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The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

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Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#891

Post by somenameforme »

montroser wrote: post #681
somenameforme wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read things like this I find it confusing in so many ways. I've been out of the US for a while now so perhaps there's some contemporary issues I'm just not considering? For $6k a month, why not hire a private nanny? You could also work with other parents in your area to setup something for a bit more socializing depending on their age. Similarly, I find it practically impossible not to meet people literally ev…

Say you hire a nanny for $6k/mo... What problem have you solved? You're still paying the six grand, and you had better hope the nanny is good, because that is your kids' whole world now for a chunk of their existence.

It depends on the area, but a nanny is typically nowhere near $6k/month. If desired you can also generally arrange something with other parents in your area to do a cost share with the side benefit of also getting a bit more socialization for your kids. There's endless differences with nanny vs daycare. A big one is that most studies show children do best when raised by a small handful of consistent figures. In daycares they're going to have rotating workers with relatively unfavorable ratios.

It's also done at your house so there is no transport, you can create play areas and the like to your own imagining, set the standards for what is expected, have easier access to the exact foods/etc you want your children consuming, and so on. You also have a lot more freedom for your children to experience things you want them to. For instance if you want your kids to go to the park on Wednesdays, you can set that up.

There's also small things like the fact that most kids are going to get endlessly and repeatedly sick in daycare due to close contact with a large number of other children and relatively premature immune systems - when anybody gets sick, most of everybody gets sick. Some of those will be one-time-only sicknesses that everybody will get, sooner or later, but a lot are just colds and other things that kids will catch endlessly. And so on. There's plenty I'm leaving out but basically you get better, more personalized, care over which you have much more control, and pay less.

---

One thing I'd also add on. I'm not even entirely sure a "good" nanny is required. They obviously need to know how to care for a child and so having one who has had at least one child on her own is good, and bordering on a requirement, and they should know basic first aid and emergency treatment (like what to do if a baby is choking), but beyond that - I think the most important thing for a child is simply the personal connection. If somebody gets into nannying they presumably already love children and, at least for me, that's mostly what I'm looking for.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#892

Post by CAPSLOCKSSTUCK »

Barrin92 wrote: post #868
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can absolutely think it as long as it stops there. There is a reason. At that point in the game, your needs and wants are supposed to be subordinate to those of the kids' long term survival. I could maybe understand this sentiment, oh 50 years ago, when you maybe could plausibly claim you had no idea that child rearing is not exactly easy, but unless a person is almost completely detached from society, it is near…

>You can absolutely think it as long as it stops there. If that's the attitude it renders virtually every discussion about the topic moot and the people in question better stop trying to give life advice to anyone else. My wife and I don't want kids and we've heard our fair share of (unsolicited) opinions on the topic from people who clearly weren't always happy. I've only ever known one woman I worked with, who was…

I agree with you but I don't really see what the alternative is. If you openly go around stating that you regret having children, what are people supposed to say? It's better to keep those thoughts to yourself because there, quite frankly, is nothing helpful anyone could say even if they wanted to. Not to mention that it would be unfair to the kids if they got the feeling that you regret having them.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#893

Post by dalyons »

nostrademons wrote: post #253
scottious wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every morning I get to my son's school about 10 minutes before the doors open. We arrive by bike and we sit ALONE on the benches near the front door. Meanwhile, the curb is full of extra large SUVs idling with kids just waiting inside the cars. The long line of SUVs extends all through the neighborhood. My son and I are alone because people just won't leave their cars until the doors open. A vast majority of the kids…

Anecdotally my experience is dramatically different. Last week I arrived by car right near the beginning of dropoff time. Pulling in right in front of me was the mom of one of my kid's classmates, carpooling with another kid who lives in the same apartment complex. The three of them met up as soon as they got out of the car, and then another one of their friends (who lives across the street from the school and usuall…

How do you find communities like that? It’s not exactly a Redfin search.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#894

Post by null_deref »

logicchains wrote: post #409
Balgair wrote: post #207

I like to hang out on fertility twitter. It's a strange place. Since the fertility problem is worldwide, you get a lot of ideologies mixing about. There's hardcore CCP folks, free market Mormons, radical Imams, universalist preachers, the whole lot of them. They're all trying to share ideas and jumping on the latest research findings from reputable and crackpot sources. They're all looking for the recipe to get peopl…

>My take on it is: you have to make your country/society a place where people will want to have children and feel/know that their children's lives will be good ones. There's only one developed country with a birthrate above replacement and that's Israel, which is hardly a paradise. Largely due to Ultra-Orthdox Jews, who believe they have a religious duty to have children. Empirically religion is the only thing capabl…

