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Being more stressed in your 30s than your early 20s is probably normal too. You've got less time on the planet, I've got a wife and three kids to support now,

Being more stressed in your 30s than your early 20s is probably normal too. You've got less time on the planet, I've got a wife and three kids to support now, career options are vastly more limited, incurred massive debt to buy a house. But hey, things are going comparatively well for me relative to many of my peers. It seems really hard to compare between generations. Things are so different, but if mental health is towards the top of the pile of concerns now we should probably address it regardless of whether it's really a bigger issue than today than it was previously.

iovrthoughtthis 8y ago
But is normal ok?
skohan 8y ago
Normal in the context of how our society is structured, but far from ideal or unavoidable. For instance, I can compare the experience of my cousin raising two young kids on the east coast of the US with my girlfriend's sister in the same situation in Italy. In my cousin's case, she had to go back to work almost immediately in order to pay the high rents where she lives, and money's a constant stress because of the price of a decent daycare/preschool. Family's far away, so essentially all the childcare responsibilities fall on her and her husband. In contrast, my girlfriend's sister had 9 months of paid maternity leave with which she could stay home with the baby without undue financial stress. When she returned to work part time, she didn't have to rely on commercial childcare because her large extended family is close by to share the burden. In general that makes her and her husband's life more relaxed, because if they want to go away for the odd weekend they can leave the kids with grandma. If you ask me, the work culture is deeply pathological in places like the US and UK. With the rise in technology and automation there's no reason we couldn't live in societies which prioritize our human needs more highly.
- user3359 8y ago
  I'll say I broadly agree that we should be moving towards a more evenly distributed system, and I'm a huge fan of the idea of basic income for the reason you outlined: giving people options. The caveat IMO is that having children is an incredibly selfish decision, and that decision shouldn't be publicly subsidized. It should come out of your discretionary spending. If we each get $2000/month and a kid costs you $1000/month, then you have to live off $1000/month, which means not living in overpriced areas. You can have anything you want in life, but you can't have everything.
  - cableshaft 8y ago
    Except if no one has kids, then our society collapses. So if society wants to keep its little engine moving, it's GDP going up up up every year, houses being bought, Social Security paid for, etc, it needs to at the very least not discourage the decision to have children so much that hardly anyone does it. It also seems that government that invest in children tend to have future generations of better educated, better adjusted, and better contributing members of society, which I feel is worth at least some investment.
    - dvdhnt 8y ago
      > Except if no one has kids, then our society collapses. Ah, ha! The top 1% are already on it.. they're pumping fortunes into defeating mortality as we speak. For those of us who can't afford it, I'm sure they'll be happy to extend our lives in return for some kind of "temporary" employment unto them, at least until we've repaid our debt... /s
    - user3359 8y ago
      Truthfully, I think we should be discouraging having children. There's too many people working too late in life that my peer group struggles to find meaningful work. A generation ago, people retired in their 50s and opened up jobs to the next generation, then died 10 years later and left family money to the next generation that could be used for housing. I don't have a single friend in my peer group who can afford housing, let alone has the income to raise children, if they don't have family money. Upward mobility into the well paying jobs is non existent, with 20 years of people in between them and executive level careers. People aren't going to stop having kids. It's too engrained in our society and genes. But with automation and an increasingly elderly workforce, job prospects are bad now and will continue to get worse for kids born in the last 10 years.
- cableshaft 8y ago
  Except for the long period of paid maternity leave, there's no reason someone in the US couldn't have what the Italian woman has. I know several parents that live close to their extended family and get help watching and raising their kids all the time. It's one of the reasons why I haven't moved to Silicon Valley after all these years, because I don't want to leave my familial and friend support network behind. It's resulted in much lower income for me, but that's the trade off. Although it doesn't have to be necessarily. For example in my case, I could possibly find a well-paying remote job. I'm already working remotely currently, albeit for a company that's local and doesn't pay anywhere near as well.
  - philipov 8y ago
    Not everyone has the privilege of choosing where to live, or even the possibility of remote work. People go where they can find work, and this often forces someone away from their support network. The cost of having a national labor market is that you can't rely on locally available jobs to match the locally available labor force. Some lucky person might get the local job that matches their skills, but the 10 other people looking for the same job will be forced to move.
    - cableshaft 8y ago
      As someone who works for a lot less money than I could be making and in an industry I am not excited about in the least (insurance...technically business process outsourcing but our clients are all insurance companies), I don't know about the word forced. I have been choosing a suboptimal career so I can be near my support network. It's hard sometimes, really hard, especially knowing I could easily be making $100k+ more than I'm making right now and working on something I care about at least a little bit more, but I am making that choice. I realize it can be extra difficult in some markets. I'm at least near a metropolitan area, so there's some jobs (hardly any that excite me, but there are some). I've worked plenty of shitty jobs in my life and nowhere near the software dev world in order to stay in my hometown . Unless the job market completely dries up in your town, it's a choice that can be made. It's similar to all the people who get majors in humanities or psychology or marketing and then end up working as a barista at Starbucks once they graduate. It's far from ideal, but sometimes people really don't want to move across the country for their jobs (or can't). Again, I'm not saying it's a great choice, or the right choice to stay near your support network necessarily. I haven't lived away from them so I don't have any idea firsthand. But I think it's a bit myopic to think you are forced to always go wherever the maximum amount of jobs or money to be made is, support network be damned.

