> the researchers say that children may be "evolutionarily primed" to expect exceptionally high levels of physical contact and care,
What strikes me here is the phrase, "exceptionally high levels." I imagine children need a "normal" level of care; it's only "exceptionally high" in comparison to the deprived state of family systems in these degenerate times.
I often reflect on the understanding in Attachment Theory, wherein a child a needs to have a caregiver who is sufficiently attuned to the child's needs. And it turns out, "sufficiently attuned" means that the caregiver responds in an attuned manner to 30%-50% the child's entreaties. As one of my meditation teachers says, 'That's not a high bar. What grade did you get the last time you scored 50% on a test?'
I think the word "exceptionally" arises when comparing with other animals, the amount of effort a human child needs from its parents and family until an advanced age is unprecedented in other terrestrial companions.
Indeed, it always a source of surprise to me that human babies will cry regardless of the situation, whereas the offspring of other animals seem to have an instinct to remain quiet while the mother is not about, or there's a perceived danger.
Yeah maybe that’s why women live longer in order to help with the exhausting process of raising their grandchildren [1].
We love to take care of babies, regardless of (or maybe because of) how clingy and dependent they are.
From an Evolutionary point of view, This relationship between needy babies and abnegated caregivers might have given rise to a complementary schimogenesis according to Gregory Bateson, in which babies might have evolved to be more and more dependent, because having more and more invested caregivers produces fitter offspring.
Parenthood is a self-inflicted sabotage and I cannot understand how come there are so many parents bearing children worldwide.
1. The Gardener and the Carpenter: Alison Gopnik, Erin Bennett: 9781536617832
I think it's not really about responding to 100% of a child demands, it's maybe even detrimental, and probably better to start teaching him patience, and let him learn what to do in boredom. But the other part is having long and meaningful activities/experiences with a child
I try to teach my baby to be patient when he’s hangry, but he slaps, punches, kicks and bites.
He doesn’t even say “I’m hangry, you incompetent giant”. He demands to be held in arms, he punches, bites and slaps my face. He did this for the first time when he was around 3 months old.
Patience is learnt through many years, specially when the belly is full.
Hangry people can turn violent, like most restaurant workers know.
As “the whole-brained child” book states, children can not be reasonable when they are in a tantrum
You can only do this once they grow older. Babies just need continuous attention. They are incapable of tending to their needs. And they too cute to be ignored :)
Sounds like parents too tired from work making up reasons why being exploited past the point where they can care for their kids is actually a good thing.
Given that we actually give kids massive amount of attention compared to historical standards ... calling current situation "degenerate" is absurd. Also considering that by many statistics, children do better then they used to just a few decades ago.
Significantly better than some historical standards and significantly worse than others. We aren't doing the best that has ever been done across all cultures and history in this regard, not by far.
> Given that we actually give kids massive amount of attention compared to historical standards ...
This is literally based on a comparison with hunger-gatherer societies.
To the extent that there is any accuracy to your "compared to historical standards", its probably based on a low point reached (in the "developed" world) somewhere between the first industrial revolution and mid-20th century,
> Given that we actually give kids massive amount of attention compared to historical standards ... calling current situation "degenerate" is absurd.
This seems to assume that ~all attention is positive and that attention is still beneficial after the Xth hour. After a time the adult role becomes less parent and more like prison guard duty.
It also seems to assume adult-time is enough for kids and that peer-only time isn't an irreplaceable environment for kids to develop their core social skills.
They make a lot of entreaties. And if they are sick, there may be nothing the caregiver can do about it. If 20% of the entreaties are things like an upset stomach, then that 30-50% becomes 38-62%. If the baby has colic, good luck!
The book Hunt, Gather, Parent touches on this a bit. It takes 3-4 humans, not necessarily adults but cousins and whatnot, to take care of a child. Two? 6-8. Since western societies broke up tight knit communities, the support system for this in the west has been lacking and jerry rigged with tired parents and nannies etc ever since.
Interesting hypothesis, but I don’t know if I buy it.
