Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The newborn and toddler years are really hard. And we live in a society with few family support policies (daycare costs a lot, housing costs a lot, maternity leave is typically unpaid).

These are some reasons the birth rate is falling.

For me, parenthood has been wonderful and so worth it for the love and fulfillment. There have been a lot of hard days. But the joy and beauty outweigh them.

Perhaps it could be because wages are higher here and housing costs lower (and homes generally larger), but birth rates are falling across all western countries. Generous paid leave is inversely correlated with the birth rate.

My unpopular opinion is that government leave makes it worse. In most European countries, the paid leave is at a low wage (similar to unemployment here) and women are expected to take it. This means every woman who has a kid is expected to stay home for a long period of time to earn low wages from the government. Women still have to work, especially since wages are generally lower, but they are second class citizens at work since it’s assumed they are away for years having children.

Do I want to have another kid and instead of working earn $300 a week? No thanks.

Agree.

I don’t think most Americans understand that in the UK/EU, taxpayers pay the 6-12 month mat leave and at low income caps.

White collar jobs there will pay full salary the first 2-3 months, and for a temp if you have clients, but then it’s the low income caps if you want to stay home for 6,9,12 months.

I also don’t think most Americans know that Londoners pay 10% of their paycheck to NHS oh la healthcare AND also pay for private health insurance, alongside their employer. So it’s very costly to make a slates hire given 10% NHS + 20-30k quid/ year private benefits.

Anyhow, we had a nanny for years 0-5 and kids two years apart so nanny made sense, first full time, then afternoons. She cooked dinner and tidied up too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I minored in biological anthropology in college. Reality is, human children are not meant to be raised solely by two people. We did not evolve with isolated nuclear families.

Human children are so time-intensive that we evolved to be raised by an entire village of people (alloparents). From what I remember, among hunter gatherers, the ratio of adults to children is around 4:1 and infants are held by up to 18 different people per hour.

Animals with extremely time-intensive parenting, such as birds, usually have a very short period of rearing. A baby bird is off on its own within 6-8 weeks.

Of course, there are trade-offs. Among animals, babies usually just follow their parents around while the parents go do normal life activities. However, this leads to extremely high death rates of 50-90%. Even among hunter-gatherers, childhood mortality is around 50%.

And having a village raise your child means they will alloparent in different ways from you, and you have very little say in it. There are reports of hunter-gatherers where the parents do virtually zero discipline and leave it up to other members of the group. This wouldn't fly among many parents today.

Unfortunately I don't think there's really a solution for families in the United States. We want to be independent and not live with multiple other people. Things like free daycare, free healthcare, a living wage, etc do help, though. But the reality is that life with kids is just intense. Add a capitalistic system where we're supposed to buy more things and bigger things, and nobody is happy.

This is very fascinating. thank you for this!

NP. If you are interested in biological anthropology, you might like the book "Our Babies, Ourselves" by Meredith Small.

It's about some of the odd features of our culture regarding babies. It is weird to keep them in nursery bedrooms separate from parents. That's why they cry. They aren't evolved to feel safe so far from parents. They have to get used to it/learn they are safe. Americans also bathe their babies far more than a lot of cultures.

Time savers for me included buying a condo townhouse to avoid yard work, finding a reliable decent daycare center, and keeping the baby in my room until about 12 months. I never found a village.

Actually babies typically cry because they are hungry, tired, bored, constipated or sick.

Many babies do just fine sleeping in a separate room from their parents.

Parents are the best people to decide what is best for their child and their family within basic safety parameters. For many, that does not involve room sharing for 12 months. Studies have shown that infants older than 4 months who room-share may experience more night wakings and shorter overall sleep stretches. Families often choose to transition the baby to their own room between 4 and 12 months for better sleep quality for both parents and baby.

The guidance from the CDC and APA on room sharing is pretty dumb IMO, but not surprising from orgs that managed to increase nut allergies in children by putting out unsupported guidance.

Accurate.
We didn’t breastfeed , co sleep, gentle parent, helicopter….. kids are fine!

Did you mean, "kids are fine, wherever they are!"

