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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?

#731

Post by [deleted] »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #338
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…

All us over-30s with kids probaly random-walked into jobs that are family-friendly and are staying there . In my current team, almost half the people - and importantly, the previous and current manager - have kids, usually more than one. Can't speak for the corporation we merged into, but before the merger, the whole mid-sized company cleraly leaned for average age closer to 35-40, and a good chunk of employees at ev…

[deleted]

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

#732

Post by bongodongobob »

bozhark wrote: post #427
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.

Midwest ain’t the best metric mate

It's better than NYC or SF which HN skews heavily towards.

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

#733

Post by CogitoCogito »

remarkEon wrote: post #265
voidfunc wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't have any interest in kids. They're expensive and they require a ton of sacrifice. I'd rather travel, golf, do hobbies and generally enjoy my life. The only people that seem to want me to have babies are my parents so they can have grand kids... too which I've told them "Thank you for having me, but that's not a valid reason for me to sacrifice my life". I don't really care about the preservation of the h…

Whenever I encounter this attitude I like to remind that person that they should have no voice, whatsoever, in what happens in government and politics anymore. I don't want people who are self-selecting themselves out of the future having any say in what happens for my children. It's fine that you don't want kids, enjoy the golf course I guess. But in general I will discount your opinions to zero on anything else of…

> I will discount your opinions to zero on anything else of consequence.

After reading your post, I’ve reached the same conclusion regarding your opinions.

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

#734

Post by swozey »

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…

You're baffled people don't want kids? You couldn't pay me 3-10x to be 31 with 3 kids, lmao. And I'm almost 10 years older. I'm aging like fine wine with cool cars and vacations and obscene lofts downtown and you're going to be a turnip in 12 years with no savings because of college and child care fees.

I'm baffled people want kids, especially THREE. You have NO reason to have 3 kids.

And yeah, us child-free people absolutely know when you kid-poppers are constantly leaving work and can't be assed to take on priority projects because you've got to take Tommy and Madelyn to soccer and gymnastics at 3pm.

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

#735

Post by cableshaft »

pc86 wrote: post #641
wombatpm wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dual income has its own set of problems when it comes time for kids. Lose an income or pay for child care.

My wife and I are expecting. Daycare is expensive, but it's only an outrageous expense if you have two people making up to about 3x minimum wage. Below that, it makes sense (at least in our area) to have one person stay home. But the cheapest state-regulated, licensed daycares are around $1500/mo for full-day infant care. $18k/yr is a lot to spend on anything when you're making $20/hr for sure, but if you've got two…

$75k is about $56k after taxes. And many people that have children tend to have at least two children, so you can double that $18k to $36k/year for those people.

Once you get to that point, it gets harder to justify having someone work just to take home an extra $20k a year. It starts making more sense for one person to stay home (or work a part-time gig that lets them still raise their children) and the other person to try to make a bit more money on their end instead.

My parents got around the daycare cost problem by my mother running a daycare out of the home, so she was making money while still able to raise us. But I imagine that's become so much more risky nowadays (like legal issues, parental trust, etc) that it probably wouldn't be worth doing that anymore.

And as soon as we both graduated high school she stopped doing it and went back into the workforce elsewhere.

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

#736

Post by hindsightbias »

mlrtime wrote: post #635
Runways wrote: post #263

Earlier 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.

Nobody hip wants to live in those places. Wait til their properties double or triple AND the county changes the rate to build those 6A schools.

TX, too conservative for anything like Prop13 and tollways owned by very smart Spaniards.

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

#737

Post by cooper_ganglia »

kelnos wrote: post #489
toasterlovin wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, wanting a secular natalist movement is where I was for a while. But then the truth of it hits you at some point: it will never exist. The secular way of life exalts the individual, but raising a large family is about subduing your own desires and devoting yourself to something more important than yourself. Well, guess who already does that: religious people.

> The secular way of life exalts the individual Wow, that is not my experience at all. I think in some ways that's perhaps a very US-centric view, even though I'd still consider that a flawed way at looking at secularism in the US. Most of the developed world is fairly secular (even among those with religious beliefs), and extreme individualism is not as common as you seem to think. I do wonder how common your attitu…

I was raised in a very religious household, but I left the fairly young. I spent the next couple decades around a large amount of both religious and secular people. It’s been my anecdotal experience that religious people are exponentially more likely to volunteer and donate to help others. I’ve seen yards cleaned, homes rebuilt, soup kitchens hosted, mobile laundry services and free shoes/clothes for the homeless, church closet giveaways (basically a free yard sale for the community), hundreds of doctors filling a convention center volunteering their time and money to treat people for free,… I don’t doubt non-religious people are doing these things, but I don’t think it’s at the same scale, and the secular nonprofits that are offering this kind of help often skim a lot off the top to pay beefy corporate salaries.

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

#738

Post by lolinder »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #338
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…

All us over-30s with kids probaly random-walked into jobs that are family-friendly and are staying there . In my current team, almost half the people - and importantly, the previous and current manager - have kids, usually more than one. Can't speak for the corporation we merged into, but before the merger, the whole mid-sized company cleraly leaned for average age closer to 35-40, and a good chunk of employees at ev…

This sounds accurate to me—I found my way into a company that offers 10 weeks paid leave for both mom and dad, unlimited PTO, flexible scheduling, work from home, among other things. A director just left for round two of her parental leave, I know at least two other people who are currently on it, and a lot of the developers are parents (quick mental straw poll suggests ~50%), many of whom explicitly have time off during the work day to take care of kids. I'm certainly not planning on going anywhere else any time soon.

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

#739

Post by swozey »

lolinder wrote: post #140
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.

This is unnecessarily confrontational and inaccurate. According to census.gov, the current national homeownership rate is hovering at about 66%, which is about the same rate that it's been (+/- 3%) since they started tracking in 1964 [0][1]. This isn't restricted to old people either: 49% of 30 to 34 year olds and 58% of 35 to 39 year olds owned a home in Q4 2023 [2]. There are certainly regional differences in housi…

If you seriously think 40-49%, whatever ridiculous mis-read stat you're choosing to use this time, of 30-34 year olds are home owners I have a bridge to Hawaii to sell you. I'm 40, make around 300k and know a LOT of people my age and the vast, VAST majority don't own houses. I owned a house in 2016 and sold it, I don't want to own a house because I'm single and they're $800k minimum here, none of my friends want houses because for 99% of us it means moving 45 minutes away to some suburb. Would they take a house a block over here downtown? Absolutely, but that's $2mil+.

I can count how many times I walk into an ACTUAL house, like a free standing house not a condo, apartment, or townhouse - on one hand over ONE year. I think I have 2 friends with houses out of 20+ here in Denver, and I'm of course including condos/ths, anything purchasable. Almost everyone I know over 30 lives in a 1-2 bd apartment. And this is hackernews where I can pretty much assume someone like you is so far from the average American reality you have no idea what's going on.

There's already a post right above this from some compsci engineer talking about how, oh no, there really are a lot more americans making over $100k than you'd imagine!!

You don't have any real humans in your life to use THAT anecdata from? You sound like you're vastly out of that age range, your "you're too confrontational uwu" style of writing and you're obvious lack of knowledge related to the topic at hand.

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

#740

Post by mensetmanusman »

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.

Housing cost per annual income ratio is actually quite favorable in the US compared to elsewhere.
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