Much of India had also long barred cousin marriages, probably long before the Roman Catholic Church, but the dependencies and village raising the kids dynamic still existed (until recently).
If I were to guess, the main causal factor is economic/security independence. If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom and have financial independence and physical security, then people tend to choose that (e.g. getting an education and a well paying job, etc).
The latter basically destroys any chance of “village raising a child”, because no village bonds will exist, since everyone is moving around for their economic opportunities.
If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom and have financial independence and physical security, then people tend to choose that
you make it sound like these are opposing incompatible choices. why not choose both?
i'd love to live in a small tight knit community. going to school and getting a good education does not prevent that. and with more options to work from home it is now even more possible than it was in the past.
also, people didn't move because they wanted to gain independence. they are forced to move because they can't find work at home. in europe the majority of people live where they grow up and do not move far from there, unless lack of local jobs forces them to. which is one reason why big cities are popular and growing because jobs are there, and it is more likely that future generations will have jobs there too, so they can stay.
That linked article also appears incorrect about the Eastern Orthodox Church as well. The churches in the east inherited the Roman ban on marrying cousins.
The linked article is pretty ridiculous. I am pretty sure it leaves out a lot of nuance from the underlying work - as these types of press releases normally do - but there is a bunch of stuff in there that just does not make sense.
First the taboo against consanguineous marriages was most likely because of genetic diseases. Biology may not have been very advanced, but people were smart enough to pick up on patterns. Similar to taboos against cannibalism despite having no concept of prion disease.
If this was pushed by the catholic church then explain Italian families!
Is “the hero’s journey” not a story about rugged individualism that has been told over and over in different forms across cultures since the beginning of history?
The whole point of the hero monomyth is that the hero is a hero. They're an exceptional individual, sometimes the child of a god, sent on an exceptional quest that nobody else can accomplish. And even so, they are reluctant to leave society at first, and eventually return to it. I don't think its purpose is primarily to facilitate individual aspiration.
> Is “the hero’s journey” not a story about rugged individualism that has been told over and over in different forms across cultures since the beginning of history?
I don't think so. The heros journey does not need to be about "rugged individualism" at all. Not is about it all across cultures and history.
We like stories about rugged individualism. We prefer them. And oftentimes, we change original stories fro. other culture to fit the patterns we like or ignore those that don't fit them.
And also, across cultures and history, the hero journey is far from the only or even primary kind of story.
> Is “the hero’s journey” not a story about rugged individualism that has been told over and over in different forms across cultures since the beginning of history?
I dont thi k thats true at all -
Lets see, oldest stories - buddhism, hiduism - none of them are about individualism.
I wouldn't say the christian writing or that of ancient Egypt is about individualism either.
The oldest 'hero's journey' I can think of, would be myths of ancient greece - but ewually, many of them are not heroic, they are dramas.
The dominance of this genre is a compeltely modern phenomena
The hero usually has companions and almost always has a mentor. The hero must be of strong mind and body, certainly, but that doesn't necessarily suggest individualism.
Buddhist countries (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia) have a West-like kinship intensity index. So, hmm, no. You can do better (as better than Muslim like countries and the Western individualistic societies).
The technical term for this is alloparenting, and it should be more well known outside anthropology. It has been extensively studied and I cannot find very much unique about this study, except perhaps the involvement of a child psychologist.
If it helps get the word out I’m all for it, though.
This is once of the things that remote work/homeworking may enable, if companies don't succeed in taking it away. If people can rely on getting remote work, they can arrange their living situation to improve the rest of their life, instead of for work:
- young people living in large halls, to improve their dating prospects
- groups of friends living close together across job moves, enabling longer term friendships
- new parents living in groups to reduce the burden of parenting
I’m already doing this with a set of friends in a big city with decent public transportation (relative to the world).
We all share a two story two flat. It’s quite fun, and my mental health is great. The big “but” is that it’s unlikely to last because people value different things. Most of us are doing this arrangement because it’s ridiculously inexpensive compared to other forms of housing. One has already moved out to live with his girlfriend, and another is probably going to move to another city.