No.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to stay with my sister for a week to help out as she just had her second child. I don’t have any kids yet, but honestly it seemed like her life is hellish. As is a lot of my friends in the same phase of life. They have high friction relationships with their partners, are trying to juggle too much on their own, and are squeezed financially.

It made me wonder if there’s something wrong with how we do the family thing America. Is there a better way? Or is this just life for a lot people with kids?

Say it louder for the people in the back.
You accurately captured it
People just decide to push through and do it anyway.
Better way is to have a village bc it takes a village to raise kids. We are too isolated here. No one wants to rely on anyone.

Sock puppet troll OP 2 seconds later. Lame .

Anonymous wrote:I went to stay with my sister for a week to help out as she just had her second child. I don’t have any kids yet, but honestly it seemed like her life is hellish. As is a lot of my friends in the same phase of life. They have high friction relationships with their partners, are trying to juggle too much on their own, and are squeezed financially.

It made me wonder if there’s something wrong with how we do the family thing America. Is there a better way? Or is this just life for a lot people with kids?

Troll OP

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I minored in biological anthropology in college. Reality is, human children are not meant to be raised solely by two people. We did not evolve with isolated nuclear families.

Human children are so time-intensive that we evolved to be raised by an entire village of people (alloparents). From what I remember, among hunter gatherers, the ratio of adults to children is around 4:1 and infants are held by up to 18 different people per hour.

Animals with extremely time-intensive parenting, such as birds, usually have a very short period of rearing. A baby bird is off on its own within 6-8 weeks.

Of course, there are trade-offs. Among animals, babies usually just follow their parents around while the parents go do normal life activities. However, this leads to extremely high death rates of 50-90%. Even among hunter-gatherers, childhood mortality is around 50%.

And having a village raise your child means they will alloparent in different ways from you, and you have very little say in it. There are reports of hunter-gatherers where the parents do virtually zero discipline and leave it up to other members of the group. This wouldn't fly among many parents today.

Unfortunately I don't think there's really a solution for families in the United States. We want to be independent and not live with multiple other people. Things like free daycare, free healthcare, a living wage, etc do help, though. But the reality is that life with kids is just intense. Add a capitalistic system where we're supposed to buy more things and bigger things, and nobody is happy.

This is very fascinating. thank you for this!

NP. If you are interested in biological anthropology, you might like the book "Our Babies, Ourselves" by Meredith Small.

It's about some of the odd features of our culture regarding babies. It is weird to keep them in nursery bedrooms separate from parents. That's why they cry. They aren't evolved to feel safe so far from parents. They have to get used to it/learn they are safe. Americans also bathe their babies far more than a lot of cultures.

Time savers for me included buying a condo townhouse to avoid yard work, finding a reliable decent daycare center, and keeping the baby in my room until about 12 months. I never found a village.

Actually babies typically cry because they are hungry, tired, bored, constipated or sick.

Many babies do just fine sleeping in a separate room from their parents.

Parents are the best people to decide what is best for their child and their family within basic safety parameters. For many, that does not involve room sharing for 12 months. Studies have shown that infants older than 4 months who room-share may experience more night wakings and shorter overall sleep stretches. Families often choose to transition the baby to their own room between 4 and 12 months for better sleep quality for both parents and baby.

The guidance from the CDC and APA on room sharing is pretty dumb IMO, but not surprising from orgs that managed to increase nut allergies in children by putting out unsupported guidance.

Accurate.
We didn’t breastfeed , co sleep, gentle parent, helicopter….. kids are fine!

Did you mean, "kids are fine, wherever they are!"

Anonymous wrote:Baby stage is hard. The reward outweighs the temporary discomfort of life stages. When you age into your elder years you will understand the value of investing into your family. The issue is Americans lack family values.

I have found this too. I am wondering what sort of mechanism would enable community and help reinforce family values, but is not a religious institution? I have honestly thought of joining one just for the community and values (give or take a few of 'em), but it doesn't feel right as we are not religious.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I minored in biological anthropology in college. Reality is, human children are not meant to be raised solely by two people. We did not evolve with isolated nuclear families.

Human children are so time-intensive that we evolved to be raised by an entire village of people (alloparents). From what I remember, among hunter gatherers, the ratio of adults to children is around 4:1 and infants are held by up to 18 different people per hour.

