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What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

derekthompson.org

661–670 of 927 posts

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#661
post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad I mean, it was a thing for most of human history. There’s a reason biology makes you capable of having children at a young age. Isn’t it kinda bizarre that we think it’s weird?

>There’s a reason biology makes you capable of having children at a young age Biology and evolution doesn't really have a huge baseline. You basically have to survive until you reproduce successfully. Successfully here meaning that the offspring also has to do the same. If this is sustainable - the species is viable. But, us humans like to know better. That's what the entire civilization is all about. And on the path…

And now, while preventing and tabooing teen pregnancy, society is about to collapse on itself by lack of reproduction. We coddled our kids to extinction.

> Successfully here meaning that the offspring also has to do the same. If this is sustainable - the species is viable.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s sometimes difficult to find the links through Google on short notice but I found one random site that discusses this. Of course the site is pro fathers but they do link to primary sources to verify the claims in the article. There are plenty of other places this is discussed, and I’m not associated with and haven’t ever before read the following website. It just happened to easily show up in my search. https://g…

Then post the sources directly. What you linked to is obviously useless for good faith discussion?

What they linked cited sources well. Quote from the original source study.

"Housework was defined as “core chores,” or routine housework that people generally do not enjoy doing such as washing dishes, laundry, vacuuming floors and dusting … Routine housework, like cooking dinner or making beds, was captured … . Other activities such as home repairs, mowing the lawn, and shoveling snow were not in the study. Items such as gardening are usually viewed as more enjoyable; the focus here is on core housework."

Obviously completely BS biased sexist study. It doesn't get more blatant than that.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#663

Why not pay women a competitive (not $10/hr) salary for raising a child, collected from taxes from people who don't have children under 18? To make building a family more profitable than working a job. It seems that politicians (calling for ban of abortions) want to have a cake and not pay for it.

So you basically want to add another tax on young single/unmarried people? What if you are infertile? Is the government/state going to pay for all the procedures related to adoption/ fertility treatments? What about gay people? Would they be forced to adopt kids or use surrogates to have children so that they stop paying this tax? At what age should men stop paying this tax? After all, a man in his 60s and even later…

A single child raised to adulthood in the United States is worth over $10 million to the economy. Consider that in the calculation of what a fair share of investment bringing that into the economy is.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#664

My anecdotal experience, which illustrates how changing societal norms may be contributing. Around 1960, my grandmother scandalously fell pregnant with my mother in her late teens. The child was adopted out - well, not out - in. To her own grandmother, to be raised as a "younger sister" to her own mother. Around 1980, my mother scandalously fell pregnant with me, in her late teens. Despite family disapproval, the chi…

Abortions are not the primary reason why teen pregnancy is way down. There's actual data, you know. Fewer teen pregnancies is a reason why birth rates in the US are declining. But it isn't driven by abortion. And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place.

>There's actual data, you know.

Did you bother to check it out?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_U...

More than half a million in the US alone, per year. That's material.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#665
post #122

War, duh. No, really, the only reason for that happening was a total war. War caused devastated countries to collectively sign Bretton-Woods which affirmed USD as a reference currency and allowed USA to externalize a lot of it's issue, both immediate and future. Allowing this externalization, plus major political influence in the first decades after the war, plus rapid innovation accelerated by the war allowed USA to…

You mean it was the giant war the people went through that had all these kids and not that things just happened to line up at that time with my stupid political beliefs?

Even though I have put zero thought into most of my political beliefs, I just repeat what my social media programs me to believe, that can't be true. I can't be full of shit.

Look how much I get paid to write javascript!

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#666
post #12
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you see rising birth rates in Ukraine and/or Russia?

Is the war in Ukraine over yet? The baby boom happened after World War II, not during.

The article points out this common misconception, it started before World War II.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#667
post #161

My $0.02 is being a mom sucks. In modern relationships, men just want to work and come home to a cooked meal and clean house, but their wives are working just as many hours the men are. Having kids means tension in relationship, unpaid labor by the woman, and stress parenting kids. Even if the husband steps up, he still can't breast feed for 3 hours per day. Pregnancy is really terrible on the woman's body. Post-part…

> In modern relationships, men just want to work and come home to a cooked meal and clean house As a man in a "modern relationship" I strenuously object to this. I mean yeah I want that (who wouldn't?), but I know I'm not going to get it because my partner has a job too so we have to help each other. Literally every one of my married male friends also regularly cooks and cleans.

I agree and add myself to the list and also every father I know about, including older peers. Both share responsabilities at home.

This myth needs to die, it's not true and it discriminates against men.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#668

What caused the baby boom was post-war catholics. What would cause another baby boom would be a recovery of catholic cultural confidence.

Catholics certainly were having more kids than Protestants at the time, who had by then been normalizing contraception (following the Lambeth Conference of 1930). But eventually Catholics drank the Koolaid like everyone else, so it's less about "cultural confidence" and more about "cultural detox".

Catholics are the only world religious group that rejected the pill. Currently, actual Catholics (who believe and practice the defining doctrine) are the only group above replacement rate.

Cultural Catholics in the United States mostly aligned with Protestant secular world views.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#669

Relative stability, focus on family, growth, men as head of household, minimal single parent families, women spending time with their kids. Raising kids is a full time job. I am doing both as a father and also as a founder. My wife does not work, does minimal contribution here and there. I dont know where she spends time but she is unavailable. I would rather do it myself than keep fighting. I think from population f…

> Relative stability, focus on family, growth, men as head of household, minimal single parent families, women spending time with their kids. This reads as deeply obnoxious sexism. Man as head of the household, sounds like religious fundamentalism.

Can behavioral evolution be sexist?

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#670
post #29

(Purely anecdotally, my own and my peers experience) We’re seeing educated people waiting longer in life to have children. Fertility drops, assistance from older generations drops, the village has gone, nursery and care prices are ridiculously high, support from the government (UK) is a bit of a farce if you’re earning anything more than a living wage in cities, the opportunity cost of a parent putting a (more develo…

Costs $2500-4000/mo for infant care where I am. On top of a $3000/mo mortgage. NE USA. When I see a family of 5 my first thought is "holy fuck they must be loaded." Either that or they have one parent who cannot be employed outside the home.

The funny thing is that childcare is ... actually free.
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