This is of course ignoring the other very real problems: job prospects for industries are not uniform across cities (you may have friends in another industry that is in decline for your local)… etc.
I wouldn’t mind a return to communal apartments, with a dining hall, and a lounge away from the property manager and the entrance. But it’s doubtful very many people will ever use those facilities (when you have more interesting stuff to do outside the complex, or inside your own room, why settle for the third place?). The culture of friendship is also lacking in my current country (U.S.), and communal values are nonexistent.
I don’t think remote work is the bottleneck to people living like this. It’s fun when you’re young but most people outgrow the situation relatively quickly as they age (barring budget-driven forced decisions).
I also see a growing detachment from reality in some of the remote work maximalists who forget that not everyone has a job sitting at a computer all day. A significant number of younger people have jobs involved in-person work where remote isn’t even possible. This seems to be forgotten about in some of the writings about how remote work might change society, especially on HN where many commenters have only known jobs sitting in isolation at a computer.
Don’t think it has to do with class. Surgeons and dentists still need to show up to work. Even in tech, the higher up you are, the more likely you will want to be in the office.
Yes, this is true. I'm not sure that the opportunity should be foregone for that reason, but it would widen the cultural and living standard has between the classes.
Given that it requires changing property market choices, its only going to happen on a big scale if working from home beds in and people feel they can rely on it longer term.
Having said that, I've seen some adverts for 'student hall ' like living for young professionals. That works because the investor can switch to the actual student market.
> childcare needs to give parents an actual break.
In my experience caring for your small children is really demanding work. On the one hand you need to be focused on the situation in order to protect the children and on the other hand there is not much going on for entertaining yourself.
Creative or focused deep work where you get a positive feeling of accomplishment also counts as a break from childcare for me. So a break does not necessarily mean not working. But I believe there are a lot of demanding jobs that are not a break from childcare.
The other aspect I can relate to is the fact that in hunter-gatherer communities many different caregivers support each other. Every summer we travel in the mountains with 3-4 other families and their kids. Last year there where 12 kids under the age of 8. Sounds very stressful but actually it was really smooth. Having multiple parents available all the time allowed everyone to take a real break once in a while. And also the children enjoyed having multiple different adults they could interact with apart from their parents.
So I really think this concept works, but only if you all live under the same roof. Which in practice is only possible during holidays.
This is a very high quality comment and I suspect will capture many parents’ feelings. Something that shocks me, even as an experienced parent, in caring for two small children is how physically and mentally tired I am at the end of the day without having done anything particularly challenging. The level of alertness required to track and monitor several mobile toddlers is quite draining.
Actual mental rest can be quite hard to come by and the need to get parents breaks that are not simply “being at work,” is real. I often get to the end of the day, particularly on weekends, and I realize that I have maybe an hour of downtime to eat and get to bed to achieve a reasonable amount of sleep.
I'm already hearing the comments on Monday, people asking me how my "break" was, since I took off all of last week (I mean, I had to since the preschool our twins attend and the daycare our singleton attends were closed). Work is typically a break from what happens in the home, but when things at work are stressful it feels like coming out of the frying pan and into the fire.
We also have a similar experience, where adding families (with kids) is greatly beneficial for everyone, but the folks who have kids that we are truly good friends with live far away. Nearby we have playdates and dinners with other families but I wouldn't want to cohabit with them, not even for an overnight stay. So we also only get the holidays or special occasions with other families and then we can finally get a break.
In a very similar situation too, but add in that both sets of grandparents have one with Alzheimers so instead of extra care givers we actually have even more work with having to actively baby sit parents. Holidays are pretty stressful and this year we threw a nice thanksgiving stomach bug into the mix!
