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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?

#821

Post by throw_siblings »

toasterlovin wrote: post #119
djha-skin wrote: post #61

My father had 10 siblings and my mother had seven. I had seven siblings myself with over 30 cousins on both sides of my family. I have four children and my and most of my siblings each have six children or so. My mother has about 24 grandkids at the last count Maybe. Further, I live on the same street as two of my sisters and I have another sister that lives down the street, with my brother living 3 mi away. Only two…

You have to be religious, right? This is the dream for us. We reverted to Catholicism after it became apparent that the secular world was incompatible with us, then eventually found our way to a high fertility parish. It’s incredible. Kids everywhere. Average family size is 5-6 kids. Really hoping our kids choose to remain in this lifestyle and we get to enjoy dozens of grandkids.

Err, yeah I'm a little skeptical of parents who want lots of children. I'm in my twenties now, but I was raised Catholic, I have twelve siblings, and I was homeschooled until my senior year. There were several issues:

- Me and my siblings all feel like our parents loved the "identity" of being parents and having lots of children, but when it came down to the brass tax of actually caring for our emotional needs, they were entirely absent. This was such a large rift that almost all of us intentionally don't have close relationships with our parents.

- On top of emotional neglect, there was inevitable physical neglect. One brother clearly had autism but our parents never had the time or finances to get him treated appropriately. Two siblings weren't able to get the braces they needed for their teeth as kids and had to get jaw surgery as adults. Two of my siblings were injured in severe accidents growing up that would've been avoided if a parent had been watching out.

- The parents of these families go around narcissistically glowing with all the social credit for being "superhero parents" when realistically the majority of the labor falls upon the oldest siblings. Me and my two sisters effectively raised all of our younger siblings with our mother being pregnant so often, and father working full-time. Our parents never recognized how much work we put in, and as we transitioned to adulthood it took a lot of work to establish healthy relationships with our younger siblings where we didn't feel taken advantage of (the younger siblings had parental expectations of us for years afterward).

- The lack of socialization from being homeschooled really came back to bite us in the ass. Some of my siblings got (cyber) bullied after transitioning to the real world. Some simply never were able to make the adjustment to talking to normal people, and some are still really struggling. I was able to get "socialized" and now appear like a normal SWE at a large tech company but I'm very lucky.

So....be very careful around these families and their values. A lot of times having lots of kids are a narcisstic vision from the parents, rather than a true desire to take care of a lot of people.

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

#822

Post by vundercind »

giantg2 wrote: post #813
vundercind wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, you can buy beautiful, updated small mansions in the heart of many small midwestern towns for under $200k. The trouble is: 1) no local jobs to speak of (unless you want to clerk at the farm & feed or assistant-manage the McDonald’s out by the highway) 2) nearest hospital that can do more than stabilize you before shipping you somewhere better, is over an hour away. 3) the schools are really, really bad 4) no lo…

"the schools are really, really bad" Depends on the state and locality. Some rural schools have good opportunities. But pretty much agree on the other parts.

They exist, but they’re needles in a haystack. Especially if you exclude rural districts that aren’t cheap because they’re basically captured by the same folks who attend the country club the community’s centered around (there are a few of these, particularly in the Northeast)

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

#823

Post by jplusequalt »

geff82 wrote: post #486
kelnos wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could absolutely afford to have children, but have chosen not to. The main reason is that I just don't feel "called" to be a parent. When I think about (and see, from others I know who have kids) the amount of work, and complete shift in lifestyle, it takes to raise a child, I get completely turned off by the idea. If I had a kid, I'm sure I'd love them, and derive joy from them, but I don't believe the trade off i…

"The amount of work".... oh dear. As if caring for other people is only work. From what will you get distracted by having other people around you (kids)? From Instragram? Cycling? Reading books? What intensely important things do you have to do that deserve no distraction? Having kids is not work. It is not only joy either. It is just the natural way of being a human. The - natural - way - of - being - a - human!!! N…

This is a classic appeal to nature.

The natural way of being a human for thousands of years was to hunt and gather, and then die before 40. But that didn't stop us from progressing past that point.

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

#824

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#825

Post by SamBam »

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.

Given that birth rates even in the US are inversely correlated with income, this causative statement is nonsensical.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...

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

#826

Post by giantg2 »

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…

"and nobody considers staying home to save that."

Some choose to stay home for other reasons.

I find it interesting how income tends to segregate with marriage, and how that exasperates some inequalities.

Having kids for those highly compensated dual income homes seems narcissistic when you get to the root of it. Like why have kids if we're outsourcing their raising to daycare and schools. The we only care about their accomplishments and leaving them with a large inheritance or paying for a fancy school. Then they go off to live mostly separate lives. Look at how well my kid is doing because I set them up in life, even though I barely raised them and rarely see them now. I don't know?

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

#827

Post by aidenn0 »

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.

Anecdotal response; also, at 43, I may be older than others in this discussion, though many of my cohort have only recently started to have kids. If you're only 30 (or 31 like GP), you'll need to wait and see who will have kids.

My friend with the most kids (5) lives in the Midwest had a household income of well under $100k/yr when kid #5 was born (he's a cop, she worked irregular hours because 5 kids). Now that they are older, she might work more and he has been promoted, so it's possible they are above $100k/yr, but if so, it's not much above that.

Prior to kids, they bought a fixer-upper and made it livable over the course of several months of days-off. Granted he had several advantages here: he worked construction jobs to pay his way through college (in-state tuition was laughably low in the early aughts), and his father was a finish carpenter, so the know-how was available, and he graduated with less than $10k in debt.

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

#828

Post by baq »

Balgair wrote: post #798
11101010001100 wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize how physical raising a kid is. The chasing, the lifting, the playing ... they don't stop!

For those without kiddos: Hold a 10lbs weight on your arm for three hours (simulates an infant trying to fall asleep in your arms). Do this for six months, three times a day. Lift a 20lbs bag of rice off the floor to your hips once every 20 seconds for two hours (simulates a toddling-walking child wanting up). Do this for a three years, six times a day. Get up off the floor in a hurry once every five minutes for two…

For those who want kiddos sometime in the future, maybe about 2 years from now - this won't change, 2 years from now you'll still think 2 years from then is going to be the time. Just stop and have one. It'll turn out ok, probably - and the sooner you get one, the easier you'll handle the toil, 1% of which is described by the parent post ;)

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

#829

Post by namlem »

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…

Yeah but how has the consumer surplus changed? Are people paying a higher percentage of their income for housing?

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

#830

Post by shermantanktop »

7thaccount wrote: post #122
shermantanktop wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headline didn’t say “reshaping the cousin experience”. It said “childhood”. Unless we’re ready to say any change is dramatic, this is the type of unprovable puffery in a headline that Betteridge’s Law was made for. FWIW, it’s true of my kids too. But growing up, my cousins were in a different country and I wasn’t close. So my kids didn’t have an experience much different than mine.

It is still important to a lot of kids that live close by and even those that rarely saw each other (like mine due to similar isolation) still learned from the experience when we were together. Yes, headlines are meant to grab your attention, but equating this one with the garbage that usually gets a quick Betteridge Law link is a bit drastic. People pondering the societal implications of rapid population decline is…

Ok, fair, maybe I'm overreacting to it - i find headlines like that annoying.

If you have ever seen the early Seven Up movies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_(film_series) ) - the sheer mass of Baby Boom children all growing up together is incredible. No doubt peer influence was crucial for many of them.

But humans grow up in many situations, including remote farms, small villages full of old people, etc. Lack of cousins or same-age peers might be more common now, but it's been happening forever.

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