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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?

#681

Post by mx_03 »

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…

Why does it baffle you?

Kids are an expense. Money is tight.The future is bleak.

That's why I only have one kid (and it was unplanned). Every now and then my wife and I discuss having another one but the cons overcome the pros.

There is no non-selfish reason to bring a kid to this god-forsaken world.

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

#682

Post by zild3d »

rsynnott wrote: post #676
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…

I think 30 would be _somewhat_ on the young side these days? Most people I know with kids had them mid to late 30s. EDIT: Looks like the average age a woman in the US has a first child is at 27. That's actually lower than I'd have expected; here in Ireland it's 33.

mid to late 30s is about as late as you can have kids.

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

#683

Post by tomatocracy »

vintermann wrote: post #576
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…

> in the US you get a mortgage interest deduction on your primary residence, Well that wouldn't be so bad to get rid of but ... > in Australia you only get it on investment properties WHAT? That's blatant landlord-pandering!

Landlords are running a business and get taxed on the rental income of their property. Deducting costs, including interest, same as any other business, is pretty standard and most wouldn't say it's "unfair".

Giving an interest deduction to owner-occupiers is a common policy to promote home ownership. But it's not a "level playing field" with landlords unless you also assess income tax on the imputed amount of rent they are saving by owning.

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

#684

Post by rsynnott »

zild3d wrote: post #682
rsynnott wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 30 would be _somewhat_ on the young side these days? Most people I know with kids had them mid to late 30s. EDIT: Looks like the average age a woman in the US has a first child is at 27. That's actually lower than I'd have expected; here in Ireland it's 33.

mid to late 30s is about as late as you can have kids.

It's not that uncommon for women to have kids in their early 40s, though it certainly does start getting more difficult/sometimes impossible at that point.

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

#685

Post by tedajax »

echelon wrote: post #167
lumost wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been doing this math frequently of late. I'm 35, have one child and of my high school class ... maybe 25% have children? there is certainly a bias from polling social media. But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children.

Kids aren't expensive. They're a distraction from dopamine and career advancement. My peers are all wealthy and they'd rather jet set than settle down. By all means they could raise families of two to four kids and still be incredibly comfortable. Vacation home comfortable. Instagram is the anti-child. Instagram and the endless feed of social media, internet, and things to do. Once you have children, the dopamine end…

Honestly, no real productive thing to say here I just think you're a judgemental asshole and I hope your underwear itches forever.

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

#686

Post by orangevelcro »

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…

Honestly, I appreciated "you" at my last job - I don't have kids, but work is not my life either, especially if I have to be in the office. I worked at a place where it was awkward to leave before 6:30pm, and the one person who always left around then was the guy with kids.

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

#687

Post by nostrademons »

pc86 wrote: post #637
vlovich123 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also people who pretend like problems highlighted in the Bay Area and other metropolitan cities are unique to them. Yet every time it looks like those are just the first wave of the changes that are heading to other regions first. Like the wave of homelessness. People made fun of SF, then it spread to the broader Bay Area, then LA, then other parts of the country. Turns out the effects of income inequality…

A lot of problems highlighted in the Bay Are and other [insanely expensive, dense urban areas in the US] are unique to them. Nobody is calmly walking through a Walgreens in western Minnesota shoving everything they can into bags and walking out the front door while 30 people record it. Nobody is putting glitter bombs in bags for news articles in rural Missouri. Maybe shifts in housing dynamics happen first in cities…

Bay Area is usually just 10-15 years ahead of the rest of the country, because it's a region that culturally tends to embrace the future (good and bad) and run toward it.

Bay Area in 2000 was complaining about illegal immigration, bilingual education, and the lights not staying on, all of which are contemporary issues facing the rest of America from 2015 onward. Bay Area in 2010 was in relative boom times from the tech industry, which again is spreading nationwide as tech jobs start getting more dispersed (though it may reverse thanks to RTO). Starting in 2012, housing prices became utterly unaffordable, which again started spreading nationwide around 2022.

Give it another 5-10 years and yes, people will probably be walking through a Walgreens in western Minnesota shoving everything they can into their bags.

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

#688

Post by nemo44x »

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.

If you don't have money you're more likely to have kids. Tons of poor people have tons of kids and they manage.

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

#689

Post by carlosjobim »

surgical_fire wrote: post #586
beltsazar wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't really care about the preservation of the human species. I'm going to be dead in the next 40 years or so, why should I care? If most Homo sapiens had the same attitude, the species would have gone extinct since forever lol. You can have any personal goal you'd like, but from the evolution perspective, the purpose of any living organism is to survive and to reproduce, hence preserving its own species. That's…

> If most Homo sapiens had the same attitude, the species would have gone extinct since forever lol. And maybe Earth would be a better place.

A better place for who? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it...

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

#690

Post by maxdoop »

aantix wrote: post #156
maxdoop wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it selfish to not have kids? Selfishness implies another party; if the kid doesn’t even exist, what is selfish?

There’s literally thousands of generations prior that have made someone’s life possible. And then they wash their hands of the matter and say “nope, I’m not giving anyone else a chance at life. I’ll enjoy mine but it ends here”. That is selfishness.

"I'm not giving anyone else a chance" -- there is no "anyone else". There is nothing being robbed, as there is no other party that literally exists in the universe.
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