> the folks who have kids that we are truly good friends with live far away. Nearby we have playdates and dinners with other families but I wouldn't want to cohabit with them, not even for an overnight stay
> In my experience caring for your small children is really demanding work. On the one hand you need to be focused on the situation in order to protect the children
I expected this going into having children, but I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it. Yes, it’s more active work than sitting in front of a computer, but for me personally I’ve found it much less demanding than my jobs.
> and on the other hand there is not much going on for entertaining yourself.
Honestly, I don’t identify with this either. At least not since my children were more than 6-7 months old. Playing with kids is a lot of fun once you get into it. We go on a lot of adventures around the neighborhood and beyond where everything is new and exciting to them. It’s like they’ve re-opened the wonder of the world for me.
On the other hand, I have some friends who struggle with parenting because they approach it more as babysitting than as quality time with their kids. For them, it’s just a matter of passing time until they can go do something else. That’s a minority of my friends, though.
My big discovery was I underestimated how different kids could be. I watch some two year olds happily draw for hours, and lay themselves down for nap. Meanwhile, mine possessed a natural talent for destruction, boundless energy, and refused to sleep more than about eight hours a day.
In our Montessori school, parents do pick up other kids occasionally, and the kids would just stay with the family for the afternoon. Ideally, kids take turns so sometimes parents get an afternoon off.
Another thing that sometimes works (lots of preconditions) - living in walking distance of grandparents or siblings, and let the kids visit family frequently.
> Another thing that sometimes works (lots of preconditions) - living in walking distance of grandparents or siblings, and let the kids visit family frequently.
If you are not sufficiently rich such that you can afford personal services such as live in nannies and flights to visit family and whatnot, I find that living walking distance to close family
is one of the biggest quality of life upgrades one could make (obviously assuming you get along with them).
The redundancies it provides makes for much less stressful living, along with many other benefits.
A saying most black Americans will be familiar with is, "It takes a village to raise a child." It resembles proverbs common to cultures across Africa; one could say that it's cultural knowledge embedded deeply within the African diaspora. American black culture is often derided as being inadequate, particularly in efforts to raise well-adjusted and pro-social children, but what's rarely mentioned by these commenters is how frequent and widespread are the historical and contemporary destruction and dissolution of black communities in America. In the too-common case of single mothers rearing children alone (the absence of the father often itself a product of poor social support), the difference seems to be in the presence or absence of older siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and supportive teachers, especially when the mother is forced to work multiple jobs in order to cover ever-increasing expenses. (It should also be noted that when the father is present, married or not, he tends to spend more time with his children than fathers of other ethnicities.)
I bring this up in order to maybe open some minds as to why we see racial disparities of certain types - and also because, as mentioned by another commenter, the increasing atomization of families and communities of other ethnic groups threatens to replicate the aforementioned dysfunction. Common and widespread understanding of the dynamic could head-off tragedy; they hit us with crack before they hit y'all with opioids, after all.
The only thing I would like to add to this thinking is that it also explains cultural norms. If a child is getting input from that many different adults it becomes an averaging of the culture norms.
We can only move forward, not backward. The hunter-gatherer existence is often endowed with some notion of pristine, peaceful existence in harmony with nature, which is likely far from the actual truth. That said, I for one find many aspects (but not all!) of the present situation unsatisfactory, where the needs of macroeconomy and national priorities supersedes many of our most basic needs as humans.
This article could indicate how one of those needs are currently neglected, and point to the need for more grownups to spend more time with their children (and other children) than currently is possible.
With all the massive life improvements we have with technology we could be investing so much more into our kids. Jobs could be flexible with short work weeks, and we could use that time to invest in kids. Parent, volunteer, mentor. Remote work done on a school site giving even more time to help kids learn.
Having worked remote most of my kids' lives, I'd say there are other challenges. Parents need time away from their kids too, and if every parent in society is working then how are kids supposed to get the adult attention and allow the parents some child-free time?
When I was younger kids played with others in the neighborhood, and there was always a homemaker parent in every household. Now every adult has at least a part-time job. Kids still play in the neighborhood, yet weekly instead of daily. More often they are in daycare, school, or staying home.
