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Anecdata: I am 31 and have 3 young kids. They have 0 cousins and, on top of that, 0... second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's

Anecdata: I am 31 and have 3 young kids. They have 0 cousins and, on top of that, 0... second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids. My kids are my grandma's only great-grandkids. And I have... 6 cousins. On top of that, at my last job, on my team of 15, I was the only one with kids, and only 1 of those 15 engineers were under the age of 30. At my current job, my team is 8, and again we're all about 30, and nobody is even thinking about kids at all. It baffles me. And it's also a bit inconvenient that nobody else at work has such pressing obligations, it makes me feel bad (though not too bad at this point) that I *have* to log off at quittin' time, sharp, to go relieve my wife of some childcare and make a family dinner.

nolongerthere 3y ago
On my team of 15 only 3 don’t have kids, though there is a wide age range (24-55) the ones without kids are in their 30s but have indicated no interest. But only 2 have more than 2 kids (3). One has two of her own and now that they’re grown up she just adopted 2 high school age kids, which is very commendable, (and a huge undertaking) but I don’t really count it in terms of procreation.
silverquiet 3y ago
> It baffles me. Frankly, I never really got why people wanted children in the first place, so this turnabout is amusing. Perhaps you can ask some of these people that you are close with as to their reasoning.
- justahuman74 3y ago
  For me it's like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/hf0rf/for_reasons_unexplained/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/hf0rf/for_reasons_une... (third square)
  - dgfitz 3y ago
    Heh, maybe if people were having more kids the US political landscape wouldn’t be so fucked.
    - datavirtue 3y ago
      You think the fallout is bad now? Give it twenty years.
    - sunnybeetroot 3y ago
      Watch idiocracy for what that could lead to.
- toasterlovin 3y ago
  Biological organisms not procreating despite living in material and caloric abundance is cosmically weird.
  - Barrin92 3y ago
    Evolution has equipped us with a pretty generous frontal cortex so we have a sort of escape hatch to reflect and decide on whether to act on our biological imperatives. Reduction of human beings to 'biological organisms' as if we're humping rabbits is no less weird.
    - ChainOfFools 3y ago
      A fire has no cortex whatsoever, and yet if fire did not continue doing what fire does in order to stay fire - turn things that are "not fire" into itself- it would cease to exist altogether. That's all there is to it. There is no big picture. edit: I expected apathy at best from a comment this deep in a thread. Now, granted, HN does not stand for Hard Nihilism, but four downvotes with zero explanations in under an hour suggests there is an incurious hostility toward the view that people (myself included) are, like fire, essentially just echoes of thermodynamics.
      - jodrellblank 3y ago
        > That's all there is to it. There is no big picture. Even if it is correct (which you haven’t tried to support, just claiming that you know best), how is it relevant? If there’s no bigger picture then what’s wrong with going extinct which should push us to procreate? The comparison to fire - the human population is the highest it’s ever been and still increasing so it doesn’t seem like we are “going out“, and if that was happening the collapse of civilisation would lead to the loss of the ability to mass manufacture birth control and loss of the medical systems supporting them at some point, and the population would go up again after that, wouldn’t it? Fire runs out of fuel, but human food grows on trees - less humans leads to more ecosystem regeneration which could support more humans. > "an incurious hostility toward the view that people (myself included) are, like fire, essentially just echoes of thermodynamics." I thought we were “just“ hydraulic systems? Just LLMs? Just clockwork? Humans are just {recent scientific discovery of the era} is an interesting view on its own but is it relevant to the thread? "We are just thermodynamic systems ... so we should reproduce"?
- xyzelement 3y ago
  It's the simplest answer. I find life to be worth living, I am grateful I have life and it's the most meaningful to me to be able to give life to someone else and try to make it as good and meaningful for them as possible. And it can be so fun. I just taught my 3 year old to ride a bike and for the first time today we went for a bike ride along the boardwalk, each on our bikes. I had a pretty amazing single life but I would be hard-pressed to think of anything that matched how much fun this was for me. I suppose we come at life from very different perspectives, shaped by our culture and our family. It is very hard for me imagine how someone must feel about their life and the world to say "nope, it ends with me." I know people do it but... I don't envy that starting point.
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    When it ends, it ends, and that's it regardless of how many others you created who will now go on to face their own ends. I get that somehow people are able to live in denial of the ultimate extinction of their being, but I never really seemed to be able to get the hang of that. To each their own.
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      > I get that somehow people are able to live in denial of the ultimate extinction of their being Is that truly any more likely than the non-extinction of our being? It seems like a safe assumption as a default, but…
      - silverquiet 3y ago
        I mean, I'm not trying to be bleak, but do you have any evidence that any of the religions out there can deliver on their promises? Like I'd be somewhat inclined to listen, but extraordinary claims and all that...
        xyzelement 3y ago
        I am not the one you're asking but I was born an atheist and discovered religion as an adult, through intellect. Here's my answer from that background. Ready? The answer is "we don't know." There may be a Gd, there may not be. There may be meaning, there may not be. You can't really know either way. The answer is that it doesn't matter. The question is what kind of life do you want to live. One that lives as if there's meaning or one that lives as if there isn't? I know my answer. If I get to the end and turns out the meaning was just something I made for myself, and that there's nothing special about my children and my values other than my deep affinity for them... that'd still be a pretty great life.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  I dunno, I grew up in a family of 5 kids, and it just never really occurred to me to not have them. I think my greatest regret in life is going to be having only one :/ However, I have no issues with people that don’t want them. To each their own.
  - locusofself 3y ago
    interesting .. I'm the oldest of 5 myself and have just one daughter, but I can't really imagine having or wanting more.
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      Honestly, it’s a relief when there’s other kids to play with him. I love having 3 kids in the house at the same time and to just guide them in their play, instead of having to _be_ the playmate. I’m pretty young, but I do not have the kind of imagination required to keep that up for a day :P If he’s been outside running around the street with his friends all day it hasn’t cost me anything and the evenings are so much easier/relaxed. I remember that being the same for me, except that I always had people to play with around, because they were living in the same house.
- matwood 3y ago
  I'm older and also never wanted kids. There was a brief moment in my 20s where I would have been ok with it, but the relationship I was in didn't workout and that was that. Now I've been married a long time, and we had the no kid conversation on date one. Instead we rescue dogs and are in the process of moving and semi-retiring in a small coastal town in Italy. My desire for not having kids is rooted in my own childhood. My parents had me at 19, we were poor and struggled for much of my early life. My mom used to say, "don't have kids until after college unless you want to work at McDonalds". And, for better or worse, my drive became for financial security above all else.
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  For me, I consider bringing a new human life into existence to be one of the most net positive things a human being can do. It's also one of the most reliably net positive things. Economists have very roughly estimated the value of a human life at around $10,000,000 these days, and there are reasons to suspect this is a vast underestimate for my kids in particular. The total cost to me as a parent to rear this golden goose? Somewhere around $100,000 total, spread over the course of 18 years. What a bargain! There are of course things one can do which are worth even more, but it's exceedingly hard to reliably become a billionaire, or even to found a billion dollar company. But any old schmuck can nut inside a woman and force push eight figures worth of bliss into the source code of reality!
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    100k? In many places, just an additional room for child alone would be that much.
mmasu 3y ago
with 3 kids at 31 you would most likely be the outlier in many countries. all the rest you said resonates - so many people do not want to have kids at all anymore, and it’s not difficult to understand why (socioeconomic uncertainty, environmental issues, a lot of places are not “child friendly”, and there’s more). having kids today seems to be an even more difficult undertaking than in the past; and in my opinion there is a lot less peer pressure pushing to procreate
- beaned 3y ago
  It isn't a more difficult undertaking. It was never easy, we've just been raised softly and do not value children the same way previous generations did. An outlier in many places, but not most. Only in the Western first world is this now normal.
  - dalyons 3y ago
    Yes, nevermind the most expensive housing, education and healthcare ever, even in inflation adjusted terms. No it’s the children who are wrong. you might look at the birth rates in china or almost any other Asian country, and see how your vague rant holds up.
    - haimez 3y ago
      Let’s be a little charitable here- having and raising children has been a much, much more dangerous proposition health wise even at your parents generation to say nothing of your grandparents generation.
      - dalyons 3y ago
        There’s not a lot to be charitable about in the parent comment. Some poorly researched race replacement bs? You personally are right, it has never been safer health wise to have children. It has never been more expensive either, win some, lose some.
        3y ago
datavirtue 3y ago
I've worked with plenty of people who have no visible significant other, even. It's fucking weird. Thirty+ (40+) year old guys living alone in huge houses, never married. I'm guessing they are just hitting up sex workers. These are smart, well adjusted people who would have made good fathers.
- silverquiet 3y ago
  Maybe they just never met the right lady. Calling it "fucking weird" seems a bit over the top, and contradictory to your statement about working with plenty of them.
  - NhanH 3y ago
    I read it as describing the situation being weird. The people being normal is what makes the whole thing weird
    - silverquiet 3y ago
