7 ms·

The nuclear family isn't working

22 points by clukic 4y ago

EddieDante 4y ago
It works for the ruling class. That it doesn't work for the ruled is of no concern to your masters.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  This seems like delusion unless you can connect it more directly to the question at hand, or explain the mechanism by which the nuclear family is forced upon the “ruled”. Or otherwise provide an alternative, ideal structure to replace the nuclear family.
  - biomcgary 4y ago
    It isn't too much of a stretch given the article. Real wages have been dropping for decades. If current wages returned to the amounts of the past, when the nuclear family was the norm, the ruling class profits would drop instead.
    - EddieDante 4y ago
      Likewise, if family farms, businesses, and trades were still viable corporations would have to pay more to lure people into working for them.
      - biomcgary 4y ago
        Absolutely! "In the 16 years from 1998 to 2014, the small business share of GDP fell from 48.0% to 43.5%." - https://sbecouncil.org/about-us/facts-and-data/ https://sbecouncil.org/about-us/facts-and-data/
        cudgy 4y ago
        Perhaps this is due to Walmart and Amazon killing small merchants? Would be interesting to know what sectors of small businesses were affected the most or if it was systemic across all sectors.
Bostonian 4y ago
The nuclear family does work, in the sense that average outcomes for children raised by their married biological parents are better than for other children.
- EliRivers 4y ago
  Is that correlation or causation? I could imagine that the kind of people who make sensible choices about who to marry and are able to hold a marriage together for a long period of time would also happen to be the kind of people who could raise children adequately.
  - black_puppydog 4y ago
    I could imagine many things. Like for example being discriminated against throughout your life, first because your parents are the gay weirdos at the corner, and then later because with all your liberal, non-conformist ideas you always strike the wrong chords with people. Wild imagination, I know.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Regardless of whether it is correlation or causation it seems to be an objective observation. I would also wager having a "better" child of the sort that would have good outcomes also helps hold families together better. If you have a kid that just is downright "broken" somehow in a way that places unusual demands from the parents, it often harms the marriage. That is, perhaps it is also the case the kind of children that have better outcomes tend to place less unusual demands on their parents, allowing the family to continue to bond. A particular violent, psychologically psychopathic child that might be measured as having bad outcomes might also drive the parents apart as family life becomes unbearable.
    - emaginniss 4y ago
      Mom always said that I was the reason she drank
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
prohobo 4y ago
Aren't we way past that? Yes, a nuclear family does worse than a full family (as in multiple generations living together). Can we stop diagnosing the problem ad nauseum? We get it.
- notch656a 4y ago
  Might depend. If you have grandparents that help I would guess the kid would do better. If the grandparents have bad medical issues that place a large burden on the parents, then the kids would probably get less attention and be better off if the grandparents were figuratively placed in the garbage bin. But I would wager on average you're correct, and I'd be interested in seeing some of the data to confirm it.
  - prohobo 4y ago
    There is no data because no one studied it, at least from what I've read. We're pretty sure that multigenerational households lead to less loneliness and less strictly individualistic people than nuclear families, but it's hard to prove it without a proper study. EDIT: Dealing with ailing grandparents is a very situational problem, but I think that effects nuclear families just as much.
  - biomcgary 4y ago
    One of the problems with boomer grandparents is that their average expectations around helping with childcare (i.e., minimal) are quite different than grandparents of the past. Due to the ongoing drop in incomes, boomers (and gen Xers) are more likely to be financially supporting their gen x (and millenial) kids than vice versa, which means they are less willing to "earn their way" with childcare.
jjoonathan 4y ago
The nuclear family used to contribute 5/14 person-days per week to the workforce. Now it contributes 10/14 person-days, which leaves only 4 person-days a week to raise kids, which isn't enough. Birth rate plummets -- who could have seen it coming? We should use the hours-per-week overtime threshold to control the aggregate supply/demand for labor (this also will require removing exceptions, of course). Proposal: the overtime threshold should be at 3 days per week. This leaves a nuclear family contributing ~6 days a week to the workforce -- more than it did in the 50s -- while still leaving 8 person-days a week for raising kids. Objection: but China will catch us if we slack off! Counter-Objection: China has the same problem but worse, and they have a government that loves big central plans more than ours does. Compromise would be possible if we wanted it. Objection: but we are ruled by capitalists who will never allow it. Counter-Objection: yeah, probably. If they do nothing, reduced birth rate will eventually reduce the aggregate supply of labor for them -- but automation will probably land by then, so I doubt they are too worried. We need to put an end to the situation where they profit enormously from mismanaging the situation.
- alkonaut 4y ago
  You are confusing “nuclear family” and “sole breadwinner households”. Nothing about nuclear family requires a homemaker parent. It only means 2-generation household with 2 parents and 1..N kids. And working 10 days of 14 works great and is possible to combine with a decent fertility so long as there is cheap care options as the article suggests.
spywaregorilla 4y ago
The most interesting piece here for me was that parents aren't having as many kids as they want: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/11/birth-rates-lag-in-europe-and-the-u-s-but-the-desire-for-kids-does-not/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/11/birth-rates... I also wonder at what salary level does it make more sense for a breadwinner household over a dual income household. Childcare is expensive, and likely scales with your standard of living. I net of increased tax rates, child care costs, and time spent navigating childcare costs, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a lot of dual income households that might actually get more disposable income with one person staying home.
- seydor 4y ago
  I'm not sure if this is particularly revealing. The biggest gaps in that graph are in italy, greece (poor, abysmally low birthrates), and sweden , denmark (rich, demographically better). The "ideal" number is probably influenced by peers, by family, by culture etc, it does not reflect true desires. That's why every country has a higher number of "ideal" children, but in reality people seem to have less kids, because they want fewer kids (a case of 'watch what people do, not what they say'). At least , i think people in sweden and denmark, do have the number of kids they actually want.
- sheepybloke 4y ago
