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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?

#831

Post by [deleted] »

mlrtime wrote: post #635
Runways wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texan here. Your ad hominem attack is BS. Our house prices, North of Dallas and deep in the suburbs - far from the bay areas and Seattles, have doubled. That includes my home. People in our profession usually have to live by big cities, like Dallas. But the homes are ridiculously priced and it's insane. My juniors have no hope of owning a home that is big enough to raise a family without years of saving. And they're…

There is still more affordable housing in TX than anywhere in the US. Texas is building more than any other state (Florida is close). I just drove by a new development [in TX], with brand new homes that start at 1800/mo for a 3 Bedroom. Financing by the developer. So if you get out of Dallas or Austin you will find affordable housing.

[deleted]

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

#832

Post by selimthegrim »

Dig1t wrote: post #315
slaw wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you show us these affordable places?

You can buy a house in Shreveport, Louisiana for 10k or less. There are many towns and cities in the US with extremely low housing costs. Most of West Virginia is a good example as well. The reason Shreveport always comes to mind when I think of cheap housing is because I always remember that John Carmack and John Romero owned a little lakehouse there and that's where they lived while making Doom.

I live in Louisiana.

When Bobby Jindal was running for governor the first time against Kathleen Blanco in 2004, she put out an ad that featured the nappiest, hair sticking up picture of Jindal you could possibly imagine and coupled it with the tagline “Wake up Louisiana, before it’s too late” (implied subtext: and you elect a black man)

I do hear she regretted this on her deathbed stricken with cancer. But more to the point, a friend of mine was at a polling place in Shreveport during that election and witnessed a fistfight between two voters in the parking lot over whether Bobby Jindal was in fact, black or not.

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

#833

Post by toasterlovin »

Grimm665 wrote: post #773
toasterlovin wrote: post #468

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? Kinda. We were open to believing in God. But the start of our journey was just realizing the secular world had nothing to offer us. Then we met a religious homeschooling family w/ 5 kids and they gave us a glimpse of what was possible. So we star…

> we’re evolved to cohere around a shared system of belief and the appropriate mental machinery will kick in as part of becoming embedded in a religious community So brainwashing-lite? Man I'm glad whatever "appropriate mental machinery" that was in my head kicked in and got me the fuck away from communities like this.

My brother in brainwashing, you just got brainwashed in a different direction. Know this and you will be free.

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

#834

Post by SamBam »

pie_flavor wrote: post #143
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.

That opinion itself is reflective of a bubble. The people not having kids are all well-off; the lower class is still having lots of kids, whether they own houses or not (and most do - the only places unaffordable are the centers of big cities). You drop below 2.0 kids somewhere around the 40th percentile of income, and pass 50% homeownership around the 20th.

Exactly. Having kids is inversely correlated with income. It's exactly the opposite argument about affordability.

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

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

#835

Post by sirpunch »

selimthegrim wrote: post #832
Dig1t wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy a house in Shreveport, Louisiana for 10k or less. There are many towns and cities in the US with extremely low housing costs. Most of West Virginia is a good example as well. The reason Shreveport always comes to mind when I think of cheap housing is because I always remember that John Carmack and John Romero owned a little lakehouse there and that's where they lived while making Doom.

I live in Louisiana. When Bobby Jindal was running for governor the first time against Kathleen Blanco in 2004, she put out an ad that featured the nappiest, hair sticking up picture of Jindal you could possibly imagine and coupled it with the tagline “Wake up Louisiana, before it’s too late” (implied subtext: and you elect a black man) I do hear she regretted this on her deathbed stricken with cancer. But more to th…

Bobby Jindal is an Indian American born to immigrant parents from Punjab, India.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Jindal

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

#836

Post by tivert »

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…

> There's a peculiar form of blindness that strikes the Urbanite, as if there are no other places to live.

And famously illustrated!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_World_from_9th_Ave...

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

#837

Post by toasterlovin »

silverquiet wrote: post #606
toasterlovin wrote: post #468

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? Kinda. We were open to believing in God. But the start of our journey was just realizing the secular world had nothing to offer us. Then we met a religious homeschooling family w/ 5 kids and they gave us a glimpse of what was possible. So we star…

> you start spending a lot of time around sincerely religious people who you like, you’ll end up believing sincerely yourself Interestingly, this is what turned me into an atheist at a rather young age. A friend invited me to a childrens' religious/social group wherein they explained that most science is actually incorrect; the earth is only 6000 years old, evolution is a lie created by the evil Darwin... that sort o…

Yeah, you thought they were idiots and formed antibodies against their belief system. But there are sophisticated religious people. And IMO sophisticated religious people are much more likely to have pondered deeply the ineffability of existence and accepted that it is incomprehensible except by faith. Whereas atheists just want to point out that it can’t be turtles all the way down and then become suddenly disinterested in the question beyond that.

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

#838

Post by anthonypasq »

giantg2 wrote: post #804
anthonypasq wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Life is pretty miserable for most people. this is objectively untrue with respect to almost every single piece of data we have on this subject. Just because youre a misanthrope doesnt mean everyone else is.

Really? Id like to see those numbers. Look up the distribution of happiness in the US and other developed nations. Happiness is often lowest during childbearing years. Happiness in the US has been declining for about a decade.

https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/life-satisfaction...

people one average rate their list satisfaction from 5-7. thats a far cry from "most people are miserable."

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

#839

Post by tacticalturtle »

WXLCKNO wrote: post #608
wtcactus wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my grandmothers, raised 3 children in a 1 bedroom house, alone (my grandfather died right after the youngest one was born). I see people now-a-days complaining that they don't have money, or space, or time and I just scoff at them. We aren't having children because society stopped seeing laziness as a negative trait. Everyone around us keeps telling us "you need to take time to focus on yourself": which usuall…

Threads about having kids are always filled with judgemental condescending comments like this. It's fascinating.

None of this discussion is productive. Nobody is going to change their mind about having kids because of a thread on HN.

I guess because having/not having kids is such a monumental decision, people feel the need to justify that their choice is the right one.

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

#840

Post by shepherdjerred »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #766
shepherdjerred wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

If your values and actions align with the religious community, and you're okay being around people who are religious/spiritual, I believe it can be mutually beneficial.

If your values and actions don't align with the religious community, then you should still be accepted, but if you don't have belief, then it's unlikely you'll stay for long.

^ note: by "should" I mean that, at least in my view, a "real" Christian should be accepting and not judge others. In practice nobody lives up to this, but it can at least inform how you should feel, e.g. if you feel judged it's saying more about others than it says about you.

^ double note: "real" Christian is incredibly hard to define. The Bible can be interpreted any way you want. Ultimately what guides me is trying to do what I think is right, using the Bible as one source of information.

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