      I guess the older I get, the more unclear I am on what normal is supposed to be or what it ever was. What percentage of men historically even had children? My impression is that it has always been significantly less than the percentage of women who do.
      - doubleg72 3y ago
        0% as far as I am aware
        esafak 3y ago
        That sounds wild. Got a reference?
        11101010001100 3y ago
        Think about the language from a technical perspective. EDIT: On second thought, presumably you did and you are also adding humor!
paul7986 3y ago
I think it's a mix of many things with the cost of living be number one and way down list or in the middle it could be... - social media (want beautiful family to post n get likes) - online dating want the most attractive I can get so I can get likes for who I'm with and kids i made - thus everyone is pursuing a certain types/groups who they interact with and get burned by cause they have so much choice ..then get jaded about dating. Again those reasons are by far not on the top of list reasons why but are on the list. Maybe Hollywood needs to start reshaping our beauty standards for the sake of the human race ;-)
- paul7986 3y ago
  Ah this CNN columnist has the same opinion https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/opinions/dating-apps-relationships-alaimo/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/opinions/dating-apps-relation... Seen via Google News which could be creating a Truman Show type of life for me and others ... Google knows what i talk about online and shows me articles about possibly CNN gets this data and AI articles are created that are super targeted at me. YEAH (sarcasm) if true.
yoyohello13 3y ago
We must live in different areas because I’m the only one without kids on my team of 8. I also kind of resent the implication that pops up in these threads that people without kids are living some kind of immoral, selfish life. Not everyone without kids is just out partying all the time. I would love to have kids, but fate it seems has different plans for me.
- afavour 3y ago
  > I also kind of resent the implication that pops up in these threads that people without kids are living some kind of immoral, selfish life I don’t see that implication in OP’s post at all, I’m sorry. This feels like projection.
  - yoyohello13 3y ago
    You could be right. Although looking a few comments down the selfishness talk is ever present.
    - Rapzid 3y ago
      Everyone is living a selfish life; some people are also assholes.
scythe 3y ago
>It baffles me. My hypothesis, which I rarely hear anyone else mention, is that we no longer look to our children for entertainment. Life used to be really boring. Kids are excited by things adults find painfully dull. Having a weird little person around who is overjoyed playing with a stick is a pretty great thing in a world where there isn't much else to do. Today people often seem to regard interacting with children to be a form of work. I don't think that our ancestors saw it that way. The kids certainly don't seem to see it that way; they're confused and disappointed when their parents don't want to play with them. Many of the sociopolitical explanations of falling birth rates have been refuted by the present trends. Birth rates are now below replacement in most of Latin America and Asia, even where economic development is well below the level it was when they started falling in the rich world, and in spite of the persistence of traditional gender roles. Only Africa and the poorest parts of Asia are above replacement, and even then much less than before. Some of the highest birth rates today are in Afghanistan and Palestine. Not exactly paradise.
- em-bee 3y ago
  My hypothesis, which I rarely hear anyone else mention, is that we no longer look to our children for entertainment. Life used to be really boring. while there is some truth to that with stories of a sudden baby boom 9 months after a significant power outage, i'd rather rephrase that as "we no longer look to our children as the only thing we care about" there are now so many other things (hobbies, causes) that we can put our energy into that they take away the focus from having kids. after all, once you have kids you will have to put aside some of your other activities for some years. sociopolitical explanations of falling birth rates have been refuted by the present trends i think birthrates don't so much correlate with wealth but with education. my guess is that education improves faster than wealth, so this could explain the development better.
- hn72774 3y ago
  > we no longer look to our children for entertainment Anyone bringing kids into the world for entertainment value is doing them a disservice. These are humans, not pets. Parenting is hard.
lumost 3y ago
I've been doing this math frequently of late. I'm 35, have one child and of my high school class ... maybe 25% have children? there is certainly a bias from polling social media. But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children.
- echelon 3y ago
  Kids aren't expensive. They're a distraction from dopamine and career advancement. My peers are all wealthy and they'd rather jet set than settle down. By all means they could raise families of two to four kids and still be incredibly comfortable. Vacation home comfortable. Instagram is the anti-child. Instagram and the endless feed of social media, internet, and things to do. Once you have children, the dopamine ends and the self-directed path takes a backseat. Nobody I know wants to give that up. It's not just the wealthy. I know upper middle class people in their 40s who are partying on the weekends and taking trips all over the world. It's the life they want for themselves, and children put an end to that.
  - zigman1 3y ago
    You know what is also anti-child? Having parents that were completely unprepared to be parents. Stop with this dopamine epidemic nonsense excuse for everything that isn't working the way you want
    - echelon 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - zigman1 3y ago
        Recorded history you mean the history of domestic and emotional abuse, alcoholism, family disputes, lying and nromalised cheating? Then we are doing fine. Congratulations on your millions. My dad beat and cheat on my mother, and his dad beat and probably cheat my grandmother.
      - 3y ago
shiftpgdn 3y ago
I am currently on a team of a dozen people, I am one of two who are married and who has children. It is challenging to say the least.
stkdump 3y ago
Anecdata from Germany checking in: I have 2 kindergarden aged kids. They have 13 cousins. I don't even know how many second cousins.
lgkk 3y ago
Might be due to some of us growing up really poor. I’m from a third world and I remember lack of water and electricity, five plus people crammed into a home the size of my current apartments living room. We used to use kerosene lamps and heat water and I grew up in the 90s. Even today my parents don’t own a home yet and they have rented their whole lives. They still work. It’s really up to me to resolve all our issues. And that’s my duty as their child, everyone has their circumstances. My parents pushed me to get educated. Now I’m in my early 30s and honestly I’m not in a rush to have kids. Do I want kids? Definitely. But right now I’m trying to build family wealth so I can give my kids a great childhood. I’m on track to meet my goals in the next 5 years or so. Most of the people my age who are situated with kids and family are well to do. They have well off parents who own at least one home. Somehow these people send their kids to private school or can afford to buy homes in great public school districts. I’ve noticed the people in my situation more often than not are from a similar background. We grew up poor and we are trying to build our wealth. I work in tech so I can’t speak for people from other socioeconomic backgrounds. But this is what I experience. Most of my friends are other Asians. I don’t know it seems like Americans are mostly well off.
- sethammons 3y ago
  fwiw every 40yo I know who had kids at that age wish they did it earlier when they had more energy. Wealth building is easier in your 40s however for most
  - 11101010001100 3y ago
    I didn't realize how physical raising a kid is. The chasing, the lifting, the playing ... they don't stop!
    - Balgair 3y ago
      For those without kiddos: Hold a 10lbs weight on your arm for three hours (simulates an infant trying to fall asleep in your arms). Do this for six months, three times a day. Lift a 20lbs bag of rice off the floor to your hips once every 20 seconds for two hours (simulates a toddling-walking child wanting up). Do this for a three years, six times a day. Get up off the floor in a hurry once every five minutes for two hours (simulates the toddler-child doing something they shouldn't). Do this, I dunno, forever. Lift a 40lbs bag of dog food over your head every five minutes for 4 hours (simulates an older child wanting to play). Do this for 10 years, five times a day. There is a lot of other 'cardio' like things mixed in too. But the above should give a sample of the physicality of child rearing. It's a lot of low weight, very high rep, long workout, long interval, isostatic exercise. You're mostly holding things near your center of mass for very long times, adjusting between arms. And you have to get up off the floor a lot in a big hurry.
vinni2 3y ago
I have another anecdata for you. As a gay man living in a country that has very few children for adoption and bans surrogacy, I have given up on having kids.
serial_dev 3y ago
I feel obligated to share my counter example of anecdata. Current team of 12, 9 are young parents, other 3 in committed relationships (international team based in North America + EU). Previous team was around 50% parents, but people went on parental leave all the time, so the number kept increasing (company based in Germany, and basically the German half of the team had all the babies, the immigrant half almost none which is interesting). And my brother and I got our first kids the same year, so the cousin bit is also covered.
cperciva 3y ago
second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids Since it doesn't look like anyone else has answered: Your cousins' kids would be your kids' second cousins; and your first cousins once removed. The rule is that if the closest common ancestor is N generations away from one person and M generations away from the other, with N >= M, they are (M-1)th cousins (N-M) times removed.
TeMPOraL 3y ago
All us over-30s with kids probaly random-walked into jobs that are family-friendly and are staying there. In my current team, almost half the people - and importantly, the previous and current manager - have kids, usually more than one. Can't speak for the corporation we merged into, but before the merger, the whole mid-sized company cleraly leaned for average age closer to 35-40, and a good chunk of employees at every level were parents. Once you land in a job like that, and the pay is adequate, you really don't want to leave - jumping ship would be gambling with life of several people, and you're already above average with combined pay + work environment, and regression to the mean is a thing. (And I say "random-walked" because how supportive the job is of parents is not something apparent on the outside - you'd have to know someone on the inside who's also a parent to get an accurate indication beforehand.)
- threetonesun 3y ago
