[HN Gopher] The great cousin decline
___________________________________________________________________
The great cousin decline
Author : marban
Score : 102 points
Date : 2023-12-21 11:38 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| > Americans are having fewer children, on average, than they used
| to, and that has some people concerned.
|
| Perhaps if childcare was not such a crushing financial burden
| people would have more kids!?
|
| Each child on their own costs us more in childcare than our
| mortgage. It would be fun to have a bigger family, but we'd be
| paupers.
| mzi wrote:
| In Stockholm, Sweden you pay maximum 3% of your salary for your
| first kid, with a max 1 688 SEK. For the second child you pay
| another 2% (1125 SEK) and %1 for the third (563 SEK). From the
| fourth kid there is no charge.
| ginko wrote:
| What does that even mean? I assume you're referring to the
| cost of kindergarten?
|
| That's just a small part of the overall cost of childcare.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| Not here (UK), where it costs over PS1,000 per child per
| month for care.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| This depends on the age of the child, of course. If you
| want them looked after full time from 6 months it's a lot
| more; if you want them in after school club when they're
| 7 so you don't see them til 6pm then it's much less.
| constantly wrote:
| In America my friends pay $3,500 per child per month. The
| grass is always greener I suppose.
| white_dragon88 wrote:
| wtf on???
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| $3,500 per month must be 99th percentile daycare cost in
| the US.
|
| Most people play $1,500 to $2,500, for dedicated daycare
| facilities with the prescribed 4:1 or 7:2 teacher:infant
| ratio.
| mynameisash wrote:
| Out of curiosity, I did some spelunking. The US
| Department of Labor has stats[0] which summarize county-
| level "median yearly prices for one child at the market
| rate." Still TBD what the comprehensive data show at P99.
| That said, among the county-level medians, it appears the
| maximum estimated cost in 2023 is in Arlington County,
| VA, at $28,747 for a single infant, which is $2400/mo.
|
| [0]
| https://www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/topics/childcare/price-
| by-ag...
| midasuni wrote:
| Hopefully that's the infant:teacher ratio. 4 teachers per
| infant seems a little extreme, and means massive
| underpaid adults!
| wharvle wrote:
| Gotta be San Francisco rates, or a very fancy place.
| Nicer daycares (usually Montessori schools that also take
| kids under a year) in our US city are around
| $900-$1200/m. Less-nice, $700-900.
| sevagh wrote:
| You have to pay that fee to bring the kid back from the
| hospital.
| holoduke wrote:
| The Netherlands is different: I have 4 kids. All going to
| daycare 3 days a week. Total costs 3000 euros. I get back
| arround 700 from the government. Still 2300 euros. Thats 100
| euros more than my rent. Kids are expensive.
| seszett wrote:
| Isn't daycare cost indexed on income in the Netherlands?
|
| It is here in Flanders, and I think it's quite reasonable
| (also, government subsidy goes directly to the creche, so
| you only pay the remainder). About 100 euros per
| child/day/week, in our case.
|
| That's cheaper than for you, but I suppose our income is
| rather lower since 2200 euros/month rent seems awfully high
| to me, in the end it seems more or less the same relative
| to what we pay for housing.
|
| It's also rare to have 4 children going to daycare at the
| same time, since they go to school at 2,5 years old, so the
| costs don't last for long.
| holoduke wrote:
| After school care is also a form of daycare in the
| netherlands. Called BSO. It rougly the same price. Less
| hours, but higher hourly rate.
| seszett wrote:
| I see. Here _nabewaking_ is much cheaper, a couple euros
| per day at most (maybe more in expensive private schools,
| I don 't know). It makes sense to me because it's much
| easier to keep older children compared to babies.
| Balgair wrote:
| Is that 3kE per week? or per year?
|
| Because 3kE per week is more in line with US costs
| holoduke wrote:
| Per month
| Modified3019 wrote:
| Holy fuck that's expensive
| brewdad wrote:
| No one in the US outside of the billionaire/ultra high
| millionaire class is paying $150,000 a year for child
| care.
| runsWphotons wrote:
| I suspect the equilibrium proce for childcare is like just
| under the average womans salary.
| michaelt wrote:
| If one childcare worker can look after 4 kids, why
| shouldn't the equilibrium price be a quarter of the
| average woman's salary?
| sparrc wrote:
| Maybe this is semantic but how do you have 4 kids all in
| daycare? Shouldn't some of them be in school? (unless you
| had 4 kids in under 5 years?)
|
| At least in the US and UK school starts at 5.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| That's absurdly cheap... I pay about $900/mo per child.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Each child on their own costs us more in childcare than our
| mortgage.
|
| That's insane and why I'm considering moving back to being near
| family.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Makes sense to me. That is how expensive liability/labor is
| to "recreate" family bonds.
|
| Although, the labor received via family bonds will greatly
| vary based on family, and time period. What was available
| before may not be available now due to different options
| becoming available for the aforementioned family members
| providing the labor.
| toyg wrote:
| At least, some of what was available before (abuse and
| incest) is typically _not_ recreated by labor.
| argiopetech wrote:
| Physical and sexual abuse are not exclusive (or even
| nearly so) to family...
| toyg wrote:
| But they are overwhelmingly more likely to happen in the
| family.
| js8 wrote:
| If you want people to have more children, put them into harsher
| conditions. It works empirically quite well. Policies that
| prevent women from getting education, and reduction in social
| spending so that children can be forced into labor as soon as
| possible, seem to be the most effective. Creating more stress
| and economic uncertainty also helps; people will see having
| more kids as less risky option.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| This is missing the key component of women not having the
| option to not have children. Usually by limiting their access
| to contraception and ability to earn income. And a bit of
| social pressure to create expectations of them helps.
| igetspam wrote:
| Wait a second... this is starting to sound familiar. I
| swear there are policies that are too into place but I just
| can't my finger on it. Hmmm...
|
| /s
| rayiner wrote:
| I think that's a jealous rationalization. In my diaspora
| community, women are educated and work, but also everyone
| has kids because the culture emphasizes family over self.
|
| I'm sure that will die out over time. But it won't be the
| education and affluence that does it--they have that
| already. It'll be the gradual assimilation into self-
| centered American culture.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It has nothing to do with American, hence the effect
| being almost universal around the world.
