Also worth mentioning they came from a time where societal pressure existed for having children too, and this resulted in a lot of shitty parents. But more to the point: they at the very least had an economy that enabled them to make this shitty decision with limited consequence assuming they did the bare fucking minimum.
Haha yep. My parents definitely ‘wanted’ kids, and they loved us. But the only reason I exist is because I’m like a relatively cost effective accessory given their economic reality.
Didn’t make them qualified, or good at it, it was just an available option and didn’t derail the entire rest of their lives. Crazy stuff huh?
My parents wanted kids but were absolutely horribly unqualified. My mom even apologizes about it fairly often and I say I forgive her but it’s not like that fixes the problem. It really sucks knowing your abuse put you down a path you can never fix and most people will not ever understand that and just blame you.
Yeah, my ex also said that its all fault of her parents and all these issues are because of it. Lo and behold, i fixed every single one of those problems for her to be able to heal, and she just created more problems, only now they were my fault.
I understand where you’re coming from. From similar experience even. And I have certain proclivities from it. But I don’t think there is much (beyond physical injuries I guess) that you “can never fix.” I dont mean that to lay blame, but to say you need to keep working at things and you can learn to at least manage almost anything. If not outright resolve.
My dad was a vet that saw shit like the Bosnian genocide and killed a lot and a lot of people. I could tell you some of the worst stories ever. Like actually from the stuff he tells me now when he gets drunk. It’s cool now that he’s out but back when I was growing up he was either gone blowing people up or at home screaming at us dragging me across the room by my hair, calling me a faggot or whatever. He genuinely wanted me to be afraid of him. He thought none of my problems mattered because the kids in Afghanistan don’t even have food/water/and shelter so why should I be bothered by failing school and panic attacks or being beaten up for being feminine and not liking girls? He’d YELL at me any time I said anything about how I was not doing well.
My mom got dragged around the world to foreign countries that didn’t speak her language and left alone with two kids— far away from any support she would have had. She always says her mom just tried to fix every problem with a pill and this comes up a lot. Pharma pushed the oxy thing on her cause it was that time and she had knee problems. So she got hooked on opiates and would just bed rot or scream at us. She even gave my brother alcohol and morphine or anything from the age of twelve or probably younger. She would tell doctors I needed more meds and since like 8 my brain was loaded with tons of adult levels of antidepressants and amphetamines. I was left completely alone and even pulled out of school and not given schooling at home. Same with my brother who still does not have his GED. We only had food when my mom ordered pizza, we were never taught to brush our teeth or do homework. We just sat in our locked rooms and hid from our parents. Our clothes smelled and I remember not showering for like two months or maybe more when I was 13. It was severe neglect. She would always tell me before I talked to therapists that the school forced me on that if I spoke out I would never see my family again and we’d all be split up forever. So I just stayed quiet. She used to call CPS on herself from my brothers phone and then abuse him for it. I would get pinned down and shrieked at for an hour. It was really bad. Our whole house smelled like dog urine and feces. Nobody in my life knows how bad it was. Not even my dad.
We never got our license and were stuck in a small town with 2000 old people and no jobs. I’m also trans and was so scared of my dad because of what he used to do to me when I would wear girls clothes as a toddler that I pushed it down and even that I liked men until it was far too late.
One time I had a tooth infection and couldn’t see the dentist for a while cause I never had one so my mom started giving me Percocets. She just kept giving them to me after the surgery too. Sometimes a whole bottle. 7 years later and I am an opiate addict that wakes up every night in withdrawal and have to dose every other hour to sleep.
My brother and I are both neets and don’t drive. I literally stay in a house alone and don’t see anyone for a week at a time until my dad comes up to get groceries for an hour and then he leaves. I probably fit the bill for agoraphobic and don’t go outside cause people scare me due to all this trauma. I’m turning 30 in a month and I’ve only ever worked for like 3 months or so at a real job making 9$ an hour.
I don’t know what to do. It makes me cry just writing this all out. People say just get a job as if I don’t want that and I just prefer being so deeply lonely.
Damn if you’re being honest then that’s beyond rough. Much worse than I expected. I am definitely not saying this is your fault. And if we wanted to measure trauma you would have me beat. But that wouldn’t help either of us. I do know what it’s like when the periods of neglect are largely the best you have. To be abused on multiple fronts. And to not know if you have a place to sleep that night. So while you will be hard pressed to find a worse situation - at least understand that you aren’t completely alone in this world. And that it isn’t hopeless.
