"Hey just a quick one" "You look like a nice person would you..." "I know you care about the..."
No. Retailers please take note, if I see you've allowed them to set up a begging podium at the exit to your store, I probably will go to another. Yes I always give a "no thanks" and keep walking but it's an unpleasant experience. Nobody likes this, get rid of them.
"Alright here's your frozen drinks to take home for the family, wow it's hot out there today".
...
"Now would you mind parking up (for 15 minutes yes I timed it) in the collection bay for your food?"
I have zero problem pulling up in the collection bay - but why in god's name do they prep the immediately available yet immediately melting desserts and drinks before the green light on the food!
Just wanted to give my two cents, feel free to skip this post as it's just my thoughts not a study etc, all are welcome though. I don't have kids, I probably never will as I can't accidentally have them.
But for me it's not really about the money.
Money would be a factor if I was short of it definitely, but it's more than I worry I'd lose my sense of self if I were a parent to young kid/(s) given what I've seen everyone I know go through.
My friends who have had kids have changed dramatically, I can support them but can't give them their time or energy back. Many have lamented that they feel they've lost their agency and act now as "just a care robot not like me anymore" according to one of my girl uni friends. Many of my guy friends were just entering their peak physical fitness, finally after education and student living had some time and disposable income to really pursue hobbies etc that began to shape who they are as people, then once they had kids they couldn't maintain friendships and hobbies despite their and the rest of my friend group's best efforts. The dads got tired and flabby, the mom's often dialled right back on their career and social lives. It's really hard seeing that happen to people right in their prime and I've been the shoulder to cry on about this a lot lately.
It's weird to hear your friends in their early 30s talk wistfully about "maybe when they're off to uni / when I'm retired" that they can pick up their sports and hobbies again. Of course everyone in the friendship group has tried to organise / make space for them to give them an opportunity to take a night off etc but their social lives and personal development are fizzling 😞 It has me spooked. I could afford kids now, but I'm finally starting to be able to shape myself and my actions in my community in a big way, that I'd lose of most of my time was spent parenting.
Side thought - maybe I'm weird but, the Joel - Ellie TLOU dynamic (minus the apocalypse 😆) appeals to me the most, adopting a mid teen in your late 40s/early 50s having had all your 30s and 40s to build wealth, pursue passions etc and make a stamp on the world, then adopt a teen in need that's at an age where they can benefit from the wealth and knowledge you've accrued, pass that on to them and know them as a young adult as you head to retirement having bypassed the more messy/noisy stages of their early life.
Just musing about how a lot of western retirement systems are inherently unstable. We need to shift away from the idea that if you've existed for 60-70 years you should then be able to siphon for as long as you live from the state as you feel you paid your fair share. This has always relied on continuous growth, which for worse or better can't be guaranteed.
A lot of older people are perfectly capable of living from their own savings and investments, and many are capable of smaller, simple work that both keeps them active in their community and supplements their income.
A lot of arguments against pension reform stem from the idea that "well the older population are larger and vote more so they'll vote to maintain the status quo". But that only works insofar as the status quo is possible. A hypothetical purely selfish elderly voting bloc can vote however they like, but if a government cannot finance their demands, and foreign creditors won't finance an unsustainabile investment, those demands won't be met.
It seems harsh, and perhaps it is, but I'm of the opinion that you have your whole life to prepare for retirement, and barring a severe mental or physical illness, it should be down to you to privately do so. A fear of destitution, tempred with almshouses to provide a bare minimum floor should serve as a reminder to pay into your own future.
Having kids hasn't been on my radar, and I'm unable to have them naturally even if it was.
But lately I've been wondering how anyone has the time or energy to do so. Im a healthy active person, and I work really hard so I am absolutely exhausted when I arrive home. Thing is, I'm a fairly boring, responsible person who keeps a good house if that's the right phrase, someone you think would make a reasonable parent I guess, but I feel like I can just about keep the plates spinning & building wealth for one person. For thhose of you who do have kids, how do you manage your health and sanity ?
