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> Stunning stat: 64% of young women say they just don't want children, compared to 50% of men. (US statistics, contextualize accordingly) I did read the contex

> Stunning stat: 64% of young women say they just don't want children, compared to 50% of men. (US statistics, contextualize accordingly) I did read the context you offered and I offer this. The causes I suggest can be a primary driver while being fully uncredited. The reason is our new child-raising dystopia is our assumed reality. It goes unconsidered because there is low awareness of what historical parenting actually looked like. Stated differently, people correctly understand how massively taxing raising kids is. However they consider that taxation as if it were the ever-existant reality. They don't consider that [compared to now] raising kids used to be a trivial task most of the time. Historical kids amped up critical life-skills with their peers and away from adults. During those same hours, their parents worked and maintained their own social lives. Conversely, modern kids are ever-attached to modern parents and this severely limits everyone's opportunities for natural social interaction.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
I don’t disagree, but it’s unlikely we go back to a time where kids became self sufficient and useful rapidly instead of the high resource utilization luxury good they are today.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > it’s unlikely we go back to a time where kids became self sufficient Well, yeah. To keep my assertion simple, I didn't want to add that I see no path to restoring kids' social ecosystems - and their mental health. I see no path to unwinding/overcoming the damage done by automobile culture.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    I think there is a potential, limited path to success here (depending on what "success" looks like), and it’s likely assisting parents in clustering (via subsidizing moving expenses and affordable family housing) around schools that remain (because many are closing due to funding cuts and the demographic cliff) to maintain walkability for both school commute and socialization. It’s a bandaid, but the only option I see viable considering the cost of re-engineering urban planning to fix decades of car centric policy. Those costs are enormous, and I think in a lot of cases, it’ll be cheaper to allow some places to go terminal/fallow as their population declines. This doesn’t juice the fertility rate (because it doesn't appear anything will), but it will make childhoods suck less for kids already here and those on the way for the foreseeable future (as well as improve parental experience). Barcelona Superblocks is my mental model on this topic. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18273894/barcelona-urban-planning-superblocks-poblenou https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18273894... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZORzsubQA_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZORzsubQA_M

toomuchtodo 2y ago

I don’t disagree, but it’s unlikely we go back to a time where kids became self sufficient and useful rapidly instead of the high resource utilization luxury good they are today.

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> it’s unlikely we go back to a time where kids became self sufficient Well, yeah. To keep my assertion simple, I didn't want to add that I see no path to restoring kids' social ecosystems - and their mental health. I see no path to unwinding/overcoming the damage done by automobile culture.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  I think there is a potential, limited path to success here (depending on what "success" looks like), and it’s likely assisting parents in clustering (via subsidizing moving expenses and affordable family housing) around schools that remain (because many are closing due to funding cuts and the demographic cliff) to maintain walkability for both school commute and socialization. It’s a bandaid, but the only option I see viable considering the cost of re-engineering urban planning to fix decades of car centric policy. Those costs are enormous, and I think in a lot of cases, it’ll be cheaper to allow some places to go terminal/fallow as their population declines. This doesn’t juice the fertility rate (because it doesn't appear anything will), but it will make childhoods suck less for kids already here and those on the way for the foreseeable future (as well as improve parental experience). Barcelona Superblocks is my mental model on this topic. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18273894/barcelona-urban-planning-superblocks-poblenou https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18273894... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZORzsubQA_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZORzsubQA_M