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It turns out that a lot of what makes a relationship work is also what causes the children of 2-parent families to do better. Namely, if you remove the stress o

It turns out that a lot of what makes a relationship work is also what causes the children of 2-parent families to do better. Namely, if you remove the stress of scrambling just to make ends meet, and remove food and housing and healthcare and employment insecurity, then people have more time to spend on their families. And provided the parents aren't terrible people, that leads to better outcomes, more stable marriages, etc etc. Its very easy to say "if we could just keep more parents together..." as if the availability of divorce after giving birth was the problem. Solve the major reasons why relationships fail after giving birth, and you'll likely create the situation where kids have more engaged parents too.

slt2021 3y ago
there is relationship (as in one night stand) and there is lifelong relationship. There is fundamental conflict: 1. All people (especially young) want hook-ups due to hormones and stuff, as many as possible. These leads to pregnancies and kids. 2. Family requires you to limit your desires only to your partners and create lifelong commitment, which means responsibilities (not only for yourself, but for your partners and kids). There is mismatch fundamentally. Either hookups culture needs to die, or kids have to be allowed only by stable families
- petsfed 3y ago
  The birth rate (especially the teenage birth rate) has been dropping for the last 20 years. But sure, it's hookup culture that's causing single parent households, and not an evolution of how people of child-rearing age think about marriage, or that the changing shape of the economy means that marriage-as-a-mainly-financial-arrangement is dying a long-overdue death. It's definitely not that legalizing so-called no-fault divorces allows women (especially mothers) to escape abusive situations that are, for one reason or another, impossible to prosecute as such. And that's all to say nothing of the known impact from over-policing of low income communities.
  - slt2021 3y ago
    Dropping birth rate is not a problem at all, Europe Scandinavia Australia has dropping birth rate but much better social situation. The rest of your argument is incoherent and does not have a point, so I dont event understand what is it about. Overpolicing is a myth, because cops are policing where crime actually happens. Doesnt make sense for police to patrol law abiding medium/high class neighborhoods if crime doesnt happen there. Police must be present where criminals live, this is actually the only correct approach
    - defrost 3y ago
      > cops are policing where crime actually happens. Alternatively, crime happens where police are. Eg. Police might excessively arrest in particular communities as a form of overbearing bullying .. and the arrest and conviction rates in these areas climb. There is much written about this, your take in your comment above seems naive at best. The world is rarely as first order simple as you appear to believe it to be. Of interest (although admittedly not all that compelling as it's a small rich unicorn area) Crime Rate Goes Down After Half A Cop Shop Quits https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/17/if-the-crime-rate-goes-down-after-half-a-cop-shop-quits-what-are-we-even-paying-for/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/17/if-the-crime-rate-goes-d...
      - slt2021 3y ago
        The only causal link between less police leading to less crime: is fewer police reports. People give up reporting crime if police is nowhere to be found. Look at san frasicko: people wont even bother registering crime if their car window broke or cat stolen. On paper crime rate is lower, in reality it is different.
    - petsfed 3y ago
      Ok, I'll clarify: Your claim is that "hook up culture" is causing all these kids to grow up single-parent households. This flies in the face of all kinds of studies that show that, starting with millenials, kids are waiting longer to have sex, and are having fewer partners than e.g. baby boomers. At the same time, young adults are waiting longer to get married than baby boomers, are getting married less often, and once married are getting divorced at a lower rate than their parents generation. They're also having fewer children. And yet, the number of unwed mothers has steadily risen in the past 50 years, only plateauing in the last 10 or 15 (at or about the time "hookup culture" became a thing that people clutched their pearls over). Why is that? I hypothesized, in my post, that there's an "(1) evolution of how people of child-rearing age think about marriage, or that (2) the changing shape of the economy means that marriage-as-a-mainly-financial-arrangement is dying a long-overdue death. (3) It's definitely not that legalizing so-called no-fault divorces allows women (especially mothers) to escape abusive situations that are, for one reason or another, impossible to prosecute as such" So let's break those down. Point 1 is sort of indisputable. Young people are waiting longer to get married (but also getting divorced less). Clearly, people are being more careful in who they choose to settle down with, including who they have children with. Point 2 I claim is driven by the fact that single women are no longer obliged to treat their job as a match-making opportunity. Women make enough in the job market, and have enough jobs available to them, to not enter into marriages strictly as financial partnerships, that carry the obligation of sex and child rearing. Point 3 is subtler, but also the main reason why just discouraging divorce will, I believe, actually lead to worse outcomes for children. Thanks to the various advances in women's rights over the last 100 years, a woman can actually get a divorce from an abusive spouse, without requiring police cooperation. This is huge. We are on a downward trend for domestic abuse, and a lot of that is because an abused partner can actually leave (and why you saw a spike in domestic violence during the COVID lockdowns) without the police getting involved. So the options are "have a single parent", or "grow up in an abusive household". Given how frequently abusers are themselves victims of prior abuse, I'd argue that growing up in a single-parent household is, ultimately, the lesser of two evils. Speaking of police and their ability to choose not to make an arrest for a given event, there's my point about over-policing low-income communities. A person from a high-income community can get busted over 1.01 ounces of weed, post bail, and be back to work the next morning, then plea it down or have the charges dismissed, provided the police even stop them to begin with or think that an arrest is worthwhile. Meanwhile, a person from a low-income community has no choice but to take the months or years of jail time, for the same charge. And since we say "put police where the crime is", the police are themselves more likely to stop a "suspicious" person, and arrest them, because the police think there's more crime there too, and "going easy on them will just encourage them". All of this adds up to parents ending up in jail when they should be raising their kids, on charges that other people aren't even held for.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >Either hookups culture needs to die I think increased awareness of Birth control already solved this problem. Almost every first world country's population is starting to fall under the rate needed to increase the population while most third world countries contribute to the overall global population increase. I'd also say the lack of stigma around abortions, but ofc we know how that's going in the U.S...