|
| Evolution resulted in a shit mechanism for procreation
| and child rearing is costly, and requires a lot of short
| term pain. While there obviously are long term benefits,
| we see the same problem here of humanity needing to
| bridge short term pain with long term benefits and
| individual sacrifices for collectivist goals.
|
| Pendulums swing both ways, and the past was not pretty
| for women, and it seems like it will require over
| correcting before it swings back.
| TheCapeGreek wrote:
| To OP's comment then, basically force them to be paupers so
| that having kids doesn't make a difference to the (lack of)
| quality of life...
| pastor_bob wrote:
| When people say 'crushing financial burden,' many mean
| relative to maintaining their current DINK lifestyles
| systems_glitch wrote:
| $2K/month for two kids in flyover country at what amounts
| to the only day-care in the area. That's just the day-care
| costs, not counting the additional missed work from every
| bowel-voiding illness they bring home! Have to pick them up
| by 16:30.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| OK I know I'm doing it wrong because no one on HN misses
| $2K/month, but what's up with the downvotes?
| midasuni wrote:
| I certainly would miss 2k a month - it certainly whosnt
| be worth while one of us working at that level
|
| But stay at home parent isn't a thing nowadays.
| digging wrote:
| Or, again, make it easier to raise kids. Subsidize childcare,
| or even better, allow zoning that stimulates community
| development so people have free childcare in their neighbors
| or extended family living nearby.
| analyte123 wrote:
| Countries such as Portugal, South Korea, Iceland, and
| Latvia have more affordable childcare, more subsidies, and
| more parental leave than the US, yet even fewer cousins.
|
| [1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-
| detail/2021/07/01/which-co... [2]
| https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/03/06/childcare-puzzle-
| wh...
| cmilton wrote:
| Perhaps mothers could stay at home with their children.
| Relieving the cost of child care.
| igetspam wrote:
| Perhaps fathers could.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It is honestly nuts that we were tricked into thinking
| equality meant our families had to work twice as hard.
| Single-worker households should be the standard, just,
| without the gender imbalance.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| >Single-worker households should be the standard...
|
| Yes, this is ideal for children.
|
| >...just, without the gender imbalance.
|
| But why take this detour? Why does there need to be a
| balance? How does enforcing a gender balance help
| children?
| igetspam wrote:
| What detour? This feels like a straight line to
| reasonable discourse. What does forcing one sex to be the
| DRI for childrearing improve for kids? Specifically, what
| does it improve for girls?
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| With a hands-off approach, you would naturally see more
| women be the stay-at-home caregiver. If a balance is
| desired, that's when you would have to force things.
|
| I'm more curious about the motivation behind wanting to
| force a gender balance.
| igetspam wrote:
| What evidence do you have to support your assertion that
| women would naturally give up their independence to stay
| at home?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| With a hands-off approach, you would naturally see males
| constantly fight each other to lead the pack and mate
| with multiple women, with women having little choice in
| the matter.
|
| Assuming you want a more peaceful existence, and for
| women to have a choice in the matter, society needs to
| get hands-on to force a gender balance.
| bee_rider wrote:
| And anyway, what hands are we talking about? Human nature
| is whatever humans do I guess, and that includes things
| like inventing feminism and equality.
| tzs wrote:
| > I'm more curious about the motivation behind wanting to
| force a gender balance.
|
| I don't think anyone suggested forcing a gender balance.
|
| In the past in the US single-worker households were the
| standard. The expectation was that except for a few jobs,
| for example school teacher or nurse, women only worked
| until they got married.
|
| There was no law that said women doing other kinds of
| jobs had to leave the workforce when they got married,
| but many employers strongly favored hiring men. Similar
| when they wanted to promote someone they would favor men.
| They didn't particularly have anything against women per
| say, but felt that a man with a stay at home wife needed
| the work more than a married woman with a working
| husband.
|
| When someone wrote:
|
| >> Single-worker households should be the standard, just,
| without the gender imbalance
|
| I think they had in mind how the single-worker household
| norm used to work, and by "without the gender imbalance"
| meant dropping the assumption that in single-worker
| male/female households the worker should be the man.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That is mostly what I meant, just dropping the assumption
| that there ought to be an imbalance.
|
| I also very much think there would not tend to be an
| imbalance in a modern advanced economy; we'll tend to be
| equal, and that most gender imbalances are just transient
| effects from history. This is just a prediction, though,
| I have no data to back it up.
|
| I don't think there can be data on this, we do not have a
| statistically robust number of globalized information
| economies, we have just the one.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Nobody is forcing anyone, it's just the natural choice
| for the lower earning parent to step away from their job.
| If women to a high degree only marry higher earning
| spouses, then this is frequently going to be the woman.
| igetspam wrote:
| That's not the natural choice. The natural choice is to
| find the bottom of the barrel outside care and have a
| second income because we've made it financially
| impossible to do anything else.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Sorry, it's true that the common choice is often for both
| parents to work. I meant the natural choice _given_ that
| a couple has decided for one of the two parents to stay
| at home while their children are too young for school.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think even my generation, and I'm not that young, has
| the expectation that at least an approximate balance
| would be expected as an outcome, absent any enforcement.
|
| I have no particular desire to return to old fashion
| gender roles, and lots of people who want single income
| households might, so I want to be very explicit about the
| fact that I don't care to defend that position. Which I
| think is a losing position.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| A = 1, B = 4 Or A = 0.8, B = 0.8
|
| Make your choice
| bee_rider wrote:
| Is this some sort of incomprehensible-to-outsiders meme?