That’s not true, secular Israelis fertility rates are also above the replacement level and are quite high

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#895

Post by s1artibartfast »

alephnerd wrote: post #479
daymanstep wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that Israelis are more likely to have kids mainly because Israeli society is more tolerant of kids? You seem to be supposing a model where most people naturally want kids, but are just discouraged from having kids because...other people might give them a stink eye if their kids run around in a mall. In my model, people choose to have kids because it's an important life goal for them, and this decision…

> Are you saying that Israelis are more likely to have kids mainly because Israeli society is more tolerant of kids Yes. They are much more tolerant about having kids and making sure to give space to people planning to have kids. > In my model, people choose to have kids because it's an important life goal for them, and this decision is not very much affected by whether other people might give them a stink eye if the…

I think it is more than just tolerance and stink eyes.

Some cultures actively celebrate children and families. They center them in social life in an inclusive way. This covers inclusion in social events, institutions, and civic design.

Kids are not only FUN, but interesting, challenging, and rewarding.

I would be very interested in a breakdown of how the American perception changed over time and what the drivers were.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#896

Post by rstuart4133 »

Balgair wrote: post #207

I like to hang out on fertility twitter. It's a strange place. Since the fertility problem is worldwide, you get a lot of ideologies mixing about. There's hardcore CCP folks, free market Mormons, radical Imams, universalist preachers, the whole lot of them. They're all trying to share ideas and jumping on the latest research findings from reputable and crackpot sources. They're all looking for the recipe to get peopl…

> My take on it is:

Thete are lots of takes here. Most of them don't explain how TSMC employees, who compared to their countrymen well paid, highly educated and in a high pressure job, have a fertility above replacement rate while the rest of their countrymen have a fertility rate of 0.87%

https://www.boomcampaign.org/p/on-the-higher-fertility-of-se...

TSMC provides extensive support for mother's, including childcare in the workplace. It goes well beyond most companies provide (it would dent the bottom line after all with no obvious return given they can just hire a man), and far more convenient and practical than third party services, even if they subsided by the government.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#897

Post by dh2022 »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #875
jvandreae wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Female/leftist projection at its finest. There is no single group more entitled than the AWFL.

There's a book about male domestic violence perpetrators which you really ought to read. It's called "Why Does He Do That?". Author is Bancroft. The vast majority of men in the US are not abusers. But he describes a degree of entitlement to women -- their bodies and minds -- that, in my decades of clinical experience with families and couples, applies to most men in our culture. It's a little parable: > Once upon a t…

Huh? How does your tirade have anything to do with lower birth rates?

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#898

Post by tormeh »

Becoming a parent is basically a destruction of the self. My sister and her husband get 1-2 hours of time for themselves per day, and then they are too tired to do anything but watch TV. They've ceased to exist as individuals, basically. To them, work and the office are their places of relaxation.

They're not on HN to explain this to anyone because they just don't have the time.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#899

Post by Gud »

prirun wrote: post #757

There are big economic differences and expectations between when I was growing up in the 60's and now. My parents married right out of high school, which was pretty much the norm I think. I lived on a dead-end street where nearly every house had kids my age. Dads worked, moms didn't. Moms might babysit, iron, do laundry for others, etc., but moms took care of the house and the kids. The houses were 850 sq ft, most wi…

Everyone should ask themselves why the working class and middle class can’t afford to have the same lifestyles that were possible 60 years ago,

While 0.1% of the population live like God kings.

Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk sure as shit don’t feel the effects of “inflation”.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#900

Post by giardini »

tasuki wrote: post #767
sizzle wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s literally the only purpose of life to pass on our genetics to our offsprings in a Darwinian sense.

Third such comment I see in this thread. And... so what? What does the Darwinian purpose have to do with anything mentioned here?

Choosing to not have children appears to "swim against the current" of the dominant biological process/context by which one came to be and in which one exists.

Certainly not having children allows one more time to pursue other matters. Mankind in general might gain (or lose) from such behavior, depending on whether one is an Einstein or a Stalin for example. Most anyone who participates in society has some set of interests and pursuit of those interests is nonetheless very real and the results may dominate our perspective.

I see no clear way to judge whether a person contributes more through his/her work or through his/her children. Nor do I think "contributing" (whatever that means) is a known evaluation anyway. And what one man considers useful another might judge detrimental. All the more b/c history is "unfinished business". IMO in summary we simply cannot know.

Aside: there's a T-shirt that shows the sinking bow of a shipwreck through a telescope lens. It's labeled thusly: "MISTAKES - It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others." Yet another viewpoint.

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