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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?

#911

Post by rayiner »

autoexec wrote: post #897
lumost wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been doing this math frequently of late. I'm 35, have one child and of my high school class ... maybe 25% have children? there is certainly a bias from polling social media. But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children.

> But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children. I'd bet that that isn't a "choice" so much as it is that millennials are prevented by their circumstances from having the children they'd want to otherwise. If more people could actually afford to have kids and were more optimistic about the future I imagine we'd have a lot more babies around

It’s absolutely a choice. That’s obvious because the millennials with the most money and education are the ones having the fewest kids. It’s downtown SF that’s childless. Working class parts of Dallas are bustling with kids.

It’s not that millennials can’t afford to have kids. It’s that they’re too self-centered and unwilling to endure the lifestyle hit for doing so.

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

#912

Post by happiness_idx »

autoexec wrote: post #897
lumost wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been doing this math frequently of late. I'm 35, have one child and of my high school class ... maybe 25% have children? there is certainly a bias from polling social media. But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children.

> But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children. I'd bet that that isn't a "choice" so much as it is that millennials are prevented by their circumstances from having the children they'd want to otherwise. If more people could actually afford to have kids and were more optimistic about the future I imagine we'd have a lot more babies around

It's quite peculiar to observe members of the tech community citing their circumstances as a barrier during a period of abundance and prosperity.

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

#913

Post by rayiner »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #866
lumost wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presuming that wealth and education are increasing in the general population - wouldn't this pose a problem for the future?

Demographic collapse will bring poverty allowing for the continuation of humanity.

Nah, cultures that don’t have kids will just be replaced by ones that do. This process is already will underway in America, with WASPs (who have a strong anti-natal streak) being replaced by Hispanics.

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

#914

Post by achenet »

toasterlovin wrote: post #400
up_o wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a funny question. Avoiding tangents, for all intents and purposes, I'm secular. Though I've only had two children with no intention of having more, I was raised Southern Baptist, the oldest of six. I love our big family. My mother was one of seven, and all her siblings have many children as well. I look back fondly on our holiday gatherings and miss them dearly. my aunts were guardian angels through so many d…

Yeah, wanting a secular natalist movement is where I was for a while. But then the truth of it hits you at some point: it will never exist. The secular way of life exalts the individual, but raising a large family is about subduing your own desires and devoting yourself to something more important than yourself. Well, guess who already does that: religious people.

I can find a small army of secular leftists who subdue their own desires and have devoted themselves to something more important than themselves - namely, overthrowing the capitalist system.

They don't make many babies though, because they've subdued their desires to reproduce and devoted themselves to the good of the planet ;)

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

#915

Post by achenet »

TFYS wrote: post #283
dotnet00 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would only make sense if the issue was biological and not socioeconomic. No one's getting selected out when the issue isn't a biological predisposition to avoiding procreation.

It is biological. Before birth control the desire to have sex was enough to make sure enough kids were had. Socioeconomic circumstances didn't really matter. Unless you were on the brink of starvation, you wanted to have sex. Now that that's no longer enough to produce kids, we need a new biological reason to make kids. That could be resistance to birth control or a stronger natural desire to have kids, not just sex.

The Romans had a contraceptive plant they used so much it became extinct.

Not to mention there is evidence of infanticide in early human societies. Indeed, it's been postulated that post-partum depression evolved to make getting rid of a potentially problematic baby (e.g. during times of famine) easier emotionally.

So 'birth control',in the sense of "ways to have sex but not make more humans" has more or less always existed - even in times of relatively high fertility. Don't agree that current low birth rates can be entirely explained by the pill.

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

#916

Post by paulryanrogers »

tacticalturtle wrote: post #839
WXLCKNO wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Communities like HN and Slashdot are why I'm not religious any more. And they've also made me more conscious of my choices and their impact on the environment and future generations.

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

#917

Post by autoexec »

happiness_idx wrote: post #912
autoexec wrote: post #897

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children. I'd bet that that isn't a "choice" so much as it is that millennials are prevented by their circumstances from having the children they'd want to otherwise. If more people could actually afford to have kids and were more optimistic about the future I imagine we'd have a lot more babies around

It's quite peculiar to observe members of the tech community citing their circumstances as a barrier during a period of abundance and prosperity.

Members of the tech community were never driving the decline in cousins or the population generally. Most of us here are wealthy and wealthy people tend of have fewer kids already. Even people here could reasonably have concerns about the future of the environment, our democracy, etc that might make having children seem unwise.

Most millennials, in fact most Americans, are not experiencing a period of abundance and prosperity. Their standard of living is in decline, their household debt is at record highs, and they still can't afford to buy the same groceries they normally would.

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

#918

Post by brailsafe »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #884
brailsafe wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I have had jobs that have paid well, but not for long. If you're not working backwards from an accidental pregnancy, you just have to consider the volatility of your life, and the prospects for the future. My dad had me when he was 21, accidentally, in a time not so long ago where various alternatives weren't super available, and made it work (horribly) until they divorced, in one of the poorest and most isolat…

If you go into a trade now, within 4 months into the apprenticeship you will be making money.

It's something to consider. Tricky thing is, I think a lot of people already did that, and kind of feel like whichever one I do will already be saturated.

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

#919

Post by paulryanrogers »

vander_elst wrote: post #415
khazhoux wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It really bothers me when people say "oh you're missing out, that's such a shame" Do you have any friends or relatives who refuse to try ramen or pho, no matter how many times you tell them that it's the best food ever, and that you also thought it seemed weird to put steak in a broth with noodles until you finally gave it a try and then you couldn't believe how delicious it was and you wish you'd tried it years ea…

Except that kids change your life in major significant ways and there's basically no going back. So it's not exactly like that.

Kids don't always change ones life for the better. Some people deeply regret it regardless of how the kids turn out.

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

#920

Post by skissane »

Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #875
mensetmanusman wrote: post #866

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demographic collapse will bring poverty allowing for the continuation of humanity.

I doubt it will. Infact, I would be willing to bet good money that china is going to start factory farming the next generation within the next 20 years, using artificial wombs & in vitro fertilization.

> china is going to start factory farming the next generation within the next 20 years, using artificial wombs & in vitro fertilization

Enormously more expensive than producing children the natural way. Given the CCP’s history of using coercion to make people have less kids (forced sterilisation, forced abortion, some even allege infanticide), I would not be surprised if they start coercing people to have more. From an ethical perspective that’s terrible, but why expect a government which hasn’t cared about ethics in the past to start caring about it now or in the future? Coerced natural reproduction is massively cheaper than artificial wombs

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