Animals with extremely time-intensive parenting, such as birds, usually have a very short period of rearing. A baby bird is off on its own within 6-8 weeks.

Of course, there are trade-offs. Among animals, babies usually just follow their parents around while the parents go do normal life activities. However, this leads to extremely high death rates of 50-90%. Even among hunter-gatherers, childhood mortality is around 50%.

And having a village raise your child means they will alloparent in different ways from you, and you have very little say in it. There are reports of hunter-gatherers where the parents do virtually zero discipline and leave it up to other members of the group. This wouldn't fly among many parents today.

Unfortunately I don't think there's really a solution for families in the United States. We want to be independent and not live with multiple other people. Things like free daycare, free healthcare, a living wage, etc do help, though. But the reality is that life with kids is just intense. Add a capitalistic system where we're supposed to buy more things and bigger things, and nobody is happy.

This is very fascinating. thank you for this!

NP. If you are interested in biological anthropology, you might like the book "Our Babies, Ourselves" by Meredith Small.

It's about some of the odd features of our culture regarding babies. It is weird to keep them in nursery bedrooms separate from parents. That's why they cry. They aren't evolved to feel safe so far from parents. They have to get used to it/learn they are safe. Americans also bathe their babies far more than a lot of cultures.

Time savers for me included buying a condo townhouse to avoid yard work, finding a reliable decent daycare center, and keeping the baby in my room until about 12 months. I never found a village.

Actually babies typically cry because they are hungry, tired, bored, constipated or sick.

Many babies do just fine sleeping in a separate room from their parents.

Parents are the best people to decide what is best for their child and their family within basic safety parameters. For many, that does not involve room sharing for 12 months. Studies have shown that infants older than 4 months who room-share may experience more night wakings and shorter overall sleep stretches. Families often choose to transition the baby to their own room between 4 and 12 months for better sleep quality for both parents and baby.

The guidance from the CDC and APA on room sharing is pretty dumb IMO, but not surprising from orgs that managed to increase nut allergies in children by putting out unsupported guidance.

Accurate.
We didn’t breastfeed , co sleep, gentle parent, helicopter….. kids are fine!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good grief. Don’t want kids, that’s fine but some of you need to call your therapist. Sorry but you sound miserable.
Life with kids can be difficult but if it is all the time, it is a you problem(exception for those with SN children- you have valid reason to complain). Just take care of what is in front of you.
I worked FT with 3 DC. It was just not that hard. Well, did I get to the gym, no. Read a book, no. Watch an adult movie in 12 years, no. But I did that through my twenties and no, mid fifties, I can go back to doing whatever I want. Putting DC before me for ~ 1/4 of my life makes me enjoy what I have now.”

Don’t have kids if it is not for you, but there are trade offs in life and I love the village I am
In.

There are so many posts like this right now I think these are trolls.

Imagine not going to the gym or reading a book for decades but thinking it’s ok. Lady you have lose standards and are more proof how awful it is to have kids.

Stop dramatizing. I ran on a trail pushing a stroller. Then I ran alongside my DC riding a bike. Then I played tennis and soccer with them at the park. I read storybooks cuddled up together in bed. I played with dolls or built Legos in lieu of movies. It is a trade off, but a better one IMO.
And now- we all go to the gym and adult movies together.

Martyr mommy is in the house!

No, not a martyr at all. Just responding to someone who felt that not going to the gym or reading a book was traumatic.

Pretty accurate OP
Buyer beware

Baby stage is hard. The reward outweighs the temporary discomfort of life stages. When you age into your elder years you will understand the value of investing into your family. The issue is Americans lack family values.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The newborn and toddler years are really hard. And we live in a society with few family support policies (daycare costs a lot, housing costs a lot, maternity leave is typically unpaid).

These are some reasons the birth rate is falling.

For me, parenthood has been wonderful and so worth it for the love and fulfillment. There have been a lot of hard days. But the joy and beauty outweigh them.

Perhaps it could be because wages are higher here and housing costs lower (and homes generally larger), but birth rates are falling across all western countries. Generous paid leave is inversely correlated with the birth rate.

