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The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
- RhysU 8y agoI knew the older and younger ones always had it in for us!
- polarix 8y agoI see the number of children a couple has as a vote on how many people should exist on earth. If you have 0 or 1 child as a couple, you are voting that there should be fewer people. If you have 2 children, you're voting that there should be about the same number of people. If you have more than 2 children as a couple, you're voting that there should be more people on earth. With that context, I can clearly see why nobody in a city would want to have more than 2 children.
- pesfandiar 8y agoYou're grossly overestimating how much an average person cares about anything outside of their family. The decision to have one or more children depends on many other factors (parents' character, their economic status, social safety, ...) before it even gets to any idealistic activism.
- HumanDrivenDev 8y agoSo much this. Altruistic, considerate people who hem and haw over how their decisions effect others grossly over estimate other human beings. Take a walk along the side of a high speed road and look at all the garbage thrown there. People don't give a shit.
- greglindahl 8y agoWait, so I should not worry about my personal ethics, but should only consider how shitty everyone else is? I don't think ethics works that way.
- HumanDrivenDev 8y agoI never advised anyone to do anything. I just described some things I've noticed.
- greglindahl 8y agoAh. I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean, then, thanks for attempting to clarify, but I'm still completely confused. Altruistic people are generally altruistic because they want to be altruistic for their own personal pleasure, not because they expect anyone else to be like them. So how does "grossly over estimate other human beings" come into play? If anything, most altruistic people underestimate other human beings, due to exactly the thing you mention... which are things that everyone has already noticed.
- HumanDrivenDev 8y agoMy altruism was eroded by life experience. I can't quite bring myself to actively screw others over, but I'm definitely not the 'good person' I once was. Maybe true altruists are more resilient - but they're also much more susceptible to abuse.
- dionidium 8y agoThis entirely misses the point, which is that most people -- yes, even altruistic, considerate ones -- don't think of their decision to have kids as politics.
- Fnoord 8y agoWhen I was in California some good 12 years ago littering was $1000 fine as the signs said. And yes, I saw cops on the road. And no, I saw no garbage on the sides.
- crooked-v 8y agoYou're completely overlooking people who would want more children but don't feel they could afford them.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Robotbeat 8y ago...yup. This is probably most of my generation in their early to mid 20s, which is biologically the best time. Even if they can have one or two, they’re often busy with a degree or trying to eatablish themselves professionally. To get healthcare coverage (which is the responsible thing to do with children), you kind of have to be poor (to qualify for support) or be very successful.
- greglindahl 8y agoGetting healthcare depends on where you live, not just how how successful you are. I live in California, and even before Obamacare, I could already buy healthcare for a family without being "very successful". Most Europeans are probably scratching their heads at the entire concept that you introduced. And yes, that's a part of the reason I no longer live in South Carolina, which doesn't have Obamacare.
- kaycebasques 8y agoThat seems implicitly related to reducing population. E.g. I’ve heard that hunter-gatherers adjusted their populations depending on whether there was lean or bountiful food. What you’re mentioning seems to be the modern equivalent of that.
- phamilton 8y ago> hunter-gatherers adjusted their populations depending on whether there was lean or bountiful food I almost feel like that's self regulating. Scarcity of food results in malnourishment which if it doesn't kill anyone directly, will result in other sickness being more likely to kill people. Same with children surviving to adulthood.
- Robotbeat 8y agoDisagree. There’s so many people who cannot have biological children (for many reasons), so practically speaking a large percentage of those who can should have at least 3 or the population will decline.
- squarefoot 8y agoMany of us, including the planet under our feet, don't see it as a problem. https://www.populationmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Human-Population-Graph-2050-Title-1024x724.jpg https://www.populationmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03... I don't think there was anyone in the 1960s screaming "oh crap... there's only 3 billions of us around here!". We're so used to think the now and here as normal conditions that we lose focus on the global trend which is absolutely disastrous.