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| I will endeavor to give you a hint without spoiling the
| epiphany:
|
| You have two possible allocations of "utilons". One
| strictly dominates the other but exhibits an imbalance.
| The other does not.
|
| Now choose.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I pick the one with .8's because this is an obviously
| meaningless and constructed problem.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| Your failure to draw meaning from the simplified problem
| disappoints. If you can't grapple with this toy model I'm
| afraid you won't make inroads in any real scenario.
| bee_rider wrote:
| If you'd started the conversation with a good-faith
| attempt to be understandable I think we could have had a
| more interesting conversation, or maybe not, but at least
| it would have been shorter.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| I believe you were the first faithless apostate in this
| thread.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Unfortunately most women, even the most feminist and
| empowered ones, would refuse to marry a man that makes
| less than her. That being the case, if it comes time for
| one to quit their job, it usually makes sense for it to
| be the lower earner. Not sure if there's a way to really
| square that circle without restructuring male/female
| psychology.
| igetspam wrote:
| You have data to support this claim?
| sgerenser wrote:
| It's pretty self evident as a member of society, but
| there's a number of studies as well, e.g.
| https://ifstudies.org/blog/better-educated-women-still-
| prefe...
| igetspam wrote:
| Ooh. That's credible. A right wing think tank!
|
| I'll see you and raise you "single women are happier"'
|
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-
| good/2...
| tzs wrote:
| > Ooh. That's credible. A right wing think tank!
|
| Does that really count as coming from a right wing think
| tank?
|
| The article there just cites a paper, "Gender Asymmetry
| in Educational and Assortative Marriage", that was in the
| _Journal of Marriage and Family_ , and has a short
| interview with one of the paper's authors.
|
| That journal is from the National Council on Family
| Relations. I can't find anything that suggests they are
| conservative. If anything what I'm finding in Google
| tends to have them more on the liberal side of things.
| E.g., their board's statement against anti-trans
| legislation [1].
|
| > I'll see you and raise you "single women are happier"'
|
| I don't think you are using "I'll see you and raise you"
| correctly. It's suppose to be followed by something that
| contradicts what you are replying to. What your link and
| his talk about are orthogonal.
|
| https://www.ncfr.org/news/ncfr-board-directors-statement-
| res...
| bee_rider wrote:
| This doesn't fit what I've personally seen, it is
| basically random among my friends. But we're unusually
| progressive people in an already progressive state. That
| said, the Overton window only goes so far, so I think it
| will be widespread next generation.
| itishappy wrote:
| I strongly disagree with your framing that this is "women
| refusing to marry."
|
| Here's a few excerpts from the article you linked:
|
| > On one hand, women's advantage in education may enable
| them to be more economically independent and thus put
| less emphasis on economic traits when evaluating
| potential spouses (Press, 2004). On the other hand,
| evidence suggests that men may still feel uncomfortable
| forming relationships in which they have lower status
| than their female partners (Bertrand, Kamenica, & Pan,
| 2015; Fisman, Iyengar, Kamenica, & Simonson, 2006).
|
| > From men's perspective, although men have placed more
| importance on the financial prospects of a potential
| spouse over time (Buss et al., 2001), they may value
| women's high status only up to the point when women's
| status exceeds their own status (Bertrand et al., 2015;
| England, 2011; Graf & Schwartz, 2011). For example, a
| speed dating study found that men did not value women's
| intelligence or ambition when it exceeded their own
| (Fisman et al., 2006). Psychology experiments showed that
| men's self-esteem was lower when their partners succeeded
| than when their partners failed, whereas women's self-
| esteem was not affected by their partners' performance
| (Ratliff & Oishi, 2013). Although these studies did not
| directly test men's reaction to their partners' education
| or income, they suggest that men may avoid a potential
| spouse who has both higher education and higher income
| than themselves.
|
| > Given a shortage of more-educated men, women may seek
| to maximize gains from marriage by evaluating potential
| spouses more on the basis of income. Because mate
| selection is a two-sided process, it is equally possible
| that men hesitate to form marital relationships with
| women who have both more education and higher incomes
| than they do.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Sure, it takes two to tango, and some of the effect may
| be on the man's side as well. But if you're at all tuned
| into popular culture, it's pretty clear that from a
| dating/marriage perspective, a lower earning man is at a
| huge disadvantage. Whereas this isn't really the case for
| a woman. Setting studies aside, just look at what people
| say in the real world: https://www.reddit.com/r/dating/co
| mments/154w09d/do_women_fi...
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| > Unfortunately most women, even the most feminist and
| empowered ones, would refuse to marry a man that makes
| less than her.
|
| {{citation needed}}
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I suppose it depends on what the purpose of children is.
| I'll be a bit provocative and say that I think that they
| are largely status symbols - they need to go to good
| schools and onto high status careers in order to bring as
| much prestige to the family as possible.
|
| There are only a few years of their lives where they need
| constant care but the costs of all their education will
| be enormous later in their lives and so a couple that has
| two earners will be able to out compete a single earner
| household for all the expensive late-childhood/early-
| adulthood expenses that will come up.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I don't disagree that some people treat kids as status
| symbols, but that's basically a pathology in our society
| IMO. The point of having kids should be to raise some
| happy, well-adjusted people. Education is important but
| for their enrichment, not as some silly high-score
| focused game.
|
| Education--there's the cost of providing it, and then
| there's the zero-sum competitive component. As far as I
| can tell we seem to be re-investing all that extra money
| into deans, administrative staff, and fancy facilities,
| so I think we should just not play that game.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| > so I think we should just not play that game
|
| I don't think there's any way out of that particular game
| other than not having children; they're going to need to
| go onto careers, and as much as the education system
| might suck, it's less grim than the careers they'd face
| without a degree. My cousin's (I don't have a lot of
| cousins but we've actually been close our whole lives;
| we've lived in the same city and I actually consider them
| my college friends because we also went to the same
| school) daughter's 3rd birthday is coming up. His ask -
| no presents, just college contributions please.
|
| I myself opted out of the game early on, and upon a lot
| of reflection of late, I think this is a significant
| reason I did although I would have had a hard time
| articulating it when I was younger.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Individually we can't opt out of it, but collectively we
| could do things like putting greater emphasis on the
| state-funded education systems.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I think it's the opposite actually; only individuals can
| really opt out. As a long time observer of the US (having
| lived in it my entire life), I'd say it's a highly anti-
| collectivist country. Socialized education is under
| attack as unfree and lacking choice. I find it
| instructive to think about if libraries did not exist and
| someone proposed creating them today - can you imagine
| the screams of "socialism!" and the attacks on such an
| idea as collective ownership of books? And we're the only
| developed country that lacks a universal healthcare
| system.
|
| I feel that I've voted my entire life for more collective
| solutions to problems (what else is government for?)