  This was actually something my wife and I are talking about as we think about having kids. In most of the jobs she's been working, we would be paying more than what she would be making in childcare if she wanted to continue working. At that point, it makes more sense for her to be a stay at home mom. I definitely feel lucky though that we can just live off my salary and that it's even an option for us.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    I wish you the best and I'm sure you have a great marriage, but something to note for others is that there is a hidden potential cost many don't think about when deciding if the mom will be stay at home: you may be responsible for a sizeable alimony in the event of divorce as a result of the court deciding the wife sacrificed her career on your behalf for the family. It could be the difference between having enough to pay child support and your own expenses, and ending up with a felony charge and losing your property+passport+freedom+licenses because paying both alimony and child support (now higher because of higher income differential) can be insurmountable for some after going through a divorce. If you're a high income earner it's basically the kiss of death at any chance of ever changing your career (or taking a break), even if you psychologically burnt out on it.
gleenn 4y ago
Something which my parents have a hard time grasping: we're at one of the first times in American history where children are doing less off financially then there parents. My parents met in the 70's where my dad was making a killing as a professional. He easily purchased a large house and got married and had two kids. Even with a FAANG job, I struggle to find any reasonable place to continue my career in a place where basements aren't $1M and I can continue my career. I know there are more affordable places to live but with by some estimates of 20% inflation I fear moving to somewhere in the midwest and never being able to return to my home state of California. Finding a wife has also proven to be very difficult, perhaps mildly attributable to not having a good starting place to begin a family, where they have good schools etc. My parents lived through the booming 70's and 80's and just won't get it.
- alar44 4y ago
  I just can't have any sympathy for people who move to the most expensive places in the world and complain they're expensive. Get a different job elsewhere and you'll live like a fucking king if you have FAANG chops. Plenty of excellent places to live in the US that aren't SF, NYC, or LA.
  - adamesque 4y ago
    Parent says that California is their home state. Some people are okay with leaving home but many, many people like to stay close, even if that happens to be a HCOL place. I dunno, a little sympathy goes a long way.
    - alar44 4y ago
      Not if you're earning a million a year. Figure it out. You can make 250k/year almost anywhere in the US and live lavishly. If people want to trade easy living for a cool hip city, that's their choice. I've only been using HN for like a year, but some of the users here are living in a fucking bubble. People in the Midwest can get by on $20/hr. Make a choice. Most expensive city, or, anywhere else. /Shrug
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
> We need new positive social roles, especially for men Changing a culture's norms is pretty hard. When it's something "easy", like "give all people respect/human rights", that only takes around 120 years to take effect (or about 60 in the case of gay rights, a crazy fast timeline). But changing gender roles? That's so ingrained that it's foundational in many languages. I think it will be a lot easier to tackle this economically than via social norms. Give women more money for work, child care, maternity, etc and give men a small stipend if they don't work. Give both a bonus if they work in a non-gender-traditional field. It won't flip the whole thing on its head, but the change will start immediately.
smeej 4y ago
The title of this article seems to have little to do with its contents. There is commentary about the involvement of men and women in the workforce over time, but nothing about the outcomes for various family members on metrics that matter to them. There isn't even an obvious definition of "nuclear family" in the article. What would "working" even mean to this author?
DonnyV 4y ago
Some good ideas in this article but you lost me at ... "Rising healthcare costs are due to misaligned incentives between patients, doctors, pharma companies, and insurance companies that make healthcare spending inefficient and often ineffective, as well as an overly burdensome FDA approval process that increases the cost of drug development, makes it easier for pharma companies to price-gouge, and encourages corruption." Health insurance should be done at the Fed level, period. Thats how every other country does it. We can have our own version. It also saves money, instead of hording profits for some Insurance Companies CEO to buy a 2nd yacht. There are no pricing regulations on any drugs and thats the problem. Also if you believe in capitalism so much then we should be able to buy our drugs from anywhere in the world. Just like we do our food. The solution of families just doubling up is just dumb. Housing is expensive because real estate is artificially scarce. Real estate ghouls pay off local politicians to not expand zones or have zoning changed. Also some people just don't want to live with their parents. We want to raise our children our way without repeating the errors of the past. Also some grandparents can't help because of medical issues or just don't want to. This idea of forcing people into large families or groups to survive just sounds like trying to squeeze blood from a stone without fixing the problem thats causing this. Also big surprise this article never mentions how the elites cause all of these problems. They control the zoning for housing, they control what gets passed in Congress to budget for Universal Healthcare, they control if prices should be regulated by paying off politicians, they control minimum wage rates, etc etc
- cudgy 4y ago
  Agree on the healthcare solution. Disagree on the popular opinion on HN that housing is a shortage issue due to zoning rules. Perhaps this is the case in pockets of certain cities like SF, but this is not a problem in the majority of areas. The primary issue is the central bank easy monetary policy fueling speculation in real estate (and stocks) relative to other asset classes, particularly bonds which have been unattractive for decades.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
In light of the housing crisis in California, I looked at the census information for my house in 1920. It had three married couples living in it spanning from the 60s to their twenties.
Incipient 4y ago
The main thing I'm seeing here is sky rocketing wealth inequality and that families are required to put more of their time into work/supporting themselves, than being a family.
fourmajor 4y ago
It's unfortunate that he mis-used the term "cohousing," which is a distinct type of neighborhood/community that can be very beneficial for raising a family. It's a neighborhood in which your neighbors are often a kind of extended family. It would have deserved its own examination in the article. Cohousing is not living with more people in one house as the author characterized it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohousing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohousing

