The good things about the Church

[Calm]

8 minutes ago, DT_ said:

I try to take the research literature seriously.  "Diabetes UK is warning that children born to women with gestational diabetes are six times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes later in life."  https://www.diabetes.org.uk/about_us/news/gestational-diabetes-and-children "Many babies whose mothers had gestational diabetes have no related health problems. But research has suggested that your baby may be at greater risk of developing obesity and or diabetes in later life. "  https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/pregnancy-complications/gestational-diabetes/long-term-implications-gestational-diabetes 

I can't get gestational diabetes because I'm a guy : )  

 

 

 

Yes, but there are tons of issues out there one can get invested in.  I am wondering why you appear to be so focused on this or how you even came to be aware of it. Most men don’t pay attention to gestational diabetes research, most women don’t either. 
 

As for the other…perhaps you are single?

[DT_]

6 hours ago, Tacenda said:

He's young still at 25, but doesn't date so not sure how it could happen, that dream I had for all of my children. Or maybe they don't want to bring children into this world the way it is, and the way it may become. 

You might be interested 

https://youtu.be/nronTIt99ag?t=409

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b9L-nMzs74

 

[DT_]

19 minutes ago, Calm said:

Most men don’t pay attention to gestational diabetes research, most women don’t either. 
 

As for the other…perhaps you are single?

Same with alcohol. A lot of men drink and drive and don't think of the possible consequences. 

Yes.

 

Edited August 30, 2022 by DT_

[Calm]

26 minutes ago, DT_ said:

Same with alcohol. A lot of men drink and drive and don't think of the possible consequences. 

Yes.

 

That sounds like avoiding answering why you are paying attention to the issue. If you don’t want to answer, please say so. 
 

Thank you for the second answer.  

Edited August 30, 2022 by Calm

[Benjamin McGuire]

2 hours ago, DT_ said:

I was talking about human evolution. The first humans appeared about 2 million years ago.

So was I. The book simply compares traits found in other moderately polygamous species to human beings. Like I said, the book is worth reading ...

2 hours ago, DT_ said:

Are you sure the increasing number of young men who don't have a steady partner is a good thing? 51% of young men are single compared to 32% of young women.

I never said it was a good thing. You keep repeating yourself. I am not in disagreement with you. Where there seems to be a disagreement is that you have suggested that there isn't any particular reason why this is happening. I am trying to point out to you that there are lots of fairly evident reasons for it. Let me try again -

When you suggest that this isn't a good thing, we need to make it clear that it is a good thing for the young men. Why? Because young men who wait until they are older to get married generally have much better marriages, have far more successful careers, and are far less likely to put themselves or their potential children into poverty. This is the heart of the problem. As long as it is better for the young men who are making these decisions, there isn't any real motivation to get the behavior to change - this decades long trend of increasing singleness will only continue. So what do you propose that might change the trajectory here? How do you think it could be corrected?

2 hours ago, DT_ said:

Relationship standards are too high right now.

I don't know what you mean by this. Which standards are too high? Can you be specific? Are these standards high on the part of men or on the part of women, or on both? Clearly, whatever you mean by higher standards has had the unexpected consequence of creating a drastic decline in divorce. Those who get married early, who get married before completing their education all have much higher chances for a marriage ending in a divorce before any children have grown to adulthood. Is this a better outcome than more young singles?

Finally,

1 hour ago, DT_ said:

I try to take the research literature seriously.

I am not sure I would agree with you. Neither of those articles proposed having babies earlier or getting married earlier. Both of them discussed options for women to improve their health and to manage diabetes or the potential for diabetes more appropriately. They aren't telling women not to have babies when they are older, just to take steps that will help minimize the risks. It seems to me that you are far more interested in cherry picking the things that support your point of view than you are in trying to understand the research and its implications.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Benjamin McGuire

[Benjamin McGuire]

54 minutes ago, Chum said:

or marriage focused dating, they'd need some hope of affording a life together. My sons have done the math. The only one in any kind of relationship is the one that has forgone Church teachings.