| though imperfect the purveyors of such solutions may be
| (let's be real, as fashionable as it is to say that both
| sides are bad, the Democratic party are the only ones
| trying to actually improve things). But it seems that
| enough voters go the other direction that we have decided
| against such solutions. I am truly sorry for the state of
| things and that children today will inherit these
| problems.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| The education costs are high, but not THAT high. We're on
| a forum for tech workers and their corresponding suits:
| that kind of salary can comfortably send 2 kids to any
| university they fancy on a single income. We're talking
| about saving up about three quarter million by the time
| the second kid hits college. Faaaarr from impossible on a
| 1500-200k salary.
| brvsft wrote:
| Either one, doesn't really matter, and it is up to the
| parents. Although, not sure if you know this, but fathers
| can't breastfeed, no matter what you read on Twitter. It
| affects your options for the early years.
| igetspam wrote:
| Hahaha. As a parent and regular human, I'm fully aware of
| who can breastfeed. I assume my point was clear though.
| We need to stop putting all of this on women. Yes there
| are certain biology issues that require women to take
| some outsized roles in child development but those aren't
| permanent and telling women that they should stay home
| with the kids is usually not aligned with "until they're
| off the breast and then the father can stay home
| instead."
|
| Thankfully modern science has invented and improved the
| breast pump and the bottle warmer and after recovery,
| women don't actually need to stay home for kids to get
| breast milk. So there's really no need to be gender
| specific about which parent should stay home, past
| reasonable maternity/paternity leave periods.
|
| On the other hand, being single income is a luxury that
| not everyone can afford anyway. Our living costs have
| skyrocketed since 2020 and both parents working is
| necessity for lower and middle income families, in many
| cases. Even if the second income covers little more than
| child care, that "little more" is meaningful to people.
|
| If we want better families, we should provide ways for
| lowering the burden and not force women (her it's women
| because nothing grows in or comes out of men) to have
| kids they can't care for and/or don't want and find ways
| to make childcare more affordable.
| triceratops wrote:
| Not sure if you know this, but it's possible to pump and
| refrigerate breast milk. And even freeze it.
|
| Most developed countries have at least 3 months of
| maternity leave, and most children start weaning after a
| year or so. Which means 25% of that time is covered by
| mom anyway.
| anon291 wrote:
| Once we grow boobs, sure. Pretending this is at all equal
| is ridiculous.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| Yeah, in the 70s.
|
| Everything, including housing, healthcare, and education is
| so expensive now, we couldn't afford for one of us to stay
| home anymore.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It's all relative. People earned a lot less in the 70s.
| Minimum wage was $2.00/hr or so.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| It's not just the raw cost, it's opportunity cost. You could
| make childcare free and would still have population problems
| because women have to put their careers on the backburner for
| children. When you have kids at the age of, say, 24, you have
| to ask yourself: "is this all I'm going to be?"
| Ntrails wrote:
| I'm going to quote from a recent FT article that I felt was
| pretty succinct https://www.ft.com/content/cb93c040-a719-446f
| -9ec2-9ead9f130...:
|
| >[On women having children] There is no other job in the
| world about which people in polite society would say, "Sure,
| it comes with a heavy hit to your career earnings, there's
| still a risk that you might die doing it, but don't worry...
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| > "is this all I'm going to be?"
|
| Sounds like a personal/cultural problem of yours that you
| don't regard motherhood very highly - that's pathological.
| Being a mother is one of the most noble roles a person can
| fulfill in their life. It's certainly more noble than being a
| careerist for corporatists.
| igetspam wrote:
| Then why don't we pay them for it? Why aren't men clamoring
| for the role? Why do we often put "job" in quotes when we
| talk about it?
|
| Being a caregiver is absolutely noble but unless you're
| working in a professional environment taking care of the
| infirm, we don't really give the role much respect.
| argiopetech wrote:
| Men can't be mothers. It's not a job for which you can
| train. It's a role imposed upon you by nature.
|
| Fathers (and men, generally) can, of course, be
| caregivers, but that's only one of a mother's roles. It's
| far from the only one.
|
| I accept that your "we" is a group of people who don't
| value motherhood highly. Based on my wife's experiences
| as a pregnant woman and our experiences being out and
| about with our children, I don't think that's a common
| sentiment in the general population.
|
| I'll end with an unsupported assertion and a small mental
| leap: people are paid for work because it's the only
| incentive that will make them come to work. Since the
| 19th century, society has been progressively more
| successful at incentivizing women to abandon child
| rearing and home making in favor of commercial
| enterprise. Perhaps as a result (but certainly
| correlated), women's sense of well being has been
| dropping (at least through the latter third of the 20th
| century). Perhaps this link is causal, and the happiness
| lost is the reward for child rearing.
| igetspam wrote:
| Men can stay home and that's the point: we don't see men
| volunteering to be the stay-at-home parent because
| there's no incentive for them. We assume being mom is the
| pinnacle of female existence because we ignore the
| reality that all humans have goals and independent needs.
| Maybe your wife is special and thinks she needs nothing
| else and get cup is filled only by pouring herself out
| into the cups of others until she's empty. Maybe your
| local community days the same thing out loud. But I bet
| if you asked your wife if she ever felt like she'd like
| to do have something for herself, something that let her
| feel like individual she once was, she'd probably have
| some comments and ideas. Perhaps explore that a bit.
| titanomachy wrote:
| Without exception, my male friends with kids have
| significantly reduced their time and energy spent on
| their jobs to focus more on their small children. They
| all say that their kids are the most rewarding part of
| their lives. Most have highly-paid professional jobs. I
| expect to do the same, at least for the early years, when
| I eventually have children.
|
| This seems to be a huge shift from the previous
| generation. My father and most of his peers worked long
| hours and contributed little to childrearing.
| hajile wrote:
| Women are responsible for 80% of the consumer spending.
| If we assume men and women have equal pay, then 3/5 of
| men's income is spent by women. If women make 20-30% less
| overall, then women are actually spending more than 3/4
| of all the money men make.
|
| If men are handing 60-75% of their money over to their
| wives/partners to spend, I'd assert that those women are
| getting paid better than men are.
| titanomachy wrote:
| This is the dumbest take I've seen in a while. Perhaps
| "buying stuff for the household" is just another chore
| that a non-working partner has more time for? It's not
| like the average young family's consumer spending is
| mostly discretionary purchases the wife makes to amuse
| herself.