I look at it from this perspective, we have been hunting-gathering for 95% of our time on earth, it may be the case that from our bubble we think we are "more advanced", but if we think about the test of time, we have not yet passed, and call me crazy, but it seems that this "advancement" of ours does not hold up for long at this level.
Today we know that many "non-advanced" cultures, aware of the limits of growth, limited the consumption of resources in many imaginative ways.
We may not have stood the test of time (yet?), but we certainly stood the test of population. About as many people are living today as hunter-gatherers ever lived, that is about 10% of the total number of people who have ever lived.
Non-advanced cultures limited the consomption of resources because they couldn't do otherwise, their environment couldn't provide enough. But with agriculture, we made our environment orders of magnitude more productive, and growth is a consequence of that. Also, the "imaginative ways" advanced or not cultures have limited the consumption of resources mostly boil downs to different ways for people to kill each other. From murder to global wars. Killing people is not as popular as it once was in modern society, so instead, our limiting strategy is more about making less kids.
> He argues that recent changes in UK policy show childcare is becoming more of a priority for the government
Seems like some massive cognitive dissonance going on here. Outsourcing childcare is why there would be less attentive care in modern society. Virtually all women - old, young, mothers or not - would stay together with the children at all times in these hunter gatherer societies.
We already have great daycares (albeit expensive) which are apparent contributing to this less attentive care. If we want to return to the old ways that would be communities of women staying home together.
Sure, the mother would always be with the other women, but she would at least be able to nap. Modern parenting of small children operates by the maxim, sleep when the child sleeps; as there is no one else to look after them. (This is much more difficult in practice than it sounds)
The Zionist youth organizations [1] worked and work in a similar way where teenagers take care of children and a cycle is built. This is implemented also in Kibbutzim [2] and the diaspora as well.
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What strikes me here is the phrase, "exceptionally high levels." I imagine children need a "normal" level of care; it's only "exceptionally high" in comparison to the deprived state of family systems in these degenerate times.
I often reflect on the understanding in Attachment Theory, wherein a child a needs to have a caregiver who is sufficiently attuned to the child's needs. And it turns out, "sufficiently attuned" means that the caregiver responds in an attuned manner to 30%-50% the child's entreaties. As one of my meditation teachers says, 'That's not a high bar. What grade did you get the last time you scored 50% on a test?'
We love to take care of babies, regardless of (or maybe because of) how clingy and dependent they are.
From an Evolutionary point of view, This relationship between needy babies and abnegated caregivers might have given rise to a complementary schimogenesis according to Gregory Bateson, in which babies might have evolved to be more and more dependent, because having more and more invested caregivers produces fitter offspring.
Parenthood is a self-inflicted sabotage and I cannot understand how come there are so many parents bearing children worldwide.
1. The Gardener and the Carpenter: Alison Gopnik, Erin Bennett: 9781536617832
He doesn’t even say “I’m hangry, you incompetent giant”. He demands to be held in arms, he punches, bites and slaps my face. He did this for the first time when he was around 3 months old.
Patience is learnt through many years, specially when the belly is full.
Hangry people can turn violent, like most restaurant workers know.
As “the whole-brained child” book states, children can not be reasonable when they are in a tantrum
Deleted Comment
Think of the images from the world over of indigenous women going about their days largely with their young children strapped to them.
This is literally based on a comparison with hunger-gatherer societies.
To the extent that there is any accuracy to your "compared to historical standards", its probably based on a low point reached (in the "developed" world) somewhere between the first industrial revolution and mid-20th century,
This seems to assume that ~all attention is positive and that attention is still beneficial after the Xth hour. After a time the adult role becomes less parent and more like prison guard duty.
It also seems to assume adult-time is enough for kids and that peer-only time isn't an irreplaceable environment for kids to develop their core social skills.
An A: it was graded on a curve.
Dead Comment
The reason for the breakup is fun - https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/roman-catholi...