This is it in a nutshell.

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, DT_ said:

You might be interested 

https://youtu.be/nronTIt99ag?t=409

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b9L-nMzs74

 

Thanks! I honestly think if he was active in the church and went to singles dances or activities where people want to marry it would be a higher chance he'd get married.

[DT_]

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

When you suggest that this isn't a good thing, we need to make it clear that it is a good thing for the young men. Why? Because young men who wait until they are older to get married generally have much better marriages, have far more successful careers, and are far less likely to put themselves or their potential children into poverty.

We don't disagree. I think men should get married after getting an education or after age 25 (not 35). The problem is that dating is declining. Would you agree men should go out on dates before getting married? 

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I am not sure I would agree with you. Neither of those articles proposed having babies earlier or getting married earlier.

This one. You'll have to access the full study.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13410-020-00859-8

 

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

So what do you propose that might change the trajectory here? How do you think it could be corrected?

It's not impossible for mothers to go to college. Women don't have to wait until 30 to start a family. A 20-year-old woman can easily marry a 26-year-old engineer if she wanted to.

Edited August 31, 2022 by DT_

[DT_]

2 hours ago, Chum said:

For marriage focused dating, they'd need some hope of affording a life together. My sons have done the math. The only one in any kind of relationship is the one that has forgone Church teachings.

About 10% of college-educated women will never have children. Would it be wrong for a 20-year-old woman to marry a 26-year-old engineer?

 

 

[Hamba Tuhan]

9 hours ago, Tacenda said:

My son is a caretaker though ...

This is my solution. I've always wanted a family. Didn't happen. So my household is my housemates, the younger of whom views me as a second father, and my family includes my ward and extends into my stake. As a former bishop once told me in an interview, 'Hamba, you are a father to many sons'.

That's far better than being distracted by unfulfilled desires, in my opinion. Good on your son!

[Hamba Tuhan]

4 hours ago, pogi said:

I have never heard this sentiment come from outside the church, but there it is. 

It is a noncontroversial understanding in sociology and history that a large number of unmarried men (especially if they have lost hope of establishing families) is potentially quite destabilising to a society. We have many examples of this.

[DT_]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

That sounds like avoiding answering why you are paying attention to the issue. If you don’t want to answer, please say so.

I would say it's the higher relationship standard.

Edited August 31, 2022 by DT_

[Calm]

Thanks for answering. It helps make the person more real behind the words for me to understand motivation and knowing interests makes it easier to understand reasoning. 

[DT_]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

Thanks! I honestly think if he was active in the church and went to singles dances or activities where people want to marry it would be a higher chance he'd get married.

True, members of the church have a higher chance of getting married.

[Benjamin McGuire]

On 8/30/2022 at 8:38 PM, DT_ said:

We don't disagree. I think men should get married after getting an education or after age 25 (not 35). The problem is that dating is declining. Would you agree men should go out on dates before getting married? 

Probably not. This is going to be an issue about definitions. If you don't mind my asking, how old are you? I'm 50. I work in healthcare. I spent the last couple years of the pandemic back in school (along-side my job) as a way of dealing with stress. I had a couple of sociology classes including one on changes in family structure in the US. Dating is in decline - but that is at least in part because our society continues to shift. For those of us in my generation, what we saw as dating was itself a shift from previous generations. My grandfather, for example, would have said the same thing about the way that his children went through courtship. My paternal grandmother's parents met in a rather conventional fashion for the time. Charlie Muschel emigrated to the US from Prussia in 1868, and immediately moved to Cheboygan in Michigan to work as a lumber Jack. Emily Grossman's parents emigrated to the US from Prussia in 1868 and lived in Detroit until 1873 when they also moved to Cheboygan. Emily Grossman began working in the lumber camps as a young teenager as a camp cook. They got married shortly after they found out she was pregnant with their first (of 13) pregnancies.

