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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?

#561

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

ardaoweo wrote: post #334

Here in Finland apparently 50% of 35yo males, and 35% of 35yo females have no children. Fertility rate in 2023 was 1.26. In comparison, 2015 saw fertility rate of 1.65, and it has been below replacement level since 1969. 61% of under 40yo people live in rental apartments, this share having risen about 10% from 2010. Also, apartments built today are about 9 square meters smaller on average compares to 10 years ago. I…

I moved to Finland a few years ago, and I by and large agree with this analysis.

I had the interesting experience of moving straight to rural Pohjois-Pohjanmaa first, before moving to one of the big cities for work. It's for that reason that I'm mostly convinced it's cultural as well - most of our friends up there have 2 to 6 kids, despite making quite a bit less than us city slickers.

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

#562

Post by lukasm »

pkolaczk wrote: post #276
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.

Not owning a house is not a reason people don’t have kids. After WW II the birth rates in Poland were crazy high despite obviously huge problems with housing - often 2 families had to live in one small 2-room apartment (not a house). Now most people own or can afford to rent yet the birthrate plummeted. The primary reason for low birth rate is availability of cheap and effective contraception (and cultural changes th…

And yet when you ask people how many children they want you get TFL estimate at 2.1-2.4

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

#563

Post by saiya-jin »

talldatethrow wrote: post #323
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.

Your bubble is distorted too. I'm in the Central Valley of California but I work in the Bay area. The software people aren't having kids and complain a lot about housing and all that. And my central valley friends, installing garage doors, fixing machinery, making cabinets, digging pools, all have multiple kids and their own house.

This is spot on. White collar dev folks whine how life is hard since they can't own their house close to their work, and rest of mankind just chugs along. HN is a massive echo chamber in many topics like Apple and I suspect this is another one.

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

#564

Post by brushfoot »

echelon wrote: post #187
zigman1 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what is also anti-child? Having parents that were completely unprepared to be parents. Stop with this dopamine epidemic nonsense excuse for everything that isn't working the way you want

[flagged]

> My adoptive father shared an apartment with a roommate when I was in elementary school. Here I am, just fine

My wife's mother beat and choked her from childhood. She was regularly told she was worthless and unwanted. Her father abandoned them, and her stepfather would whip her with clothes hangers for imagined infractions.

Many people are in similar situations. The abuse may not always be physical or as extreme as what she endured, but many parents are unfit for parenthood, and their children suffer from the trauma or neglect or religious extremism for the rest of their lives to a greater or lesser degree.

We don't always hear these stories because our social bubbles may comprise people who are more well adjusted, or at least present so. But abuse, infidelity, narcissism and so on are not new, and they aren't as rare as we might feel. And if those kinds of people didn't reproduce, that would be a good thing.

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

#565

Post by caskstrength »

0xcafefood wrote: post #82
startupsfail wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is wrong that our society rewards drinking beers with tech bros and “skydiving” hobbies and what not fucking weird stuff. And doesn’t reward that much investments of money and parental time into having healthy and educated kids. Educated and well rounded kids, teenagers and adults don’t come free for society. It requires a lot of work, money, time and love. Ridiculous amounts. To a degree this resource can be stol…

> To a degree this resource can be stolen from other countries, via immigration. But this only works to a degree and at a larger scale it is still a zero sum game It can actually be a net negative for both the home country and host country of the immigrants. The home country may lose some of their more ambitious members. And there is a significant cost to a host country that is now accommodating a potentially large n…

> And there is a significant cost to a host country that is now accommodating a potentially large number of people from faraway places with vastly different cultures. (Some may ignore or deny these costs, but they're real and being felt in many ways e.g. in the US right now.)

You are being down-voted, but I'm curious what are the costs of having _legal, desirable_ immigrants in the US in your opinion? (because I would assume that OP meant specifically that group when writing "this resource can be stolen from other countries, via immigration").

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

#566

Post by Dalewyn »

otikik wrote: post #552
Dalewyn wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can afford children but swore to never have them nor marry, for the following reasons: * Life is a hellhole. My children must witness my (and my hypothetical spouse's) deaths; witnessing death is a fucking hellish experience , I motherfucking do not desire to force that experience on anyone let alone my children. * The world will continue. The Earth has spun and travelled around the Sun for time immemorial and will…

Hi, your first comment ("Life is a hellhole") makes me think that you don't seem to be in a great place mentally right now. It's definitely your choice, and your decisions, but I would advice to review those views with someone else other than the internet. Whatever works for you - a friend, a therapist, a family member or a priest. Consider this: despite life being "a hellhole full of tragedies", hopefully you don't…

Life is composed of both happiness and tragedies, but tragedies by far outnumber the happiness. If I were to specify an exact number, perhaps somewhere in the vicinity of 9:1 tragedies:happiness.

Some of the tragedies are also guaranteed and unavoidable from the moment you are born.

My conclusion is the result of a long internal deliberation fraught with weighing the countless factors which compose life. This conclusion is mine and mine alone and everyone else should draw forth their own rather than take mine as gospel or inspiration.

I simply do not value life highly enough to be worth forcing another life into experiencing it. I am perfectly happy to have my bloodline and heritage end with my death; it is not worth continuing whatever the arguments put forth.

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

#567

Post by rightbyte »

vsnf wrote: post #553

The vibe in this thread is so hostile, and the most vociferous posts are from the pro-children side of the debate. I have no deeper comment to make here, I just find it a little shocking how aggressive half the posts are.

I didn't find any amount of "so hostile" comments.

I think what makes the vibe hostile it that this is the sound of social cohesion tearing apart and there is the implied worry that "it might get hostile" unless things are fixed.

But that is not the same thing as hostile. It is discussing a problem.

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

#568

Post by hattmall »

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…

Where do you live? I'm a bit older but pretty much all of mine and my wife's friends have kids.

I'm actually really curious about the childless older people. Like I have a couple friends without kids but it's not like that because they are too busy doing fun awesome things. They are more of the ill adjusted habitually complaining types where they themselves can't form bonds because of a tumultuous childhood.

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

#569

Post by maxlamb »

jmopp wrote: post #249
dotnet00 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're poorer, especially in countries with less well enforced legal systems, you're not as negatively affected by having more children. Your priority is simply being able to stay fed and taking what work you can get, not buying a home in an area conducive to your highly specialized career. More kids are just another mouth to feed until they become capable of contributing to the family finances (typically at muc…

This. In poorer parts of the world, you might have an extra mouth to feed for the first 15-20 years, but once your child finishes school and finds work they're contributing to your well-being and to helping feed the younger children. You also need not worry too much about your retirement, because you know your family will support you, and you'll play a role raising your grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Forget 15-20 years, in rural Guatemala I would see 7 year olds working for a couple bucks a day to bring to their (poor) parents

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

#570

Post by npteljes »

elliotec wrote: post #530
npteljes wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The "it's too hard to have kids" crew is selecting against themselves, evolutionary speaking. That won't last. That's not how it work. Evolution only selects for hereditary, biological factors, and even then, it's not a guarantee. "Stupid people" won't "die out" for the same reason.

Hereditary, biological factors only get selected via reproduction, so of course that’s how it works. “Stupid people” won’t “die out” as long as “they” keep having kids. Simple as that.

Yes, in retrospect suicidal people would have been a better, even if inappropriate, example.
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