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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?

#761

Post by red-iron-pine »

kenjackson wrote: post #277
hmcq6 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misconstruing what census.gov says. If you look into the "definitions" section it defines "Housing Unit. A housing unit is a house, an apartment, a group of rooms, or a single room occupied or intended for occupancy as separate living quarters." and "Householder. The householder refers to the person (or one of the persons) in whose name the housing unit is owned or rented [...]" 49% of people aged 30-34 aren't…

> 49% of people aged 30-34 aren't homeowners, 49% of us are homeowners or renters. Wait, this is saying less than 50% of people aged 30-34 live in a home that is owned or rented by them (or their spouse)? I can't imagine a region where this is close to true, since probably near 100% where I live either own or rent. Is there a regional breakdown for this? And where do these people live? With their parents or in a shel…

living with parents, or someone else.

or else a bunch of roommates, some of whom may not be on the lease.

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

#762

Post by Night_Thastus »

ensocode wrote: post #467

Maybe for some it is that easy: Why leading complicated lives with kids, pressure, responsibilities an uncertainties, when it is so much more comfortable and flexible without? Watching netflix and scrolling insta could be enough. The thing is, that life is that thing that starts beyond the comfort zone.

Seconding the other comment, this is a pretty narrow view.

A person can do a lot with their life. There's an entire world to explore out there. Culture and history and math and science and art and philosophy. So many meaningful, fulfilling ways to spend a life that don't involve kids.

Not saying that kids cannot offer their own experience, they absolutely can. But it's not the only one that has value.

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

#763

Post by merpnderp »

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.

Kids aren't that expensive. I have a friend in the midwest with 5 kids and his family income is about $60k. They have 3 cars, own their home and go on vacation a few times a year. But they never eat out, and have a strict budget.

People complaining about money and kids and meanwhile their Great Depression era ancestors are looking at them with unending shame.

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

#764

Post by anthonypasq »

silverquiet wrote: post #751
anthonypasq wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> it's sort of strange to think that everything else in their lives is going so well then, isn't it

where are you getting this information from?

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

#765

Post by gknapp »

swozey wrote: post #734
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 a…

People value family differently. For some, their dream life is to have sick cars and a sweet loft, for others, it's to raise other humans to be good. You should probably understand that there are some that read your perspective on life as equally puzzling.

I agree that childcare and college is mad expensive. It's why people complain about these things as much as they do!

What I've always thought, as a parent: those without kids don't know what they're missing, and those with them know what they have.

I'm not saying this to try to brag about how I have some special thing in my life that you'll never understand. I'm saying it because it feels like a perfect system in a way - you simply don't miss what you don't have.

And lastly, those some sort of information bias at play. Non-parents hear all the time about how parents don't have time for this or that, or they hear them talk about how annoying their child is being. But most people have the self-awareness to not just sit and gush over how great their kid is to their non-parents friends, and even when they do, it's just obnoxious.

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

#766

Post by pinkmuffinere »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #357
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I initially read this comment to mean “we wanted larger family, the secular world doesn’t do that, we became religious and we’re happy”. Am I understanding that correctly? If so, this strikes me as a very novel argument in favor of religion, and is more convincing to me than most others. I do wonder what I’d say if/when people question the fervor of my belief though, if I truly converted just for a community with lar…

> I do wonder what I’d say if/when people question the fervor of my belief though, if I truly converted just for a community with larger families. I imagine “I believe in big families” wouldn’t cut it. There's nothing wrong with that. Nobody should have a problem with you wanting to be a part of a church community, even if you aren't a "real" believer.

> Nobody should have a problem with you wanting to be a part of a church community, even if you aren't a "real" believer.

I really appreciate this view, but certainly some people do have a problem with it. I think it would be especially awkward if you spend a significant amount of your life there, raise kids, etc, but never claim the religion is true. It almost sounds like a cringe-comedy movie

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

#767

Post by swozey »

monero-xmr wrote: post #744
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…

You can't disagree with statistics. You are living a very unique lifestyle, that is highly paid in HCOL areas with high standards for housing. That is not the norm whatsoever.

All statistics have absolutely correct data and fundamentally sound designs, right? That's literally the entire argument going on in this conversation you've hopped on. How these statistics are being misconstrued or not.

I moved into programming from bartending after dropping out of school. I am absolutely not ignorant to the lifestyles of all of my friends who aren't engineers.

In fact it's the polar opposite. I am vastly aware of how ignorant my engineer friends are to real people. Like all of my $300k+ friends who have massive houses and 4 kids and 2 suburbans and wonder why a huge portion of their friends, like me, aren't giving them playdates or "cousins" to their kids so they have to go find dad-friends at the kids soccer games who their only real commonality is .. kids.

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

#768

Post by iamleppert »

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 couldn’t imagine bringing a child into this messed up world. I really feel we are at the beginning of a mass extinction and future generations, no matter how rich and well off physically, will be destined to a life of suffering.

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

#769

Post by red-iron-pine »

caeril wrote: post #750
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…

Yes, urban hellscape problems tends to spread to other urban hellscapes, but there exist places to live other than urban hellscapes. There's a peculiar form of blindness that strikes the Urbanite, as if there are no other places to live. The people who live in flyover country are barely even recognizable as human, so you might as well ask me to move to Mars! How the hell am I going to be seen in public drinking my $1…

those microbrews cost more than $12 now mon ami

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

#770

Post by pkphilip »

Absolutely. It is not just that the number of cousins available has dropped drastically with more and more people choosing not have kids or have very few kids, the connections between the cousins is also much less strong in my family than it has ever been because the families now live so far away from each other in a different part of the world that the chances of face-to-face meetups is now reduced to perhaps once every couple of years or so and even then for very short periods of time.

I do feel very strongly that my kids are not going to have much of a relationship with their cousins - if at all.

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