Courtship didn't include this idea that we call dating until the early 20th century. That process actually became formalized within American society (I use that term loosely though - at least at first - because it continued to undergo some important shifts in that time frame - including moves toward greater interracial dating, and so on.) Part of the reason this is able to occur is the proliferation of media - magazines and publications allow young people to know how others (not just their own family and community expectations) were approaching the question of courtship. But something else happens in this process - the way that it is discussed begins to take on a language of economics. It begins to discuss (really for the first time) relationships in terms of competition. The scarcity of "good men" or "good women". It's been argued that this shift to dating and the idea of "going steady" which first started appearing in the 1950s preconditioned a generation (the baby boomers) towards future divorce - since they were already experiencing this sort of thing on a lesser scale as they changed partners during the dating and courtship process. The ideal dating model became one of serial monogamy. In our postmodern culture, we have shifted even further. Social media plays a huge role. We rate more than we date (that was the point of my 'swipe left' allusion to dating apps a few posts back). We don't just have a 'going steady' sort of category. There is less emphasis on monogamous dating. We have friends with benefits. And technology has really changed the pool of available people - along with the constant stream of advice from experts about how to get the mate of your choice (how to compete in that technological scene). So I wouldn't say that dating is declining - unless by the term 'dating' you mean a specific practice that we can link to a specific time frame. If that is the case, then dating is in decline because it isn't really all that relevant to our current social condition. Just as the courtship models that came before aren't all that relevant to the dating scene that came later.

The problem is that our society is changing quickly enough that the courtship process is finding it hard to keep up. And in our world of social media and influencers, [un]reality tv programming, and everything else, young people often get an unrealistic picture or expectation of what the courtship process should be. At some point, it may sort itself out. But, I am not sure that it will - as long as our society continues to disincentivize marriage for young people. If marriage is not a reasonable option early on, then the courtship process will be replaced by activities that aim for something other than marriage - and overall marriage rates will continue to decline.

On 8/30/2022 at 8:38 PM, DT_ said:

This one. You'll have to access the full study.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13410-020-00859-8

Yeah .... let's avoid having discussions that deal with a completely different cultural and social situation. The title of that study is: "Maternal age at pregnancy and risk for gestational diabetes mellitus among Chinese women with singleton pregnancies"

China has some unique issues. From the article:

Quote

Since the Chinese family planning policy was adjusted in 2016, more women of advanced age have become pregnant, making it important to clarify the relationship between maternal age at pregnancy and incidence of GDM. This study focused on the relationship between GDM incidence and maternal age or parity within a large sample in Beijing.

Let me explain very briefly a very complicated situation. The policy adjustment in 2016 referred to the shift that allowed women to have a second child. Prior to this, the one child policy was pretty solidly in place (only one child per woman). When the one child policy was put in place, there was an unexpected confluence of problems. In Chinese culture, the oldest son was generally responsible for caring for the parents in their old age. Daughters, on the other hand, joined the family of their husbands and became responsible for helping to care for her in-laws in their old age (and not her own parents). This policy (one child) was implemented in 1980. To help deal with this cultural challenge of supporting the older generations, China also began experimenting with state run retirement programs (similar in some ways to our own Social Security). However, two things happened. The first was that ultrasound technology capable of determining gender became widely available and cheap enough that it triggered a wave of abortions in China where families wanted sons instead of daughters. The second problem was that the retirement programs were largely limited to urban areas. In the 1990s and 2000s, China attempted to expand the retirement programs but had limited success. These two issues led to a shift in population demographics in which there are significantly more men than women (normal trends around the rest of the world are for there to be slightly more women than men). It was a recognition of these problems which led China to expand its population control project to allow women to have a second child. And it is in the context of having this second child that this research paper was produced. None of these issues (apart from the age related GDM) affect the rest of the developed world - making the recommendations of the paper less useful for us in our societal and cultural setting. It is more important in China to deal with this question because there was in fact a sudden push for older women to have a second child (in some cases, to try again to get that all important son).

On 8/30/2022 at 8:38 PM, DT_ said:

It's not impossible for mothers to go to college. Women don't have to wait until 30 to start a family. A 20-year-old woman can easily marry a 26-year-old engineer if she wanted to.