| floor2 wrote:
| I'm not sure who the "we" is in this comment, and I can't
| think of any group I know in real life that it aligns to.
|
| Because everywhere I've lived and every community I've
| been a part of, "we" absolutely do give motherhood
| profound levels of respect. So much so, that being a
| mother is an almost sacrosanct role and puts the holder
| of the title above reproach in many situations.
|
| Also "we" do pay them for it? If you feel better thinking
| about it that way, their income-earning spouse can be
| seen as paying them (by having the single income pay for
| all household spending). Also society at large pays them,
| by virtue of the myriad subsidies, deductions, services,
| and programs for children and parents.
|
| The biggest challenge I've witnessed to praising
| motherhood as a full-time profession, is that mothers who
| work corporate jobs feel attacked or disparaged if they
| hear any comment which suggests they are doing any less
| mothering than the full-time mothers. So we end up in a
| tricky position culturally, where you can call someone a
| full-time mother, but a phrase like part-time mother is
| seen as offensive or inappropriate.
|
| It's very challenging to balance giving respect and
| recognition to full-time mothers in a way that won't
| offend mothers who work for companies.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I'm a software engineer and I ask myself that every day. My
| career has turned out to be the least fulfilling thing about
| my life.
| dalore wrote:
| Not only that, the whole school system makes it so hard for
| parents. Say you have a few kids. They most likely will go to
| different schools in different areas. So now you have to get
| them all to different schools at the same time, at the same
| time as everyone else, and get to work. Then after school, they
| will all have different activities to go to at different
| places.
|
| It's no wonder people are stopping at 1 kid or none at all.
| dudul wrote:
| Why do they need to go to different schools? Why do you need
| to pack them with evening activities?
|
| Honestly, I think it has nothing to do with that. Nobody,
| once they reach the age of having kids sits down in front of
| a spreadsheet to start thinking of how to deal with dance and
| soccer activities.
|
| People just think having kids is expensive and will take up
| most of the free time they currently have, both are true.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Not to mention in almost every part of the U.S. kids can
| either walk (if close enough) or take a bus. The "having to
| go to two different schools" issue never once crossed my
| mind as we were deciding whether and how many kids we
| wanted.
| angmarsbane wrote:
| It blew my mind when I learned that other states have
| free school buses. In SoCal you have to pay for the bus
| so everyone drives their kids to school which adds more
| traffic to already congested roads.
| kristjansson wrote:
| Wow, I've lived here for years (without kids) without
| knowing that. That's LAUSD, or other parts of socal?
| dalore wrote:
| Because you have kids a few years apart. So there is the
| transition to high school. Then some schools are single-
| sex.
| dudul wrote:
| Ok so now it's even more ludicrous. So a couple in their
| early thirties is gonna sit down to discuss having kids
| and the deal breaker will be "well in 16 years Alice will
| be in high school and Bob will be finishing elementary
| school, so for 2 years we will need to drive them 15min
| from each other. You know what? Let's just not have kids,
| I don't think I can deal with this."
| wharvle wrote:
| Some absolutely see how full their schedules are gonna be
| with one, give some consideration to what that'll look
| like with two, older and at different ages, and stop at
| fewer than they might have if they hadn't thought about
| that.
| maxsilver wrote:
| > Nobody, once they reach the age of having kids sits down
| in front of a spreadsheet to start thinking of how to deal
| with dance and soccer activities.
|
| I don't know why you say this. As a single parent, who is
| close to another single parent, and with 5 total children
| in the mix, we _absolutely do_ stare at the Google Calendar
| spreadsheet view, trying to think of how to deal with dance
| and soccer.
|
| > Why do they need to go to different schools?
|
| Different kids are different ages, or have different needs.
| Pre-K is a different building from K-5, which is a
| different building from 6-8, which is a difrerent building
| from 9-12, which is a different building from the
| Montessori Learning center, which is a different building
| from the Special Education center, which is a different
| building from the Intermediate School District building.
|
| It's absolutely possible to have 5 kids, each of them only
| 1 year or so apart, all of them in the "same district, same
| zone, same address", and still end up with kids spread
| across 2 to 4 different schools. This is especially true if
| any of your children are outside of perfectly average, in
| literally _any_ way.
| dudul wrote:
| I was talking about _before_ having children.
| gsich wrote:
| Public transport exists, although it's not usable for
| everything.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| Can you break down the aspects of childcare that are
| financially crushing?
| Balgair wrote:
| Not OP but:
|
| Near me the cost of daycare is ~$500/wk, so ~$26k per year
| per kid. No discounts for multiple children.
|
| Median income in my area is ~$40k per year.
|
| There are a fair few state and local discounts for people
| near the poverty line, but things get complicated, as usual.
|
| Other aspects get rolled up into the financial costs of
| childcare, and they are not negligible at all, but daycare is
| typically the largest issue by far. As in, just solving
| daycare won't fix the issue.
|
| Also, daycare costs change a _lot_ depending on location. I
| have friends in TN that are at ~$1000 /wk and friends in the
| Bay Area at ~$400/wk. So the local CoL seems to have a
| smaller impact than you'd think.
|
| But yeah, daycare, man. You have to square that circle
| somehow.
|
| Like, you know the 80/20 rule?
|
| Kids are not like that. They're more like an eclipse. In
| that, there is a big difference between 99% and 100% of
| totality. With kids, you're not going to get a movable effect
| with just addressing 20% of the issues. You really gotta
| address all of the problems to get the needle moving. That's
| not a popular thing to say in government, because that means
| that kids are expensive things to try and fix and that little
| victories really don't matter all that much.
| brewdad wrote:
| The little victories matter in the same way that the
| Snowball Effect works for paying down debt. It feels good
| to see marginal improvements and those improvements allow
| for even greater improvements in the future.
|
| The problem comes when we stop at the first improvement or
| use that as an excuse to not fix new problems as they
| arise.
| wharvle wrote:
| 1) The costs are heavily front-loaded. This makes the
| opportunity cost _enormous_.
|
| 2) I think we paid about $10k per birth, total. That's not
| nothing.