  Yes - I made this mistake. Granted I left a place that was shifting towards less family-friendly, but ended up at a place that actively pushed people with families out. Literally any worker with kids who didn't quit due to the absurd asks of availability was pushed out via PIP or layoffs.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lolinder 3y ago
  This sounds accurate to me—I found my way into a company that offers 10 weeks paid leave for both mom and dad, unlimited PTO, flexible scheduling, work from home, among other things. A director just left for round two of her parental leave, I know at least two other people who are currently on it, and a lot of the developers are parents (quick mental straw poll suggests ~50%), many of whom explicitly have time off during the work day to take care of kids. I'm certainly not planning on going anywhere else any time soon.
  - sharno 3y ago
    I'd love to find a workplace like that
brailsafe 3y ago
Well, I have had jobs that have paid well, but not for long. If you're not working backwards from an accidental pregnancy, you just have to consider the volatility of your life, and the prospects for the future. My dad had me when he was 21, accidentally, in a time not so long ago where various alternatives weren't super available, and made it work (horribly) until they divorced, in one of the poorest and most isolated cities in Canada. He has however managed to work the same job for 30 years, and bought a house (with help from both sets of grandparents financially. Now, he does have the house, but he's had more kids in that time, and still works at the same company, but doesn't make enough to keep anything for later; it all goes to childcare and life. In order to make something of what was an incredibly volatile childhood and an interest in computers, I eventually moved to a much more appealing and more expensive but larger pond that I could pay for at the time; my hometown just didn't really have a market. I'm also 31 now, nearly 32, and have only managed to bring in an income for a maximum of a year and a half since 18, have ended up without a stable housing situation for quite some time, and that's really difficult to pivot from if you consider that the bet you made on the thing you were capable of, just hasn't really panned out (frontend development apparently). What's next now that that the hypothetical prospects I'd have had in previous years have functionally evaporated? I'm not sure, but I'll pay for this basement apartment and drain my savings as I figure it out, going into my second year with no job of any kind. Ironically, the people who got into trades that they had no prior knowledge of, and that didn't pursue the ambition to explore beyond the confines of their hometown, have the most stability. Me the idiot picked the computer thing and nobody taught me how to be sufficiently obedient or whatever. So although I've been in positions where my salary was relatively higher than I could have ever imagined as a kid, I've always known it was going to disappear the next year in a layoff or a firing or a pandemic, and prospects for the future would always be just tenuous enough to barely be able to get by on my own or even with a partner. I don't take out debt, and all my money which stays liquid eventually goes to rent. I'm always in risk mitigation mode, because there's always been risk, and although I've never been compelled to have kids, some amount of that is predicated on the knowledge that it doesn't seem right to bring a kid up if I can't even figure out how to hold a job for 2 damn years.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  If you go into a trade now, within 4 months into the apprenticeship you will be making money.
Roark66 3y ago
>it makes me feel bad (though not too bad at this point) that I have to log off at quittin' time, sharp, to go relieve my wife of some childcare and make a family dinner. It shouldn't make you feel bad. I have no children and I have strict policy of logging off at the end of my work day (unless in truly exceptional circumstances). No one shuold feel shame (children or not) about finishing the work when they are no longer paid for it.
poulsbohemian 3y ago
>Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids. Cousins once removed. Second cousins are your parent's cousins. And your cousin situation sounds a lot like mine and my children - not a lot of cousins happening.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  This is incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin If two people have the same grandparents, then they are cousins. If they have the same great grandparents, then they are second cousins. atomicnumber3 was referring to what atomicnumber3's kids would call atomicnumber3's cousin's kids.
Tade0 3y ago
I have two siblings, but most likely will be the only one with kids, as we're in our mid to late 30s and I'm already a parent. Me and my SO made it happen by moving to a much smaller (albeit still 500k+ inhabitants) city, where real estate isn't as stupidly expensive as where we grew up in. My co-worker has six children and all the people I've met who have four or more follow the same pattern: living in the middle of nowhere on a single income working remotely. It appears that real estate is the biggest concern, because I've also settled on having two instead of three, since my daughters will be sharing a room anyway.
OJFord 3y ago
> 0... second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids. Your cousins are theirs once-removed, i.e. 'cousin but one generation up'. Second cousins are their children, i.e. same generation but up and across first.
mise_en_place 3y ago
First off, you shouldn't ever feel guilty about prioritizing your family over work. Please, never do that. I say that as a single 35 year old male. Secondly, I want you to understand that, though you may not realize it, you are in an extremely enviable position. To understand why people are not having children, you need to understand that in many places, it's not easy or convenient to have children.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Yesterday's divorce thread quickly disappeared off the front page but it's the taboo topic you must understand if you want to understand why family formation in the western aligned world has declined so rapidly. As long as we have certain truths that cannot be questioned and blackhole any attempts to discuss them, confusion will prevail.
epolanski 3y ago
Of my friends, 35+ something in Italy, only a handful has kids. The others gave up or don't care or haven't met anyone (which they also kind of gave up a long time ago).
sebastiangula 3y ago
People nowadays focus on career till 30 and after 30 (when you loose that naive optimistic outlook on life) realize that having kids is too much of a risky obligation - you don't have any guarantee that you will remain healthy enough to sustain family till they grow up and that your kids will be born healthy. Also, life has gotten quite expensive.
- halfmatthalfcat 3y ago
  Just had my first kid at 33 /shrug
sevagh 3y ago
>it makes me feel bad (though not too bad at this point) that I have to log off at quittin' time, sharp, to go relieve my wife of some childcare and make a family dinner. Nah, this part shouldn't be related to having kids or not. Even as a single person I have to log off to live my life, and overworking is not cool or hip.
hattmall 3y ago
Where do you live? I'm a bit older but pretty much all of mine and my wife's friends have kids. I'm actually really curious about the childless older people. Like I have a couple friends without kids but it's not like that because they are too busy doing fun awesome things. They are more of the ill adjusted habitually complaining types where they themselves can't form bonds because of a tumultuous childhood.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Added anecdata: A lot of my direct colleagues are getting married and having kids at the moment, often a bit later in life (in their and their partners 30's) than the preceding generation, but still. Me and my siblings, none of us seem to have any inclination; combination of just not wanting them, having neurodiverse conditions that seem more debilitating than my parents' generation, and finances like only becoming homeowners in our mid 30's (and my younger sibling cannot afford a home)
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  There is never a good time to have kids, and so any time is a good time to have kids. Maybe I'm a lucky one, but we took the plunge right at the end of biological possibility since we're old, and I only wish I had done this 20 years ago. It's such a wonderful experience and believe me I never would have guessed that. There's nothing I was doing back then that mattered at all. And now I'll be lucky to see my kids graduate college because I waited so long.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    In hindsight, the high school years would have been the perfect time to have children. No responsibilities, doing nothing of value, biology in its optimal state, and the greatest support network you're going to have. But at the same time I feel for those who did because I know they felt the terrible social scorn. You spend all those years being told that having children is the worst mistake of your life, until you're in your 30s, and then all of sudden the same people are "What's your problem? Why haven't you had children already?" It's bizarre.
jpatters 3y ago
I feel like this is location dependent. My wife and I are in our mid 30s with two kids (13 and 9). Most of our friends are in roughly the same situation. I’m the oldest of 6 (by quite a few years) and only the youngest (age 21) of my siblings is childless. My kids have 9 first cousins so far. But we all live in rural parts of eastern Canada. I can honestly say, I don’t know many couples without kids. However, being a family with kids attracts families with kids. So it’s hard to say.
KoftaBob 3y ago
I get the feeling these anecdotes are (unsurprisingly) biased towards young SF tech crowds. My own experiences of being in my early 30s, born and raised on Long Island and now living in Boston, my circle of friends, relatives, and coworkers from both areas are having kids all over the place. When my wife first became pregnant last year, it was actually a bit difficult finding openings with OBGYN offices in the general Boston area.
- trevor-e 3y ago
  That's interesting. Virtually none of my friends in the Boston area (all 30+) have kids lol.
rsynnott 3y ago
I think 30 would be _somewhat_ on the young side these days? Most people I know with kids had them mid to late 30s. EDIT: Looks like the average age a woman in the US has a first child is at 27. That's actually lower than I'd have expected; here in Ireland it's 33.
- zild3d 3y ago
  mid to late 30s is about as late as you can have kids.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    It's not that uncommon for women to have kids in their early 40s, though it certainly does start getting more difficult/sometimes impossible at that point.
naravara 3y ago
Second cousins would be your cousin's cousins. It basically comes down to which level of grandparent you have in common. Grandparents = cousins, great-grandparents = second cousins, great-great-grandparents = third cousins. The "removed" refers to differences in generational cohort. So if you are connected to the person by your grandparent but that same person is a great-grandparent to the relative, that relative is once removed from you. So your first cousins' children are first cousins once removed. Their grandchildren would be your first cousins twice-removed.
mx_03 3y ago
