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I have a strong association of a desire to have children with good times. Plenty. Safety. Relief. An aversion to children is a sign of bad times. Turmoil. War.

by netcan 14y ago

I have a strong association of a desire to have children with good times. Plenty. Safety. Relief. An aversion to children is a sign of bad times. Turmoil. War. It's part of our stories and our mythologies. The heros return from war bringing safety and bounty. Pair up and rase children. I suspect this is part of our biology. How much of this has always been. How much of it is a result of our present world.

calinet6 14y ago
Biologically speaking, it's logical to not want to bring children into a harsh world incapable of nurturing them. It could be an evolutionary or rational feedback. I think much of this has always been, and this is largely a case of "if you go looking for something, you'll find it." Also, they're pushing a book. Funny how that works.
- fmstephe 14y ago
  There is a fairly strong connection between poverty, stress and high reproductive rates. The baby boomer generation is largely the product of WWII. The birth rate of Palestian's is significantly higher than that of the Israeli population. Birth rates in very poor countries are almost always significantly higher than in developed wealthy countries. (IANAE :)
  - Tichy 14y ago
    But does that correlation still hold in developed countries? I guess reasons to have more kids in poor countries is that they'll help you with your work and take care of you when you are old. Besides, some of them are going to die prematurely, so you need to create more to have some successes. The cost for having a kid might be low. In developed countries things are pretty much turned on their heads in that respect?
paganel 14y ago
> I have a strong association of a desire to have children with good times. Plenty. Safety. Relief. An aversion to children is a sign of bad times. Turmoil. War. This reminded me of the story of my ex-wife's grand-mother who around 1942 or so went very closed to the WW2 Easter front lines dressed up as a man (that's what the legend says, anyway) to meet her husband, my wife's grand-father, who was serving in the Romanian Army. Nine months later, July 1943, their first kid was born, my ex-father-in-law. ~60 years later my ex-wife was trying to explain to me that we shouldn't have kids because times "are to unstable, we don't have enough money etc". So there's that ... A little OT, my ex-wife's grand-father was quite a man, he got wounded 3 times on the Eastern front, and even though he had been raised in a traditional, Romanian peasant family he said that he couldn't believe in God anymore after what he had seen in there. After the war he returned to Romania and because he used to be an elementary-school teacher before WW2 and had experience with kids he was in charge with running a foster-home where he took care of orphaned children for a while, until things around the country settled down a bit. Those kids still looked at him as a father-like figure well into them growing up as adults and becoming grand-parents themselves, a bunch of them were present at his funeral 65 years after he had taken care of them. So there's that again :)
riffraff 14y ago
Ah, don't forget to integrate the "skirts length theory"[0], if we are driven to reproduction because the environment is better, than a stronger drive to sex makes sense :) [0] Good times beget short skirts and economic crisis make them longer

by netcan 14y ago

calinet6 14y ago

Biologically speaking, it's logical to not want to bring children into a harsh world incapable of nurturing them. It could be an evolutionary or rational feedback. I think much of this has always been, and this is largely a case of "if you go looking for something, you'll find it." Also, they're pushing a book. Funny how that works.

fmstephe 14y ago
There is a fairly strong connection between poverty, stress and high reproductive rates. The baby boomer generation is largely the product of WWII. The birth rate of Palestian's is significantly higher than that of the Israeli population. Birth rates in very poor countries are almost always significantly higher than in developed wealthy countries. (IANAE :)
- Tichy 14y ago
  But does that correlation still hold in developed countries? I guess reasons to have more kids in poor countries is that they'll help you with your work and take care of you when you are old. Besides, some of them are going to die prematurely, so you need to create more to have some successes. The cost for having a kid might be low. In developed countries things are pretty much turned on their heads in that respect?

paganel 14y ago

> I have a strong association of a desire to have children with good times. Plenty. Safety. Relief. An aversion to children is a sign of bad times. Turmoil. War. This reminded me of the story of my ex-wife's grand-mother who around 1942 or so went very closed to the WW2 Easter front lines dressed up as a man (that's what the legend says, anyway) to meet her husband, my wife's grand-father, who was serving in the Romanian Army. Nine months later, July 1943, their first kid was born, my ex-father-in-law. ~60 years later my ex-wife was trying to explain to me that we shouldn't have kids because times "are to unstable, we don't have enough money etc". So there's that ... A little OT, my ex-wife's grand-father was quite a man, he got wounded 3 times on the Eastern front, and even though he had been raised in a traditional, Romanian peasant family he said that he couldn't believe in God anymore after what he had seen in there. After the war he returned to Romania and because he used to be an elementary-school teacher before WW2 and had experience with kids he was in charge with running a foster-home where he took care of orphaned children for a while, until things around the country settled down a bit. Those kids still looked at him as a father-like figure well into them growing up as adults and becoming grand-parents themselves, a bunch of them were present at his funeral 65 years after he had taken care of them. So there's that again :)

riffraff 14y ago

Ah, don't forget to integrate the "skirts length theory"[0], if we are driven to reproduction because the environment is better, than a stronger drive to sex makes sense :) [0] Good times beget short skirts and economic crisis make them longer