slt2021 3y ago

there is relationship (as in one night stand) and there is lifelong relationship. There is fundamental conflict: 1. All people (especially young) want hook-ups due to hormones and stuff, as many as possible. These leads to pregnancies and kids. 2. Family requires you to limit your desires only to your partners and create lifelong commitment, which means responsibilities (not only for yourself, but for your partners and kids). There is mismatch fundamentally. Either hookups culture needs to die, or kids have to be allowed only by stable families

petsfed 3y ago
The birth rate (especially the teenage birth rate) has been dropping for the last 20 years. But sure, it's hookup culture that's causing single parent households, and not an evolution of how people of child-rearing age think about marriage, or that the changing shape of the economy means that marriage-as-a-mainly-financial-arrangement is dying a long-overdue death. It's definitely not that legalizing so-called no-fault divorces allows women (especially mothers) to escape abusive situations that are, for one reason or another, impossible to prosecute as such. And that's all to say nothing of the known impact from over-policing of low income communities.
- slt2021 3y ago
  Dropping birth rate is not a problem at all, Europe Scandinavia Australia has dropping birth rate but much better social situation. The rest of your argument is incoherent and does not have a point, so I dont event understand what is it about. Overpolicing is a myth, because cops are policing where crime actually happens. Doesnt make sense for police to patrol law abiding medium/high class neighborhoods if crime doesnt happen there. Police must be present where criminals live, this is actually the only correct approach
  - defrost 3y ago
    > cops are policing where crime actually happens. Alternatively, crime happens where police are. Eg. Police might excessively arrest in particular communities as a form of overbearing bullying .. and the arrest and conviction rates in these areas climb. There is much written about this, your take in your comment above seems naive at best. The world is rarely as first order simple as you appear to believe it to be. Of interest (although admittedly not all that compelling as it's a small rich unicorn area) Crime Rate Goes Down After Half A Cop Shop Quits https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/17/if-the-crime-rate-goes-down-after-half-a-cop-shop-quits-what-are-we-even-paying-for/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/17/if-the-crime-rate-goes-d...
    - slt2021 3y ago
      The only causal link between less police leading to less crime: is fewer police reports. People give up reporting crime if police is nowhere to be found. Look at san frasicko: people wont even bother registering crime if their car window broke or cat stolen. On paper crime rate is lower, in reality it is different.
  - petsfed 3y ago
    Ok, I'll clarify: Your claim is that "hook up culture" is causing all these kids to grow up single-parent households. This flies in the face of all kinds of studies that show that, starting with millenials, kids are waiting longer to have sex, and are having fewer partners than e.g. baby boomers. At the same time, young adults are waiting longer to get married than baby boomers, are getting married less often, and once married are getting divorced at a lower rate than their parents generation. They're also having fewer children. And yet, the number of unwed mothers has steadily risen in the past 50 years, only plateauing in the last 10 or 15 (at or about the time "hookup culture" became a thing that people clutched their pearls over). Why is that? I hypothesized, in my post, that there's an "(1) evolution of how people of child-rearing age think about marriage, or that (2) the changing shape of the economy means that marriage-as-a-mainly-financial-arrangement is dying a long-overdue death. (3) It's definitely not that legalizing so-called no-fault divorces allows women (especially mothers) to escape abusive situations that are, for one reason or another, impossible to prosecute as such" So let's break those down. Point 1 is sort of indisputable. Young people are waiting longer to get married (but also getting divorced less). Clearly, people are being more careful in who they choose to settle down with, including who they have children with. Point 2 I claim is driven by the fact that single women are no longer obliged to treat their job as a match-making opportunity. Women make enough in the job market, and have enough jobs available to them, to not enter into marriages strictly as financial partnerships, that carry the obligation of sex and child rearing. Point 3 is subtler, but also the main reason why just discouraging divorce will, I believe, actually lead to worse outcomes for children. Thanks to the various advances in women's rights over the last 100 years, a woman can actually get a divorce from an abusive spouse, without requiring police cooperation. This is huge. We are on a downward trend for domestic abuse, and a lot of that is because an abused partner can actually leave (and why you saw a spike in domestic violence during the COVID lockdowns) without the police getting involved. So the options are "have a single parent", or "grow up in an abusive household". Given how frequently abusers are themselves victims of prior abuse, I'd argue that growing up in a single-parent household is, ultimately, the lesser of two evils. Speaking of police and their ability to choose not to make an arrest for a given event, there's my point about over-policing low-income communities. A person from a high-income community can get busted over 1.01 ounces of weed, post bail, and be back to work the next morning, then plea it down or have the charges dismissed, provided the police even stop them to begin with or think that an arrest is worthwhile. Meanwhile, a person from a low-income community has no choice but to take the months or years of jail time, for the same charge. And since we say "put police where the crime is", the police are themselves more likely to stop a "suspicious" person, and arrest them, because the police think there's more crime there too, and "going easy on them will just encourage them". All of this adds up to parents ending up in jail when they should be raising their kids, on charges that other people aren't even held for.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>Either hookups culture needs to die I think increased awareness of Birth control already solved this problem. Almost every first world country's population is starting to fall under the rate needed to increase the population while most third world countries contribute to the overall global population increase. I'd also say the lack of stigma around abortions, but ofc we know how that's going in the U.S...