Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

751–760 of 1001 posts

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

#751

Post by silverquiet »

anthonypasq wrote: post #730
silverquiet wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder - do you think the drop in fertility represents a rise in overall life satisfaction or a fall? I hadn't thought about it much myself, but it seems like it could go either way.

definitely a fall i would say. 80% of women who do not have children, either actually wanted children but couldnt have them, or regret not having them. the fertility crisis is a complete disaster on an incredible amount of levels for people and society. The fact governments arent doing more to address this is mind boggling check out this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0uJ9IcQ-0

If so, then it's sort of strange to think that everything else in their lives is going so well then, isn't it? Perhaps your KPIs aren't telling you the full story or maybe happy people want fewer children?

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

#752

Post by postexitus »

TomK32 wrote: post #677
postexitus wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if friends replace (at least my experience of) cousins. With couisins, you spend days, nights, sleepovers sometimes a whole summer together. You share grandparents, your parents are siblings - you never leave each other's side. It's like sibling minus one. With friends, yes you get very good friends and they are your "chosen family" but you don't spend half as much time together even to the best of your…

Unlike your friends, you can't choose your family and sleepovers with friends is what my daughter has more than once a month.

Sure, we are talking about averages, and on average, cousins of the past used to spend more time together than friends of today. And got along pretty well, especially in larger families where you can actually "choose your better family". Larger the family, more chances of having a "good cousin". What your daughter won't have is when those friends move away, she will be less likely to see them during summer / x-mas / thanksgiving, despite your best efforts. With cousins of the past, these were automatic.

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

#753

Post by nostrebored »

fzeroracer wrote: post #479
nostrebored wrote: post #226

Earlier 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.

The funniest bits about this sort of argument is that I often see people become completely estranged from their parents because the attitude of 'I need my children to take care of me when I'm older' is like a package deal for a whole host of other shitty behaviors.

Oh I mean you have an obligation to be a parent that your kids would want to take care of.

I don't talk to my parents and have no interest in taking care of them, because, like you said, they are horrendous people. I think you're right that the entitlement to your kids time is something that comes with poor parenting.

That doesn't mean that on-net people's kids won't take care of them. Like everything with your kids, it's a two way street.

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

#754

Post by frantathefranta »

swozey wrote: post #739
lolinder wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hous…

I have anecdata on the contrary. I'm 25 and with my wife have a household income of ~150k. We own a house in a Midwestern major city, and so does 80% of our friend group. I realize it's an outlier, as should you, because most of the country doesn't have 800k minimum starter houses.

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

#755

Post by freedomben »

metricspaces wrote: post #660
Yizahi wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are atheists only "militant" in your point of view? As an atheist I can say that the only way for me to believe in gods is to simply fake it. This believing "at will" is rather interesting concept, but I honestly can't comprehend it.

It’s like love. You fall in love, you fall in love with God. The rest is just garbled mumbling to yourself and others. And like love, it is your experience of it and your view of your beloved that matters, who cares what others think. This is how it is with actual belief. You experience something that shatters the illusion. Once that happens, you belong to God bothered people. And yes, those who have never experience…

If falling in love with God conveys truth/reality, then how do you reconcile two people who are both "in love with God" but have incompatible beliefs about God?

I know a person who fell in love with a woman that didn't exist. Person A (my friend) was straight. Person B was gay and fell in love with Person A, and then created Person C (fictitious person) with the hopes that Person A would grow to love Person C, and eventually Person B would tell the truth but that Person A's love was pure enough that he didn't care about the deception and wanted to be with Person B.

Hell of a story, but the reason I mention it is because Person A falling in love with Person C didn't make Person C real. How does that work with God?

