6 ms·

If you want to have kids and want a partner that is into that, that's fine. However, being self-centered and wanting to be a parent aren't mutually exclusive, a

If you want to have kids and want a partner that is into that, that's fine. However, being self-centered and wanting to be a parent aren't mutually exclusive, as I have met adults whose parents were/are extremely self-centered and that factored in heavily into the abusive situations those adults lived in when they were children. > And I am very sad to see that all other families are crumbling. I'm not really sure what you are talking about, families have always had issues with abuse, divorce, etc., that is nothing new (even if people may have hidden those things more often in the past, but that really depends on when and where you grew up).

jacoblyles 14y ago
Actually, the crumbling of the family is quite new. The past 50 years has seen a rapid and sad dissolution of the family: http://dalrock.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/p70-126_pdf_hist_living_arangements_children.png http://dalrock.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/p70-126_pdf_hist_...
- king_jester 14y ago
  All this chart shows in an increase in the number of single mother households over time, particularly starting in the 1960s/1970s, in the United States. Whether or not you see that as sad depends on what you know of the living conditions women experienced in the time before that, conditions which gave rise the 2nd wave feminist movements. Suffice it to say the same underlying social and gender disparities existed prior to the increased occurrence of divorce and US society was not more stable or better off before that increase.
  - jacoblyles 14y ago
    As far as I am aware, children living with both parents do much better in life in a variety of metrics (income, criminality, academics, child poverty, and etc.). While easier divorce may have led to an increase in equality for women, it has also had an immense negative impact on children. Trade-offs exist, whether or not we choose to ignore them for ideological reasons. You are free to believe that the modern world is better off, despite the costs. But you should be aware of the costs.
    - Klinky 14y ago
      My mother's father was alcoholic, my father was alcoholic. These issues had nothing to do with the availability of divorce. I highly doubt it would have assisted my mother or I if my grandmother and my mother were not allowed to divorce. It is apples and oranges to compare today's society with the societies of past, and not so easy to arrive at solid conclusions regarding the impacts and costs of changes in social values.
      - jacoblyles 14y ago
        I'm sorry for your personal difficulties, but I try not to base my personal worldview on anecdotes. I agree with you that these are difficult issues with large accounts on both sides of the ledger. In fact, that is kind of my point.
        Klinky 14y ago
        I do not believe that was your point at all. Your post suggested quite the opposite. To me it read as though you think people are ignoring the impact easy divorce has on children because of ideological reasons. The same could be said of people who think marriage means a happy and stable home life.
        jacoblyles 14y ago
        I'm speaking of averages. On average, a two parent home is much better for children. Of course there are exceptions. Pointing out exceptions to robust statistical data is the most common fallacious statistical argument.
        narag 14y ago
        Statistical data don't tell why. Divorce could be the effect of the real problem (alcoholism or mental disorder) and staying married could actually have made things worse. The thing is, once you got to decide, statistics say nothing useful, it's your situation or, if you prefer, your exception, your anecdote, what really matters.
- gregpilling 14y ago
  Your chart shows just that there are more single mothers. What the chart fails to indicate is that 40% of babies are born to unmarried couples these days, many of whom are a happy couple but just not married. It is a reflection of changing attitudes about marriage, and a failure of data collection. There has always been families of all sorts - single moms, blended families, happy and unhappy marriages, etc. (source: wife who is a sociology professor).
speeder 14y ago
I know lots of self-centered people that are parents. What I mean is that it is hard to find women that actually WANT to live a life of sacrifice, living for the family, instead of living to themselves. I've met some women that when I ask if they want to be mother they say: "Oh, sure!" And then I ask: "So, when you have your 4 months old kid, you will stay at home to take care of it if your husband is rich enough for that?" And then most of them reply: "Hell no, the kid can stay in the creche, or watching TV with the babysitter, I must work." Funnily, I have a friend that insists that she will even have a kid using sperm bank, and she will take care of that kid alone, yet she hates her mother because she feels her mother did not gave attention enough to her (her mother is a divorced lawyer, and the girl was cared by the house cleaning lady that lived in the house, when she has problems she still talk to that lady instead of her mother).
- king_jester 14y ago
  > What I mean is that it is hard to find women that actually WANT to live a life of sacrifice, living for the family, instead of living to themselves. Well, in most of the western world women had no choice in the past but to take on those roles, regardless if they wanted to or not. That we see women rejecting this kind of role because they have more choices is a good thing. I'm sure there's plenty of folks out there that still want that lifestyle, but there should be no default assumption of that being the suitable gender role for women. > "Hell no, the kid can stay in the creche, or watching TV with the babysitter, I must work." If someone wants to do this and has the means to do so, is there a problem? Sure it might not match what you want with your life, but that just means that person isn't the parental partner for you.
  - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    >If someone wants to do this and has the means to do so, is there a problem? // For the child it would seem so. I don't really understand why people who don't want to - or aren't willing to - love and care for a child choose to have children.
    - king_jester 14y ago
speeder 14y ago
About crumbling families: I am form Brazil, no-fault divorce was only allowed in the 70s (in comparison to US for example), and divorce rates rose very quickly. Three years ago the divorce laws were made even more lax, and divorce rate tripled immediately (ie: one year after the law, the amount of divorce year-to-year was 3 times). Most of my friends have divorced parents, I knew few people that actually have married parents, and frequently when people meet my family they say they are envious. Also the marriage rates are plummeting too (and although the co-habitation rates are rising, it is not rising fast enough to compensate).
- king_jester 14y ago
  Is this really a bad thing? Is it better that people stay in marriages they do not want to be a part of rather than be free to separate? Staying in a failed marriage is not necessarily better for kids and may in fact be worse than getting a divorce. Marriage rates are falling in some countries and places, but that really depends more on the specifics of where you are. In the US, there are a variety of reasons why people are getting married at slower rates these days, but it doesn't really matter how often people get married anyway. > Also the marriage rates are plummeting too (and although the co-habitation rates are rising, it is not rising fast enough to compensate). Compensate for what exactly?
  - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
    If you have kids, the commitments you've made are not just to your spouse/SO/whatever, but also to your kids. Those commitments are long-term and failing to keep those commitments is very damaging to kids. I think if more people took those commitments seriously, they would find ways to solve problems. As it is, why bother trying when it's easier to just say "screw it" and separate. There are some marriages that should end. There are men and women both who have no business being attached to another human being. But I think more marriages end than need to, and it's a net-negative to everybody involved (which means all of society). Learning how to live happily with another person (and it is difficult, no questions; I'm going on 20 years and it stays just as hard every year) is one of the most satisfying things you can do and teaches you many important lessons that positively impact one's life in areas outside of the home.

