I think we need to have a tough talk about why it’s so much harder to have kids these days, but that would involve talking about wealth inequality and the death of the community.
One big one is that today’s parents put too much pressure on themselves (both individually and as a group) to always be supervising. Some parents don’t feel that they can leave their child alone for 30 minutes while they shower or clean, or watch TV, because we’ve built up expectations that everything is structured and that we’re supposed to sacrifice our individuality for the kid. Some recent research has shown that millennial parents are spending a lot more “hands on” time with their kids than any previous generation, rather than passive supervision like when kids are playing in the house while the adults do something else.
Plus there is a significant line of people who feel compelled to do high effort, high visibility shows of parenting effort: Instagram worthy birthday parties, more structured play and learning, high effort cooking of things from scratch rather than convenience foods, etc.
Finances (and working hours) are definitely a big part of it, but a bigger part is the shift in norms and expectations that we’re expected to be much more for our kids than prior generations.
A former coworker used to take leave when her kid was out of school. Kid was 10. I was a 10 year old “latchkey” kid in the 80’s, we’d get home, I’d make a snack for me and my 8 yr old brother. Then we’d ride our bikes until the streetlights came on, and we’d go home.
I’m not a parent. I don’t really think either her or my parents were “right” or “wrong”, but I don’t understand why that changed.
It’s easy to point at social media, and that’s part of it, but I think it’s probably the ubiquity of photos and videos, easily transmitted to others. Even those of us who aren’t on social media still send photos and videos of our kids to the grandparents, to cousins, to other friends and family. We’re constantly exposed to parenting highlights, which subtly shifts the expectations on what the non-highlight portions look like.
My wife and I have 6 month old twins… we’re both only children too. We are so lucky that my mother in law moved to our town as soon as we told her. Both of my parents are disabled, and cannot assist. Also, my wife getting the 12 weeks fmla / baby bonding was fine, but not great. I got nothing for paternity leave from my office and took two weeks of pto when they were born. It was and still is rough. If we didn’t have MIL around, we’d be in a real tough spot…
The lack of paternity leave and shortness of maternity leave in (assuming) the US is absolutely criminal. I was lucky enough to get 4 months, and that was not nearly enough to get my feet fully back under me before returning to work.
The fact that you had to take PTO just to bond with your kid is upsetting and frustrates me because those first few months are so valuable, and I feel like dads often miss out on so much.
Support networks are so incredibly important to parents. Don’t have kids of my own, but am helping with my sibling’s kids. Babysitting and just general support split with my parents. Thankfully, they don’t need financial help but that’d be on the cards if it came to it.
Support networks like this, whether it’s family, neighbours, friends or some combination is almost mandatory if you’re not very wealthy. It takes a village to raise a child, after all.
It’s really straightforward to understand, there’s no “third places” for kids and kids are generally undesired in US society. It used to be, even if you weren’t religious, you had community because everyone in the neighborhood looked out for each other’s kids.
It’s a lot easier when you’re not outnumbered by kids and can swap with other adults, even if it’s 30 minutes to get a shower. Everyone is so isolated these days, it’s much more difficult to build support like that unless you are religious or have family involvement.
My street that I live on has twelve houses that front it, six on each side. Of those twelve houses, ten have kids, and nine have kids between 1 and 9 years old. It’s a real treat to be able to let the kids out, to share parenting responsibilities, to commiserate with the other parents when necessary, and to really just let the kids be kids. Sometimes there’s ten kids on the swingset in my backyard that is absolutely not designed for ten kids, or they’re riding bikes, or playing with chalk. It’s a real pleasure.
I bought the house 11 years ago. There were no kids. So we’ve kinda built the community. We’ve watched as houses go on sale, people come looking, and we would actually talk to them about our neighborhood.
So it’s kind of like the neighborhood that I grew up in at this point, and I really don’t think it was by accident. And I don’t think that my neighborhood is the only one like this.
Living the dream friend. I want that sense of community so bad. All my life I’ve lived isolated from others and it fucking sucks. My dad would always scold me: “go outside and play, get off the computer, blah blah blah” but like with whom? Glad your kids get to be kids. Cheers
I know, and I try not to take it for granted (although I do sometimes, because I’m just a guy). Until I was 10, I lived in a neighborhood where the houses were close together, the kids played outside, etc. Then we moved to a house on an acre and a half, which was huge in comparison to the like .18 acre property we lived on prior. You could fit five houses from my previous neighborhood on our lot. It was a beautiful home, great for playing outside – with just my brother and I. Not great for making friends in the neighborhood.
I tell the story often, but my wife is from a different place in Jersey than me, we didn’t meet until I was in my late 20s, a few years after my parents split, sold the house, and put that life behind us. One of her close friends got married a few years back, and beforehand, we went and I got to meet her friend’s fiance. We get to talking, and he tells me his last name, and it turns out they lived three houses down from me, but I had never met him because nobody went outside to play.
And it’s not to say we were homebodies. I played sports, I always was doing something, but it was also never less than a car ride away, which is isolating. So I don’t want my kids to live like that. They will walk to school when they’re old enough. They’ll walk downtown. They’ll throw rocks in the brooks that run through town. They’ll hang out under bridges. That’s important stuff to me.
I’m definitely not having kids for this reason, and many more. I’m doing I’d say okay right now. I’m stable ish. Why would I want to change that at all? I see my peers having kids and immediately they can’t afford to even go out to eat, and don’t have time to get a beer once every 4 months. They chose that, I don’t hold them against it, but why would I risk where I am for that?
Logically speaking it is definitely a hard sell. I imagine a lot more planning goes into having them these days, and the financial burden is considerable with all the other costs rising as well.
I think we need to have a tough talk about why it’s so much harder to have kids these days, but that would involve talking about wealth inequality and the death of the community.
