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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?

#651

Post by trashtester »

npteljes wrote: post #466
xyzelement wrote: post #141

I was lucky that my wife convinced me to move close to her family (it would have never occurred to me.) Now we live just a few doors down from her brother who's got 4 kids, and we have 2. Watching the cousins intermingle is an amazing and unique experience. It's kinda sad but it's also obvious that people are majorly missing out. On having kids, on living close to family, on all of it. Ironically, this is evolution i…

>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.

Stupidity may actually be a factor that leads people to have more kids, so we may see more of it in the future :)

> Evolution only selects for hereditary, biological factors,

That's true. And we really don't know what the full list of such factors are hidden in our genes. Maybe many, maybe just a few. What's for sure, though, IF there are enough genes somewhere in the gene pool that lead people (women in particular) to want to have kids at an elevated rate, those are massively selected for right now.

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

#652

Post by shruggedatlas »

Dalewyn wrote: post #531
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.

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…

You fit the exact profile of someone who shouldn't bring children into this world. So, congratulations on making the right decision for you and your mental state right now. However, I would caution against extrapolating your one-dimensional opinions about the world into universal facts.

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

#653

Post by graphe »

conradludgate wrote: post #627
batushka3 wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats the point of marriage then if being able you refuse kids? It's designed as a secure hub to build greater things like children bearing family. Why to subject yourself to lonely elderly life, tied to aging partner? Be like gay/bachelor people and enjoy hundreds of partners, why try to mimic family being afraid for full experience?

Wow... Where to start... Assuming that you're not trolling: 1. Plenty of gay people have stable monogamous relationships/marriages. 2. Marriage isn't only for children. Marriage has legal and tax implications. 3. I like having a stable relationship, I don't like dating and switching partners. I like deeper connections with my partners.

Most gay marriages are non monogamous, so your point is ‘plenty’ misleading. Marriage is legally less beneficial for men in the us (divorce lawyer is paid by the men), and marriages don’t mean stable relationships. An emotional marriage is likely less stable than a cohabitation.

Because the first point is challenged: https://www.thegaytherapycenter.com/gay-men-in-open-relation...

> Several research studies show that about 50% of gay male couples are monogamous and about 50% allow for sex outside of the relationship. The research finds no difference in the level of happiness or stability among these groups.

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

#654

Post by randomdata »

askonomm wrote: post #632
angra_mainyu wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affordability has rarely been a concern for having kids. I grew up poor and people never "thought" about affording kids, just had them and figured things out along the way. It seems it's a self-filtering mechanism in the upper classes, that put all kinds stops before having kids (e.g not ready/mature enough yet, not financially stable, etc) and usually end up having one at most.

Ask your parents, did they enjoy raising you without any money? My mom certainly did not enjoy working 2 jobs to bring me up in this world, and while she loves me, I'm pretty sure she would not do it again if she could do it all over. So while yes, affordability has rarely been a concern, perhaps people are more educated now and realize what having kids would mean for their life, and how much worse it would make thei…

> My mom certainly did not enjoy working 2 jobs to bring me up in this world

Rich world problems, though. In poorer countries and our poorer past, you'd have been working alongside her as she wouldn't be able to do it all on her own. Poor people have little choice but to bring children into this world. They would not survive without them. Opting to not have children is a luxury.

> perhaps people are more educated now

Or less educated. We seem to have come to believe that children are porcelain dolls that will break if they have to lift the lightest of fingers before they turn 18, even though there is no basis to that. It's just a cultural display.

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

#655

Post by geff82 »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #642
geff82 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The amount of work".... oh dear. As if caring for other people is only work. From what will you get distracted by having other people around you (kids)? From Instragram? Cycling? Reading books? What intensely important things do you have to do that deserve no distraction? Having kids is not work. It is not only joy either. It is just the natural way of being a human. The - natural - way - of - being - a - human!!! N…

Natural way of being a human is shitting under a tree and sleeping on this tree, and certainly isn't writing a comment on this site. I couldn't care less of arguments based on some kind of naturalistic fallacy.

Sleeping in a bed in a house is certainly the way humans prefer it. But thinking a society with not enough kids can survive and thrive, on the other hand, is wrong, because it is biologically impossible. It’s not a fallacy, it’s harsh truth.