|
| 3) Health insurance goes up. Kids are cheap but it's still a
| couple thousands more per year. Plus hundreds to low-
| thousands per year in other healthcare spending per year
| (averaged--we've had $5k years and $1k years)
|
| 4) ... Except having kids is a reverse lottery ticket for
| each one, and the healthcare & related costs could end up
| being "most of your money, forever", if you're unlucky.
|
| 5) Childcare costs are either $500-$thousands per kid per
| month (unless you've got relatives who are cool doing that
| all the time) or the entirety of one parent's foregone
| compensation for the same span (five to six figures a year
| for most folks)
|
| 6) Housing. Unless you _can't_ afford it, you're gonna find
| it very hard to settle for cheap housing in a bad school
| district. The premium in our area for a good vs. mediocre
| (not even the awful, horribly dangerous ones!) district is
| about 35-40% for a similar house. That's... a fuckton of
| money, and the difference is likely to be 100% financed for
| folks around having-kids ages.
|
| Everything else is basically negligible compared to
| healthcare, daycare, and housing, or can be made very cheap
| with minimal sacrifice.
|
| Child related expenses were _often_ over 50% of everything
| leaving our bank account, for months on end, when our kids
| were younger.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Perhaps if childcare was not such a crushing financial burden
| people would have more kids!?
|
| If expense was the main thing limiting fertility, you'd expect
| that fertility would be positively related to income, but the
| reverse is true.
| sarchertech wrote:
| >but the reverse is true
|
| There have been some interesting changes over the last 20-40
| years in that regard.
|
| https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Anal.
| ..
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| The solution about 0% of people want to hear to reducing
| childcare costs is that you have to allow higher children-pet-
| daycare worker ratios, which likely means in turn more iPad
| babies.
| anon291 wrote:
| alternatively, make grandparenting a thing again.
| michaelt wrote:
| Shame people are having kids later than ever (thanks to
| college debt), and moving to where the jobs are, so the
| grandparents are older and further away than ever before.
| midasuni wrote:
| And if they aren't grandparents are working anyway.
| digging wrote:
| Or increase childcare funding ???
| titanomachy wrote:
| That moves the costs around but doesn't reduce them per se.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Right, but if you're already partially paying (through
| your taxes) for childcare, the change in costs between
| not having children and having children is dramatically
| lower. And the financial costs of raising the next
| generation are shared more evenly across the population,
| instead of being concentrated on the people that are also
| doing the majority of the actual work.
| chongli wrote:
| Children used to be an asset, not a liability. More hands to
| help on the farm! Now they're an expensive luxury.
|
| No matter how much we want to subsidize child care, it's a huge
| investment that takes decades to start showing any returns.
| Would you invest in a company like that? Especially with no
| ability to meet the founders before hand (they haven't been
| born yet)?
|
| When you put it that way it seems crazy. Especially when you
| take into account how strongly the outcomes are linked to
| parental education and income.
| titanomachy wrote:
| The benefits to the children could take many years to
| realize, but the benefits to parents would be immediate.
|
| Your last paragraph seems to suggest that only well-off
| people should be having kids. That's certainly one way to run
| a society.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Whatever parents think of kids themselves the reality is
| the costs are high and have been rising.
| chongli wrote:
| I'm talking about financial benefits. Emotional benefits
| like bonding with your children are great. They just don't
| pay the bills. And they don't accrue to society at large in
| any measurable way.
|
| What society gets out of investing in children is measured
| purely in economic terms. That calculation is quite messy
| if we're talking about government provided full time child
| care!
|
| And honestly I think paid child care is a red herring of an
| issue. The real problem is that housing costs have
| ballooned out of control. This has forced moms back into
| the workplace in order to pay the mortgage on two incomes.
| If housing was cheap like it was back in the 50s-70s, we
| wouldn't be worrying about child care costs!
| vr46 wrote:
| My dad was one of 13, my mother one of 5, I had a huge family
| growing up, but most of my uncles and aunts didn't have children,
| so I had fewer cousins. But still 11-12. Still big. Fast forward
| to 2023 and nearly all the older generation are no longer with
| us, families are stretched across Canada, America, UK, Germany,
| India, and barely anyone knows anyone else any more.
|
| One cousin who I hadn't seen for, shit, 31 years, surprised me by
| arriving in London from Canada one day with her daughter and
| texting me from a UK number to triply-confuse me. We had an
| absolutely awesome week, two only children reconnecting after so
| long, and junior got to meet - even if do say so myself - a very
| cool uncle who knew all the best places to go.
|
| So my mission for the last five or six years has been to try and
| connect all my cousins' kids to my own, so they can hopefully
| maintain a casual connection and come up with their own
| relationship. Maybe before I die I can organize a big family get-
| together of just the kids hanging out.
| wintorez wrote:
| Not only Americans, I'm seeing this pattern everywhere in my age
| group peers. I'm mid-40 and in almost every gathering with
| friends and family, there are about 5 adults to each child. Most
| of the children have no siblings and no cousins.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| https://archive.is/CKV7u
| ajdude wrote:
| For those having issues , here is one that works with
| cloudflare dns:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20231219133912/https://www.theat...
| DeathArrow wrote:
| This reminds me of Cousin Vinny.
| igetspam wrote:
| COVID led some of my family into being antivax and the ones who
| already were just went deeper and bought into QAnon. Ny partner
| is immunocompromised. Willfully making choices that are dangerous
| to the general population is where I had to draw the line. It's
| unlikely my kid will meet many of their cousins. I just can't
| trust their parents and the things they say are comic book level
| conspiracy.
|
| My story isn't unique. Geography isn't the only thing preventing
| interaction with extended family, some of it is the deterioration
| of family because the world has gone dumb.
| malablaster wrote:
| > the world had gone dumb.
|
| Source?
| igetspam wrote:
| How many do you need?
|
| https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/24/anti-vaxxers-
| politi...
| hajile wrote:
| Maybe governments and big pharmaceutical companies should
| think twice before actively lying to people. Once someone
| learns that they've been lied to about one thing, they are
| WAY less likely to listen or believe anything else that
| entity says.
|
| The facts are in and the anti-vaxxers were right about the
| COVID shots. They didn't reduce transmission or risk of
| contracting the disease (they didn't even bother to test
| these things as Pfizer execs testified to the EU
| parliament).
