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Nowadays parents of small children often live far away from their extended family, so they have the sole responsibility of raising their kids. Instead of having

Nowadays parents of small children often live far away from their extended family, so they have the sole responsibility of raising their kids. Instead of having the part-time responsibility of caring nephews/cousins/etc. throughout their life, they have some very busy years in which they raise their own children, with barely any time to do anything else, and then nothing. Combine that with the lack of "third places" [0] for parents to socialize with other parents and you end up with a rather disfunctional society in which fewer couples are willing to have children. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

xyzelement 3y ago
// Nowadays parents of small children often live far away from their extended family, To point out the obvious, this is a choice. And one with fewer trade-offs post-pandemic. For example, we bought our house in '21 from people moving a few states to be closer to their family, while we were moving there to be closer to our family. I am hearing this as a much stronger trend nowadays, vs the prior decades' "I have to move to NYC to get a job" ethos.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  Your anecdote is not representative of broader trends. Economic growth continues to be concentrated in a few metros, where housing prices are skyrocketing. My lead at my previous job had kids and wanted to buy a house in the Bay Area for his parents to let them be closer to grandkids, but prices prevented this. WFH may have temporarily enabled more flexibility of location, but that seems to be diminishing.
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    // Your anecdote is not representative of broader trends. The trend is that MORE people are allowing themselves to be closer to family, not that everyone does it now. Sometimes the tradeoffs are still painful - but often less so than before. EG: if your lead REALLY wanted to be closer to parents, they can try rearrange other things (eg where they work) over time.
  - autokad 3y ago
    you didn't contradict his point, you added support for it. Your lead is making a choice - pay / company over family / life. There is a cost to chasing TC (total compensation).
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      The choice is not so simple as it also involves volatility of future income, for which it very well could be better for your family for you to move to an economically burgeoning place. In an up or out world, there is a cost to not chasing TC too.
      - xyzelement 3y ago
        I think you're talking past the folks upstream because they are talking about "tradeoffs" and you are talking about "not so simple." The point is simply that if you pick up and move every time you can get a raise, you are going to end up far from family and thus have that problem. But not doing that has become a more viable choice lately, especially once you understand the downsides of being far from fam ~ what we're talking about here.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      It sounded to me that the previous poster's point is that the tradeoff between economic opportunities and moving away from grandparents is less prevalent. My anecdote (and census data in another reply) is how someone chose to stay in an economically strong metro despite the fact that this meant grandparents couldn't live near children. People are still often prioritizing economic opportunities over proximity to family. I don't deny that this is a choice, I'm contesting whether this tradeoff had diminished outside of WFH situations.
  - JambalayaJim 3y ago
    >Economic growth continues to be concentrated in a few metros Doesn’t that actually prove the op’s point? People are not moving away from the metros in which their families are, so of course the largest metros would grow larger. Personally I am very very hesitant to move cities for an economic opportunity. And that is entirely for financial reasons; if something happens to me, at least I can easily move back in with my parents.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      > People are not moving away from the metros in which their families are... That's assuming people's parents are already in the desirable metros, which is often not the case. These metros are experiencing a net increase from migration (except during COVID), so more people are moving in than out. Internal migration is disproportionately done by young people, so parents or aspiring parents of young children are likely moving away from grandparents. The "I have to move to NYC to get a job" ethos remains strong, though there was a pronounced drop during COVID young people are still much more likely to move than other demographics and their destinations are primarily the large cities: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/07/theres-no-place-like-home.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/07/theres-no-pla...
- pixl97 3y ago