One big one is that today’s parents put too much pressure on themselves (both individually and as a group) to always be supervising. Some parents don’t feel that they can leave their child alone for 30 minutes while they shower or clean, or watch TV, because we’ve built up expectations that everything is structured and that we’re supposed to sacrifice our individuality for the kid. Some recent research has shown that millennial parents are spending a lot more “hands on” time with their kids than any previous generation, rather than passive supervision like when kids are playing in the house while the adults do something else.
Plus there is a significant line of people who feel compelled to do high effort, high visibility shows of parenting effort: Instagram worthy birthday parties, more structured play and learning, high effort cooking of things from scratch rather than convenience foods, etc.
Finances (and working hours) are definitely a big part of it, but a bigger part is the shift in norms and expectations that we’re expected to be much more for our kids than prior generations.
A former coworker used to take leave when her kid was out of school. Kid was 10. I was a 10 year old “latchkey” kid in the 80’s, we’d get home, I’d make a snack for me and my 8 yr old brother. Then we’d ride our bikes until the streetlights came on, and we’d go home.
I’m not a parent. I don’t really think either her or my parents were “right” or “wrong”, but I don’t understand why that changed.
It’s easy to point at social media, and that’s part of it, but I think it’s probably the ubiquity of photos and videos, easily transmitted to others. Even those of us who aren’t on social media still send photos and videos of our kids to the grandparents, to cousins, to other friends and family. We’re constantly exposed to parenting highlights, which subtly shifts the expectations on what the non-highlight portions look like.
Yeah. Not having retired family in hood health nearby is an issue. Someone had to move for their career. Or died. Or is too fragile. Or still working.
Nearly need polygamy for the economic certainty.
My wife and I have 6 month old twins… we’re both only children too. We are so lucky that my mother in law moved to our town as soon as we told her. Both of my parents are disabled, and cannot assist. Also, my wife getting the 12 weeks fmla / baby bonding was fine, but not great. I got nothing for paternity leave from my office and took two weeks of pto when they were born. It was and still is rough. If we didn’t have MIL around, we’d be in a real tough spot…
The lack of paternity leave and shortness of maternity leave in (assuming) the US is absolutely criminal. I was lucky enough to get 4 months, and that was not nearly enough to get my feet fully back under me before returning to work.
The fact that you had to take PTO just to bond with your kid is upsetting and frustrates me because those first few months are so valuable, and I feel like dads often miss out on so much.
Support networks are so incredibly important to parents. Don’t have kids of my own, but am helping with my sibling’s kids. Babysitting and just general support split with my parents. Thankfully, they don’t need financial help but that’d be on the cards if it came to it.
Support networks like this, whether it’s family, neighbours, friends or some combination is almost mandatory if you’re not very wealthy. It takes a village to raise a child, after all.
It’s really straightforward to understand, there’s no “third places” for kids and kids are generally undesired in US society. It used to be, even if you weren’t religious, you had community because everyone in the neighborhood looked out for each other’s kids.
It’s a lot easier when you’re not outnumbered by kids and can swap with other adults, even if it’s 30 minutes to get a shower. Everyone is so isolated these days, it’s much more difficult to build support like that unless you are religious or have family involvement.
My street that I live on has twelve houses that front it, six on each side. Of those twelve houses, ten have kids, and nine have kids between 1 and 9 years old. It’s a real treat to be able to let the kids out, to share parenting responsibilities, to commiserate with the other parents when necessary, and to really just let the kids be kids. Sometimes there’s ten kids on the swingset in my backyard that is absolutely not designed for ten kids, or they’re riding bikes, or playing with chalk. It’s a real pleasure.
I bought the house 11 years ago. There were no kids. So we’ve kinda built the community. We’ve watched as houses go on sale, people come looking, and we would actually talk to them about our neighborhood.
So it’s kind of like the neighborhood that I grew up in at this point, and I really don’t think it was by accident. And I don’t think that my neighborhood is the only one like this.
Living the dream friend. I want that sense of community so bad. All my life I’ve lived isolated from others and it fucking sucks. My dad would always scold me: “go outside and play, get off the computer, blah blah blah” but like with whom? Glad your kids get to be kids. Cheers
I know, and I try not to take it for granted (although I do sometimes, because I’m just a guy). Until I was 10, I lived in a neighborhood where the houses were close together, the kids played outside, etc. Then we moved to a house on an acre and a half, which was huge in comparison to the like .18 acre property we lived on prior. You could fit five houses from my previous neighborhood on our lot. It was a beautiful home, great for playing outside – with just my brother and I. Not great for making friends in the neighborhood.
I tell the story often, but my wife is from a different place in Jersey than me, we didn’t meet until I was in my late 20s, a few years after my parents split, sold the house, and put that life behind us. One of her close friends got married a few years back, and beforehand, we went and I got to meet her friend’s fiance. We get to talking, and he tells me his last name, and it turns out they lived three houses down from me, but I had never met him because nobody went outside to play.
And it’s not to say we were homebodies. I played sports, I always was doing something, but it was also never less than a car ride away, which is isolating. So I don’t want my kids to live like that. They will walk to school when they’re old enough. They’ll walk downtown. They’ll throw rocks in the brooks that run through town. They’ll hang out under bridges. That’s important stuff to me.
I’m definitely not having kids for this reason, and many more. I’m doing I’d say okay right now. I’m stable ish. Why would I want to change that at all? I see my peers having kids and immediately they can’t afford to even go out to eat, and don’t have time to get a beer once every 4 months. They chose that, I don’t hold them against it, but why would I risk where I am for that?
Logically speaking it is definitely a hard sell. I imagine a lot more planning goes into having them these days, and the financial burden is considerable with all the other costs rising as well.