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

derekthompson.org

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

#811

Post by paradox460 »

sebmellen wrote: post #709
paradox460 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're also seeing baby boomers, who were raised partially by their grandparents, neglecting the role of grandparent. They live vicariously, through Facebook and video calls, and when the parents ask for them to get more involved, they're met with "I raised you, so I've done my part" Both my wife and my parents maybe see our kids twice a year, thrice if they have some other reason to come to town. And it's not an issu…

I'm hoping you mean your wife's parents and not your wife haha. But I’m sorry to hear that… my wife and I got blessed with very involved grandparents.

Yeah haha, wife's parents and my parents

We've got some really good neighbors that have helped out a lot, but it's never quite the same

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

#812

Post by missedthecue »

MangoToupe wrote: post #526
bethekidyouwant wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a subsidized childcare in Quebec and the fertility rate is still shit

My understanding is the cost of housing is increasing far faster than inflation in the entire anglosphere.

There are a number of countries we can observe where housing has gotten cheaper over the last 10 years. For example, the income to housing ratio in Germany is 18% more favorable in 2024 than in 2014, yet TFR is quite lower and continues to drop.

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

#813

Post by lazyasciiart »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #686
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…

My grandmother was scandalously had. If abortion had been legal her entire family tree wouldn't exist. Me, my dozen or so cousins, my father, aunts, all gone. That's why my father is against abortion.

What terrible reasoning. Does that mean that if he were the child of rape he’d be pro-rape? Anything that would have prevented his existence is bad?

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

#815

Post by groby_b »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #507
groby_b wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US sees about 20K teen pregnancy abortions. That's probably not why the number of births is way down. Number of births in the US are ~3.6M right now. We also have 1M abortions per year. That's - if abortions were the sole problem - 4.6M births / 330M people. Except... It was 4.3M births / 177M people in 1960. Double the current rate. It dropped off sharply right after the 1960s. Not coincidentally right when the…

No telling what contraceptives have contributed. We didn't really use contraceptives and we had three "oopses". Those three oopses are pretty awesome. Nothing like a kid to help you get your head out of your ass. Probably why people report feeling happier, because you can't think about the stupid stuff you used to worry about.

Hey, I'm not arguing against having kids. I think they're awesome, too, even though life didn't allow them for me.

I'd just like discussions to be rooted in actual data instead of sentiment.

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

#816

Post by throwaway313313 »

thefz wrote: post #114

It is OK to thin our numbers!

Haha, jokes on you: only the cultures of the world that think that or that have the values that cause that will eliminate themselves, to be survived by everybody else that didn't have which ever deadly thought viruses that cause their decline.

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

#817

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

fwsgonzo wrote: post #619
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad Except for the negatively impacting the ability to get the education needed for basic jobs. > I mean, it was a thing for most of human history. During most of human history there was a broad support system already in place. For modern new parents, that experience extended support varies from mostly gone to totally gone. Exasperating that: In markets with jobs, rents are 1mo ty…

Yep, we are new parents and we are almost 40. There just wasn't any moment before where it was possible to start a family. We are comfortable but utterly alone in our box, with no grandparents or extended family in sight. Also, with the expectation that outside is for cars. So, there's 1-2 hours at the end of the day for us which is largely cleaning and de-stressing. If anyone had laid this fully out for us before we…

> We are comfortable but utterly alone in our box, with no grandparents or extended family in sight.

This is how we started out too (mid 20s). Isolated rural area and no family. Both of us were youngest children and had never lived around babies. Not the highest odds to start with. We birthed at home and did cloth diapers - so that tells you a bit about our mindset then.

In our favor: This was >30years ago. It was possible to work multiple entry level jobs and scrape by. That's far from possible now.

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

#818

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sebmellen wrote: post #764
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a child, but don't have a house, you'll probably stay with your parents. They probably would rather you have your own house so they can have privacy and such. A lot of the "multiple generations of families under one roof" type thinking are only practical if you have a large property, which was more common and much cheaper before the industrial revolution, tract housing, high rise apartments, and $2000/mo.…

I had my first child at 24 on a shoestring budget in a 700 sq. ft. apartment and it has been completely manageable. Children are way less expensive than you might think (definitely cheaper than an adult) and if you’re creative you can find good quality, full-time daycare or childcare for $10-15k/yr. Does this add extra work? Oh yes, absolutely it does. But while having children means you sacrifice certain things, the…

> full-time daycare or childcare for $10-15k/yr.

That's what it cost 5-10 years ago. Today, it depends on the city, but in the Seattle area you are looking at at least $20k/yr.

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

#819

Post by seanmcdirmid »

evilsetg wrote: post #628
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe we as a society should decide that having children is fine when you don't have a stable career yet and finance it as such. The contradiction that our most fertile years are also the most unstable is something society could and should balance. EDIT: typo

Definitely, but having children when you aren't stable yourself and society isn't going to help out much could wind up in disaster. "Let's play life on hard/hell mode" doesn't really sound appealing to me.

There are things we could do as a society to make this easier: socialized child care (like we do with school) for one thing. Better welfare, making it easier to go to college when you have kids, etc...

But we aren't really doing those, most definitely not doing those in the states, and even in other western countries with better social safety nets. If you want society to have more kids, maybe we have to socialize child rearing more than we do today?

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

#820

Post by itake »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #679
Analemma_ wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're posting on Hacker News you're probably in a pretty high income bracket, and your married male friends probably are as well. High income brackets have seen pretty steady marriage rates, and as someone also in this bubble, they tend also to have men with more egalitarian views on marriage. But the flipside is that high-earners tend to delay childbirth-- they have to, because you need a lengthy period of ed…

You pose an interesting theory. That said the article you linked to is horrendously biased. I'm not sure if I'm maybe pointing out the obvious to you but to me it reads analogously to other well written highly partisan propaganda. It certainly poses some interesting questions to think about but then so do the higher quality far right essays. I mean the author is unironically positing that single women as a class are…

> Single women are simply better catches than single men. Whether we’re talking about intelligence, looks, happiness, social skills, or health, the average single woman marrying the average single man would be “marrying down” across nearly every measurable dimension.

omg... yeah, this author is not credible at all.

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