22 points by clukic 4y ago

EddieDante 4y ago

It works for the ruling class. That it doesn't work for the ruled is of no concern to your masters.

DiggyJohnson 4y ago
This seems like delusion unless you can connect it more directly to the question at hand, or explain the mechanism by which the nuclear family is forced upon the “ruled”. Or otherwise provide an alternative, ideal structure to replace the nuclear family.
- biomcgary 4y ago
  It isn't too much of a stretch given the article. Real wages have been dropping for decades. If current wages returned to the amounts of the past, when the nuclear family was the norm, the ruling class profits would drop instead.
  - EddieDante 4y ago
    Likewise, if family farms, businesses, and trades were still viable corporations would have to pay more to lure people into working for them.
    - biomcgary 4y ago
      Absolutely! "In the 16 years from 1998 to 2014, the small business share of GDP fell from 48.0% to 43.5%." - https://sbecouncil.org/about-us/facts-and-data/ https://sbecouncil.org/about-us/facts-and-data/
      - cudgy 4y ago
        Perhaps this is due to Walmart and Amazon killing small merchants? Would be interesting to know what sectors of small businesses were affected the most or if it was systemic across all sectors.

Bostonian 4y ago

The nuclear family does work, in the sense that average outcomes for children raised by their married biological parents are better than for other children.

EliRivers 4y ago
Is that correlation or causation? I could imagine that the kind of people who make sensible choices about who to marry and are able to hold a marriage together for a long period of time would also happen to be the kind of people who could raise children adequately.
- black_puppydog 4y ago
  I could imagine many things. Like for example being discriminated against throughout your life, first because your parents are the gay weirdos at the corner, and then later because with all your liberal, non-conformist ideas you always strike the wrong chords with people. Wild imagination, I know.
- notch656a 4y ago
  Regardless of whether it is correlation or causation it seems to be an objective observation. I would also wager having a "better" child of the sort that would have good outcomes also helps hold families together better. If you have a kid that just is downright "broken" somehow in a way that places unusual demands from the parents, it often harms the marriage. That is, perhaps it is also the case the kind of children that have better outcomes tend to place less unusual demands on their parents, allowing the family to continue to bond. A particular violent, psychologically psychopathic child that might be measured as having bad outcomes might also drive the parents apart as family life becomes unbearable.
  - emaginniss 4y ago
    Mom always said that I was the reason she drank
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

prohobo 4y ago

Aren't we way past that? Yes, a nuclear family does worse than a full family (as in multiple generations living together). Can we stop diagnosing the problem ad nauseum? We get it.