- wool_gather 8y agoIt is a bit of a problem inasmuch as core values/ideas are often (not always, but often) transmitted by family connections. So paradoxically, concern for the planet leading you to not have children could reduce the relative number of people who share your concern. Then again, there are other memes that lead not just to lack of reproduction, but directly to the death of the memeholder, so maybe it's not such a big deal. Still, just another thing to wonder/worry about.
- squarefoot 8y agoInteresting point. Also culture could play a role here; it is possible that concerns about overpopulation are primarily shared among those people who are less responsible for it (living in "western" industrialized countries), so that by having less children they rather reduce the number of people sensitive to the problem than limiting overpopulation in significant figures.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoIt's not just concern on this one issue. In general fertility tends to be strongly correlated with low education, low income, and high religiosity. This is true both inter and intra nationally. Think about what this means. Currently each day about 353,000 babies are born. As people who are educated, wealthy, and secular choose to not reproduce to the point of replacement - it is in a way condemning the demographics of those 353,000 children. I tend to be aligned with you in the view that Earth having fewer people would is not a problem, but at the same time demographic collapse is very much a real issue. As the only people considering these things would likely be the people that ideally should be pumping out babies left and right if we want to create a better planet not only for humanity but even for the planet itself. And as an aside this is of course not to say that no great things will come of those 353,000 born into less than desirable situations. But on average people's outcomes tend to be very strongly linked to those of their parents.
- learc83 8y agoBeyond that fact that the Earth's future population isn't the number one factor in the decision for most couples, 2 children is still below the replacement rate.
- robocat 8y agoStrangely enough 2 is not the replacement rate. One birth per death is the replacement rate. The world population can be increased by everyone having children earlier, or dieing later. Puzzle: Every couple in Binary Town has twins (boy and girl) at age 32. Then half the population stops reproducing, but the other half change to reproducing at age 16. What happens to the population?
- Nasrudith 8y agoReplacement rate depends on the death rate to be precise. If humanity had stuck with three children per couple at most throughout its entire history it would almost certainly be extinct. 2 is only the replacement rate for 'literally immortal up until a certain date' - morbidly with a corresponding high death rate the number could be 'greater than biologically the theoretical biological limits'. Binary town's birth rate would go down initially due to the loss of participation reducing the reproducing generation by half but the time between generations being cut by half would mean an effective doubling of the per person rate. Without knowing their rate of death we can't know what happens to their true population over time and it goes without saying that the assumptions will break if their reproductive strategies change yet again.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoThis is the wrong way of looking at things. 2 is always the replacement rate except in the case of an immortal population. You're not considering that you reach an equilibrium between deaths and births after one generational cycle. Imagine for simplicity that everybody gives birth at 1 and dies at 4. Let's look at when people have two children, starting with a genesis population of 10. ---------------- Year 1: age 1 = 10 births = 10 deaths = 0 ---------------- Year 2: age 1 = 10 age 2 = 10 births = 10 deaths = 0 ---------------- Year 3: age 1 = 10 age 2 = 10 age 3 = 10 births = 10 deaths = 0 ---------------- Year 4: age 1 = 10 age 2 = 10 age 3 = 10 age 4 = 10 births = 10 deaths = 10 ---------------- Year 5: age 1 = 10 age 2 = 10 age 3 = 10 age 4 = 10 births = 10 deaths = 10 ---------------- Etc. The only way to see a longterm increase in population is with a birth rate > 2, and similarly the only way to see a longterm decline is a birth rate of < 2. 'Longterm' in this case meaning just one generation, at which point the equilibrium kicks in. Of course not everybody dies at the same time, but the effect is identical when you look at an average with some distribution - which is what we have. However, this also makes the assumption that everybody makes it to the age of fertility and that everybody is fertile. Both assumptions are incorrect so, in reality, the equilibrium point for population stability is even greater than 2. In reality we would expect to see a decline in population if each couple had exactly two children.
- notadoc 8y agoInteresting way to look at it, I have never met anyone with that particular way of thinking about children. Most people I know made decisions about having children in terms of resources. Mainly, about available time and/or money.