Why does it baffle you? Kids are an expense. Money is tight.The future is bleak. That's why I only have one kid (and it was unplanned). Every now and then my wife and I discuss having another one but the cons overcome the pros. There is no non-selfish reason to bring a kid to this god-forsaken world.
orangevelcro 3y ago
Honestly, I appreciated "you" at my last job - I don't have kids, but work is not my life either, especially if I have to be in the office. I worked at a place where it was awkward to leave before 6:30pm, and the one person who always left around then was the guy with kids.
giantg2 3y ago
"It baffles me." It shouldn't. Life is pretty miserable for most people. Everyone is too busy to hang out and be relaxed. Having kids makes it even more so. Why do we want our kis to grow up like that too?
- anthonypasq 3y ago
  > Life is pretty miserable for most people. this is objectively untrue with respect to almost every single piece of data we have on this subject. Just because youre a misanthrope doesnt mean everyone else is.
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    I wonder - do you think the drop in fertility represents a rise in overall life satisfaction or a fall? I hadn't thought about it much myself, but it seems like it could go either way.
    - anthonypasq 3y ago
      definitely a fall i would say. 80% of women who do not have children, either actually wanted children but couldnt have them, or regret not having them. the fertility crisis is a complete disaster on an incredible amount of levels for people and society. The fact governments arent doing more to address this is mind boggling check out this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0uJ9IcQ-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0uJ9IcQ-0
      - silverquiet 3y ago
        If so, then it's sort of strange to think that everything else in their lives is going so well then, isn't it? Perhaps your KPIs aren't telling you the full story or maybe happy people want fewer children?
        anthonypasq 3y ago
        > it's sort of strange to think that everything else in their lives is going so well then, isn't it where are you getting this information from?
swozey 3y ago
You're baffled people don't want kids? You couldn't pay me 3-10x to be 31 with 3 kids, lmao. And I'm almost 10 years older. I'm aging like fine wine with cool cars and vacations and obscene lofts downtown and you're going to be a turnip in 12 years with no savings because of college and child care fees. I'm baffled people want kids, especially THREE. You have NO reason to have 3 kids. And yeah, us child-free people absolutely know when you kid-poppers are constantly leaving work and can't be assed to take on priority projects because you've got to take Tommy and Madelyn to soccer and gymnastics at 3pm.
- gknapp 3y ago
  People value family differently. For some, their dream life is to have sick cars and a sweet loft, for others, it's to raise other humans to be good. You should probably understand that there are some that read your perspective on life as equally puzzling. I agree that childcare and college is mad expensive. It's why people complain about these things as much as they do! What I've always thought, as a parent: those without kids don't know what they're missing, and those with them know what they have. I'm not saying this to try to brag about how I have some special thing in my life that you'll never understand. I'm saying it because it feels like a perfect system in a way - you simply don't miss what you don't have. And lastly, those some sort of information bias at play. Non-parents hear all the time about how parents don't have time for this or that, or they hear them talk about how annoying their child is being. But most people have the self-awareness to not just sit and gush over how great their kid is to their non-parents friends, and even when they do, it's just obnoxious.
  - swozey 3y ago
    Oh I love parents and I don't have any problems with kids. Still consider them sometimes. I was just bothered by the "I'm baffled by.." part of this specific post. And you're 100% on the "don't know what we're missing," part. I haven't been married either, so no wedding, no births, no kids, it's an entire other lifestyle I basically won't have any interaction with if it doesn't happen, and it's a weird/scary thing because who knows which is better? Or what we're happier with in the end if we couldn't try both? I'm straight but I kind of tell myself nowadays that all my gay friends are living that lifestyle and they're very happy from what I can tell so .. maybe it's not bad. But there are gay couples with kids, I don't know any. I haven't had the nerve to ask my good friend if he wanted/wants kids. Never know if thats a tough subject or not. My only major parent pet peeve... is the word kiddos. And doggos. You can bring your screaming kids over to my pool to destroy my backyard and let all the bugs in cause they dont close doors while you get high and drunk but don't call them kiddos to me. I cannot deal with the mom forum abbreviations like DH (dear husband) and all that.. stuff. When it bleeds over to reddit etc, thankfully rarely, it hurts me to read. I don't even care that parent coworkers leave to deal with parent stuff, at all. It actually makes ME feel less bad about leaving to do my personal stuff. I'm REALLY bad about being too anxious to leave. A lot better later in my career but early on I would never leave.
iamleppert 3y ago
I couldn’t imagine bringing a child into this messed up world. I really feel we are at the beginning of a mass extinction and future generations, no matter how rich and well off physically, will be destined to a life of suffering.
- polski-g 3y ago
  > I really feel we are at the beginning of a mass extinction Yes, because of you. Go have kids. Ethiopians continued to have children during a decade-long famine and their population still increased. Stop making excuses for your own selfishness.
- _fat_santa 3y ago
  > this messed up world IMO the world might be messed up compared to the 80's or 90's, but take a broader look and we have never had it better than today. The average person living in the western world today has a standard of living high above what even nobility or kings would have in the middle ages and I would venture to say even a higher standard of living than the Vanderbilts or Rockerfellers did during the gilded age.
- wyldfire 3y ago
  > I really feel we are at the beginning of a mass extinction Presumably that extinction would take place several generations from now? One great way to avoid or slow extinction would be to procreate. > this messed up world As bad as things might be, aren't they way way way way better than they were in previous generations? Before Russia invaded Ukraine we were on a really great streak of very little warfare on Earth (relative to decades and centuries before). Fewer people are facing malnutrition and disease from centuries before. Many countries are much more egalitarian and less corrupt than they were centuries before. I think maybe you are taking too many things for granted that are really quite good in modern times.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    > I think maybe you are taking too many things for granted that are really quite good in modern times. The facts that (a) the world is better than it has ever been and (b) the world is currently awful and (c) we can make the world much better, are all true statements. This good article was recently discussed on HN: https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better
racl101 3y ago
> It baffles me It's almost as if when life is too expensive people don't feel optimistic or financially secure enough about the future enough to want to have kids.
sirbranedamuj 3y ago
Anecdata: I am 33 and have 0 kids. I make good money but, due to poor financial literacy at a young age, I am shackled with a hefty amount of student loan debt well into my 30s. My 20s were financially precarious and it would've been irresponsible to bring a child into the mix. Would've been nice, but it just wasn't going to happen. I don't think that my specific situation applies to everyone, but I also don't expect I'm alone on this one.
baq 3y ago
Being a good parent is a hard job and yet if you want to be one, you're expected to pay for it with both your money and your time. No wonder the middle class people don't want to have kids. The poorest think differently - they treat kids as an investment because that's the only investment they can have at all. The richest also treat kids as investment, for different reasons. The middle class is childless - can't afford to have the best standard of raising children, so they think they shouldn't have any - and they don't.
gkilmain 3y ago
> And it's also a bit inconvenient that nobody else at work has such pressing obligations, it makes me feel bad... I hope your peers ambivalence (educated guess here) towards your other responsibilities make your priorities obvious. Having been in a similar situation, I "lost" the corporate battle (was laid off) but as soon as I had kids I knew my priorities needed to change. I literally worked 8:30 - 5. That was it. I wasn't going to lose missing even the most mundane of times with my kids for some after hours "retro" or some early morning "pointing" session. Thats me tho, thats my deal.
deleted 3y ago
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webworker 3y ago
> It baffles me. Plenty of us would, if we could. My own personal situation on why I don't have kids - to have kids, I'd have to find someone to have kids with. Dating is completed screwed, and that's not for lack of trying on my end. It's an absolute shshow out there. It's like no one could be bothered to get themselves out of bed to follow through on plans to meet up. I'm not sure if it's suburbanization, or if it's everyone is feeling overworked, or... what... Nearly all of my male friends are noticing the same things. Locale, age, career... no change of circumstances seem to change the really poor outcomes. It's like the options on today's menu are: be solo and happy with it, or go do the passport bro thing.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
RankingMember 3y ago
> It baffles me. You're just being silly or really unimaginative if someone making different choices than you on as life-altering a subject as children "baffles" you.
ericmcer 3y ago
I had the same experience working for SF bay area tech companies, mid-size teams of high income 30 year olds and only a few people had kids. Got a job with a company in the midwest, complete opposite. Almost everyone on my team has kids. That might suggest a lower cost of living is correlated with kids, but I think it is more of a cultural thing.
hn_user82179 3y ago
> it makes me feel bad (though not too bad at this point) that I have to log off at quittin' time, sharp, to go relieve my wife of some childcare and make a family dinner. Don't feel bad! I don't have kids and I always appreciate the example set by my coworkers and manager who mostly all have kids. They're very good about having an "end" to their day which makes me feel like it's ok to also call it an end to my day. I used to work on a team where we were all young & partner-less, including my manager, and everyone just worked "constantly"-ish (like breaks for sleep or errands so it wasn't super intense), but it just felt like a 24/7 slow marathon instead of M-F 9-5-type work. It was absolutely awful. They were all so intelligent too so I felt like I had to do that just to try to keep up and never wanted to be the first one to log off early. We were at a giant company and not scrapping to survive or anything, that was just the micro-culture within the ~10 of us.

