaccurate. According to census.gov, the current national homeownership rate is hovering at about 66%, which is about the same rate that it's been (+/- 3%) since they started tracking in 1964 [0][1]. This isn't restricted to old people either: 49% of 30 to 34 year olds and 58% of 35 to 39 year olds owned a home in Q4 2023 [2]. There are certainly regional differences in housi…

> the average American lives in a home that they own by the time they're 35

According to [1] relative monthly fertility rates for women drop from 1.0 at age 30 to 0.65 at age 35 to 0.1 at age 40.

If your society wants to raise birth rates, you can't rely on 35-40 year olds to do it.

[1] https://www.britishfertilitysociety.org.uk/fei/at-what-age-d...

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