iovrthoughtthis 8y ago

But is normal ok?

skohan 8y ago

Normal in the context of how our society is structured, but far from ideal or unavoidable. For instance, I can compare the experience of my cousin raising two young kids on the east coast of the US with my girlfriend's sister in the same situation in Italy. In my cousin's case, she had to go back to work almost immediately in order to pay the high rents where she lives, and money's a constant stress because of the price of a decent daycare/preschool. Family's far away, so essentially all the childcare responsibilities fall on her and her husband. In contrast, my girlfriend's sister had 9 months of paid maternity leave with which she could stay home with the baby without undue financial stress. When she returned to work part time, she didn't have to rely on commercial childcare because her large extended family is close by to share the burden. In general that makes her and her husband's life more relaxed, because if they want to go away for the odd weekend they can leave the kids with grandma. If you ask me, the work culture is deeply pathological in places like the US and UK. With the rise in technology and automation there's no reason we couldn't live in societies which prioritize our human needs more highly.

user3359 8y ago
I'll say I broadly agree that we should be moving towards a more evenly distributed system, and I'm a huge fan of the idea of basic income for the reason you outlined: giving people options. The caveat IMO is that having children is an incredibly selfish decision, and that decision shouldn't be publicly subsidized. It should come out of your discretionary spending. If we each get $2000/month and a kid costs you $1000/month, then you have to live off $1000/month, which means not living in overpriced areas. You can have anything you want in life, but you can't have everything.
- cableshaft 8y ago
  Except if no one has kids, then our society collapses. So if society wants to keep its little engine moving, it's GDP going up up up every year, houses being bought, Social Security paid for, etc, it needs to at the very least not discourage the decision to have children so much that hardly anyone does it. It also seems that government that invest in children tend to have future generations of better educated, better adjusted, and better contributing members of society, which I feel is worth at least some investment.
  - dvdhnt 8y ago
    > Except if no one has kids, then our society collapses. Ah, ha! The top 1% are already on it.. they're pumping fortunes into defeating mortality as we speak. For those of us who can't afford it, I'm sure they'll be happy to extend our lives in return for some kind of "temporary" employment unto them, at least until we've repaid our debt... /s
  - user3359 8y ago
    Truthfully, I think we should be discouraging having children. There's too many people working too late in life that my peer group struggles to find meaningful work. A generation ago, people retired in their 50s and opened up jobs to the next generation, then died 10 years later and left family money to the next generation that could be used for housing. I don't have a single friend in my peer group who can afford housing, let alone has the income to raise children, if they don't have family money. Upward mobility into the well paying jobs is non existent, with 20 years of people in between them and executive level careers. People aren't going to stop having kids. It's too engrained in our society and genes. But with automation and an increasingly elderly workforce, job prospects are bad now and will continue to get worse for kids born in the last 10 years.
cableshaft 8y ago
Except for the long period of paid maternity leave, there's no reason someone in the US couldn't have what the Italian woman has. I know several parents that live close to their extended family and get help watching and raising their kids all the time. It's one of the reasons why I haven't moved to Silicon Valley after all these years, because I don't want to leave my familial and friend support network behind. It's resulted in much lower income for me, but that's the trade off. Although it doesn't have to be necessarily. For example in my case, I could possibly find a well-paying remote job. I'm already working remotely currently, albeit for a company that's local and doesn't pay anywhere near as well.
- philipov 8y ago
  Not everyone has the privilege of choosing where to live, or even the possibility of remote work. People go where they can find work, and this often forces someone away from their support network. The cost of having a national labor market is that you can't rely on locally available jobs to match the locally available labor force. Some lucky person might get the local job that matches their skills, but the 10 other people looking for the same job will be forced to move.
  - cableshaft 8y ago
    As someone who works for a lot less money than I could be making and in an industry I am not excited about in the least (insurance...technically business process outsourcing but our clients are all insurance companies), I don't know about the word forced. I have been choosing a suboptimal career so I can be near my support network. It's hard sometimes, really hard, especially knowing I could easily be making $100k+ more than I'm making right now and working on something I care about at least a little bit more, but I am making that choice. I realize it can be extra difficult in some markets. I'm at least near a metropolitan area, so there's some jobs (hardly any that excite me, but there are some). I've worked plenty of shitty jobs in my life and nowhere near the software dev world in order to stay in my hometown . Unless the job market completely dries up in your town, it's a choice that can be made. It's similar to all the people who get majors in humanities or psychology or marketing and then end up working as a barista at Starbucks once they graduate. It's far from ideal, but sometimes people really don't want to move across the country for their jobs (or can't). Again, I'm not saying it's a great choice, or the right choice to stay near your support network necessarily. I haven't lived away from them so I don't have any idea firsthand. But I think it's a bit myopic to think you are forced to always go wherever the maximum amount of jobs or money to be made is, support network be damned.