nolongerthere 3y ago

On my team of 15 only 3 don’t have kids, though there is a wide age range (24-55) the ones without kids are in their 30s but have indicated no interest. But only 2 have more than 2 kids (3). One has two of her own and now that they’re grown up she just adopted 2 high school age kids, which is very commendable, (and a huge undertaking) but I don’t really count it in terms of procreation.

silverquiet 3y ago

> It baffles me. Frankly, I never really got why people wanted children in the first place, so this turnabout is amusing. Perhaps you can ask some of these people that you are close with as to their reasoning.

justahuman74 3y ago
For me it's like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/hf0rf/for_reasons_unexplained/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/hf0rf/for_reasons_une... (third square)
- dgfitz 3y ago
  Heh, maybe if people were having more kids the US political landscape wouldn’t be so fucked.
  - datavirtue 3y ago
    You think the fallout is bad now? Give it twenty years.
  - sunnybeetroot 3y ago
    Watch idiocracy for what that could lead to.
toasterlovin 3y ago
Biological organisms not procreating despite living in material and caloric abundance is cosmically weird.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  Evolution has equipped us with a pretty generous frontal cortex so we have a sort of escape hatch to reflect and decide on whether to act on our biological imperatives. Reduction of human beings to 'biological organisms' as if we're humping rabbits is no less weird.
  - ChainOfFools 3y ago
    A fire has no cortex whatsoever, and yet if fire did not continue doing what fire does in order to stay fire - turn things that are "not fire" into itself- it would cease to exist altogether. That's all there is to it. There is no big picture. edit: I expected apathy at best from a comment this deep in a thread. Now, granted, HN does not stand for Hard Nihilism, but four downvotes with zero explanations in under an hour suggests there is an incurious hostility toward the view that people (myself included) are, like fire, essentially just echoes of thermodynamics.
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      > That's all there is to it. There is no big picture. Even if it is correct (which you haven’t tried to support, just claiming that you know best), how is it relevant? If there’s no bigger picture then what’s wrong with going extinct which should push us to procreate? The comparison to fire - the human population is the highest it’s ever been and still increasing so it doesn’t seem like we are “going out“, and if that was happening the collapse of civilisation would lead to the loss of the ability to mass manufacture birth control and loss of the medical systems supporting them at some point, and the population would go up again after that, wouldn’t it? Fire runs out of fuel, but human food grows on trees - less humans leads to more ecosystem regeneration which could support more humans. > "an incurious hostility toward the view that people (myself included) are, like fire, essentially just echoes of thermodynamics." I thought we were “just“ hydraulic systems? Just LLMs? Just clockwork? Humans are just {recent scientific discovery of the era} is an interesting view on its own but is it relevant to the thread? "We are just thermodynamic systems ... so we should reproduce"?
xyzelement 3y ago
It's the simplest answer. I find life to be worth living, I am grateful I have life and it's the most meaningful to me to be able to give life to someone else and try to make it as good and meaningful for them as possible. And it can be so fun. I just taught my 3 year old to ride a bike and for the first time today we went for a bike ride along the boardwalk, each on our bikes. I had a pretty amazing single life but I would be hard-pressed to think of anything that matched how much fun this was for me. I suppose we come at life from very different perspectives, shaped by our culture and our family. It is very hard for me imagine how someone must feel about their life and the world to say "nope, it ends with me." I know people do it but... I don't envy that starting point.
- silverquiet 3y ago
  When it ends, it ends, and that's it regardless of how many others you created who will now go on to face their own ends. I get that somehow people are able to live in denial of the ultimate extinction of their being, but I never really seemed to be able to get the hang of that. To each their own.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    > I get that somehow people are able to live in denial of the ultimate extinction of their being Is that truly any more likely than the non-extinction of our being? It seems like a safe assumption as a default, but…
    - silverquiet 3y ago
      I mean, I'm not trying to be bleak, but do you have any evidence that any of the religions out there can deliver on their promises? Like I'd be somewhat inclined to listen, but extraordinary claims and all that...
      - xyzelement 3y ago
        I am not the one you're asking but I was born an atheist and discovered religion as an adult, through intellect. Here's my answer from that background. Ready? The answer is "we don't know." There may be a Gd, there may not be. There may be meaning, there may not be. You can't really know either way. The answer is that it doesn't matter. The question is what kind of life do you want to live. One that lives as if there's meaning or one that lives as if there isn't? I know my answer. If I get to the end and turns out the meaning was just something I made for myself, and that there's nothing special about my children and my values other than my deep affinity for them... that'd still be a pretty great life.
Aeolun 3y ago
I dunno, I grew up in a family of 5 kids, and it just never really occurred to me to not have them. I think my greatest regret in life is going to be having only one :/ However, I have no issues with people that don’t want them. To each their own.
- locusofself 3y ago
  interesting .. I'm the oldest of 5 myself and have just one daughter, but I can't really imagine having or wanting more.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    Honestly, it’s a relief when there’s other kids to play with him. I love having 3 kids in the house at the same time and to just guide them in their play, instead of having to _be_ the playmate. I’m pretty young, but I do not have the kind of imagination required to keep that up for a day :P If he’s been outside running around the street with his friends all day it hasn’t cost me anything and the evenings are so much easier/relaxed. I remember that being the same for me, except that I always had people to play with around, because they were living in the same house.
matwood 3y ago
I'm older and also never wanted kids. There was a brief moment in my 20s where I would have been ok with it, but the relationship I was in didn't workout and that was that. Now I've been married a long time, and we had the no kid conversation on date one. Instead we rescue dogs and are in the process of moving and semi-retiring in a small coastal town in Italy. My desire for not having kids is rooted in my own childhood. My parents had me at 19, we were poor and struggled for much of my early life. My mom used to say, "don't have kids until after college unless you want to work at McDonalds". And, for better or worse, my drive became for financial security above all else.
hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
For me, I consider bringing a new human life into existence to be one of the most net positive things a human being can do. It's also one of the most reliably net positive things. Economists have very roughly estimated the value of a human life at around $10,000,000 these days, and there are reasons to suspect this is a vast underestimate for my kids in particular. The total cost to me as a parent to rear this golden goose? Somewhere around $100,000 total, spread over the course of 18 years. What a bargain! There are of course things one can do which are worth even more, but it's exceedingly hard to reliably become a billionaire, or even to found a billion dollar company. But any old schmuck can nut inside a woman and force push eight figures worth of bliss into the source code of reality!
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  100k? In many places, just an additional room for child alone would be that much.

mmasu 3y ago

with 3 kids at 31 you would most likely be the outlier in many countries. all the rest you said resonates - so many people do not want to have kids at all anymore, and it’s not difficult to understand why (socioeconomic uncertainty, environmental issues, a lot of places are not “child friendly”, and there’s more). having kids today seems to be an even more difficult undertaking than in the past; and in my opinion there is a lot less peer pressure pushing to procreate

beaned 3y ago
It isn't a more difficult undertaking. It was never easy, we've just been raised softly and do not value children the same way previous generations did. An outlier in many places, but not most. Only in the Western first world is this now normal.
- dalyons 3y ago
  Yes, nevermind the most expensive housing, education and healthcare ever, even in inflation adjusted terms. No it’s the children who are wrong. you might look at the birth rates in china or almost any other Asian country, and see how your vague rant holds up.
  - haimez 3y ago
    Let’s be a little charitable here- having and raising children has been a much, much more dangerous proposition health wise even at your parents generation to say nothing of your grandparents generation.
    - dalyons 3y ago
      There’s not a lot to be charitable about in the parent comment. Some poorly researched race replacement bs? You personally are right, it has never been safer health wise to have children. It has never been more expensive either, win some, lose some.
      - 3y ago

datavirtue 3y ago

I've worked with plenty of people who have no visible significant other, even. It's fucking weird. Thirty+ (40+) year old guys living alone in huge houses, never married. I'm guessing they are just hitting up sex workers. These are smart, well adjusted people who would have made good fathers.

silverquiet 3y ago
Maybe they just never met the right lady. Calling it "fucking weird" seems a bit over the top, and contradictory to your statement about working with plenty of them.
- NhanH 3y ago
  I read it as describing the situation being weird. The people being normal is what makes the whole thing weird
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    I guess the older I get, the more unclear I am on what normal is supposed to be or what it ever was. What percentage of men historically even had children? My impression is that it has always been significantly less than the percentage of women who do.
    - doubleg72 3y ago
      0% as far as I am aware
      - esafak 3y ago
        That sounds wild. Got a reference?
        11101010001100 3y ago
        Think about the language from a technical perspective. EDIT: On second thought, presumably you did and you are also adding humor!

