NPR: Why children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

[Nofear]

Hmm, mfbukowski, your post quotes me but doesn't indicate that I actually quoted another.

[The Nehor]

14 hours ago, Rain said:

I thought of mentioning Vietnam, but my dad was there when I was young so it might have affected me more than others.

We did earthquake drills under our desks. I remember talking about the cold war a lot. 

I do agree that kids have more access to what is going on now. And while some may feel not alone because of access to others like them around the world I also think that being with others in the gloom has increased the gloom.  In some spots on the internet I see that happening a LOT.

I think these are different kinds of gloom. Nuclear annihilation is scary but there isn’t much you could do about it so you lived your life. When you feel doomed trying to live your life it is a different kind of difficulty. I have married friends in their 30s who want kids but can’t afford them. They can’t buy a house. They feel trapped. That is a much more visceral and direct kind of despair. You are playing the game but you can’t win and can’t participate. So why try?

Our incentive systems are all borked to hell and back. We are trying to encourage “New Deal” style living while in a “No Deal” world.

[rodheadlee]

55 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I think these are different kinds of gloom. Nuclear annihilation is scary but there isn’t much you could do about it so you lived your life. When you feel doomed trying to live your life it is a different kind of difficulty. I have married friends in their 30s who want kids but can’t afford them. They can’t buy a house. They feel trapped. That is a much more visceral and direct kind of despair. You are playing the game but you can’t win and can’t participate. So why try?

Our incentive systems are all borked to hell and back. We are trying to encourage “New Deal” style living while in a “No Deal” world.

The price of housing and vehicles is phenomenally high.

My parents thought they couldn't afford kids either but they had us anyways. I don't know what the answer is.

And one

In one of the Sci-Fi series I read children have many parents, three or four dads and three or four moms and they live in a compound or on a farm. That would be the Expanse series.

Edited October 24, 2023 by rodheadlee

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

I think these are different kinds of gloom. Nuclear annihilation is scary but there isn’t much you could do about it so you lived your life. When you feel doomed trying to live your life it is a different kind of difficulty. I have married friends in their 30s who want kids but can’t afford them. They can’t buy a house. They feel trapped. That is a much more visceral and direct kind of despair. You are playing the game but you can’t win and can’t participate. So why try?

Our incentive systems are all borked to hell and back. We are trying to encourage “New Deal” style living while in a “No Deal” world.

I don't want to downplay the difficulties that exist right now because they are real and have an impact on mental and emotional health.  But I do wonder if "can't afford" is sometimes (not all the time and I am not saying this applies to your friends) a perception issue rather than reality.

There have been people in past generations that had to deal with worse economic issues but still were able to have well adjusted loved children.  If that's because of a difference in interpretation of "can't afford" or something else, I don't know.

Speaking personally, not being able to buy a house in your 30s doesn't stand out to me.  We couldn't afford to buy a house until the very end of our 30s.  We've rented for most of our married life.  Only my 4th child has never lived in a rental; life can be really good even in a rental.    

 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Nofear said:

Hmm, mfbukowski, your post quotes me but doesn't indicate that I actually quoted another.

Very sorry, will try to correct it, or simply erase it. 

[The Nehor]

59 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I don't want to downplay the difficulties that exist right now because they are real and have an impact on mental and emotional health.  But I do wonder if "can't afford" is sometimes (not all the time and I am not saying this applies to your friends) a perception issue rather than reality.

There have been people in past generations that had to deal with worse economic issues but still were able to have well adjusted loved children.  If that's because of a difference in interpretation of "can't afford" or something else, I don't know.

Speaking personally, not being able to buy a house in your 30s doesn't stand out to me.  We couldn't afford to buy a house until the very end of our 30s.  We've rented for most of our married life.  Only my 4th child has never lived in a rental; life can be really good even in a rental.    

 

For some it probably is taking a pessimistic view. I know people who use finances as an off-hand method of getting their parents to stop asking them when the grandkids are coming. Those are the kind of people who just need an excuse and will find one no matter what. 

When it is clear both the parents actually really want kids and look at everything and realize they probably can’t even afford the medical care for the pregnancy and delivery I find it hard to credit that they are making up excuses. A lot of people in previous generations had children while not having a lot but there was also the expectation of rising wages as their career progressed and not expecting to heap up loads of debt before they even start raising the child.

It is also important to remember that if you go back a century having a child was generally an economic positive in terms of family welfare.

[bluebell]

12 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

For some it probably is taking a pessimistic view. I know people who use finances as an off-hand method of getting their parents to stop asking them when the grandkids are coming. Those are the kind of people who just need an excuse and will find one no matter what. 