notch656a 4y ago
Might depend. If you have grandparents that help I would guess the kid would do better. If the grandparents have bad medical issues that place a large burden on the parents, then the kids would probably get less attention and be better off if the grandparents were figuratively placed in the garbage bin. But I would wager on average you're correct, and I'd be interested in seeing some of the data to confirm it.
- prohobo 4y ago
  There is no data because no one studied it, at least from what I've read. We're pretty sure that multigenerational households lead to less loneliness and less strictly individualistic people than nuclear families, but it's hard to prove it without a proper study. EDIT: Dealing with ailing grandparents is a very situational problem, but I think that effects nuclear families just as much.
- biomcgary 4y ago
  One of the problems with boomer grandparents is that their average expectations around helping with childcare (i.e., minimal) are quite different than grandparents of the past. Due to the ongoing drop in incomes, boomers (and gen Xers) are more likely to be financially supporting their gen x (and millenial) kids than vice versa, which means they are less willing to "earn their way" with childcare.

jjoonathan 4y ago

The nuclear family used to contribute 5/14 person-days per week to the workforce. Now it contributes 10/14 person-days, which leaves only 4 person-days a week to raise kids, which isn't enough. Birth rate plummets -- who could have seen it coming? We should use the hours-per-week overtime threshold to control the aggregate supply/demand for labor (this also will require removing exceptions, of course). Proposal: the overtime threshold should be at 3 days per week. This leaves a nuclear family contributing ~6 days a week to the workforce -- more than it did in the 50s -- while still leaving 8 person-days a week for raising kids. Objection: but China will catch us if we slack off! Counter-Objection: China has the same problem but worse, and they have a government that loves big central plans more than ours does. Compromise would be possible if we wanted it. Objection: but we are ruled by capitalists who will never allow it. Counter-Objection: yeah, probably. If they do nothing, reduced birth rate will eventually reduce the aggregate supply of labor for them -- but automation will probably land by then, so I doubt they are too worried. We need to put an end to the situation where they profit enormously from mismanaging the situation.

alkonaut 4y ago
You are confusing “nuclear family” and “sole breadwinner households”. Nothing about nuclear family requires a homemaker parent. It only means 2-generation household with 2 parents and 1..N kids. And working 10 days of 14 works great and is possible to combine with a decent fertility so long as there is cheap care options as the article suggests.

spywaregorilla 4y ago

The most interesting piece here for me was that parents aren't having as many kids as they want: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/11/birth-rates-lag-in-europe-and-the-u-s-but-the-desire-for-kids-does-not/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/11/birth-rates... I also wonder at what salary level does it make more sense for a breadwinner household over a dual income household. Childcare is expensive, and likely scales with your standard of living. I net of increased tax rates, child care costs, and time spent navigating childcare costs, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a lot of dual income households that might actually get more disposable income with one person staying home.

seydor 4y ago
I'm not sure if this is particularly revealing. The biggest gaps in that graph are in italy, greece (poor, abysmally low birthrates), and sweden , denmark (rich, demographically better). The "ideal" number is probably influenced by peers, by family, by culture etc, it does not reflect true desires. That's why every country has a higher number of "ideal" children, but in reality people seem to have less kids, because they want fewer kids (a case of 'watch what people do, not what they say'). At least , i think people in sweden and denmark, do have the number of kids they actually want.
sheepybloke 4y ago
This was actually something my wife and I are talking about as we think about having kids. In most of the jobs she's been working, we would be paying more than what she would be making in childcare if she wanted to continue working. At that point, it makes more sense for her to be a stay at home mom. I definitely feel lucky though that we can just live off my salary and that it's even an option for us.
- notch656a 4y ago
  I wish you the best and I'm sure you have a great marriage, but something to note for others is that there is a hidden potential cost many don't think about when deciding if the mom will be stay at home: you may be responsible for a sizeable alimony in the event of divorce as a result of the court deciding the wife sacrificed her career on your behalf for the family. It could be the difference between having enough to pay child support and your own expenses, and ending up with a felony charge and losing your property+passport+freedom+licenses because paying both alimony and child support (now higher because of higher income differential) can be insurmountable for some after going through a divorce. If you're a high income earner it's basically the kiss of death at any chance of ever changing your career (or taking a break), even if you psychologically burnt out on it.