Nobody says that it is impossible. But we also have real data. And the data tells us (unequivocally) that having children before finishing college creates barriers to later success in life. That 20-year-old woman, even if she marries a 26-year-old engineer, will have more than a third less earnings potential than a woman who waits. This is a statistical reality. That 20-year-old woman who marries before she graduates from college will be far more likely to have their marriage end in divorce. And, statistically, they are much more likely than women who wait to end up raising their children (assuming they have some before they start college) in poverty. And finally, statistically, having children before graduating correlates with a high chance of dropping out of college and never finishing. And if they don't finish college, all of these statistics get worse. The less education a woman has, the more likely it is that the marriage fails (and more quickly), and the more likely they end up in a poorer economic state. These are all probabilities. So, as you note, "it's not impossible" for everything to work out okay. But, here is the kicker - GDM and the resulting risk of diabetes is also only a possibility. So it's not impossible for a woman to get married later, have children later, and for everyone to be completely healthy. You are applying a highly inconsistent standard - presumably because you are trying to confirm some sort of bias. That is, you value one outcome over the other. I think that there is also a bit of gendered perspective here - because you should be asking about this from the woman's perspective. What is more valuable for her?

Finally, in your scenario, you are arguing for some of the causes of the very things you seem to be so anxious about. When you suggest that a 20-year old woman could marry a 26-year old engineer, what you are saying is that young women have a much larger pool of potential partners than young men do. These 18-25 year old young men are competing for the same 20 year-old woman with a 26 year old man with a completed engineering degree. Which is the best choice for her?

In the long run, you still aren't answering any of my questions. You are just throwing out the results of your google searches when you think that they support your points. How do you think that we (as an entire society) should encourage earlier marriages and earlier childbirths?

Edited September 1, 2022 by Benjamin McGuire

[Chum]

13 hours ago, DT_ said:

About 10% of college-educated women will never have children.

That seems surprisingly low, considering how difficult career advancement is made for women who choose to have children.

13 hours ago, DT_ said:

Would it be wrong for a 20-year-old woman to marry a 26-year-old engineer?

I don't know how to evaluate this, using a metric of 'wrong'.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Chum

[Stargazer]

On 8/18/2022 at 2:18 PM, Nofear said:

I'm a Nebraskan

Cool! Approx. where? My German immigrant forebears settled in and around Cuming county for the most part. My maternal grandparents were born near West Point. I still have cousins who live near there. Quite a lot of them, actually.

[Stargazer]

On 8/18/2022 at 6:58 PM, MiserereNobis said:

I just have to object to the idea that coffee is no better than alcohol.

And also, I would have loved to have been at the wedding feast at Cana. I can only imagine how good Jesus' wine must have been!

It was apparently the best wine there!

I wonder if I invented a time machine and went back to the wedding at Cana, would I be breaking the Word of Wisdom if I drank some of Jesus's wine? The WoW would be 2000 years in the future, after all!

Perhaps I'm asking the wrong person. 

[Nofear]

3 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Cool! Approx. where? My German immigrant forebears settled in and around Cuming county for the most part. My maternal grandparents were born near West Point. I still have cousins who live near there. Quite a lot of them, actually.

Wayne. I'm a professor at the college. It's a nice small town and I like that my backyard is a corn/soyfield.

[DT_]

15 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

 So it's not impossible for a woman to get married later, have children later, and for everyone to be completely healthy. You are applying a highly inconsistent standard - presumably because you are trying to confirm some sort of bias.

I understand. I'm trying to be as objective as possible. From the study:   "may indicate that the optimal age for Chinese primiparas is younger than 23 years old. A study in Finland also suggested that primiparity should be encouraged at a younger age.... For prevention, GDM primiparity should be encouraged at younger ages than 23 years old. "  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13410-020-00859-8

The incidence of gestational diabetes is increasing fast and faster for hispanics and blacks. Would you agree people should at least know the risks?