When it is clear both the parents actually really want kids and look at everything and realize they probably can’t even afford the medical care for the pregnancy and delivery I find it hard to credit that they are making up excuses. A lot of people in previous generations had children while not having a lot but there was also the expectation of rising wages as their career progressed and not expecting to heap up loads of debt before they even start raising the child.

It is also important to remember that if you go back a century having a child was generally an economic positive in terms of family welfare.

And I think for some "can't afford" means "can't afford and keep up my present standard of living of lots of vacations, nice cars, new iPhones, all my streaming services, etc.".  But for others I'm sure you are right.  I've had 4 babies and three c-sections and those bills are no joke.  Thank goodness for the option of monthly payments.

[The Nehor]

8 hours ago, bluebell said:

And I think for some "can't afford" means "can't afford and keep up my present standard of living of lots of vacations, nice cars, new iPhones, all my streaming services, etc.".  But for others I'm sure you are right.  I've had 4 babies and three c-sections and those bills are no joke.  Thank goodness for the option of monthly payments.

As long as you don’t eat avocado toast though you can afford children.

[BlueDreams]

On 10/23/2023 at 9:04 AM, bluebell said:

I've always wondered how this compared to the generation that lived through WWI, the great depression, the spanish flu, and then WWII, all in short order.  They suffered a lot but it still seems like they managed to have hope and dreams that they pursued, and to do the whole "family and kids thing" that was adulting back then.

Is it social media (and the sheer volume of information and suffering that kids are exposed to) that is making the difference or is it something else?  Our parenting?  I really don't know.

Been meaning to add my thoughts for a day, but it's been a bit crazy. 

Fun fact: the times that you mentioned for severe social problems generally had drops in fertility (not sure marriage rates, but I'd assume so for some of those). Fertility was already dropping for decades before 1930, but it bottomed out in the 30s. It was only slightly higher than now (~2 v 1.7). The lowest time was apparently 1980, which would also match with economic and social difficulties that had come in the last decade or so (it had been significantly dropping since 1965). 

There's other things going on in that time that are in effect. Urbanization was a biggie to start shrinking the birth rate, for example. You still see that effect in any nation that begins to urbanize more. But there does seem to be at least a loose correlation between economic mobility and social strife/prosperity that is also in play. I'll edit in the graphs I found in a little bit. They're on my phone. 

For right now, I also assume several factors at play at the same time....it's been around 2 for a long time (mid 90s-2010) and only recently dropped below that. And it's never hit boomer levels. That is likely from the natural deterrences in our society that reduce the viability of large families. Namely urbanization, reduced utility to multiple children, greater access to effective birth control, etc. Prolonged smaller families also change cultural expectations. Fewer and fewer people expect or want a large family without some religious/familial reasons. And even in those settings the number to reach "big family" is still dropping with the ideal usually being between 2-4. 

Our current low is likely effected by recent crappy events that both reduce a sense of hope/stability in our future and make having bigger families financially non-viable. That's then overlaid with general trends that make children more of a deficit than an asset for parents, in terms of expected resources given to a child and payoffs for having a large family. Sprinkle that with different expectations and that more and more people are having children later when fertility begins to drop and wala, low birthrate.  

 

With luv,

BD

 

EDIT: SOURCES

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033027/fertility-rate-us-1800-2020/

 

https://www.prb.org/resources/the-u-s-recession-and-the-birth-rate/

Edited October 26, 2023 by BlueDreams

[Damien the Leper]

On 10/23/2023 at 11:30 AM, Nofear said:

Teaching kids social mores and values--I've heard the term brain washing used before. Grooming. That's a new one for me. Evokes the echos of sexual predation and the like as it's often used in that context. +1 troll points for creative use of language. Thanks for the example/tip!

That was never actually my intent. Who gets to determine the definition of grooming within social context? What are social mores and values? Who has determined those? Certainly not scripture...well, at least not for Earth in the 21st century. Who is brainwashing whom? Groomers, at least by the "right", has been used ignorantly as a pejorative for people who don't follow a white, Christian, nationalist and hyper "patriotic" manner of living and thinking. Nasty business that nonsense is. The hypocrisy inherent in such thinking is quite astounding. 

Let me be absolutely clear. I detest homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, islamophobia, racism, misogyny, etc. At the same time, I'm not going to tell anyone that they cannot be any of those listed. Wanna be a racist? Knock yourself out. Whatever. But don't ever for a minute think it appropriate that anyone can tell me how to raise my kids (not including predatory actions, abuse, etc. I hate those, too). No religion or any other social institution gets to have that power of me and mine.

What was that about trolling?