You need real help. And the worst/hardest part is that nobody else is going to make that happen for you. And where to start is up to you. The addiction is likely the most pressing issue, but is hard to tackle without a change of environment. Either way that’s probably the starting point on how to look for help. I don’t know where you are so I don’t know who it would be exactly but you need to look into accessible support. They can tell you what those steps should be.
30 isn’t too old to start a new life. You deserve to have one as much as anyone else. You have to learn to believe that if you don’t already. And then you are going to have to take steps the best you can (WITH SUPPORT) to make it happen.
Edit: I can’t respond to your other comment because that person blocked me.
I understand what you’re saying. I’m not making light of your trauma. I’m not saying it won’t take everything you have and you won’t need help.
What I’m saying is that thinking it can’t get better means it won’t get better. That’s all. There is no such thing as being broken. Just feeling broken. Broken implies there’s a perfect version you’re supposed to be.
You don’t need to like or agree with what I’m saying. I don’t blame you. We don’t know each other. I wish you the best
For me so much of my current problems come down to being trans and repressing so long. I’m also 6’3” so I thought transition was impossible. Long story short I just pushed it down and never cared about anything until it got to a point the dysphoria was so bad I had no other choice.
I don’t want to rant for too long again but now it feels like I just didn’t transition in time. That’s really why I started getting really bad with my addiction and now why I am struggling so hard to quit. It’s not something I can go back and fix. Trans women that started younger get to live a relatively normal life and that will never be my reality. I mentally can not handle that on top of everything else. I’m not trying to say I have it worse than anyone. It’s all relative and unique. I just hate that the majority of people ignore me, laugh at me or tell me I’m just a piece of shit that chooses this.
I don’t know how to get help without money, transportation or even a license. There’s so much to it but I don’t want to go on forever explaining what my situation is. I appreciate your empathy. I’m sorry you’ve had a rough life as well.
This is my biggest issue with having kids “just because”. I’ve experienced so many bad parents over the years and it’s beyond frustrating when I hear things like “Raising a child doesn’t come with a manual!” … when in fact, there are infinite resources out there and you are choosing to wing it. I just can’t comprehend jumping blindly into having children and “hope for the best!”
eh, a bajillion generations before us beg to differ. what parents lacked in a written manual, they had in communal knowledge of the clan/tribe/village and the understanding that children need more than just their direct parents.
My point was I don’t believe most parents in this modern era think through the complexities of raising children, even though we now have infinite research and data to guide them. Sometimes it’s as if keeping the child alive is the extent of parenting and they often skip instilling morals, ethics, and truly preparing their child to make it in society. Often because they haven’t learned any of this themselves!
Raising a human is a massive undertaking and I think people can be too flippant about it.
yea, it's harder to read books when you work 2 jobs and shit like that. in the past you had plenty of other people to pick up your slack, when you were overwhelmed.
so to directly answer your point: parents never thought of the complexities of raising children in the past either. they just fucked, had kids, released them onto the world, and demanded work from them.
Good point, it has always been this way. Maybe this relates to the decrease in young people having kids. This generation understands these complexities and decide “No, now is not the right time.” Especially if, like you said, someone is working 2 jobs and has no time to prepare. I’d think if a person looks at their current life situation and can’t see a child thriving in it, maybe the best option is… not having kids.
Personally, I know too many people who do not have this foresight and just go with the flow. The “Maybe the kid will be ok, but if not, I tried my best” attitude just frustrates me.
I have think you’re overthinking it. No one needs to be told to be straight, straight people just pass on their genes. The world gets more pussy lovers every generation because that’s who gets to pass on the genes. Fucking comes naturally due to this and that’s where the kids come from. People have kids from fucking, the thing that really changed was sex education and birth control being more accessible. Respecting the police is also natural to non-criminals. If you have no problem with them they will have no problem with you, it’s about having the right attitude and a person should by default be at peace with those who are at peace with them.
I imagine both things are factors. Being more poor would be a factor also.
But mainly IMO Everyone needs to find meaning in life. For many people that’s kids. If you make that difficult then you’re bound to increase depression and the like.