jacoblyles 14y ago

Actually, the crumbling of the family is quite new. The past 50 years has seen a rapid and sad dissolution of the family: http://dalrock.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/p70-126_pdf_hist_living_arangements_children.png http://dalrock.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/p70-126_pdf_hist_...

king_jester 14y ago
All this chart shows in an increase in the number of single mother households over time, particularly starting in the 1960s/1970s, in the United States. Whether or not you see that as sad depends on what you know of the living conditions women experienced in the time before that, conditions which gave rise the 2nd wave feminist movements. Suffice it to say the same underlying social and gender disparities existed prior to the increased occurrence of divorce and US society was not more stable or better off before that increase.
- jacoblyles 14y ago
  As far as I am aware, children living with both parents do much better in life in a variety of metrics (income, criminality, academics, child poverty, and etc.). While easier divorce may have led to an increase in equality for women, it has also had an immense negative impact on children. Trade-offs exist, whether or not we choose to ignore them for ideological reasons. You are free to believe that the modern world is better off, despite the costs. But you should be aware of the costs.
  - Klinky 14y ago
    My mother's father was alcoholic, my father was alcoholic. These issues had nothing to do with the availability of divorce. I highly doubt it would have assisted my mother or I if my grandmother and my mother were not allowed to divorce. It is apples and oranges to compare today's society with the societies of past, and not so easy to arrive at solid conclusions regarding the impacts and costs of changes in social values.
    - jacoblyles 14y ago
      I'm sorry for your personal difficulties, but I try not to base my personal worldview on anecdotes. I agree with you that these are difficult issues with large accounts on both sides of the ledger. In fact, that is kind of my point.
      - Klinky 14y ago
        I do not believe that was your point at all. Your post suggested quite the opposite. To me it read as though you think people are ignoring the impact easy divorce has on children because of ideological reasons. The same could be said of people who think marriage means a happy and stable home life.
        jacoblyles 14y ago
        I'm speaking of averages. On average, a two parent home is much better for children. Of course there are exceptions. Pointing out exceptions to robust statistical data is the most common fallacious statistical argument.
        narag 14y ago
        Statistical data don't tell why. Divorce could be the effect of the real problem (alcoholism or mental disorder) and staying married could actually have made things worse. The thing is, once you got to decide, statistics say nothing useful, it's your situation or, if you prefer, your exception, your anecdote, what really matters.
gregpilling 14y ago
Your chart shows just that there are more single mothers. What the chart fails to indicate is that 40% of babies are born to unmarried couples these days, many of whom are a happy couple but just not married. It is a reflection of changing attitudes about marriage, and a failure of data collection. There has always been families of all sorts - single moms, blended families, happy and unhappy marriages, etc. (source: wife who is a sociology professor).