Much of India had also long barred cousin marriages, probably long before the Roman Catholic Church, but the dependencies and village raising the kids dynamic still existed (until recently).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapinda
If I were to guess, the main causal factor is economic/security independence. If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom and have financial independence and physical security, then people tend to choose that (e.g. getting an education and a well paying job, etc).
The latter basically destroys any chance of “village raising a child”, because no village bonds will exist, since everyone is moving around for their economic opportunities.
you make it sound like these are opposing incompatible choices. why not choose both? i'd love to live in a small tight knit community. going to school and getting a good education does not prevent that. and with more options to work from home it is now even more possible than it was in the past.
also, people didn't move because they wanted to gain independence. they are forced to move because they can't find work at home. in europe the majority of people live where they grow up and do not move far from there, unless lack of local jobs forces them to. which is one reason why big cities are popular and growing because jobs are there, and it is more likely that future generations will have jobs there too, so they can stay.
First the taboo against consanguineous marriages was most likely because of genetic diseases. Biology may not have been very advanced, but people were smart enough to pick up on patterns. Similar to taboos against cannibalism despite having no concept of prion disease.
If this was pushed by the catholic church then explain Italian families!
Is “the hero’s journey” not a story about rugged individualism that has been told over and over in different forms across cultures since the beginning of history?
I don't think so. The heros journey does not need to be about "rugged individualism" at all. Not is about it all across cultures and history.
We like stories about rugged individualism. We prefer them. And oftentimes, we change original stories fro. other culture to fit the patterns we like or ignore those that don't fit them.
And also, across cultures and history, the hero journey is far from the only or even primary kind of story.
I dont thi k thats true at all -
Lets see, oldest stories - buddhism, hiduism - none of them are about individualism.
I wouldn't say the christian writing or that of ancient Egypt is about individualism either.
The oldest 'hero's journey' I can think of, would be myths of ancient greece - but ewually, many of them are not heroic, they are dramas.
The dominance of this genre is a compeltely modern phenomena
If it helps get the word out I’m all for it, though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloparenting
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&qsp=1&q...
- young people living in large halls, to improve their dating prospects
- groups of friends living close together across job moves, enabling longer term friendships
- new parents living in groups to reduce the burden of parenting
We all share a two story two flat. It’s quite fun, and my mental health is great. The big “but” is that it’s unlikely to last because people value different things. Most of us are doing this arrangement because it’s ridiculously inexpensive compared to other forms of housing. One has already moved out to live with his girlfriend, and another is probably going to move to another city.
This is of course ignoring the other very real problems: job prospects for industries are not uniform across cities (you may have friends in another industry that is in decline for your local)… etc.
I wouldn’t mind a return to communal apartments, with a dining hall, and a lounge away from the property manager and the entrance. But it’s doubtful very many people will ever use those facilities (when you have more interesting stuff to do outside the complex, or inside your own room, why settle for the third place?). The culture of friendship is also lacking in my current country (U.S.), and communal values are nonexistent.
I also see a growing detachment from reality in some of the remote work maximalists who forget that not everyone has a job sitting at a computer all day. A significant number of younger people have jobs involved in-person work where remote isn’t even possible. This seems to be forgotten about in some of the writings about how remote work might change society, especially on HN where many commenters have only known jobs sitting in isolation at a computer.
Other than one-off communes, I think this is still pretty rare and I’m not aware of it growing due to work from home.
Having said that, I've seen some adverts for 'student hall ' like living for young professionals. That works because the investor can switch to the actual student market.
ex: A scenario where large public halls are widely built for young workers.
An income to housing ratio that would allow people to make block-level housing choices.
Widely available, affordable, walkable neighborhoods.
In my experience caring for your small children is really demanding work. On the one hand you need to be focused on the situation in order to protect the children and on the other hand there is not much going on for entertaining yourself.
Creative or focused deep work where you get a positive feeling of accomplishment also counts as a break from childcare for me. So a break does not necessarily mean not working. But I believe there are a lot of demanding jobs that are not a break from childcare.