When I get home I can't imagine then needing to take xyz to doctors appointments, extra curriculars, help if they hurt themselves, help with homework, feed and do laundry for more people, read to them, play with them / supervise their playtime etc, make sure they're in bed, parent teacher meetings etc etc etc.
My friends that have had kids have largely dropped off the face of the earth since having them and look so unbelievably frazzled when I do get to see them on the rare occasion. How are you all managing?
I'm 30M in the UK self employed for what it's worth.
Assuming it's 50-100 years in the future, and society is really starting to come apart through being unable to maintain infrastructure increasingly too large for its current population, and the elderly are starting to cripple the country through pensions and healthcare needs. What do you think governments would do? Do you think there'd be different approaches in saying China compared to the EU / NA?
A) Dramatically reduce pensions & funding for the elderly - difficult in an elderly weighted society but potential for cross party alignment to force it through and leave no alternative to vote for.
B) The use of paid surrogates / artificial wombs should the technology be sufficient (not talking Ceausescu style 80s Romanian orphanages here, I'm talking well thought out foster homes and education to raise new generations of workers). Potentially unethical dependent on your view ?
C) Nothing - be mired in indecision such that certain states collapse entirely and those who are able to flee become refugees
D) Some combination/ Things I've overlooked, interested to hear ideas.
In my opinion, we are as societies blinkered by the short blip in human history following the second world war up until the 1980s in which wealth actually grew as a shared of GDP for the bottom 90% of the population.
I think because this is the period in which our parents and grandparents grew up, there's a perception that this is how the world works. If you work hard as they did, you can build wealth and assets, as the marginal tax rates actually caused a reversal of wealth concentration towards those who worked.
Today, under tax systems set in place throughh the Thatcher / Reagan era, if you are already extraordinarily wealthy, you can leverage debt against your own assets at lower interest rates than the public pays their creditors (banks loans, mortgages and CC debt) in order to purchase further assets and expand your wealth faster than wage growth, then rent the assets back to the less wealthy either directly or through mortgaged debt. You can avoid producing a surplus of supply to retain the high price of these assets, and together with your peers create a nice system in order to passively skim wealth at a rate higher than inflation, then kick back and relax. In a system without infinite resources, this causes an accumulation of wealth / power.
I'm not sure the general public understand how this affects the overall purchasing power of their cohort, but I think most people have felt that even with inflation adjusted wage growth, since the late 80s and early 90s the price of assets has risen faster than they could keep pace.
I often see an opinion that today's quality of life is so much greater than 100-200 years ago etc when TFR was high. But I don't think this addresses the elephant in the room, that if the status quo continues, each successive generation will have fewer and fewer resources under their control. I think realistically knowing your children and grandchildren will be poorer and more indebted than your generation is a strong motivator to not reproduce.
Prior to WWII any straight couple that had sex couldn't guarantee they wouldn't procreate regardless of whether they wanted children, as such an endless supply of labour was available. Now affordable birth control allows the buck to stop with the current generation if they foresee a bleak future for their potential children.
Money, fertility issues, perception of a dangerous future world, being terminally single?
It'd be interesting to see why folks who are in a sub dedicated to having kids aren't having more.
I have a few friends that have thought about having kids but have never been sure they'd want them. They all by and large have pretty good stable jobs and are between moderately to well off, enjoying that DINK / solo lifestyle. We're of that age (early 30s) where big life decisions are being made.
The main fear I see from them is that "there's no going back" once the decision is made.
This isn't assuaged by the only couple in our friendship group who had a child in their very late 20s being regretful.
I don't have kids myself, so I'm not sure what to advise when my friends are absolutely terrified about making a decision they can't reverse.
Hello all, my impression on this sub is that the folks here are overwhelmingly men. Not a scientific study, just from my impression of the commenters and posters.
Anyone else got insights as to why this might be (or if I'm dead wrong?)