Previous discussion on a similar article from the Atlantic (2023) [0]
Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?
691–700 of 1001 posts
Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?
#692Earlier 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?
It can be construed either way. If you want kids, its selfish to bring the other party into existence. Life isn't all great, and you don't have a choice in whether or not you're born. If you don't want kids, its selfish because you are not supporting the society (other party) that supports your existence. If we don't have kids above the replacement rate, society doesn't continue. If you are fine with that great, but…
What of the people that have children but those children do not contribute in any meaningful way to society? Is the implication here that every child born must somehow be a net-positive to society?
I see what you're saying about the replacement rate, but I don't see how, on a smaller scale, someone choosing to not have children is a selfish act within the context of a society that is not yet below "replacement" level.
Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?
#693You'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.
It's the same in Sweden. My friends and I are all a couple of years passed the age our parents were when they had us. Out of 7 people who have SO's in my social circle, 0 have children. Why? Because they simply don't have the room. The housing market in Stockholm is insane, and even though most earn above average (most are in tech) they can only afford tiny 1BR apartments. Trying to raise a kid in such a place would…
What I don't understand is that native people who make a good income rationalize that they can't afford kids but yet in the same country there are many non-native people that earn considerably less that continue have children at extremely high birthrates. So why does the group that earns a lot of money claim they are incapable of supporting a family and the group that earns very little actually support a large family, in the same country?
Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?
#694Earlier 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?
I'll speak as someone that waited until almost 40 to have kids and who feels, in hindsight, I was being completely selfish. I prioritized my career, my travel, my sleeping in, my social life, my leisure, etc. As soon as you become a parent, you realize you shorted yourself and your kid shared time on earth together. I also just don't have the energy or physical ability to play like I would have at a younger age. It's…
OK, it sounds like your experience was selfish simply because later ON you had children, and the time you spent alone was time you could've had with your eventual children.
But what of someone who will not have children at all? How is it, literally (in the definition of the word), "selfish" to not have children? From whom are you robbing experience? What is being "taken away" and from whom?
Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?
#695I wish the world weren't so bad that potential parents don't want to bring new lives into it... honestly, if I were a mother considering whether to have a child, I wouldn't want them to have to grow up in this terrible day and age. They'd end up more traumatized than I am. I wouldn't be able to live with myself.
> I wouldn't want them to have to grow up in this terrible day and age.
Today is very clearly the best time to be born, so much so that I'd argue if you could choose to have kids in an older time period or today, it's borderline abusive to choose the past.
Medicine/immunization, child mortality rates, human rights, ...
https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2018/6/7/the-best-tim...
Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?
#696Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re benefiting from other people’s sacrifice. Your end of life care is entirely dependent on other people having and raising functional children. And these are all pretty weak reasons — people with kids do all of the things you’ve mentioned.
Yes, and I may be paying those children in the future to take care of me, giving them a job and income. Maybe that's not such a bad thing.
This is a false belief, that is increasingly common. Even if you're paying people to take care of you in old age, you are in fact contributing nothing while they are contributing everything. You will be only a burden, because the money is fake and in physical reality not worth anything. It is only in imagined reality that the money is worth anything, because it is something people agree to work for. Future workers will not be so dumb as to waste their life caring for somebody they are not related to, that are not a friend in any way, for no other benefit than fake "money". When the majority of elderly are childless, the cost of elder care and all other labour will increase faster than your bank account can ever keep up. It was different before atomisation of people, there was an exchange in the idea of "society" and "money". Now those concepts are only used to leech, abuse and destroy young working people, so why would they keep playing that foolish game?
Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?
#697Earlier quoted context omitted.
My parents had three kids while living on a single salary that put us below into the poverty line for the first half of my childhood. I had a very happy childhood. Everything I had (even my underwear!) was a handmedown. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s possible. It’s a matter of priorities. I’m glad my parents made the hard choices they did.
The point is people watched their parents struggle to raise kids and decide they aren't going to do that to themselves or their hypothetical kids. There is more to do in a life than work and raise children.
Every single parent I'd wager that made those sacrifices and raised their family would tell you it was the best thing they ever did and that they'd do it again. If you've never been a parent you can't possibly understand it at all.
Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?
#698Earlier quoted context omitted.
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What do you mean? Would I want my children to be at risk of school shootings? Would I want my children to have to deal with the fact that I can't afford to pay for health care in the only country where it's not free? Would I want my children to have to deal with the current state of the internet, with TikTok and other predatory social media running rampant? When they get older do I want them to have to deal with how…
> These are not everyday struggles to be overcome.
Neither were the slavery, tyrannical empires, war, plagues, etc of the past.
But fortunately humans continued to persevere and reproduce and make progress, as hopefully our children and future generations will.
Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?
#699Earlier quoted context omitted.
Texan here. Your ad hominem attack is BS. Our house prices, North of Dallas and deep in the suburbs - far from the bay areas and Seattles, have doubled. That includes my home. People in our profession usually have to live by big cities, like Dallas. But the homes are ridiculously priced and it's insane. My juniors have no hope of owning a home that is big enough to raise a family without years of saving. And they're…
There is still more affordable housing in TX than anywhere in the US. Texas is building more than any other state (Florida is close). I just drove by a new development [in TX], with brand new homes that start at 1800/mo for a 3 Bedroom. Financing by the developer. So if you get out of Dallas or Austin you will find affordable housing.
Telling the monthly rate in Texas is not a great metric in general... you must always add the property tax costs. What are those, 300k'ish houses? You're probably looking at at least another 500 a month in properly tax pushing it up to $2300, then if they are built like this add another $200 in for summer time cooling.
That is not affordable housing.
Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?
#700Earlier 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…
> 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 and how it impacts housing are rippling through the US. These aren't automatic, though. Who's to say they aren't produced by policy that's often done first in SF first?
The policy is usually in response to the problems, not vice versa. California is actually dysfunctionally democratic (with a small "d", not "Democratic"). The state constitution gives ballot initiatives powers that they don't have in many other states, and the state has a tradition of individual rights and political activism that means the citizenry isn't shy about using that.
A lot of people in the rest of the country tend to think "Oh, that's just dysfunctional California politics, we'll vote in different policies and things will go differently for us." Yes, you will vote in different policies. No, things will not go differently for you. California voted in different policies too - remember that it's the source of the Reagan Revolution, the hippie generation, the Chinese Exclusion Act, all sorts of policies that took hold nationally but are now the antithesis of what California stands for.
At the root of this is a misperception of the power of politics. Most ordinary people think that laws are laws and the people who make the laws have ultimate power. California (and U.S. history in general) proves that laws are reactions to specific social and demographic forces, and the laws reflect the shape of those forces. Economics drives politics and technology drives economics.