What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another? • Hacker News Board

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

#731

Post by jalapenos » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 2:00 PM UTC

sebmellen wrote: post #699

swat535 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the uncomfortable truth that many are reluctant to admit is that religion and societal norms (as you highlighted above) played a major role in this. I'm not discounting other facts such as the housing crisis or cost of living but I fear that while those are important, they are secondary. Women were often forced to carry a child due to outside pressure and had no recourse. However since the introduction of saf…

The issue is not so much the access to the methods, but the negative feedback loop that they cause. For every woman freed from unwanted childbearing, how many are socially pressured into not having a child? Anecdotally, this is something that my wife and I experienced as relatively young parents (~24 at first child): people expect abortion to be the default. I can't tell you how many people asked us when we were goin…

Simpler than this: how long does an unwanted pregnancy remain unwanted? Basically 9 months tops. After than it's automatically into rearing mode and don't have time to mull such crap. Then as the shock peters off after a year or so, any original thoughts or utterings of "unwanted" get code-of-silence buried til the end of days, and don't ever come back.

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

#732

Post by jalapenos » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 2:02 PM UTC

EmptySocks wrote: post #715

sebmellen wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Can you defend this for me? I'm genuinely asking. Why is it irresponsible to have a child when you're young and financially not established? Why is it any more irresponsible to do that than to have children at a geriatric age? Children are resilient, and so are parents. In my opinion, this idea that you have to have everything perfectly set up in life before you can contemplate having a child is ridiculous.

Reminds me of that scene from idiocracy about the genius couple that wanted kids but kept pushing it off until everything was “perfect”. Then they were too old and resented each other then died childless.

Basically the westerner's (narcissist's) dream

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

#733

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 2:02 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #659

Mawr wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you've consistently chosen immature women to have relationships with tells us nothing about the average woman. You weren't unlucky, you specifically made choices that led to these outcomes. Had you chosen women purely randomly, it'd be a different discussion, but you hadn't. You've done the equivalent of consistently driving above the speed limit and subsequently complaining about the police being too eager to g…

You have a valid point but you deliver it without any empathy or emotional intelligence. Yes, I suspect that my mother being this kind of person, immature even at 50, made me feel at home with women like that. In any case, I can't say that most of the other women I know is that much different in my area (Rome - Italy). They are all more or less 35+ teenagers (the single ones).

[deleted]

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

#734

Post by giingyui » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 2:02 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #659

Mawr wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you've consistently chosen immature women to have relationships with tells us nothing about the average woman. You weren't unlucky, you specifically made choices that led to these outcomes. Had you chosen women purely randomly, it'd be a different discussion, but you hadn't. You've done the equivalent of consistently driving above the speed limit and subsequently complaining about the police being too eager to g…

You have a valid point but you deliver it without any empathy or emotional intelligence. Yes, I suspect that my mother being this kind of person, immature even at 50, made me feel at home with women like that. In any case, I can't say that most of the other women I know is that much different in my area (Rome - Italy). They are all more or less 35+ teenagers (the single ones).

[dead]

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

#735

Post by ascagnel_ » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 2:03 PM UTC

navane wrote: post #655

Aurornis wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s strange to see that anecdote so highly upvoted when it’s so trivial to look at birth rates by parental age. Reduced teen pregnancies are not the driving factor in recent fertility rate declines at all. It is interesting how an appeal to emotion with a difficult story can lead so many to overlook the obvious shortcomings in that explanation. Honestly this entire comment section has a lot of people making guesses…

Because there's nothing in the article. It's a couple loosely correlated events around '35-'55 that anyone can Google together in 10 minutes. The article has no more authority that anyone's post around here. My bet is still WW2. The fact that the boom started earlier than '45 is easily explained by his own quoted graph in which the birthrate plummets in the 20s (which I would assign to WW1), the first rise is merely…

One significant difference between WW1 and WW2, at least in the US -- the country realigned itself for wartime in a way it did not the first time around. You had women entering the workforce in ways they did not during WW1, which meant you had some families earning dual incomes. At the same time, the US instituted a rationing scheme, so even though households were earning more money, they couldn't spend as much.

Two other significant differences: the GI bill for returning vets (which made it significantly easier for them to get higher education) and the rise of automobiles (which in turn unlocked suburbs and mass home ownership) gave households somewhere useful to put their money.

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

#736

Post by giingyui » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 2:04 PM UTC

sjw987 wrote: post #720

It's the economy, stupid. Most younger people can't afford homes. People's money doesn't go as far as it used to. Academic qualifications are worth less than they used to be. Many people currently working now won't see a pension. Many won't see a good paying job, even with good academic qualifications and work experience. General health and wellbeing is getting worse, with businesses abusing human psychology to shift…

No, it’s not the economy. All the people my age who have children are the less financially and intellectually equipped to be parents. Yet they are doing fine.

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

#737

Post by moralestapia » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 2:04 PM UTC

sebmellen wrote: post #697

moralestapia wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Yep — adding 500,000 births per year to the U.S. population would increase our overall TFR from 1.62 to 1.85, which is certainly significant. The impact of other contraceptive methods is likely far larger. Social pressure not to conceive being perhaps the most effective contraceptive... My wife and I had our first child while she was in medical training — the amount of absolutely vile commentary she had to push throu…

>the amount of absolutely vile commentary she had to push through from fellow trainees and program supervisors was absurd

I believe you, it happened to me as well. I'm glad you both pushed through that; it actually is a Level 0 attack, but at the right time it can be quite demoralizing. You are way better than those pieces of filth.

My best wishes to you and your family, may you have a blessed life :D.

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

#738

Post by jalapenos » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 2:04 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #446

crtified wrote: post #178

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…

Having kids when you are young and financially not established is just irresponsible, but particularly female bodies don’t do well having kids older when you are established enough to do so responsibly. I’m having this problem right now with my spouse (we have a kid, but are thinking about another), it’s just super hard to get pregnant without medical help.

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

#739

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 2:05 PM UTC

jalapenos wrote: post #731

sebmellen wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not so much the access to the methods, but the negative feedback loop that they cause. For every woman freed from unwanted childbearing, how many are socially pressured into not having a child? Anecdotally, this is something that my wife and I experienced as relatively young parents (~24 at first child): people expect abortion to be the default. I can't tell you how many people asked us when we were goin…

Simpler than this: how long does an unwanted pregnancy remain unwanted? Basically 9 months tops. After than it's automatically into rearing mode and don't have time to mull such crap. Then as the shock peters off after a year or so, any original thoughts or utterings of "unwanted" get code-of-silence buried til the end of days, and don't ever come back.

> how long does an unwanted pregnancy remain unwanted? Basically 9 months tops

An unwanted pregnancy can remain unwanted for the rest of your life.

(everyone then walks back to "oh I didn't mean abortion should be banned in cases of rape or medical risk to the mother", at which point we have to point out that the religious conservatives very much do want that.)

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

#740

Post by ceejayoz » Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 2:07 PM UTC

spwa4 wrote: post #598

ceejayoz wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My McDonalds order is already taken by a robot. Perhaps a significant part of my aged care will be as well.

Why? The metaphorical "You" won't pay for children, won't pay for doctors, won't pay for research ... are you going to pay for robotics? And by that "pay for" I mean two things. First: having one human shared by about 12 elderly costs 2700 euro per month where I am (including room and -basic- food, apparently better food is 300 extra per month, and I think you really want that. Oh and that includes management. Really…

I think the capital class will attempt all the things you suggest as this shift occurs, yes. I think that system inevitably collapses, though. At a certain point, you get a French Revolution style mess when you push the working classes to the breaking point.