paul7986 3y ago

I think it's a mix of many things with the cost of living be number one and way down list or in the middle it could be... - social media (want beautiful family to post n get likes) - online dating want the most attractive I can get so I can get likes for who I'm with and kids i made - thus everyone is pursuing a certain types/groups who they interact with and get burned by cause they have so much choice ..then get jaded about dating. Again those reasons are by far not on the top of list reasons why but are on the list. Maybe Hollywood needs to start reshaping our beauty standards for the sake of the human race ;-)

paul7986 3y ago
Ah this CNN columnist has the same opinion https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/opinions/dating-apps-relationships-alaimo/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/opinions/dating-apps-relation... Seen via Google News which could be creating a Truman Show type of life for me and others ... Google knows what i talk about online and shows me articles about possibly CNN gets this data and AI articles are created that are super targeted at me. YEAH (sarcasm) if true.

yoyohello13 3y ago

We must live in different areas because I’m the only one without kids on my team of 8. I also kind of resent the implication that pops up in these threads that people without kids are living some kind of immoral, selfish life. Not everyone without kids is just out partying all the time. I would love to have kids, but fate it seems has different plans for me.

afavour 3y ago
> I also kind of resent the implication that pops up in these threads that people without kids are living some kind of immoral, selfish life I don’t see that implication in OP’s post at all, I’m sorry. This feels like projection.
- yoyohello13 3y ago
  You could be right. Although looking a few comments down the selfishness talk is ever present.
  - Rapzid 3y ago
    Everyone is living a selfish life; some people are also assholes.

scythe 3y ago

>It baffles me. My hypothesis, which I rarely hear anyone else mention, is that we no longer look to our children for entertainment. Life used to be really boring. Kids are excited by things adults find painfully dull. Having a weird little person around who is overjoyed playing with a stick is a pretty great thing in a world where there isn't much else to do. Today people often seem to regard interacting with children to be a form of work. I don't think that our ancestors saw it that way. The kids certainly don't seem to see it that way; they're confused and disappointed when their parents don't want to play with them. Many of the sociopolitical explanations of falling birth rates have been refuted by the present trends. Birth rates are now below replacement in most of Latin America and Asia, even where economic development is well below the level it was when they started falling in the rich world, and in spite of the persistence of traditional gender roles. Only Africa and the poorest parts of Asia are above replacement, and even then much less than before. Some of the highest birth rates today are in Afghanistan and Palestine. Not exactly paradise.

em-bee 3y ago
My hypothesis, which I rarely hear anyone else mention, is that we no longer look to our children for entertainment. Life used to be really boring. while there is some truth to that with stories of a sudden baby boom 9 months after a significant power outage, i'd rather rephrase that as "we no longer look to our children as the only thing we care about" there are now so many other things (hobbies, causes) that we can put our energy into that they take away the focus from having kids. after all, once you have kids you will have to put aside some of your other activities for some years. sociopolitical explanations of falling birth rates have been refuted by the present trends i think birthrates don't so much correlate with wealth but with education. my guess is that education improves faster than wealth, so this could explain the development better.
hn72774 3y ago
> we no longer look to our children for entertainment Anyone bringing kids into the world for entertainment value is doing them a disservice. These are humans, not pets. Parenting is hard.

lumost 3y ago

I've been doing this math frequently of late. I'm 35, have one child and of my high school class ... maybe 25% have children? there is certainly a bias from polling social media. But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children.

echelon 3y ago
Kids aren't expensive. They're a distraction from dopamine and career advancement. My peers are all wealthy and they'd rather jet set than settle down. By all means they could raise families of two to four kids and still be incredibly comfortable. Vacation home comfortable. Instagram is the anti-child. Instagram and the endless feed of social media, internet, and things to do. Once you have children, the dopamine ends and the self-directed path takes a backseat. Nobody I know wants to give that up. It's not just the wealthy. I know upper middle class people in their 40s who are partying on the weekends and taking trips all over the world. It's the life they want for themselves, and children put an end to that.
- zigman1 3y ago
  You know what is also anti-child? Having parents that were completely unprepared to be parents. Stop with this dopamine epidemic nonsense excuse for everything that isn't working the way you want
  - echelon 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - zigman1 3y ago
      Recorded history you mean the history of domestic and emotional abuse, alcoholism, family disputes, lying and nromalised cheating? Then we are doing fine. Congratulations on your millions. My dad beat and cheat on my mother, and his dad beat and probably cheat my grandmother.
    - 3y ago

shiftpgdn 3y ago

I am currently on a team of a dozen people, I am one of two who are married and who has children. It is challenging to say the least.

stkdump 3y ago

Anecdata from Germany checking in: I have 2 kindergarden aged kids. They have 13 cousins. I don't even know how many second cousins.

lgkk 3y ago

Might be due to some of us growing up really poor. I’m from a third world and I remember lack of water and electricity, five plus people crammed into a home the size of my current apartments living room. We used to use kerosene lamps and heat water and I grew up in the 90s. Even today my parents don’t own a home yet and they have rented their whole lives. They still work. It’s really up to me to resolve all our issues. And that’s my duty as their child, everyone has their circumstances. My parents pushed me to get educated. Now I’m in my early 30s and honestly I’m not in a rush to have kids. Do I want kids? Definitely. But right now I’m trying to build family wealth so I can give my kids a great childhood. I’m on track to meet my goals in the next 5 years or so. Most of the people my age who are situated with kids and family are well to do. They have well off parents who own at least one home. Somehow these people send their kids to private school or can afford to buy homes in great public school districts. I’ve noticed the people in my situation more often than not are from a similar background. We grew up poor and we are trying to build our wealth. I work in tech so I can’t speak for people from other socioeconomic backgrounds. But this is what I experience. Most of my friends are other Asians. I don’t know it seems like Americans are mostly well off.

sethammons 3y ago
fwiw every 40yo I know who had kids at that age wish they did it earlier when they had more energy. Wealth building is easier in your 40s however for most
- 11101010001100 3y ago
  I didn't realize how physical raising a kid is. The chasing, the lifting, the playing ... they don't stop!
  - Balgair 3y ago
    For those without kiddos: Hold a 10lbs weight on your arm for three hours (simulates an infant trying to fall asleep in your arms). Do this for six months, three times a day. Lift a 20lbs bag of rice off the floor to your hips once every 20 seconds for two hours (simulates a toddling-walking child wanting up). Do this for a three years, six times a day. Get up off the floor in a hurry once every five minutes for two hours (simulates the toddler-child doing something they shouldn't). Do this, I dunno, forever. Lift a 40lbs bag of dog food over your head every five minutes for 4 hours (simulates an older child wanting to play). Do this for 10 years, five times a day. There is a lot of other 'cardio' like things mixed in too. But the above should give a sample of the physicality of child rearing. It's a lot of low weight, very high rep, long workout, long interval, isostatic exercise. You're mostly holding things near your center of mass for very long times, adjusting between arms. And you have to get up off the floor a lot in a big hurry.

vinni2 3y ago

I have another anecdata for you. As a gay man living in a country that has very few children for adoption and bans surrogacy, I have given up on having kids.

serial_dev 3y ago

I feel obligated to share my counter example of anecdata. Current team of 12, 9 are young parents, other 3 in committed relationships (international team based in North America + EU). Previous team was around 50% parents, but people went on parental leave all the time, so the number kept increasing (company based in Germany, and basically the German half of the team had all the babies, the immigrant half almost none which is interesting). And my brother and I got our first kids the same year, so the cousin bit is also covered.

cperciva 3y ago

second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids Since it doesn't look like anyone else has answered: Your cousins' kids would be your kids' second cousins; and your first cousins once removed. The rule is that if the closest common ancestor is N generations away from one person and M generations away from the other, with N >= M, they are (M-1)th cousins (N-M) times removed.