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

#656

Post by wtcactus »

iteria wrote: post #640
wtcactus wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my grandmothers, raised 3 children in a 1 bedroom house, alone (my grandfather died right after the youngest one was born). I see people now-a-days complaining that they don't have money, or space, or time and I just scoff at them. We aren't having children because society stopped seeing laziness as a negative trait. Everyone around us keeps telling us "you need to take time to focus on yourself": which usuall…

The question is: did ahe want to raise her children like that and would she have chosen to do it that way if she had a choice. People raise children that exist any way they can. People don't choose more children in a bad situation. We can conjecture your grandmother didn't think it was ideal because she didn't have any more children during a time where having more than 3 wouldn't have been strange.

My country is (or was) profoundly catholic. It was not well looked upon to remarry after getting widowed.

My grandmother never remarried, so she never had any more children.

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

#657

Post by ace32229 »

TomK32 wrote: post #620

My daughter is an only child but has eight cousins (that I know of, most are in her age range) but barely spends time with them. She's not missing out on anything because she has a large circle of friends her age, be it from the public playground when they only started walking, kindergarden or now the first three years in school. It takes some effort as a parent and tbh dumping-the-child-at-her-friends-and-vice-versa…

>She's not missing out on anything

I disagree with this for 2 reasons:

1. Cousins are likely to be a mix of ages, probably your age +- 10 years. I think there's some benefit to that, especially having elder cousins that can teach you cool stuff / protect you at school / buy you beer etc.

2. You lose contact with the vast majority of friends you make at school, eventually. Cousins aren't the same, you're more likely to see them at holidays and events than your best friend when you were 5 years old.

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

#658

Post by throw1234651234 »

beltsazar wrote: post #345
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.

> Edit: the replies - y'all are out of touch. If you're in the minority, maybe you're the one who's out of touch? It's not that they can't afford having children—many of those who are less fortunate than them still have children. It's just that they think the cost of raising children, which likely affects their current lifestyle, is not worth it.

Do the math on a 100k income - everyone lives on inheritances. It's fine if you inherit a couple of mill and can live on all of the 100k. If you need to worry about savings - good luck.

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

#659

Post by Dalewyn »

shruggedatlas wrote: post #652
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…

You fit the exact profile of someone who shouldn't bring children into this world. So, congratulations on making the right decision for you and your mental state right now. However, I would caution against extrapolating your one-dimensional opinions about the world into universal facts.

Who said anything about universal facts? I don't give a fuck what people do in their bedrooms because it's none of my business unless their acts convey negative consequences on others, and neither should others mine.

Also, what is it with accusations of my mental state? It takes a sound mind to derive a logical conclusion to the question of having children or not. If you're automatically assuming "people should have children" as a "universal fact", I would question your mental state because you are relinquishing your ability to think.

I've said elsewhere before that humans aren't special, but if there is anything that could set humans apart from other lifeforms it is our seemingly special ability to question and in some cases defy instincts and so-called "universal facts".

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

#660

Post by metricspaces »

Yizahi wrote: post #557
toasterlovin wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I initially read this comment to mean “we wanted larger family, the secular world doesn’t do that, we became religious and we’re happy”. Am I understanding that correctly? Kinda. We were open to believing in God. But the start of our journey was just realizing the secular world had nothing to offer us. Then we met a religious homeschooling family w/ 5 kids and they gave us a glimpse of what was possible. So we star…

Are atheists only "militant" in your point of view? As an atheist I can say that the only way for me to believe in gods is to simply fake it. This believing "at will" is rather interesting concept, but I honestly can't comprehend it.

It’s like love. You fall in love, you fall in love with God. The rest is just garbled mumbling to yourself and others. And like love, it is your experience of it and your view of your beloved that matters, who cares what others think. This is how it is with actual belief. You experience something that shatters the illusion. Once that happens, you belong to God bothered people. And yes, those who have never experienced love also think love is “just chemical processes in the body”. But it’s not, otherwise they’d bottle that chemical process and make a zillion selling it. (They try with drugs but is just ain’t the same thing, you know?)
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