- kaycebasques 8y agoI don’t see these two ideas as at odds with each other. Maybe people aren’t explicitly calculating that they should reduce the population, but deciding not to have children because of lack of resources seems like a subconscious vote to reduce the population, in my view.
- Fnoord 8y agoThere's another option besides "not having children": "having less children."
- greglindahl 8y agoAs someone with 0 children, I disagree with you. I'm voting that I personally don't want to raise children, and think that people who don't want to have children should not have them. My brother and sister like raising children, and have 3 each. Doesn't that affinity play a large role in people's choices?
- kaycebasques 8y agoA lot of responses disagreeing with this idea. I’ll lend some balance and mention that I’ve had the exact same reasoning in my own plans for the future. I won’t pretend to argue that I’m normal or abnormal, though. Haven’t done any research on the topic.
- greglindahl 8y agoI can totally see that you are voting on that issue with your choice, however, does that mean that everyone else is doing the same?
- kaycebasques 8y agoLike I said, I’m not claiming to be normal or abnormal, meaning I don’t know if it extends to others. You’re not providing evidence to the contrary, either, so you’re word is as good as mine.
- greglindahl 8y ago"This idea" is that everyone is voting, not that you personally were voting, or that I personally was voting. If you instead wanted to provide yourself as an anecdote, that's different. Sorry that I was unclear. Personal anecdotes are quite different from claiming something is a global rule. I was just trying to double-check that you were giving an anecdote.
- kaycebasques 8y agoAh, got it. Yes, I was just countering the anecdotes against this idea with my own anecdote for it. Thanks for clearing up the confusion.
- greglindahl 8y agoExcellent. Thanks. I totally agree that I have a few friends who are like you: they're very concerned about the planet and that affects their childbearing plans. Me, that affects what I eat, but it didn't change my childbearing plans.
- danieltillett 8y agoNo it is natural selection in action. Those that have children are of the future, those that don't are of the past. There is a huge shortage of smart people on the planet to solve the many problems that exist. The best way we know to create more smart people is to encourage smart people to have more children. Unfortunately we seem especially good as a society at identifying smart people and discouraging them from having children.
- handbanana 8y agoCan you explain/expand on why you think it’s natural selection?
- danieltillett 8y agoThe number of children you have is selection (in an evolutionary sense) and because it is not a trait being selected for directly by anyone (we are not trying to breed people that want or don't children), the selection is being done by nature. The environment of humans has radically changed and we are undergoing very strong selection and adaption to this new environment. In the past the number of children you had survive to adulthood was tied to the amount of food you could bring in (as with most animals). In the new human environment the number of children you have is a consequence of how resistant you are to the cultural meme that children are undesirable.
- phamilton 8y agoI think he meant more that natural selection is essentially summarized as how many children various groups have. And for some weird reason, natural selection is biasing away from "smart people".
- dabbledash 8y agoI don’t think it’s too hard to figure out. Natural selection disfavors a strategy that requires significant investment in non-reproductive activity (education, career ladder-climbing) during prime reproductive years.
- dsnuh 8y agoHow many votes have you cast?
- Apocryphon 8y agoYou could also adopt one or more children. How does that affect this calculus?
- codingdave 8y agoAre you under the impression that all families exactly hit their target number of children? Some people cannot have any children, but desperately want them. Some have one or two, but want more. Some people... well, not everything is planned. I know a woman who wanted one more child, and had triplets. And that isn't even getting into people who foster and adopt children. In short, while I can see the logic in your stance... it has little bearing on the reality of creating a family.
- phkahler 8y agoI like the idea of SJWs voluntarily halting their genetic lines.
- 1123581321 8y agoI’m an oldest child, but my mother was a middle child and growing up loved Jane the Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes (and all the other Moffat books.) I still think it is a peculiarly good insight into the mind, and the value, of a child with older and younger siblings in a poor family. https://www.amazon.com/Middle-Moffat-Eleanor-Estes/dp/0152025294 https://www.amazon.com/Middle-Moffat-Eleanor-Estes/dp/015202...