TeMPOraL 3y ago

All us over-30s with kids probaly random-walked into jobs that are family-friendly and are staying there. In my current team, almost half the people - and importantly, the previous and current manager - have kids, usually more than one. Can't speak for the corporation we merged into, but before the merger, the whole mid-sized company cleraly leaned for average age closer to 35-40, and a good chunk of employees at every level were parents. Once you land in a job like that, and the pay is adequate, you really don't want to leave - jumping ship would be gambling with life of several people, and you're already above average with combined pay + work environment, and regression to the mean is a thing. (And I say "random-walked" because how supportive the job is of parents is not something apparent on the outside - you'd have to know someone on the inside who's also a parent to get an accurate indication beforehand.)

threetonesun 3y ago
Yes - I made this mistake. Granted I left a place that was shifting towards less family-friendly, but ended up at a place that actively pushed people with families out. Literally any worker with kids who didn't quit due to the absurd asks of availability was pushed out via PIP or layoffs.
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lolinder 3y ago
This sounds accurate to me—I found my way into a company that offers 10 weeks paid leave for both mom and dad, unlimited PTO, flexible scheduling, work from home, among other things. A director just left for round two of her parental leave, I know at least two other people who are currently on it, and a lot of the developers are parents (quick mental straw poll suggests ~50%), many of whom explicitly have time off during the work day to take care of kids. I'm certainly not planning on going anywhere else any time soon.
- sharno 3y ago
  I'd love to find a workplace like that

brailsafe 3y ago

Well, I have had jobs that have paid well, but not for long. If you're not working backwards from an accidental pregnancy, you just have to consider the volatility of your life, and the prospects for the future. My dad had me when he was 21, accidentally, in a time not so long ago where various alternatives weren't super available, and made it work (horribly) until they divorced, in one of the poorest and most isolated cities in Canada. He has however managed to work the same job for 30 years, and bought a house (with help from both sets of grandparents financially. Now, he does have the house, but he's had more kids in that time, and still works at the same company, but doesn't make enough to keep anything for later; it all goes to childcare and life. In order to make something of what was an incredibly volatile childhood and an interest in computers, I eventually moved to a much more appealing and more expensive but larger pond that I could pay for at the time; my hometown just didn't really have a market. I'm also 31 now, nearly 32, and have only managed to bring in an income for a maximum of a year and a half since 18, have ended up without a stable housing situation for quite some time, and that's really difficult to pivot from if you consider that the bet you made on the thing you were capable of, just hasn't really panned out (frontend development apparently). What's next now that that the hypothetical prospects I'd have had in previous years have functionally evaporated? I'm not sure, but I'll pay for this basement apartment and drain my savings as I figure it out, going into my second year with no job of any kind. Ironically, the people who got into trades that they had no prior knowledge of, and that didn't pursue the ambition to explore beyond the confines of their hometown, have the most stability. Me the idiot picked the computer thing and nobody taught me how to be sufficiently obedient or whatever. So although I've been in positions where my salary was relatively higher than I could have ever imagined as a kid, I've always known it was going to disappear the next year in a layoff or a firing or a pandemic, and prospects for the future would always be just tenuous enough to barely be able to get by on my own or even with a partner. I don't take out debt, and all my money which stays liquid eventually goes to rent. I'm always in risk mitigation mode, because there's always been risk, and although I've never been compelled to have kids, some amount of that is predicated on the knowledge that it doesn't seem right to bring a kid up if I can't even figure out how to hold a job for 2 damn years.

mensetmanusman 3y ago
If you go into a trade now, within 4 months into the apprenticeship you will be making money.

Roark66 3y ago

>it makes me feel bad (though not too bad at this point) that I have to log off at quittin' time, sharp, to go relieve my wife of some childcare and make a family dinner. It shouldn't make you feel bad. I have no children and I have strict policy of logging off at the end of my work day (unless in truly exceptional circumstances). No one shuold feel shame (children or not) about finishing the work when they are no longer paid for it.

poulsbohemian 3y ago

>Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids. Cousins once removed. Second cousins are your parent's cousins. And your cousin situation sounds a lot like mine and my children - not a lot of cousins happening.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
This is incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin If two people have the same grandparents, then they are cousins. If they have the same great grandparents, then they are second cousins. atomicnumber3 was referring to what atomicnumber3's kids would call atomicnumber3's cousin's kids.

Tade0 3y ago

I have two siblings, but most likely will be the only one with kids, as we're in our mid to late 30s and I'm already a parent. Me and my SO made it happen by moving to a much smaller (albeit still 500k+ inhabitants) city, where real estate isn't as stupidly expensive as where we grew up in. My co-worker has six children and all the people I've met who have four or more follow the same pattern: living in the middle of nowhere on a single income working remotely. It appears that real estate is the biggest concern, because I've also settled on having two instead of three, since my daughters will be sharing a room anyway.

OJFord 3y ago

> 0... second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids. Your cousins are theirs once-removed, i.e. 'cousin but one generation up'. Second cousins are their children, i.e. same generation but up and across first.

mise_en_place 3y ago

First off, you shouldn't ever feel guilty about prioritizing your family over work. Please, never do that. I say that as a single 35 year old male. Secondly, I want you to understand that, though you may not realize it, you are in an extremely enviable position. To understand why people are not having children, you need to understand that in many places, it's not easy or convenient to have children.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

Yesterday's divorce thread quickly disappeared off the front page but it's the taboo topic you must understand if you want to understand why family formation in the western aligned world has declined so rapidly. As long as we have certain truths that cannot be questioned and blackhole any attempts to discuss them, confusion will prevail.

epolanski 3y ago

Of my friends, 35+ something in Italy, only a handful has kids. The others gave up or don't care or haven't met anyone (which they also kind of gave up a long time ago).

sebastiangula 3y ago

People nowadays focus on career till 30 and after 30 (when you loose that naive optimistic outlook on life) realize that having kids is too much of a risky obligation - you don't have any guarantee that you will remain healthy enough to sustain family till they grow up and that your kids will be born healthy. Also, life has gotten quite expensive.

halfmatthalfcat 3y ago
Just had my first kid at 33 /shrug

sevagh 3y ago

>it makes me feel bad (though not too bad at this point) that I have to log off at quittin' time, sharp, to go relieve my wife of some childcare and make a family dinner. Nah, this part shouldn't be related to having kids or not. Even as a single person I have to log off to live my life, and overworking is not cool or hip.

hattmall 3y ago

Where do you live? I'm a bit older but pretty much all of mine and my wife's friends have kids. I'm actually really curious about the childless older people. Like I have a couple friends without kids but it's not like that because they are too busy doing fun awesome things. They are more of the ill adjusted habitually complaining types where they themselves can't form bonds because of a tumultuous childhood.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

Added anecdata: A lot of my direct colleagues are getting married and having kids at the moment, often a bit later in life (in their and their partners 30's) than the preceding generation, but still. Me and my siblings, none of us seem to have any inclination; combination of just not wanting them, having neurodiverse conditions that seem more debilitating than my parents' generation, and finances like only becoming homeowners in our mid 30's (and my younger sibling cannot afford a home)

jvanderbot 3y ago
There is never a good time to have kids, and so any time is a good time to have kids. Maybe I'm a lucky one, but we took the plunge right at the end of biological possibility since we're old, and I only wish I had done this 20 years ago. It's such a wonderful experience and believe me I never would have guessed that. There's nothing I was doing back then that mattered at all. And now I'll be lucky to see my kids graduate college because I waited so long.
- randomdata 3y ago
  In hindsight, the high school years would have been the perfect time to have children. No responsibilities, doing nothing of value, biology in its optimal state, and the greatest support network you're going to have. But at the same time I feel for those who did because I know they felt the terrible social scorn. You spend all those years being told that having children is the worst mistake of your life, until you're in your 30s, and then all of sudden the same people are "What's your problem? Why haven't you had children already?" It's bizarre.

jpatters 3y ago

I feel like this is location dependent. My wife and I are in our mid 30s with two kids (13 and 9). Most of our friends are in roughly the same situation. I’m the oldest of 6 (by quite a few years) and only the youngest (age 21) of my siblings is childless. My kids have 9 first cousins so far. But we all live in rural parts of eastern Canada. I can honestly say, I don’t know many couples without kids. However, being a family with kids attracts families with kids. So it’s hard to say.

KoftaBob 3y ago

I get the feeling these anecdotes are (unsurprisingly) biased towards young SF tech crowds. My own experiences of being in my early 30s, born and raised on Long Island and now living in Boston, my circle of friends, relatives, and coworkers from both areas are having kids all over the place. When my wife first became pregnant last year, it was actually a bit difficult finding openings with OBGYN offices in the general Boston area.

trevor-e 3y ago
That's interesting. Virtually none of my friends in the Boston area (all 30+) have kids lol.

rsynnott 3y ago

I think 30 would be _somewhat_ on the young side these days? Most people I know with kids had them mid to late 30s. EDIT: Looks like the average age a woman in the US has a first child is at 27. That's actually lower than I'd have expected; here in Ireland it's 33.

zild3d 3y ago
mid to late 30s is about as late as you can have kids.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  It's not that uncommon for women to have kids in their early 40s, though it certainly does start getting more difficult/sometimes impossible at that point.

naravara 3y ago

Second cousins would be your cousin's cousins. It basically comes down to which level of grandparent you have in common. Grandparents = cousins, great-grandparents = second cousins, great-great-grandparents = third cousins. The "removed" refers to differences in generational cohort. So if you are connected to the person by your grandparent but that same person is a great-grandparent to the relative, that relative is once removed from you. So your first cousins' children are first cousins once removed. Their grandchildren would be your first cousins twice-removed.

mx_03 3y ago

Why does it baffle you? Kids are an expense. Money is tight.The future is bleak. That's why I only have one kid (and it was unplanned). Every now and then my wife and I discuss having another one but the cons overcome the pros. There is no non-selfish reason to bring a kid to this god-forsaken world.