|
| Even the benefit of the vaccine vs the strains circulating
| at the time was dubious as shown by the British monthly
| releases on variant strains (with hospitalizations and
| deaths being slightly worse among the vaccinated in the
| last couple of months before they abruptly stopped
| publishing the data at all).
|
| People were told they were crazy for believing VAERS then
| it turns out via the court-ordered document releases that
| Pfizer themselves knew VAERS was pretty representative of
| the situation.
|
| Now Florida's government is certifying that there's DNA
| fragments present in at least some COVID vaccines. A
| Swedish study showed that the mRNA can alter the DNA of one
| human liver cell line (at a very rapid pace) and more
| research is needed on human DNA alteration.
|
| Next you get the massive spike in non-COVID excess deaths
| in the years since the vaccine was introduced and there's
| suddenly very little money or interest in looking into why
| this happened.
|
| Most people don't understand the difference between
| traditional vaccines and the mRNA COVID shots. All they
| know is that their doctors were misled or lied to them. The
| drug companies lied to them. Even their government
| officials lied to them and potentially caused them
| permanent harm. It's entirely predictable that a large
| amount of them will never trust these institutions again.
| jemmyw wrote:
| What an ass. But here's a link to a Q&A on the DNA study
| https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/qa-
| covid-19-vaccine...
| Vaslo wrote:
| Ah yes nothing says "I'm preparing my child for the real world"
| then hiding them from people who have differing opinions.
|
| If your business partner is immunocompromised they should
| perhaps wear a mask and get vaccinated.
| igetspam wrote:
| My spouse (partner) should avoid those that put their own
| misconceptions about health science ahead of the greater
| good. Thankfully, those people tend to advertise loudly and
| are often easy to stay away from. We can't avoid every danger
| but we don't have to stand on well marked landmines. I feel
| like that's a fantastic lesson most kids lear: don't stick
| your hand in the fire on purpose.
| standardUser wrote:
| You may be new to the language, but as any native speaker
| will tell you "partner" in the context of that comment
| referred to a romantic partner.
| WillAdams wrote:
| I have been trying to stay connected with a first cousin who
| recently had two children by sending her and her family books
| each year which I recalled having read and enjoyed and being
| formative (in a positive way) when I was their age.
| spacebuffer wrote:
| I think my family has one of the biggest that cousin declines
| ever: my mother had 32 cousins, while I had only 1. I know that
| number for a fact because I've done my own genealogy. I guess the
| advantage is I have a huge number of second cousins
|
| that is one of the reasons I hope to have many children as I get
| older so that my nephews would have cousins to hang out with.
| jimmyed wrote:
| > so that my nephews would have cousins to hang out with.
|
| That is a very weird reason to have lots of children, unless
| you were speaking in jest. If you do decide to have many
| children, I hope it'll be for more than the mirth of your
| nephews.
| spacebuffer wrote:
| Well there are obviously other reasons I want to have
| cousins, but that's indeed one of them. I think it's because
| I've experienced having not many cousins first-hand, even the
| one cousin I have is 10 years younger than me so I don't hang
| out with him much.
|
| Also my mom was the first of her cousins to get married and
| have a child (me) so I always felt like I was in a gray area
| when hanging out with her cousins because there was too
| little of an age gap between us for them to not take me
| seriously (and not treat me as a child) but also I wasn't old
| enough to connect with them and live through their family
| lore.
|
| _few that was hard to write_
|
| more fun context: The age gap between me and my mother's
| youngest cousin is only 3 years so I hope you can see how I
| am considered like the true youngest cousin between all the
| cousins.
| lukas099 wrote:
| They said it was one of the reasons, not even one of the main
| ones
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I don't find this weird unless it's really the only reason.
| Having more family seems like an obvious thing to value.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Same here, but it's over 30 on my dad's side; My mom only has
| 10ish cousins. I have a single cousin.
|
| You know how kids go through phases of what job they want when
| they grow up? Every time I switched, my dad would say "Oh! My
| cousin so-and-so does/did that!" To the point where when I said
| "fighter pilot," I was, perhaps, less surprised than I should
| be when he said "My cousin flies an F-16 in the Thunderbirds.
| We should go to one of his air-shows"
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Simply a different, more humanist perspective on declining
| reproduction rates across much of the world. It's really not
| news, just a different lens. And this particular symptom is not
| alleviated by immigration - if you import a bunch of people your
| existing population doesnt get more cousins.
| rayiner wrote:
| This is one of the saddest things about American life. I still
| have intense memories of being surrounded by cousins, mostly
| living in the same city, as a small child in Bangladesh. My wife
| had the same experience growing up in Oregon. Very sad that my
| kids will never have the same experience.
| martinky24 wrote:
| Alright, let's not get too hyperbolic. There are FAR more
| things sadder in American life than not having a bunch of
| cousins.
| rayiner wrote:
| I find the small families to be the saddest thing about
| America. It's like extinction on the installment plan.
| Kiro wrote:
| Sad for who? I have no cousins (or siblings) and don't find it
| sad at all. I had a great childhood.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| You can't miss something if you never knew it existed.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| I hung out with cousins sometimes as a kid and honestly am
| glad I don't have to anymore as an adult. It was always
| awkward and uncomfortable feeling. There was just no reason
| I wanted to be around them and ultimately I still had to be
| because they were _family_ as if that actually matters.
| mynameisash wrote:
| My wife and I are each one of three kids, and we have two
| kids ourselves. She wanted a third because she very much
| wanted our kids to have the same experience of having two
| siblings. The thing is, our kids have no experience of having
| two siblings -- having only one is all they know, and they're
| very close.
|
| Maybe my kids will themselves want a family, or maybe they
| won't. I have no nieces or nephews on my side but do on my
| wife's side. At least as far as this subject goes, I don't
| ruminate on what might have been. Que sera, sera.
| xgl5k wrote:
| Exactly. Not only do I know all my first cousins very well, but
| I also occasionally meet up with 2nd cousins and once a blue
| moon will even catch up with or run into third cousins.
| standardUser wrote:
| Some Americans rely far more on friendships, though many people
| seriously devalue those relationships because they don't fit
| the rigid, traditional mold.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| People living the life they want isn't sad. They are empowered,
| and we should be happy for them. If the question is regret,
| life isn't fair, and we all eventually die. Cultivate emotional
| fortitude for adult choices made with all available
| information. If you're lacking wanted family, cultivate
| community.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Perhaps they should reframe as the end of the cousin bubble?