speeder 14y ago

I know lots of self-centered people that are parents. What I mean is that it is hard to find women that actually WANT to live a life of sacrifice, living for the family, instead of living to themselves. I've met some women that when I ask if they want to be mother they say: "Oh, sure!" And then I ask: "So, when you have your 4 months old kid, you will stay at home to take care of it if your husband is rich enough for that?" And then most of them reply: "Hell no, the kid can stay in the creche, or watching TV with the babysitter, I must work." Funnily, I have a friend that insists that she will even have a kid using sperm bank, and she will take care of that kid alone, yet she hates her mother because she feels her mother did not gave attention enough to her (her mother is a divorced lawyer, and the girl was cared by the house cleaning lady that lived in the house, when she has problems she still talk to that lady instead of her mother).

king_jester 14y ago
> What I mean is that it is hard to find women that actually WANT to live a life of sacrifice, living for the family, instead of living to themselves. Well, in most of the western world women had no choice in the past but to take on those roles, regardless if they wanted to or not. That we see women rejecting this kind of role because they have more choices is a good thing. I'm sure there's plenty of folks out there that still want that lifestyle, but there should be no default assumption of that being the suitable gender role for women. > "Hell no, the kid can stay in the creche, or watching TV with the babysitter, I must work." If someone wants to do this and has the means to do so, is there a problem? Sure it might not match what you want with your life, but that just means that person isn't the parental partner for you.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  >If someone wants to do this and has the means to do so, is there a problem? // For the child it would seem so. I don't really understand why people who don't want to - or aren't willing to - love and care for a child choose to have children.
  - king_jester 14y ago

speeder 14y ago

About crumbling families: I am form Brazil, no-fault divorce was only allowed in the 70s (in comparison to US for example), and divorce rates rose very quickly. Three years ago the divorce laws were made even more lax, and divorce rate tripled immediately (ie: one year after the law, the amount of divorce year-to-year was 3 times). Most of my friends have divorced parents, I knew few people that actually have married parents, and frequently when people meet my family they say they are envious. Also the marriage rates are plummeting too (and although the co-habitation rates are rising, it is not rising fast enough to compensate).

king_jester 14y ago
Is this really a bad thing? Is it better that people stay in marriages they do not want to be a part of rather than be free to separate? Staying in a failed marriage is not necessarily better for kids and may in fact be worse than getting a divorce. Marriage rates are falling in some countries and places, but that really depends more on the specifics of where you are. In the US, there are a variety of reasons why people are getting married at slower rates these days, but it doesn't really matter how often people get married anyway. > Also the marriage rates are plummeting too (and although the co-habitation rates are rising, it is not rising fast enough to compensate). Compensate for what exactly?
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  If you have kids, the commitments you've made are not just to your spouse/SO/whatever, but also to your kids. Those commitments are long-term and failing to keep those commitments is very damaging to kids. I think if more people took those commitments seriously, they would find ways to solve problems. As it is, why bother trying when it's easier to just say "screw it" and separate. There are some marriages that should end. There are men and women both who have no business being attached to another human being. But I think more marriages end than need to, and it's a net-negative to everybody involved (which means all of society). Learning how to live happily with another person (and it is difficult, no questions; I'm going on 20 years and it stays just as hard every year) is one of the most satisfying things you can do and teaches you many important lessons that positively impact one's life in areas outside of the home.