- pussypusspuss 8y agoI really love how this is relevant to my hacker interests
- cncrnd 8y agoWhat a shame, back in the day people used to have odd numbers of children.
- craftyguy 8y agoInterestingly enough, both of my parents came from families with even numbers of children, and it was a lot. BTW, 1 is also odd, so I'm not sure if you're just trying to say "used to have 3 children" or literally an odd number (1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 23, etc)
- war1025 8y agoI think it was supposed to be a joke about how there is only a middle child if there is an odd number of children.
- Fnoord 8y agoThat's a matter of perception. The way I see it, every child who is not either the youngest or the oldest is the/a middle child. With 3, that's #2. With 4, that's #2 and #3. With 5, that's #2 and #3 and #4. Though usually the context is that parents have 3 children because that's the most common version of having more than 2 children. When I look at people who I know and their families, I can report that the middle child always appear to be self-centered, egocentric. As if they lacked love in their youth they're continuously trying to make up for the rest of their life. Oh, and they have twisted ways of justifying that behaviour.
- NDizzle 8y agoHa, funny they ask about August 12th. I'll be running a four team friendly tournament for my middle daughter's fast pitch softball team. Three kids here. It's tough, sure. Not for everyone? You can say that too. Rewarding? The most rewarding thing I've yet to experience. As others mentioned, I didn't really plan all these kids out. Life happens, I guess.
- Proven 8y agoWhat children?
- JohnnyConatus 8y agoGoing extinct? Typical middle-child attention getting stunt.
- dqpb 8y agoTechnically, isn't it the youngest child going extinct and the middle child left to take on the role of the youngest?
- dazzer 8y agoWell no... the middle child only comes into existence upon the introduction of the younger child.
- sxv 8y agocan't tell if trolling or ingenious..
- derefr 8y agoRight. A lot clearer if we use absolute cardinals here: the second child is now the youngest, whereas before they were the middle child. There are both cultural/traditional and [epi]genetic implications of birth order, so this might imply a better or worse suitedness of the role of youngest-child given differing birth orders of the title-holder.
- wccrawford 8y agoWhenever a couple has any kids at all, there is always a youngest child and an oldest child. Sometimes, they are the same child. There is not always a "middle child" because that requires at least 2 other children to exist. You're trying to say that the "third child" is going extinct, which matches what the article is saying in a different way.
- EADGBE 8y ago> Whenever a couple has any kids at all, there is always a youngest child and an oldest child. Sometimes, they are the same child. Technically, that's an only child and that has articles all its own...
- bhouston 8y agoPopulation shrinkage is not healthy for a society.
- xboxnolifes 8y agoEating chocolate is bad for dogs.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoIn our automation age, it is if you are labor seller and not capital owner.
- HaoZeke 8y agoRight because we should all emulate over populated India and China. Keeping the population down allows for a better standard of living for those who are alive already, and allows for sustainable growth. A population explosion is just not possible to deal with. Imagine more people trying to get into the top schools, thereby killing your chances.
- Fnoord 8y agoHong Kong's density is an excellent example of how it could look. For America though, there's enough room but for certain metropoles throughout the world as well as The Netherlands... no, they're pretty much full.
- Scarblac 8y agoThe Netherlands doesn't feel very full compared to many huge metropoles though. I mean I'd prefer the population size to stay the way it is, but I don't think it's close to some theoretical limit at all.
- Fnoord 8y agoNot compared to Hong Kong, of course. There's still some rural areas, farms, etc. The cities are full though, unless you are OK going vertically or buying (read: stealing) land from the peasants. For reference see population density statistics here [1] Either way, the housing market is troubled in The Netherlands. It has been the past decennia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density
- alex_young 8y agoExceptionally poor attempt to lie with statistics. Three or more is not an avg of 4 or more, and comparing women in their 40s to all mothers isn't equivalent. There may be something to this, but the math is so intentionally misleading as to murder the credibility of the author.