|
| People had many kids before and yet many died from disease,
| childbirth, accidents, war, etc. Inbreeding and limited resources
| also meant it wasn't a party for much of human existence. After
| antibiotics, before birth control, and before moving far away
| were practical, there was a glut for a few generations. Now
| things are correcting.
| wnolens wrote:
| Cousins are a really great way to be around role models who are
| in a next phase of life.
|
| Siblings are usually too close in age (or younger), parents are
| many many steps ahead and experienced your current phase in a
| different world. But if you're entering high school it's useful
| to have a connection with people entering college, or getting
| their first job. That rarely happens outside of the family.
| neilv wrote:
| The writer's recent articles are largely about romance, the
| article subheading includes "But the weirdest family role is a
| vital one.", followed by the photo of the boy paying attention to
| the girl the same age... So I was wondering whether this article
| was heading towards _Les Cousins Dangereux_.
| standardUser wrote:
| "Is there new legislation on this now?"
|
| Arrested Development aside, I had a crush on a cousin as a
| little kid and as an adult, I would absolutely date and/or have
| sex with a cousin. I really don't see the issue as long as
| procreation is firmly off the table.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Cousins are my greatest lens into human interaction.
|
| Both directly in terms of my cousin network, which is huge, and
| in terms of how I observe other people relating to their cousins.
|
| Let's start with me. My paternal grandfather had nearly 20 kids
| with two different women. Those kids then got scattered all over
| the world, and thus the grandchildren as well. My other
| grandfather had five and adopted another, and the same thing
| happened to them, war spread them all over.
|
| So I have two cousin networks that are massive and spread all
| over. I'm able to compare things like the French and Danish
| education systems by getting a first-hand impression. I can ask a
| Bay Area doctor how his experience is, or a Toronto accountant. I
| can compare humor across the Atlantic. Growing up, I could see
| cousins starting to date and get married, having kids. The
| younger ones are still observing, but are young enough to give an
| insight into what kids are like nowadays.
|
| In terms of studying people, it's hard to get better access.
|
| The emotional angle from the article is right, too. Cousins
| occupy this nice middle between seeing you all the time like your
| siblings, and not having to care about you, like strangers. When
| your parents die, the cousins are sad. But they are also not
| falling apart and are able to help out. They know common stories
| like what your grandparents did, how your parents met, and so on.
| But you also don't have to do much to maintain this, like you
| might with certain friends. With a large enough network you don't
| even need to talk to any particular cousin to get all the stories
| about them, whichever cousin is passing through will tell you
| news from his part of the network and you give them yours.
|
| In terms of other people, what is most striking to me is where on
| the near-far scale different cultures seem to put the cousins.
| Some societies seem to see cousins as basically friends: a
| relationship that's nice if it's good but if things so sour, no
| big deal. Others will think of cousins as basically siblings who
| live in another house: your aunt and uncle can tell you off just
| like your parents and nobody bats an eye. It seems to be common
| that birth/wedding/death news goes to all cousins though,
| regardless of what distance your society places on the cousin
| relation, and regardless of whether things have soured.
| felixnm wrote:
| I have 84 first cousins - 44 on my Dad's side, 40 on my Mom's. I
| lived in the Philippines for 3.5 years with my Dad's extended
| family and got to know almost all my cousins on that side. It was
| a great time and all my cousins were amazing. Our Christmas
| celebrations were the best and I still miss them, 40+ years
| later.
| rayiner wrote:
| Wow. I've got probably 20, all on my mom's side because she's
| one of 13. My dad's parents weren't keeping up lol.
| phinnaeus wrote:
| I've got 3. I'm an only-grandchild on my mom's side.
| conductr wrote:
| I have 4. All mom's side. I'm only grandchild on dad's
| side. My only child is a male and carries my name which is
| really rare and would have ended with me. The burden now
| lies on him. He has 1 cousin on his mom's side and because
| we had him later in life, with some bad luck, he lost both
| his grandfathers before he was even born.
|
| It's wild to me. I try to be thoughtful in building deep
| family-like connections outside of actual families to
| hopefully help compensate. My grandpa was an huge formative
| influence on me and that's the part that saddens me the
| most (he doesn't even know what having a grandpa is like).
|
| Also our holiday gatherings aren't huge, usually 10-20, but
| the family that comes is pretty far removed from nuclear
| just because there's not a lot of us.
| standardUser wrote:
| As someone with a very small family I sometimes lament the fact
| that friendships, no matter how significant or long-lasting, are
| not held in the same regard as technical familial relationships.
| Maybe this will change as the demographics continue to change,
| but I feel like we lacking the language to acknowledge it. I have
| several friends who have kids that refer to me as "uncle", which
| I love, but it still feels like the wrong label because we
| traditionally restrict special nouns like that to blood or legal
| relations.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Part of the problem with that is that in the modern world, we
| use the word "friend" too quickly, too easily, and continue to
| use it even after that person has demonstrated that they are
| not friends.
|
| If you have acquaintances that you call friends, quite
| subconsciously you'll have less regard for them than for
| family. And that might actually color how you'd regard true
| friends.
|
| I've only ever had a handful of friends in my entire half-
| century life. An exceptional person might have 8 or 10 or
| something like that. I doubt that most people have had any at
| all. The modern world isn't very good at cultivating real
| friendships.
| Jun8 wrote:
| On an interesting note, it's been suggested that the medieval
| Catholic Church's ban on cousin marriage was a major reason for
| the Great Divergence:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_W...
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >American families are shrinking in general, but with cousins,
| that drop happens at a dramatic scale.
|
| Not sure why this is surprising. You have many more potential for
| cousins if mom or dad was one of six, than if they were one of
| two. If they're only children, there's no potential there at all.
|
| So as the fertility rate drops, cousin count drops as a power of
| that decrease.
| decafninja wrote:
| I have about a dozen cousins, but only one in the US - and she is
| not nearby either. I basically grew up being strangers with them
| as a result.
|
| Obviously the means to reach out and connect are now available,
| but we're still just too far apart. Plus now that we're all grown
| up, mostly married, and some with kids, there's less time for
| everything.
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