15 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Probably not. This is going to be an issue about definitions. If you don't mind my asking, how old are you?

28

15 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Nobody says that it is impossible. But we also have real data. And the data tells us (unequivocally) that having children before finishing college creates barriers to later success in life. That 20-year-old woman, even if she marries a 26-year-old engineer, will have more than a third less earnings potential than a woman who waits. This is a statistical reality.

Do you have the data about 20-year-old women marrying 26-year-old engineers? As you said, it's not impossible for a married woman to go to college.  What do Erikson's stages of development predict about young adults who don't go out on dates?

Edited September 1, 2022 by DT_

[Benjamin McGuire]

20 hours ago, Chum said:

That seems surprisingly low, considering how difficult career advancement is made for women who choose to have children.

It is low. This is a more difficult thing to assess for women currently in college - since the time frame we generally view as somewhat accurate is not having children by age 40-44 - and this means that there is a bit of a time gap. But, for women in that group in 2006 that percentage was about 24%. That number has been moving downward. In 2018 this had dropped to about 15%. A large part of this trend has been a significant increase among women who get post-graduate education. And part of the reason for the dramatic swing is simply the large gains in women completing college degrees. This number may continue to decrease - but, I think given trends for younger women, it is likely to go back to a moderately slow increase over the next 10 years. Millennials don't seem as interested in having children as their parents.

[Benjamin McGuire]

9 hours ago, DT_ said:

understand. I'm trying to be as objective as possible. From the study:   "may indicate that the optimal age for Chinese primiparas is younger than 23 years old. A study in Finland also suggested that primiparity should be encouraged at a younger age.... For prevention, GDM primiparity should be encouraged at younger ages than 23 years old. "  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13410-020-00859-8

The link goes back to the Chinese study. And the quote is missing a word:

Quote

for prevention GDM in China, primiparity should be encouraged at younger ages than 23 years old or at least not older than 30 years old.

And it is in the International Journal of Diabetes in Developing Countries, so once more, I don't think this is all that relevant to our discussion.

9 hours ago, DT_ said:

The incidence of gestational diabetes is increasing fast and faster for hispanics and blacks. Would you agree people should at least know the risks?

Sure. And their physicians should have that discussion with them when they discuss their choice to get pregnant. Which is the point of most of these research studies in the US. However - and here is the kicker - I don't think that you know the risks. We know that there are things that increase the likelihood of GDM in primiparity (for those following along who don't want to look it up, that term means a first pregnancy). Age is one of them. Obesity has a much greater impact on the risk of GDM in primiparity than age. So rather than crusading about the age of marriage, why not crusade about the risks caused by obesity?

9 hours ago, DT_ said:

Do you have the data about 20-year-old women marrying 26-year-old engineers? As you said, it's not impossible for a married woman to go to college.  What do Erikson's stages of development predict about young adults who don't go out on dates?

Let me repeat myself. Which is better for the young woman? To take the risk for developing GDM during pregnancy by waiting to have children, or to have children earlier, accept a higher risk of divorce, poverty and the almost certainty of a less rewarding career?

I am beginning to think that you are a 26 year old engineer, wondering why you can't find a 20 year old woman who wants to marry you ... why do you keep avoiding answering any of my questions?

Edited September 1, 2022 by Benjamin McGuire

[Chum]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Millennials don't seem as interested in having children as their parents.

Filed under "What you wish for": I was late in life'r (GenX w/ WWII-serving parents) and last of the cousins. Exposure to babies was limited to shopping trips. Still, I wanted kids so I could create the parenting experience I wish I had.

I more or less did that. Now my kids are more fulfilled than I was and they're not particularly interested in having kids.

Super Relevant Sidebar: My kids were arguably over-parented because everything changed. Skills-building, free range time became associated with neglect. Kids with the ambition to try anyway risk ongoing DCF visits and having their future ruined with a criminal trespassing record.  Past that, modern suburbia did a pretty good job of erasing interesting places to go.