- Illniyar 8y agoYou go raise three children. I can barely handle two.
- drfuchs 8y ago“When you get to three kids, parents have to switch from one-on-one to zone defense.”
- sarnu 8y agoThe dynamic totally changes with three kids. I have three kids, and when one of them is not at home (doesn't matter which one) the atmosphere changes completely, hard to describe how. What I want to say: Having three is different from having two, but not necessarily harder. They have more things to handle between themselves. I could not bear to raise a single child. That must be really hard.
- moises_silva 8y agoMe and my wife decided for a second child (he's 2 months old now). I'm curious what you feel is hard about raising a single child? before deciding for the second, we were close to staying with one. If anything we feared it'd be hard for our first son growing all alone. Is that what you meant? hard for the kid not for the parents?
- sarnu 8y agoBoth for the kid and for the parents. For example, with single childs, you have to arrange play dates. If you have more than one, chances are, they play together. Another thing: with a single child, this one child has to fulfill all of the expectations of the parents. So it is quite a burden for the child. And another thing is, with more than one child you see that your education has a limited effect on the character of a child. Assuming that you treat your kids in a similar way, you can notice a big variety in character between them.
- entropy_ 8y agoI come from a family of 4 children, but there was a single child nonetheless because we're 3 boys close to each other in age, then a large gap, then a girl. My parents say that in the case of my sister some things were a lot harder because she'd be a lot more prone to being bored and needing entertainment or to being driven over to one of her friends' place. Whereas in the case of us boys all they'd have to do is set us loose in the backyard with a ball(or teach us a boardgame, etc...) and enjoy their peace and quiet until the next meal time. I'm now experiencing this with my own children to some extent. We have 2 kids so far, a 4 year old boy and a 1 year(and a couple months) old girl. They both wake up around 6:30 in the morning. And whereas before that meant that I'd never get to sleep in past that time, now our son just gathers a bunch of toys, climbs into his sister's crib, and they play until like 8am before they finally get bored and start calling for us. So at least as far as mornings go, 2 kids has proven easier than 1(after that initial 6 months from hell period where you don't get any sleep at all that is)
- icebraining 8y agoIt's interesting that the article doesn't have a comment to make about other familial arrangements brought about by shorter marriages and relationships. For example, I'm older than my brothers, yet the oldest of them is not a middle child, because he's not a brother of my other brothers. When families start spreading like this, a kid can be both a middle-child and a firstborn simultaneously - it becomes relative. And the attention that their position supposedly gives them becomes harder to measure.
- EADGBE 8y agoAgreed, especially as normal as it is now. I've had conversations with our daughter about friends and their families. Nuclear families are uncommon now. It's just what it is. And seeing enough unhealthy marriages; it's probably a lot better that way than the old adage to "stay together for the kids".
- hawski 8y ago> Non-nuclear families are not "not normal" at all now. Too much negations. Let me compile this for myself and others: Nuclear families are not normal at all now.
- shermanyo 8y agoI lived as both the youngest (older brother and sister from my mother) for the first half of my childhood, and then the oldest (younger brother and stepsister from my father) for the latter half. I never once lived with both older and younger siblings, they were essentially different families.
- AltVanilla 8y agoAs nice of a theory it is, birth order has not been shown to affect personality at all. > "Contemporary empirical research shows that birth order does not influence the Big Five personality traits." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_order The fact that such a big environmental factor doesn't effect personality at all, to me suggests that personality is mostly genetic. Anecdotally, It sure seems like kids have very distinct personalities from a very start. Another anecdote (that personality is more nature rather than nurture), is the stories of identical twins adopted to different families. When reunited as adults, they seem to have the same personality. One such story: > "It's not just our taste in music or books; it goes beyond that. In her, I see the same basic personality. And yet, eventually we had to realize that we're different people with different life histories." https://www.npr.org/2007/10/25/15629096/identical-strangers-explore-nature-vs-nurture https://www.npr.org/2007/10/25/15629096/identical-strangers-...