orangevelcro 3y ago

Honestly, I appreciated "you" at my last job - I don't have kids, but work is not my life either, especially if I have to be in the office. I worked at a place where it was awkward to leave before 6:30pm, and the one person who always left around then was the guy with kids.

giantg2 3y ago

"It baffles me." It shouldn't. Life is pretty miserable for most people. Everyone is too busy to hang out and be relaxed. Having kids makes it even more so. Why do we want our kis to grow up like that too?

anthonypasq 3y ago
> Life is pretty miserable for most people. this is objectively untrue with respect to almost every single piece of data we have on this subject. Just because youre a misanthrope doesnt mean everyone else is.
- silverquiet 3y ago
  I wonder - do you think the drop in fertility represents a rise in overall life satisfaction or a fall? I hadn't thought about it much myself, but it seems like it could go either way.
  - anthonypasq 3y ago
    definitely a fall i would say. 80% of women who do not have children, either actually wanted children but couldnt have them, or regret not having them. the fertility crisis is a complete disaster on an incredible amount of levels for people and society. The fact governments arent doing more to address this is mind boggling check out this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0uJ9IcQ-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0uJ9IcQ-0
    - silverquiet 3y ago
      If so, then it's sort of strange to think that everything else in their lives is going so well then, isn't it? Perhaps your KPIs aren't telling you the full story or maybe happy people want fewer children?
      - anthonypasq 3y ago
        > it's sort of strange to think that everything else in their lives is going so well then, isn't it where are you getting this information from?

swozey 3y ago

You're baffled people don't want kids? You couldn't pay me 3-10x to be 31 with 3 kids, lmao. And I'm almost 10 years older. I'm aging like fine wine with cool cars and vacations and obscene lofts downtown and you're going to be a turnip in 12 years with no savings because of college and child care fees. I'm baffled people want kids, especially THREE. You have NO reason to have 3 kids. And yeah, us child-free people absolutely know when you kid-poppers are constantly leaving work and can't be assed to take on priority projects because you've got to take Tommy and Madelyn to soccer and gymnastics at 3pm.

gknapp 3y ago
People value family differently. For some, their dream life is to have sick cars and a sweet loft, for others, it's to raise other humans to be good. You should probably understand that there are some that read your perspective on life as equally puzzling. I agree that childcare and college is mad expensive. It's why people complain about these things as much as they do! What I've always thought, as a parent: those without kids don't know what they're missing, and those with them know what they have. I'm not saying this to try to brag about how I have some special thing in my life that you'll never understand. I'm saying it because it feels like a perfect system in a way - you simply don't miss what you don't have. And lastly, those some sort of information bias at play. Non-parents hear all the time about how parents don't have time for this or that, or they hear them talk about how annoying their child is being. But most people have the self-awareness to not just sit and gush over how great their kid is to their non-parents friends, and even when they do, it's just obnoxious.
- swozey 3y ago
  Oh I love parents and I don't have any problems with kids. Still consider them sometimes. I was just bothered by the "I'm baffled by.." part of this specific post. And you're 100% on the "don't know what we're missing," part. I haven't been married either, so no wedding, no births, no kids, it's an entire other lifestyle I basically won't have any interaction with if it doesn't happen, and it's a weird/scary thing because who knows which is better? Or what we're happier with in the end if we couldn't try both? I'm straight but I kind of tell myself nowadays that all my gay friends are living that lifestyle and they're very happy from what I can tell so .. maybe it's not bad. But there are gay couples with kids, I don't know any. I haven't had the nerve to ask my good friend if he wanted/wants kids. Never know if thats a tough subject or not. My only major parent pet peeve... is the word kiddos. And doggos. You can bring your screaming kids over to my pool to destroy my backyard and let all the bugs in cause they dont close doors while you get high and drunk but don't call them kiddos to me. I cannot deal with the mom forum abbreviations like DH (dear husband) and all that.. stuff. When it bleeds over to reddit etc, thankfully rarely, it hurts me to read. I don't even care that parent coworkers leave to deal with parent stuff, at all. It actually makes ME feel less bad about leaving to do my personal stuff. I'm REALLY bad about being too anxious to leave. A lot better later in my career but early on I would never leave.

iamleppert 3y ago

I couldn’t imagine bringing a child into this messed up world. I really feel we are at the beginning of a mass extinction and future generations, no matter how rich and well off physically, will be destined to a life of suffering.

polski-g 3y ago
> I really feel we are at the beginning of a mass extinction Yes, because of you. Go have kids. Ethiopians continued to have children during a decade-long famine and their population still increased. Stop making excuses for your own selfishness.
_fat_santa 3y ago
> this messed up world IMO the world might be messed up compared to the 80's or 90's, but take a broader look and we have never had it better than today. The average person living in the western world today has a standard of living high above what even nobility or kings would have in the middle ages and I would venture to say even a higher standard of living than the Vanderbilts or Rockerfellers did during the gilded age.
wyldfire 3y ago
> I really feel we are at the beginning of a mass extinction Presumably that extinction would take place several generations from now? One great way to avoid or slow extinction would be to procreate. > this messed up world As bad as things might be, aren't they way way way way better than they were in previous generations? Before Russia invaded Ukraine we were on a really great streak of very little warfare on Earth (relative to decades and centuries before). Fewer people are facing malnutrition and disease from centuries before. Many countries are much more egalitarian and less corrupt than they were centuries before. I think maybe you are taking too many things for granted that are really quite good in modern times.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > I think maybe you are taking too many things for granted that are really quite good in modern times. The facts that (a) the world is better than it has ever been and (b) the world is currently awful and (c) we can make the world much better, are all true statements. This good article was recently discussed on HN: https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better

racl101 3y ago

> It baffles me It's almost as if when life is too expensive people don't feel optimistic or financially secure enough about the future enough to want to have kids.

sirbranedamuj 3y ago

Anecdata: I am 33 and have 0 kids. I make good money but, due to poor financial literacy at a young age, I am shackled with a hefty amount of student loan debt well into my 30s. My 20s were financially precarious and it would've been irresponsible to bring a child into the mix. Would've been nice, but it just wasn't going to happen. I don't think that my specific situation applies to everyone, but I also don't expect I'm alone on this one.

baq 3y ago

Being a good parent is a hard job and yet if you want to be one, you're expected to pay for it with both your money and your time. No wonder the middle class people don't want to have kids. The poorest think differently - they treat kids as an investment because that's the only investment they can have at all. The richest also treat kids as investment, for different reasons. The middle class is childless - can't afford to have the best standard of raising children, so they think they shouldn't have any - and they don't.

gkilmain 3y ago

> And it's also a bit inconvenient that nobody else at work has such pressing obligations, it makes me feel bad... I hope your peers ambivalence (educated guess here) towards your other responsibilities make your priorities obvious. Having been in a similar situation, I "lost" the corporate battle (was laid off) but as soon as I had kids I knew my priorities needed to change. I literally worked 8:30 - 5. That was it. I wasn't going to lose missing even the most mundane of times with my kids for some after hours "retro" or some early morning "pointing" session. Thats me tho, thats my deal.

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webworker 3y ago

> It baffles me. Plenty of us would, if we could. My own personal situation on why I don't have kids - to have kids, I'd have to find someone to have kids with. Dating is completed screwed, and that's not for lack of trying on my end. It's an absolute shshow out there. It's like no one could be bothered to get themselves out of bed to follow through on plans to meet up. I'm not sure if it's suburbanization, or if it's everyone is feeling overworked, or... what... Nearly all of my male friends are noticing the same things. Locale, age, career... no change of circumstances seem to change the really poor outcomes. It's like the options on today's menu are: be solo and happy with it, or go do the passport bro thing.

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RankingMember 3y ago

> It baffles me. You're just being silly or really unimaginative if someone making different choices than you on as life-altering a subject as children "baffles" you.

ericmcer 3y ago

I had the same experience working for SF bay area tech companies, mid-size teams of high income 30 year olds and only a few people had kids. Got a job with a company in the midwest, complete opposite. Almost everyone on my team has kids. That might suggest a lower cost of living is correlated with kids, but I think it is more of a cultural thing.

hn_user82179 3y ago

> it makes me feel bad (though not too bad at this point) that I have to log off at quittin' time, sharp, to go relieve my wife of some childcare and make a family dinner. Don't feel bad! I don't have kids and I always appreciate the example set by my coworkers and manager who mostly all have kids. They're very good about having an "end" to their day which makes me feel like it's ok to also call it an end to my day. I used to work on a team where we were all young & partner-less, including my manager, and everyone just worked "constantly"-ish (like breaks for sleep or errands so it wasn't super intense), but it just felt like a 24/7 slow marathon instead of M-F 9-5-type work. It was absolutely awful. They were all so intelligent too so I felt like I had to do that just to try to keep up and never wanted to be the first one to log off early. We were at a giant company and not scrapping to survive or anything, that was just the micro-culture within the ~10 of us.