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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?

#911

Post by positr0n »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #766
pyuser583 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society has been getting better and better. The privations our parents and grandparents went though were insane. Conscription, poverty, illiteracy, I mean wow. By almost every conceivable metric, the world is getting better.

I don't disagree, but better doesn't make up for unfairness. Inequality isn't an act of nature. No volcano or hurricane is disrupting lives. The source is human, a system we built, the society we live in. If we can't change the system that binds us, then it doesn't deserve us. The core conceit is, "When I win, it's merit. When you lose, it's fair."

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying either, but I don't see it's relevance to what GP is claiming. Was society more fair than it is now for the last few millennia of higher birth rates?

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

#912

Post by positr0n »

sebmellen wrote: post #693
coldtea wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People today think a 18-19 year old (which is still a legal adult in most places and for most purposes, can drive, go to war, live alone, work, and was always considered an adult throughout history) is "a child". Of course kind of makes sense when 30 and 40 year olds also behave and live like children and find "adulting" out of their capabilities.

I can't tell you how strange it is to have become a parent at 24. It anecdotally feels like the average parents my wife and I meet (with similarly-aged kids) are about ten years older than us. Making life is a normal part of life, and it's quite sad that we don't acknowledge the capacity of young adults.

I had the same experience a decade ago being ten years younger than everyone else at the park or birthday party.

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

#913

Post by positr0n »

itake wrote: post #820
fc417fc802 wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/the-blowjob-that-blew...

Seems like a nice person

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

#914

Post by epolanski »

ponector wrote: post #850
Mawr wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you've consistently chosen immature women to have relationships with tells us nothing about the average woman. You weren't unlucky, you specifically made choices that led to these outcomes. Had you chosen women purely randomly, it'd be a different discussion, but you hadn't. You've done the equivalent of consistently driving above the speed limit and subsequently complaining about the police being too eager to g…

I bet mature women are not available (already have partner or not looking for).

Most of them are not indeed.

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

#915

Post by MagicMoonlight »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #446
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…

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.

Or alternatively, it’s a great idea because your parents can then help raise them and you can then start a career without worrying about having babies. Imagine being 25, already having your kids, and you never need to go on leave.

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

#916

Post by ChromaticPanic »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #436
vjulian wrote: post #408

What we need are 25/30+ year-olds who are completely at ease with sex, who have no hang-ups, and who know how to form strong relationships because they’ve been doing it and having sex freely since they were teenagers. Instead, we have a generation of adults of parenting age who are deeply uncomfortable with sex and emotionally unskilled in relationships. And that’s a big part of the problem. I’m saying a large swathe…

This is an unusual take. People in the past made 4-10 babies per family and they did it by being celibate until marriage. Sex positivity and casual relationships were not normal, and grandparents encouraged marriage before sex, probably because the grandparents knew they’d be partially responsible for raising the kid and wanted to ensure two parents to help care for their grandchildren

They were also marrying at 19

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

#917

Post by interloxia »

anon291 wrote: post #275
Aurornis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this, however people know what the sacrifices are, and very understandably don’t want to make them. My anecdote: As a parent, when I talk to people my same age or younger without children they often greatly overestimate the sacrifices necessary to have children. I can’t tell you how many times I've heard people (who don’t have children) make wild claims like having children means you won’t have good sleep for the n…

That's because they've been raised to believe it's hard. And seeing the various lists of what is required of parents .... I guess I agree. But here's the kicker... You don't need any of that. For example, we have three (soon to be four kids). My neighbors have one. I can't imagine how hard their life is parenting their one kid compared to ours simply because of how all consuming their parenting is. Every behavior of…

Perhaps Jimmy's spoiled by parents over parenting to their own detriment.

Or perhaps the kid's on the spectrum/whatever and they're desperate to find anything that works for them until he finds his happy place taking pictures of trains.

I have a hard(er) kid and then an easy one. The experience for daily life examples such as yours is night and day.

Having a strict routine sucks for the reasons you mentioned but it's a fantastic coping/management strategy compared to a possibility significantly worse existence.

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

#918

Post by the_real_cher »

positr0n wrote: post #910
the_real_cher wrote: post #885

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singular data point. Were talking macro level. Talking about the educated West where people have the information and tools to make the decision. Context inference is important

Macro level poorer people have more children than middle class and up people. In the "educated west" (and elsewhere in the world as well I think).

extremely strong inverse co-orelation with education even in poor countries.

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

#919

Post by thrance »

dalyons wrote: post #829
thrance wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doom and gloom that is somewhat substantiated by material reality. The world is getting warmer and nothing is done about it. Far right populism is getting more and more popular, with no end in sight. No way am I bringing kids in this environment.

not nothing. https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/46... "people are now putting up a gigawatt’s worth of solar panels, the rough equivalent of the power generated by one coal-fired plant, every fifteen hours." will things still get somewhat bad, certainly yeah. but there's a very real chance we're on track to a mostly carbon free future in a ~ decade. Im pessimistic about a lot of things but ther…

Putting up solar panels is great, but what is often missing from these optimistic pieces is the fact that globally, fossil fuel usage is still going up. Even in the west: coal, oil and gas plants aren't decommissioned as more solar farms go up (and economically, why would they?). And let's not get into transportation, where I don't see muany realistic plans to replace the current fleet of vehicles by electric ones.

So, all of this to say, I do not believe we'll live in a carbon-free world in a decade. At best, I can imagine something like that in 2060, and even then... My point is that we're already in a +3°C world when the "absolute limit" was set to +2°C 10 years ago. And it's not slowing down. We're currently on the worst trajectory envisioned by previous IPCC reports.

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

#920

Post by bethekidyouwant »

pretzellogician wrote: post #901
Tadpole9181 wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulling out is not birth control. Good Lord.

Actually, it is. It's just not the most effective method. This Planned Parenthood link says in theory 96% effective, in reality 78% effective. (Caveat: their definition of "effective" is not quite clear.) https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/withdr...

I have five kids all five were conceived during a single act. Pulling out is the only form of birth control my partners and I have ever practised. in my opinion even for a very fertile person if you ( and I’m not sure how someone could fuck this up ) actually pull out there will be no conception.
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