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

#756

Post by postexitus »

jmathai wrote: post #646
TomK32 wrote: post #620

My daughter is an only child but has eight cousins (that I know of, most are in her age range) but barely spends time with them. She's not missing out on anything because she has a large circle of friends her age, be it from the public playground when they only started walking, kindergarden or now the first three years in school. It takes some effort as a parent and tbh dumping-the-child-at-her-friends-and-vice-versa…

My older kids are 11 and 13. My experience differs. My wife and I moved away from family before having children. Our kids had plenty of friends they could play with. It felt transient though - perhaps because we lived in a transient area (SF Bay Area). Friends would come and go. We moved back to be closer to family last summer. And, for us, the difference was stark. The relationships between family and friends are di…

That's indeed true. I don't have siblings, but many cousins of different ages. If they were "friends", they would have probably have dropped out of the radar pretty early on. But now in my 40s, I do see an immense benefit of getting to know the adult version of them, and having shared history, family, locations, memories etc. makes it massively easier.

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

#757

Post by RankingMember »

mlboss wrote: post #672
cntrmmbrpsswrd wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that not having kids is a selfish act is ridiculous and needs to end.

The reasoning is that you were raised by somebody but when it is your turn you are avoiding the responsibility. If everybody start to think this way the human race will stop existing.

You can't renege on a "responsibility" you didn't sign up for. Furthermore, if someone asked me to make a list of mammals least in danger of extinction, humanity would be at the very top. The idea that we need to keep exponentially growing or face extinction strikes me as remarkably similar to pyramid-scheme thinking.

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

#758

Post by Night_Thastus »

HPsquared wrote: post #575

Better to have kids and be poor, than rich with no kids. People are so materialistic these days.

That is a pretty terrible take.

Having kids is basically never going to cause someone to go from rich (excess wealth and luxury) to actually poor (struggling to survive).

However, it definitely can be enough to take someone who is just barely getting by, making their car payments, enough food on their plate, etc. to start to struggle. Kids are very expensive.

No-one is not having kids because they want a second yacht. But there are a lot of people who genuinely cannot afford to survive with a child.

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

#759

Post by Retric »

TomK32 wrote: post #675
Retric wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s very specific safety features that have reduced the number of kids killed by cars. Backup cameras for example where mandated specificity due to demonstrated safety benefits. People vastly overestimate how dangerous letting their kids out to play is and underestimate how beneficial it is. There’s real health benefits to running around outside which means limiting them to specific after school activities also h…

SUV are get bigger with the blind zones in front of and around cars are getting longer and frontovers are becoming a problem as well https://www.kidsandcars.org/news/post/senator-wants-federal-...

That’s a real issue even if the increase in risk from front overs due to large SUV’s is significantly less than the safety benefits of backup cameras alone.

A common bias when many things change is to only consider the changes which support your views rather than all changes combined. I could counter by bringing up nearly 100% of new SUVs in 2024 include automatic breaking systems, but what matters here is relative safety not individual changes in isolation.

Pedestrian deaths were 2 percent lower in 2021 than in 1975, which seems like zero progress but the US had 211 million people in 1975 vs 337 million in 2021. Thus the individual risk has dropped by almost 40% even though people seem to think it increased. Not that overall pedestrian deaths is directly comparable to risk to kids from playing outside, but it is suggestive.

Edit: The reduction in children being killed is much larger, but that’s probably less to do with cars than wider social trends. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes...

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

#760

Post by swozey »

frantathefranta wrote: post #754
swozey wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hous…

I have anecdata on the contrary. I'm 25 and with my wife have a household income of ~150k. We own a house in a Midwestern major city, and so does 80% of our friend group. I realize it's an outlier, as should you, because most of the country doesn't have 800k minimum starter houses.

I could not care less about what the lives of 25yos in some midwestern city are like. The vast majority of millennials had to move to major cities for work around the 2008 recession.

What's your cities population? Is it even 100k? How much of your anecdata is actually related to this convo, in the sense of what percentage of your midwest people are even relevant to it? I've lived in at least 8 MAJOR (Houston, Denver, Dallas, Austin, Portland, San Josa) since 2008, those population centers absolutely dwarf whatever you can come up with in the mw to affect this stat.

This is like when someone on here chimes in with their amazing $120k house in Oklahoma. Owning a house at 25, whether you're in BFE Alabama or not is also not common.

Nor is being married at 25, anymore.

Post reply on HN