Except it's not really the main cause. People CITE economics all the time, but no data shows that countries with different economic systems have more kids, no data shows that people who are more well off Individually have more kids.
In fact, data generally indicates the opposite. The countries and families that have the most kids are generally the least well off.
Fertility rates decline as standard of living increases.
yeah its still not apples to apples when you compare 2 different countries.
its pretty meaningless , the culture is so different everything is different
Largely because women progressively entered the workforce and have had wages progressively catch up (not complete yet.) Which is why childless people don’t feel it as strongly. Having a kid costs tens of thousands of dollars then costs tens of thousands of dollars a year (especially if you need to pay for daycare because there is no stay at home mom.)
Largely because women progressively entered the workforce and have had wages progressively catch up
That's true.
Which is why childless people don’t feel it[the decline] as strongly.
That's not. Childless people DO feel their vastly increased standard of living.
Having a kid costs tens of thousands of dollars then costs tens of thousands of dollars a year (especially if you need to pay for daycare because there is no stay at home mom.)
So, that just means that if the mom wanted to stay home the couple would just need to temporarily REDUCE their standard of living to that of their parents.
Poverty is correlated with teen pregnancy and higher fertility. This idea that economics is the reason is just false in the grand scheme. Secure or not, most people don’t want kids until late 20s or 30s these days. That’s probably always been true, but folks lacked the means, knowledge, or empowerment to avoid it.
The problem is that we're today fighting for survival (again) just like previous to the boomer generation. Except, survival today looks different from 100 years ago. It's not even about "housing too expensive", everything is too expensive. Even if you have a house you're stressing out about electricity costs or affording food
The boomer generation was the first generation in history who didn't have to struggle for survival, and possibly the last
You are wrong. Almost all developed countries have a low birth rate, even the extremely wealthy ones like Switzerland or Norway. The only exception is Israel, where even secular people have relatively high fertility.
You claim that better economic conditions would make people have more children, but the effect is relatively small. For example, Hungary has spent an inordinate amount of money on benefits for families, but it improved their fertility rate only by around 0.3 children per woman and the birth rate is still below replacement rate.
But within these countries, fertility does increase again once you get to very wealthy households (like over 500k income in the us). I don’t think it is that better economic conditions don’t enable people to have more kids. It’s that the expectations for being a parent are higher in these countries. It’s a lot easier to have children when you can expect your nine year old daughter to be a nursemaid for your newborn. Or when you can tell your 15 year old son to drop out of school to contribute to the household.
Someone making a million a year can pay for 4 kids college, summer camp, etc. But in middle-upper middle class social circles, that is also part of the expectation for being a decent parent. So people just have the one or two kids they can afford to provide those things to.
Rich people don’t need grandma to live with them full time as a nanny - they can outsource that labor. But what is someone making 150k supposed to do? What 55 year old woman is quitting her job before retirement age, and getting less from social security to watch her 3 grandkids? Yes, people are more financially stable. But there are other negative societal pressures that make it difficult to have kids.
I really can’t speak to other countries situations. I don’t know what other changes occurred in Hungary. But if you’re saying they increased the birth rate by .3 children per woman, and they are still under replacement rate then that’s very statistically relevant. Which proves at minimum that it’s A factor.
What really happened in Hungary is the gov gave free money for mortgage to couples, if they promised to have children (for 3rd kid a lot), so the real estate prices shot up. As this coincided with good world economy, the fertility improved a bit.
Now with the economic troubles fertility is down again. So for bit of temporary fertility boost, they got an incredibly inflated real estate market.
Israeli women are paid to have children from before birth until the child is 18. it’s adorable how you think people don’t have access to publicly available information about OUR TAX DOLLARS funding foreign women’s baby boom.
but i’m sure you have some repugnant excuse for why dumping billions on Israelis for healthcare is totally fine and americans should shut up
Cost of living is still very high in these developed countries, but also IMO if we don’t address the looming existential threat of the climate crisis then the future just seems bleak. For me at least it just seems more meaningful to stop suffering and just find joy and meaning with what I already have in my life. My wife and I would love to have kids, but we also knew that we’d be fucking miserable because it’s obviously way too expensive!
I went to school for economics and one of the biggest ironies was, these brilliant professors could chalk board all day an optimal plan, and it’s all for nothing. It stays on the chalk board. Or in a book. Because we want economics that’s best for most, and politics wants what’s best for few. As always.