My unpopular opinion is that government leave makes it worse. In most European countries, the paid leave is at a low wage (similar to unemployment here) and women are expected to take it. This means every woman who has a kid is expected to stay home for a long period of time to earn low wages from the government. Women still have to work, especially since wages are generally lower, but they are second class citizens at work since it’s assumed they are away for years having children.

Do I want to have another kid and instead of working earn $300 a week? No thanks.

It's not just western countries. It's all developed/industrialized countries (except Israel).

I like the Nordic model for parental leave, which offers equal bonding time for fathers, but fathers have to take the leave separately from the mothers. It encourages dads to be primary caregivers early in their child's life. And it seems to be working based on research on time spent parenting by gender.

I also like this model. It's what we planned to do when we had a kid and then my DH's company balked at my DH taking his parental leave later (they insisted he take it right after the baby was born instead of for months 3-6 as we originally planned), so we just did our leave together. It's still good we got leave but it actually doesn't make great sense. Caring for an infant is not actually *that* hard, the point of leave is for parents to bond with the baby, for moms to recover from childbirth, and to develop the skill set you need to care for the baby moving forward. With two of us, this left a lot of downtime and while it was nice to read and sleep and relax too, I actually think we both would have liked just being home alone with the baby for a few months instead of sharing our leave.

Anonymous wrote:I went to stay with my sister for a week to help out as she just had her second child. I don’t have any kids yet, but honestly it seemed like her life is hellish. As is a lot of my friends in the same phase of life. They have high friction relationships with their partners, are trying to juggle too much on their own, and are squeezed financially.

It made me wonder if there’s something wrong with how we do the family thing America. Is there a better way? Or is this just life for a lot people with kids?

Joint families are a solution though it comes with a different set of problems but pooling resources makes life efficient in many ways.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think part of the problem is that as we become more economically stable, there is the expectation that you will hire help instead of rely on friends and neighbors. Some people are lucky that they have supportive families (good for you for helping out your sister), some of us are not so lucky. But beyond family, it would seem odd these days to just ask a neighbor or even a good friend to randomly babysit for free. In the old days, kids could just play together in the neighborhood, and whichever parent was around would take them in and not think too much of it. People helped each other out more.

I don't think it's only the expectation of hiring help, I think it's also that "whichever parent was around" started to be only 1 or 2 parents and it got old that no one else was willing to step in.

Yes. And before people yell at what I'm about to say, I am NOT saying the solution is for women to stay home.

But back when women staying home or just working part time and just being more present in the home was the default, it did solve a ton of the problems of modern parenting by just having a lot of adults at home all the time. Kids could be supervised more easily plus you were more likely to know your neighbors and trust them, so the idea of your kid playing down the street was less stressful because you know the people who lived there and that they'd contact you if need be. Kids could be more free because there were adults in the vicinity, so they spent more time outside and figuring stuff out on their own, which lessened the overall burden of parenting once a child was about 6 years old. There was more a sense of raising kids in a community even if you weren't super intentional about creating a community, because anywhere you'd find families, you'd find SAHMs and adults around during the day. You would also often find grandparents, especially grandmothers, who viewed it as part of their societal role to keep an eye on neighborhood kids and participate in creating a safe place for kids. I had a childless neighbor who lived across the street when I was a kid and even she participated in the general supervision of neighborhood kids -- we knew here and she knew us and she knew our parents.

When everyone (or almost everyone) has a dual income family, there aren't adults around and it doesn't just mean there's no neighbor to watch your kids for free. It means there's no neighbor at all, so you don't even want your kid playing down the street at all because who know who is down there. So now we have all this stress around the idea of kids being in danger and needing supervision, because there's no kind of incidental community supervision. This is not only more expensive (nannies, sisters, day camps, aftercare, after school activities), it's also more stressful because you are always trying to patch together "coverage" of your kids. I have upper elementary age kids and there is this whole thing around letting them walk to and from school alone, and where you might feel comfortable with them going without you. When I was a kid, the answer would be "anywhere in the broader neighborhood but not crossing the major commercial streets bordering the neighborhood." Which was still a huge area that encompassed many streets and parks, a creek we used to hike down to, and some trails that connected some of the houses from behind. Meanwhile, I know parents in our neighborhood who do not let a child go anywhere without adult supervision until 12 or 13. Anywhere. If they can't see their kids entire route from their house to a neighbor's house, they will walk them, even if the kid is 10 years old and perfectly capable of doing that themselves, and the house is around the corner. With watches and phones and AirTags parents can also digitally monitor their kids everywhere, and a lot of parents feel they have to because there is just no sense of trust in community, and with good reason. A lot of your neighbors, even neighbors who are also parents who also have kids, will simply view your kids as 100% your responsibility and not feel they have any role in communal supervision of children. It's incredibly burdensome.