gleenn 4y ago

Something which my parents have a hard time grasping: we're at one of the first times in American history where children are doing less off financially then there parents. My parents met in the 70's where my dad was making a killing as a professional. He easily purchased a large house and got married and had two kids. Even with a FAANG job, I struggle to find any reasonable place to continue my career in a place where basements aren't $1M and I can continue my career. I know there are more affordable places to live but with by some estimates of 20% inflation I fear moving to somewhere in the midwest and never being able to return to my home state of California. Finding a wife has also proven to be very difficult, perhaps mildly attributable to not having a good starting place to begin a family, where they have good schools etc. My parents lived through the booming 70's and 80's and just won't get it.

alar44 4y ago
I just can't have any sympathy for people who move to the most expensive places in the world and complain they're expensive. Get a different job elsewhere and you'll live like a fucking king if you have FAANG chops. Plenty of excellent places to live in the US that aren't SF, NYC, or LA.
- adamesque 4y ago
  Parent says that California is their home state. Some people are okay with leaving home but many, many people like to stay close, even if that happens to be a HCOL place. I dunno, a little sympathy goes a long way.
  - alar44 4y ago
    Not if you're earning a million a year. Figure it out. You can make 250k/year almost anywhere in the US and live lavishly. If people want to trade easy living for a cool hip city, that's their choice. I've only been using HN for like a year, but some of the users here are living in a fucking bubble. People in the Midwest can get by on $20/hr. Make a choice. Most expensive city, or, anywhere else. /Shrug

0xbadcafebee 4y ago

> We need new positive social roles, especially for men Changing a culture's norms is pretty hard. When it's something "easy", like "give all people respect/human rights", that only takes around 120 years to take effect (or about 60 in the case of gay rights, a crazy fast timeline). But changing gender roles? That's so ingrained that it's foundational in many languages. I think it will be a lot easier to tackle this economically than via social norms. Give women more money for work, child care, maternity, etc and give men a small stipend if they don't work. Give both a bonus if they work in a non-gender-traditional field. It won't flip the whole thing on its head, but the change will start immediately.

smeej 4y ago

The title of this article seems to have little to do with its contents. There is commentary about the involvement of men and women in the workforce over time, but nothing about the outcomes for various family members on metrics that matter to them. There isn't even an obvious definition of "nuclear family" in the article. What would "working" even mean to this author?

DonnyV 4y ago

Some good ideas in this article but you lost me at ... "Rising healthcare costs are due to misaligned incentives between patients, doctors, pharma companies, and insurance companies that make healthcare spending inefficient and often ineffective, as well as an overly burdensome FDA approval process that increases the cost of drug development, makes it easier for pharma companies to price-gouge, and encourages corruption." Health insurance should be done at the Fed level, period. Thats how every other country does it. We can have our own version. It also saves money, instead of hording profits for some Insurance Companies CEO to buy a 2nd yacht. There are no pricing regulations on any drugs and thats the problem. Also if you believe in capitalism so much then we should be able to buy our drugs from anywhere in the world. Just like we do our food. The solution of families just doubling up is just dumb. Housing is expensive because real estate is artificially scarce. Real estate ghouls pay off local politicians to not expand zones or have zoning changed. Also some people just don't want to live with their parents. We want to raise our children our way without repeating the errors of the past. Also some grandparents can't help because of medical issues or just don't want to. This idea of forcing people into large families or groups to survive just sounds like trying to squeeze blood from a stone without fixing the problem thats causing this. Also big surprise this article never mentions how the elites cause all of these problems. They control the zoning for housing, they control what gets passed in Congress to budget for Universal Healthcare, they control if prices should be regulated by paying off politicians, they control minimum wage rates, etc etc

cudgy 4y ago
Agree on the healthcare solution. Disagree on the popular opinion on HN that housing is a shortage issue due to zoning rules. Perhaps this is the case in pockets of certain cities like SF, but this is not a problem in the majority of areas. The primary issue is the central bank easy monetary policy fueling speculation in real estate (and stocks) relative to other asset classes, particularly bonds which have been unattractive for decades.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

In light of the housing crisis in California, I looked at the census information for my house in 1920. It had three married couples living in it spanning from the 60s to their twenties.

Incipient 4y ago

The main thing I'm seeing here is sky rocketing wealth inequality and that families are required to put more of their time into work/supporting themselves, than being a family.

fourmajor 4y ago

It's unfortunate that he mis-used the term "cohousing," which is a distinct type of neighborhood/community that can be very beneficial for raising a family. It's a neighborhood in which your neighbors are often a kind of extended family. It would have deserved its own examination in the article. Cohousing is not living with more people in one house as the author characterized it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohousing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohousing