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I mean, fine, but these poor people will have no family and will be abandoned in their old age. So I don't think fatalistically accepting "no more kids" is the

I mean, fine, but these poor people will have no family and will be abandoned in their old age. So I don't think fatalistically accepting "no more kids" is the way forward either. Eventually, public health efforts will just sort of ignore them, and they'll be left to die. It will not help to have no family and nobody who cares about you. I would agree about the underlying cause though: > no social safety nets, tenuous healthcare/housing/work access, varying degrees of uncertainty of their economic future Maybe it's useful for the rich to realize, in their language of GDP, that this is a problem.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
> It will not help to have no family and nobody who cares about you. Visit a retirement home in your community and ask how many folks with kids have them visit. Having family is no guarantee they will stay with you, take you in, or provide for you in old age. EDIT: @bluefirebrand > People are too busy to care for their children or their elders, really. Ask children why they don't visit. I don't believe the data proves out it's because of a lack of time, but an unwillingness/desire to. I put forth that younger generations are more comfortable casting off societal norms (maintaining unhealthy relationships with substandard parents), and walking away from dysfunctional parental relationships versus historically. https://news.osu.edu/study-examines-what-makes-adult-children-cut-ties-with-parents/ https://news.osu.edu/study-examines-what-makes-adult-childre... https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/01/why-parents-and-kids-get-estranged/617612/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/01/why-paren... https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190328-family-estrangement-causes https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190328-family-estrangem... https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/05/20/how-many-american-children-have-cut-contact-with-their-parents https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/05/20/how-many-...
- bluefirebrand 4y ago
  Arguably this is also related to the same problems. People are too busy to care for their children or their elders, really. It's leading to a very cold and detached society imo
  - Ancalagon 4y ago
    im not sure its necessarily business either, but rather distraction. Lots of ways in which relationships were formed and maintained in the past are being replaced by technology
- FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
  > Having family is no guarantee they will stay with you, take you in, or provide for you in old age. We can look at this in terms of the individual family, or in terms of the larger society and its economic forces. Individual relationships: Yes, having family increases the odds that someone will give a shit, but it is no guarantee -- and it is less of a guarantee, the less people care about their parents and relatives. (Which is not going to be a good path to go down in an era of weaker states and nonexistent social services. The Family is going to have to step into that gap, as it does in many other societies, if people are going to have anything. And, (transnational) cultures in which people are able to organize in this way are going to do better than those that don't.) Society and economics: If there is simply a general shortage of kids (regardless of whether they are your kids), that eventually shows up as rising prices for labor -- including the "caring labor" you pay for in an assisted living complex (or whatever). If that gets more expensive, then having grandma move in becomes comparatively more reasonable. But if grandma has no grandkids, then grandma definitely doesn't have that option.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

> It will not help to have no family and nobody who cares about you. Visit a retirement home in your community and ask how many folks with kids have them visit. Having family is no guarantee they will stay with you, take you in, or provide for you in old age. EDIT: @bluefirebrand > People are too busy to care for their children or their elders, really. Ask children why they don't visit. I don't believe the data proves out it's because of a lack of time, but an unwillingness/desire to. I put forth that younger generations are more comfortable casting off societal norms (maintaining unhealthy relationships with substandard parents), and walking away from dysfunctional parental relationships versus historically. https://news.osu.edu/study-examines-what-makes-adult-children-cut-ties-with-parents/ https://news.osu.edu/study-examines-what-makes-adult-childre... https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/01/why-parents-and-kids-get-estranged/617612/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/01/why-paren... https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190328-family-estrangement-causes https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190328-family-estrangem... https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/05/20/how-many-american-children-have-cut-contact-with-their-parents https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/05/20/how-many-...

bluefirebrand 4y ago
Arguably this is also related to the same problems. People are too busy to care for their children or their elders, really. It's leading to a very cold and detached society imo
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  im not sure its necessarily business either, but rather distraction. Lots of ways in which relationships were formed and maintained in the past are being replaced by technology
FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
> Having family is no guarantee they will stay with you, take you in, or provide for you in old age. We can look at this in terms of the individual family, or in terms of the larger society and its economic forces. Individual relationships: Yes, having family increases the odds that someone will give a shit, but it is no guarantee -- and it is less of a guarantee, the less people care about their parents and relatives. (Which is not going to be a good path to go down in an era of weaker states and nonexistent social services. The Family is going to have to step into that gap, as it does in many other societies, if people are going to have anything. And, (transnational) cultures in which people are able to organize in this way are going to do better than those that don't.) Society and economics: If there is simply a general shortage of kids (regardless of whether they are your kids), that eventually shows up as rising prices for labor -- including the "caring labor" you pay for in an assisted living complex (or whatever). If that gets more expensive, then having grandma move in becomes comparatively more reasonable. But if grandma has no grandkids, then grandma definitely doesn't have that option.