  Parent poster missed some more details that do invalidate some of what you say here. Living close to your family in the past tended to also mean they had children of their own. Family sizes were typically larger too. As an anecdotal example. I have one child. (close family size 3) I have one sibling. (close family size 4) My dad has 4 siblings. (close family size 7) His father had something like 7 siblings (10) Even if your family lives close, you still live close to far fewer people than past generations, especially ones that are close to your age.
- phil21 3y ago
  > vs the prior decades' "I have to move to NYC to get a job" ethos This may seem like a thing due to social bubbles, but the numbers do not bear it out. Prior to pandemic years (stats almost impossible to find on that yet, plus I'd wait another year or two to let the noise settle) Americans have never been less mobile in recent years than ever in the history of the nation. I've pointed it out as part of our general malaise of the past 50 years. People in general are very hesitant to uproot for economic opportunity compared to the historic norm. One other big difference is families don't move for the current patriarch/breadwinner either - both both societal and practical reasons. Big opportunities may also be less, but that's simple speculation. People's expectations in life and not accepting tradeoffs also may be part of it as well. Family size is certainly part of it, but the Boomer generation belies that as the only or maybe even major cause. That generation began the generations of putting grandma in the nursing home vs. living inter-generationally. It certainly wasn't for lack of kids per adult. The suburbs also seemed to happen around the same time. Edit: Since this fact always gets initially downvoted, some sources from a previous comment: https://www.brookings.edu/research/despite-the-pandemic-narrative-americans-are-moving-at-historically-low-rates/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/despite-the-pandemic-narr... https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.25.3.173 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.25.3.173 I've read more on the subject but sources going back further are difficult to immediately find.
- david-gpu 3y ago
  >> Nowadays parents of small children often live far away from their extended family > To point out the obvious, this is a choice It may have been a choice for you, but it is not a choice for everybody. Both my and my wife's extended families continue moving from one place to another for various reasons, often for work, so it's not like us moving closer to them today would guarantee any sort of proximity in the future either. This is not an uncommon situation nowadays.
pixl97 3y ago
It's not just living far away from extended family, it's having extended family at all. https://populationeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/average-number-children-per-us-family-historic-infographic-1024x791.jpg https://populationeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/a... The number of people per family has been dropping in the US for a long time, the baby boom was the last 'bounce' in that graph and that was over 60 years ago now. The number of children per capita went from 36% to 22% in the same time https://www.statista.com/statistics/457760/number-of-children-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/457760/number-of-childre... and https://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-households-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-househo...
caesil 3y ago
We don't really have a lack of third places per se. "Churches, cafes, clubs, public libraries, gyms, bookstores, stoops and parks" are not exactly in short supply in the United States. The problem is that it's difficult to get a critical mass of people out to them regularly. Getting in a car to go drive somewhere is a huge pain in the ass. Doubly so if you have children and you have to secure them in carseats and pack all the stuff they require. Third places work where you can walk to them from your home. As long as we stay glued to car dependency, we won't have them.
- threatofrain 3y ago
  We have many cities, not all of them having the same profile of car-ness vs public transportation, density, proximity to 3rd places, etc. Do we observe differences among cities, such as NYC?
  - bravetraveler 3y ago
    This is good to raise/consider - for example, I'm in Austin now. It's a 45 minute adventure to do almost anything Columbus on the other hand, I could run to a suburb across the city, do my thing, and be back in less time. I self-isolate far more in places like Austin than Columbus, largely due to the hassle of getting to/fro
    - JambalayaJim 3y ago
      I would not have considered Columbus to be a city with good public transit, interesting
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        While they wrote “run”, I presume they meant they can drive to various parts of the Columbus metropolitan region much more quickly and reliably than to various places in the Austin metro.
        3y ago