The other aspect I can relate to is the fact that in hunter-gatherer communities many different caregivers support each other. Every summer we travel in the mountains with 3-4 other families and their kids. Last year there where 12 kids under the age of 8. Sounds very stressful but actually it was really smooth. Having multiple parents available all the time allowed everyone to take a real break once in a while. And also the children enjoyed having multiple different adults they could interact with apart from their parents.
So I really think this concept works, but only if you all live under the same roof. Which in practice is only possible during holidays.
Actual mental rest can be quite hard to come by and the need to get parents breaks that are not simply “being at work,” is real. I often get to the end of the day, particularly on weekends, and I realize that I have maybe an hour of downtime to eat and get to bed to achieve a reasonable amount of sleep.
We also have a similar experience, where adding families (with kids) is greatly beneficial for everyone, but the folks who have kids that we are truly good friends with live far away. Nearby we have playdates and dinners with other families but I wouldn't want to cohabit with them, not even for an overnight stay. So we also only get the holidays or special occasions with other families and then we can finally get a break.
many such cases
I expected this going into having children, but I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it. Yes, it’s more active work than sitting in front of a computer, but for me personally I’ve found it much less demanding than my jobs.
> and on the other hand there is not much going on for entertaining yourself.
Honestly, I don’t identify with this either. At least not since my children were more than 6-7 months old. Playing with kids is a lot of fun once you get into it. We go on a lot of adventures around the neighborhood and beyond where everything is new and exciting to them. It’s like they’ve re-opened the wonder of the world for me.
On the other hand, I have some friends who struggle with parenting because they approach it more as babysitting than as quality time with their kids. For them, it’s just a matter of passing time until they can go do something else. That’s a minority of my friends, though.
I mean, first time and second time. But when they get excited 55th time over exactly same hedgehog, it just was not so exciting to me anymore.
Another thing that sometimes works (lots of preconditions) - living in walking distance of grandparents or siblings, and let the kids visit family frequently.
If you are not sufficiently rich such that you can afford personal services such as live in nannies and flights to visit family and whatnot, I find that living walking distance to close family is one of the biggest quality of life upgrades one could make (obviously assuming you get along with them).
The redundancies it provides makes for much less stressful living, along with many other benefits.
I bring this up in order to maybe open some minds as to why we see racial disparities of certain types - and also because, as mentioned by another commenter, the increasing atomization of families and communities of other ethnic groups threatens to replicate the aforementioned dysfunction. Common and widespread understanding of the dynamic could head-off tragedy; they hit us with crack before they hit y'all with opioids, after all.
More directly, it greatly softens the inevitable blows from highly-concentrated, inexperienced parenting.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz
This article could indicate how one of those needs are currently neglected, and point to the need for more grownups to spend more time with their children (and other children) than currently is possible.
When I was younger kids played with others in the neighborhood, and there was always a homemaker parent in every household. Now every adult has at least a part-time job. Kids still play in the neighborhood, yet weekly instead of daily. More often they are in daycare, school, or staying home.
Today we know that many "non-advanced" cultures, aware of the limits of growth, limited the consumption of resources in many imaginative ways.
It is ok to say, hey you did this better than me.
Non-advanced cultures limited the consomption of resources because they couldn't do otherwise, their environment couldn't provide enough. But with agriculture, we made our environment orders of magnitude more productive, and growth is a consequence of that. Also, the "imaginative ways" advanced or not cultures have limited the consumption of resources mostly boil downs to different ways for people to kill each other. From murder to global wars. Killing people is not as popular as it once was in modern society, so instead, our limiting strategy is more about making less kids.
Seems like some massive cognitive dissonance going on here. Outsourcing childcare is why there would be less attentive care in modern society. Virtually all women - old, young, mothers or not - would stay together with the children at all times in these hunter gatherer societies.
We already have great daycares (albeit expensive) which are apparent contributing to this less attentive care. If we want to return to the old ways that would be communities of women staying home together.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_youth_movement?wprov=s...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz?wprov=sfti1