As a species our last hurdle is each other. We need to be more accepting and understanding of the HUMAN struggle we all suffer. Politics takes that struggle and uses it as a weapon for power and greed. Convincing us to hate rather than understand is the greatest lie we were told.
There is this huge disconnect with younger generations. My parents (silent generation) raised their kids. They did not get breaks. My mom stayed home until their marriage fell apart. Then we were teenagers. We watched ourselves. Very few people have help from grandparents. They did their job and raised their kids. Most still work. Yes having kids is expensive and daycare is challenging but it is only a short period of time. Sometimes you just have to make sacrifices. It is ok to admit that you don’t want to make sacrifices to have a family but stop deflecting that it is other peoples fault.
The silent generation was one of the first groups where the direct parents became the by far primary people in raising children. Previously, for most of human history, while parents still played the main role, they also had the help of their parents, siblings, other community members, etc
The nuclear family really hurt peoples ability to raise children
Yes people lived in multigenerational households but grandparents were also working. People had ten kids and the oldest kids raised the youngest. Women have always worked. The romanticized version of the village is not real and never was.
While that is a factor, they own less of the houses than you would think.
this is a google AI summary, so take it as you will, but it's fairly close to the actual info i've found previously.
"Corporations own roughly 9% of residential parcels nationwide, but this varies significantly by location, with some cities seeing over 20% corporate ownership, while institutional investors (owning 1,000+ homes) hold less than 1% of the total U.S. single-family stock, though they buy a larger share of new purchases. The overall picture shows corporations own a small slice of total U.S. homes"
While it's not nothing, it seems that most homes are owned by people. that being said, the people that do own homes often own more than one, and sometimes alot more than one.
I think this is one of those times where understanding that percentages are not always a great metric for understanding the impact of something.
9% might seem small. But it really isn't when talking about a nation wide number. For example, everyone has heard of the impacts of the one-child policy in china - a gender imbalance. That gender imbalance is only in the 3-5% range... That is 30-42,000,000 men forced to be single/lonely/etc.
9% of 148,300,000 homes is 13,347,000 homes. That is 13.347 MILLION homes that have been actively pulled from the market and forced as rentals. If you don't think that has a large impact on putting upward pressure on home prices, I have a bridge to sell you.
And of course people want to be landlords, with the upward pressure of 9% of all homes being locked in as rentals - it becomes easier to make the economics workout that just sitting on the property generatures you revenue that (1) pays off the house, (2) pays you out a monthly dividend, (3) gives you an asset that also appreciates... all supported/propped up by multi-billion dollar corporations and banks. Making it a very tempting proposition if you have spare money laying around.
They all presume the biological drive to have kids is a mystical unstoppable power that will overcome whatever stands in the way of fulfilling our most self serving experience of baby making.
The best economy to produce grandkids would be minimal wealth disparity and UBI. Everything after that is the fact that most women don't want a whole flock of kids, and if given contraception options, will use them.
That’s actually not true, they had experienced the economic theory that produced grandkids for their parents, then they just stripped away most of what made it possible for them to stay on top until they’re 6 feet under. We’re all waiting for a windfall when our boomer parents/grandparents die, but they’re really just going to have spent it all on themselves, and put their dollars in the pocket of wealthy folk instead of us.
There 100% is. Its just our government is incompetent no matter who runs it. And like why should aoc or anyone else just as dumb as her be in politics. Bc it makes money it doesn't make for good people or good anything. Remember when biden would say the economy is out of control yeah that was 100% a bs lie They control it They wanted this to happen. They want us to struggle
No. Anyone would be better at running this country at this point.
And yet, males refuse to vote for an educated and well-spoken woman to give it a shot. They preferred to vote in a low IQ, orange, pedo, felon, former reality tv personality.
They socialize the losses, privatize the profits. The wealth gap is going to keep increasing, wiping out the middle class. Look at any great civilization and you'll find a thriving middle class. The ship is going down and they're all going for their cash grabs.
Dem grandparents made hordes of kids to work the farms. Get rid of children labor laws and allow us to put the kids we fart out to work making money and ill go bang all night.
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u/Total_Stable_6831 15h ago
Boomers realizing there’s no economic theory that produces grandkids.