xyzelement 3y ago

// Nowadays parents of small children often live far away from their extended family, To point out the obvious, this is a choice. And one with fewer trade-offs post-pandemic. For example, we bought our house in '21 from people moving a few states to be closer to their family, while we were moving there to be closer to our family. I am hearing this as a much stronger trend nowadays, vs the prior decades' "I have to move to NYC to get a job" ethos.

Manuel_D 3y ago
Your anecdote is not representative of broader trends. Economic growth continues to be concentrated in a few metros, where housing prices are skyrocketing. My lead at my previous job had kids and wanted to buy a house in the Bay Area for his parents to let them be closer to grandkids, but prices prevented this. WFH may have temporarily enabled more flexibility of location, but that seems to be diminishing.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  // Your anecdote is not representative of broader trends. The trend is that MORE people are allowing themselves to be closer to family, not that everyone does it now. Sometimes the tradeoffs are still painful - but often less so than before. EG: if your lead REALLY wanted to be closer to parents, they can try rearrange other things (eg where they work) over time.
- autokad 3y ago
  you didn't contradict his point, you added support for it. Your lead is making a choice - pay / company over family / life. There is a cost to chasing TC (total compensation).
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    The choice is not so simple as it also involves volatility of future income, for which it very well could be better for your family for you to move to an economically burgeoning place. In an up or out world, there is a cost to not chasing TC too.
    - xyzelement 3y ago
      I think you're talking past the folks upstream because they are talking about "tradeoffs" and you are talking about "not so simple." The point is simply that if you pick up and move every time you can get a raise, you are going to end up far from family and thus have that problem. But not doing that has become a more viable choice lately, especially once you understand the downsides of being far from fam ~ what we're talking about here.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    It sounded to me that the previous poster's point is that the tradeoff between economic opportunities and moving away from grandparents is less prevalent. My anecdote (and census data in another reply) is how someone chose to stay in an economically strong metro despite the fact that this meant grandparents couldn't live near children. People are still often prioritizing economic opportunities over proximity to family. I don't deny that this is a choice, I'm contesting whether this tradeoff had diminished outside of WFH situations.
- JambalayaJim 3y ago
  >Economic growth continues to be concentrated in a few metros Doesn’t that actually prove the op’s point? People are not moving away from the metros in which their families are, so of course the largest metros would grow larger. Personally I am very very hesitant to move cities for an economic opportunity. And that is entirely for financial reasons; if something happens to me, at least I can easily move back in with my parents.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    > People are not moving away from the metros in which their families are... That's assuming people's parents are already in the desirable metros, which is often not the case. These metros are experiencing a net increase from migration (except during COVID), so more people are moving in than out. Internal migration is disproportionately done by young people, so parents or aspiring parents of young children are likely moving away from grandparents. The "I have to move to NYC to get a job" ethos remains strong, though there was a pronounced drop during COVID young people are still much more likely to move than other demographics and their destinations are primarily the large cities: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/07/theres-no-place-like-home.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/07/theres-no-pla...
pixl97 3y ago
Parent poster missed some more details that do invalidate some of what you say here. Living close to your family in the past tended to also mean they had children of their own. Family sizes were typically larger too. As an anecdotal example. I have one child. (close family size 3) I have one sibling. (close family size 4) My dad has 4 siblings. (close family size 7) His father had something like 7 siblings (10) Even if your family lives close, you still live close to far fewer people than past generations, especially ones that are close to your age.
phil21 3y ago
> vs the prior decades' "I have to move to NYC to get a job" ethos This may seem like a thing due to social bubbles, but the numbers do not bear it out. Prior to pandemic years (stats almost impossible to find on that yet, plus I'd wait another year or two to let the noise settle) Americans have never been less mobile in recent years than ever in the history of the nation. I've pointed it out as part of our general malaise of the past 50 years. People in general are very hesitant to uproot for economic opportunity compared to the historic norm. One other big difference is families don't move for the current patriarch/breadwinner either - both both societal and practical reasons. Big opportunities may also be less, but that's simple speculation. People's expectations in life and not accepting tradeoffs also may be part of it as well. Family size is certainly part of it, but the Boomer generation belies that as the only or maybe even major cause. That generation began the generations of putting grandma in the nursing home vs. living inter-generationally. It certainly wasn't for lack of kids per adult. The suburbs also seemed to happen around the same time. Edit: Since this fact always gets initially downvoted, some sources from a previous comment: https://www.brookings.edu/research/despite-the-pandemic-narrative-americans-are-moving-at-historically-low-rates/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/despite-the-pandemic-narr... https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.25.3.173 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.25.3.173 I've read more on the subject but sources going back further are difficult to immediately find.
david-gpu 3y ago
>> Nowadays parents of small children often live far away from their extended family > To point out the obvious, this is a choice It may have been a choice for you, but it is not a choice for everybody. Both my and my wife's extended families continue moving from one place to another for various reasons, often for work, so it's not like us moving closer to them today would guarantee any sort of proximity in the future either. This is not an uncommon situation nowadays.

pixl97 3y ago

It's not just living far away from extended family, it's having extended family at all. https://populationeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/average-number-children-per-us-family-historic-infographic-1024x791.jpg https://populationeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/a... The number of people per family has been dropping in the US for a long time, the baby boom was the last 'bounce' in that graph and that was over 60 years ago now. The number of children per capita went from 36% to 22% in the same time https://www.statista.com/statistics/457760/number-of-children-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/457760/number-of-childre... and https://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-households-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-househo...

caesil 3y ago

We don't really have a lack of third places per se. "Churches, cafes, clubs, public libraries, gyms, bookstores, stoops and parks" are not exactly in short supply in the United States. The problem is that it's difficult to get a critical mass of people out to them regularly. Getting in a car to go drive somewhere is a huge pain in the ass. Doubly so if you have children and you have to secure them in carseats and pack all the stuff they require. Third places work where you can walk to them from your home. As long as we stay glued to car dependency, we won't have them.

threatofrain 3y ago
We have many cities, not all of them having the same profile of car-ness vs public transportation, density, proximity to 3rd places, etc. Do we observe differences among cities, such as NYC?
- bravetraveler 3y ago
  This is good to raise/consider - for example, I'm in Austin now. It's a 45 minute adventure to do almost anything Columbus on the other hand, I could run to a suburb across the city, do my thing, and be back in less time. I self-isolate far more in places like Austin than Columbus, largely due to the hassle of getting to/fro
  - JambalayaJim 3y ago
    I would not have considered Columbus to be a city with good public transit, interesting
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      While they wrote “run”, I presume they meant they can drive to various parts of the Columbus metropolitan region much more quickly and reliably than to various places in the Austin metro.
      - 3y ago