Edited September 1, 2022 by Chum

[DT_]

10 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The link goes back to the Chinese study. And the quote is missing a word:

The Chinese study mentions, "A study in Finland also suggested that primiparity should be encouraged at a younger age.... For prevention, GDM primiparity should be encouraged at younger ages than 23 years old."  

10 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Obesity has a much greater impact on the risk of GDM in primiparity than age. So rather than crusading about the age of marriage, why not crusade about the risks caused by obesity?

I understand. Church leaders get a lot of criticism for encouraging young adults to get married, I was defending them. Here's something to keep in mind, "Epidemiologists have observed that the average person typically puts on 1 to 2 pounds a year from early adulthood through middle age." 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/29/the-age-when-you-gain-the-most-weight/

10 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Let me repeat myself. Which is better for the young woman? To take the risk for developing GDM during pregnancy by waiting to have children, or to have children earlier, accept a higher risk of divorce, poverty and the almost certainty of a less rewarding career?

I would say the third option. A 20 year old woman who marries a 26 year old engineer won't live in poverty.  She can still go to college after getting married. 

8 hours ago, Chum said:

Now my kids are more fulfilled

You must be very proud.  

Edited September 1, 2022 by DT_

[Benjamin McGuire]

12 hours ago, DT_ said:

The Chinese study mentions, "A study in Finland also suggested that primiparity should be encouraged at a younger age.... For prevention, GDM primiparity should be encouraged at younger ages than 23 years old."

Yes. The Finnish study also argues that: "Further effective preventive measures against childhood obesity would reduce the risk for GDM." This doesn't change my position, which was: "And their [the women wanting to have children] physicians should have that discussion with them when they discuss their choice to get pregnant. Which is the point of most of these research studies in the US." Finnish or Chinese studies have a different set of agendas relative to the data than we do here - because their population goals are different. There is no question that the advice is valid. If you want to avoid complications with GDM as much as possible, have children earlier, and have children when you aren't overweight. But practically, the medical professionals need to look at who is wanting to get pregnant in the real world and not in some hypothetical.

12 hours ago, DT_ said:

I understand. Church leaders get a lot of criticism for encouraging young adults to get married, I was defending them.

And this is the problem. You are using the research because you believe the research is valuable for defending the leaders of the Church. I don't think that the advice from Church leadership is bad advice - it just isn't very relevant to the realities that young people experience today (and those realities are to some extent completely outside the experience of those Church leaders - it is an age thing). And the advice from the leaders of the Church isn't about the risk of GDM (I doubt that the vast majority of them even know what GDM is). 

12 hours ago, DT_ said:

I would say the third option. A 20 year old woman who marries a 26 year old engineer won't live in poverty.  She can still go to college after getting married. 

This isn't a third option. It is a fantasy. The statistics are clear. Women who marry earlier are a) less likely to finish college, b) more likely to get divorced, and c) much more likely to end up with a lower income level and a higher risk of poverty. This is a reality. It has been demonstrated demographically. And the risk of these things happening are at least as high as the risk of severe complications from GDM and the risk of children developing childhood diabetes. GDM (and childhood diabetes) are treatable (and to some extent preventable with appropriate lifestyle changes). Since this is the reality, it really doesn't matter how much advice the Church leaders give. Their advice will not change what is happening. If we want to promote marriage as a fundamental part of life experience instead of a capstone achievement, we have to do a lot more than simply give advice - we have to make some fundamental changes in the way that families are engaged by our markets and our politics.

The problem I have here isn't with the Church leadership. Their advice is fine, even if not very useful. The problem I have is with you - you are suggesting that we should only be concerned with the advice that the Church leaders have put forward in making these decisions. You are only interested in the data and statistics that support that advice (in fact, you are hyper-focused only on those aspects of the research that you think defend the opinions of Church leaders). You have zero interest in the fact that the way that you are encouraging it also creates significant risks for young people. This is a bad thing that you are doing. Perhaps, when you have children who are trying to make these very difficult decisions, and are faced with substantial economic barriers, you will have a different perspective.