Then the institutions need to change their approach yes.
Interestingly, in other contexts I've heard people say that equality of outcome is an unwelcome suppression of meritocracy.
Readit Newshotpotamus commented on America's Lost Boys and Me robkhenderson.com/p/ameri... · Posted by u/Bostonian
Except the correlate isn’t as people propose here poverty but wealth, as wealth increased fertility has decreased. I would note that having kids doesn’t mean having a brood like people did in the past. One or two children is by far the norm in my cohort and I have one. Growing up families were not uncommon with 4-6 kids, now it’s unheard of.
I think the change the world mentality is distinctly GenX, and arguably we did pretty profoundly. I know my career changed a lot of things for many people. But you hear time and time again from people who had great careers or impacted the world in some way that the changes that mattered most to them were the ones they made at home with their family.
I believe the biggest correlate is actually religion, and I've suspected for some time now that Nietzsche was really onto it quite early with the whole "Death of God" thing.
That said, I can say that while I may in theory be able to afford a kid today, I couldn't after a layoff, which does happen to me sometimes. Frankly, I like my current employment, but I'm starting to get some bad vibes sadly. The thing is that kids need support for like 2 decades and it's hard to imagine a job lasting that long. I always remember the scene from Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" where the dad walks in and tells the kids he can't afford them anymore so he's going to sell them to science, and I can at least find it all pretty amusing.
Note this article is 11 years old.
Everyone in my generation X generation said they wouldn’t have children. We still laugh about that at the toddler play dates. We are older than our parents when we had kids. But you get to a point where the things that drive you earlier in your career make less a difference once you’ve achieved them, and life takes priority over changing the world in some way. You realize the world overall can be changed during working hours, but the most impact you’ll ever have is in the world of the children in your life. Finally you realize 72 hours of work a week isn’t more effective than 35 hours balanced with a human life on the rest.
In those 11 years fertility has fallen near universally. Speaking as a millennial, I never saw my career as a means towards changing the world or some life mission driven by passion; I just wanted to find stable employment to hopefully find some financial security and keep my ass in health insurance (I foolishly contracted a childhood condition that left me somewhat disabled). Graduating into the great recession and trying to stay on the treadmill of employment as I flee one layoff or another hasn't left much space in life for a lot else.
I actually feel quite fortunate these days (for a number of reasons) that I never wanted children (also for a number of reasons); if I had I can imagine that it would be quite a disappointment at how it has become ever more infeasible.
I don’t buy this at all. The poorest people have the most kids. Yes if you want an upper middle class kid with daycare, a math tutor and piano lessons, it’s going to be expensive.
But the actual cost of having a child is food off your plate, second hand clothes, and a stay at home parent.
The problem is that is probably not the lifestyle upper middle class people want.
Perhaps lower and middle class people want upper middle class children.
hotpotamus commented on America's Lost Boys and Me robkhenderson.com/p/ameri... · Posted by u/Bostonian
Make it so that as many boys as girls are successful.
What if girls’ biological differences predispose them towards success in educational institutions? Then we need some sort of specialized education in order to provide the boys more intensive socialization?
hotpotamus commented on America's Lost Boys and Me robkhenderson.com/p/ameri... · Posted by u/Bostonian
The problem is that things are not supported by politicians in a vacuum. It's not a la carte in a 2 party system. If we put unrelated and unacceptable policies alongside universal healthcare you can't be surprised if it doesn't attract some demographics.
I'm still waiting for the politician who's gonna have the figurative balls to say "let's fix school/college because they are failing boys". When the issue was women not getting enough degrees there was no problem calling this a national cause, now crickets.
What does it mean to “fix” school/college?
hotpotamus commented on America's Lost Boys and Me robkhenderson.com/p/ameri... · Posted by u/Bostonian
When women fall behind it's because of sexism, patriarchy, misogyny, etc etc.
When men fall behind it's because they are dumb, lazy, immature.
It's unfortunate that it's probably gonna take a sacrificed generation before we finally start recognizing that men too can be victims of systemic issues.
> we finally start recognizing that men too can be victims of systemic issues.
This has always been known to at least some. There are reasons that the left pushes for universal healthcare - because they are aware that systemic issues can affect everyone. The alternative is personal responsibility - pull yourself up by your bootstraps, ironically first written as a joke because it's literally impossible, but then unironically praised as an ideal of American individualism.
Honestly, I think American men are caught in a bad feedback loop that results in them voting for ever more toxic political representation that then shreds whatever safety nets they can and results in more estrangement from society, and it's a trap they will not escape from; it's too far gone to be fixed at this point.
> implication that humans are possibly one of the earliest sentient spacefaring species to have appeared so far.
Or that perhaps we're a simulation.
We exist in a very interesting time in history when the pieces are coming together.
Our hypothetical future robot descendents may be very interested in learning about their past.
If we're in a simulation, there's no reason that other beings couldn't have also arisen within the simulation with us.
hotpotamus commented on The Tears of a Clown: Probing the comedian's psyche (2008) psychologytoday.com/gb/bl... · Posted by u/rbanffy
I don't think treating dating like a job interview is a good idea unless you are interviewing them. You can either put your personality out there and be rejected or you can fake it, and then when you do out your actual self out there get rejected later down the road.
The choice is yours!
I'll note that both your options there end in rejection.
My grandmother lived in a family of five kids and her parents were unemployed (her father was disabled in a factory accident in the 1920’s) during the Great Depression and homeless. Most of the world is considerably poorer yet have more children. You can afford to have children, they’re only expensive if you lavish wealth on them. That’s not strictly necessary, education is free. What people usually mean is they don’t want to sacrifice their standard of living or disrupt their way of life. That’s fair - but literally everyone can afford to have kids, that’s why so many kids are born into poverty yet reach adulthood. :-)
I suppose I am currently mildly homeless which does tend to make the thought a bit harder. Also, as a man, I am not able to make children no matter how much money I'm given; there are other things necessary that I do not have. Anyway, the idea really just does seem infeasible for a few reasons - money is just one of them.