Again, I don't think the solution here is for women to all stay home -- it was economically unjust to put this on women (especially while also paying them less, controlling what they did with their own bodies, and failing to protect them from violence and harassment). Now that WFH is more of a thing, maybe we don't even need people to stop working. But there's this cultural shift that has occurred in the time between when I was a child and now having kids, and I think parenting is going to be a harder endeavor until we fix it. Expecting two people to be 100% responsible for the physical safety of their kids from birth until they are teenagers is a very heavy responsibility (and an expensive one if you outsource some of that responsibility, which most of us do) and just really not something humans have ever done before. It also probably has negative impacts on kids because they don't get enough freedom and spend way more time either with their parents directly (it's just healthy to get a break from that relationship, for both parties) or in organized activities their parents pay for to keep them supervised and occupied while at work. It actually sucks for both working parents and SAHPs because neither has the benefit of communal care for kids and they both wind up doing more than parents did 30 or 40 years ago in terms of watching and occupying their kids. And non-parents view themselves as totally outside the project of raising kids, it's someone else's issue, it's an imposition they find offensive to accept (in contrast to, for instance, my old neighbor or many of the retired ladies in my neighborhood who thought nothing of looking out a window and noticing a kid had fallen down and coming out to help or going to find that kid's mom). It's a broken system and birth rates will keep declining if we don't change it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The newborn and toddler years are really hard. And we live in a society with few family support policies (daycare costs a lot, housing costs a lot, maternity leave is typically unpaid).

These are some reasons the birth rate is falling.

For me, parenthood has been wonderful and so worth it for the love and fulfillment. There have been a lot of hard days. But the joy and beauty outweigh them.

Perhaps it could be because wages are higher here and housing costs lower (and homes generally larger), but birth rates are falling across all western countries. Generous paid leave is inversely correlated with the birth rate.

My unpopular opinion is that government leave makes it worse. In most European countries, the paid leave is at a low wage (similar to unemployment here) and women are expected to take it. This means every woman who has a kid is expected to stay home for a long period of time to earn low wages from the government. Women still have to work, especially since wages are generally lower, but they are second class citizens at work since it’s assumed they are away for years having children.

Do I want to have another kid and instead of working earn $300 a week? No thanks.

It's not just western countries. It's all developed/industrialized countries (except Israel).

I like the Nordic model for parental leave, which offers equal bonding time for fathers, but fathers have to take the leave separately from the mothers. It encourages dads to be primary caregivers early in their child's life. And it seems to be working based on research on time spent parenting by gender.

Anonymous wrote:The newborn and toddler years are really hard. And we live in a society with few family support policies (daycare costs a lot, housing costs a lot, maternity leave is typically unpaid).

These are some reasons the birth rate is falling.

For me, parenthood has been wonderful and so worth it for the love and fulfillment. There have been a lot of hard days. But the joy and beauty outweigh them.

Perhaps it could be because wages are higher here and housing costs lower (and homes generally larger), but birth rates are falling across all western countries. Generous paid leave is inversely correlated with the birth rate.

My unpopular opinion is that government leave makes it worse. In most European countries, the paid leave is at a low wage (similar to unemployment here) and women are expected to take it. This means every woman who has a kid is expected to stay home for a long period of time to earn low wages from the government. Women still have to work, especially since wages are generally lower, but they are second class citizens at work since it’s assumed they are away for years having children.

Do I want to have another kid and instead of working earn $300 a week? No thanks.