Sometimes good news just pops up.
Nothing that helps me at all, but someone I know is now expecting and I am just so happy for them and look forward to being even a tiny part in the life of their child. I wish more mid-20s would have children and get their life in order, because it brings so much value to life itself. I only just found out tonight, but it comes at an interesting time, because there has been a lot of baby talk around here.
Firstly yesterday, Smallsteps was asking me about some of the technicalities around babies and it became quite clear that she needs a lot more fundamentals. Thinking back to her age, I felt I knew a great deal more about it. But, it is making for some very entertaining conversations, son I am not complaining.
And then today I went to lunch with a friend who has three children of her own, with each of her sisters having two and three also. They have such an awesome family too, and I call her parents "mum and dad" when I see them. And while eating a curry at a local Indian restaurant, she was talking about the cost of living today, but also that she has come to realise that a good life with a family, doesn't take too much, it just means being happy with simpler experiences. This led into a conversation about her great grandmother, who had done two trips in her lifetime, both to cities in Finland not too much more than 100 kilometres from where she was born. What was nice with talking to my friend, was that she has recently realised what a warped perspective Instagram and the like give of the world, and how they set up expectations that are impossible to meet.
I completely agree.
In the past though, expectations were set by local surroundings, which meant that while not everything was possible, a lot more could be accomplished in terms of goals, because the selection was relatively narrow and the potential to fulfil quite high. We might look at the goals of getting a decent job, family, house and time off in the summer as not enough to sustain our interest in life, but that was all that was required, because most other things were out of reach, or unknown anyway. But now, we see everything and once we see it, we want it, or we are torn between many options, and the more options we have, the less satisfied we are with the decisions we make.
While I don't recommend people to rush into having a child for the wrong reasons, I also think that people shouldn't think about it that much in terms of the impact it has on current lifestyle and desires. Because so many of those things are informed by media, which means that they are unlikely to be that important in the grand scheme of our lives anyway. And the "cost of children" doesn't have to be extreme either, as long as the children are raised understanding the value of what is actually important in life.
Keep it simple.
I hear a lot of complaints about how complex life is these days and it very well can be. *But does it have to be? Once we cut out the majority of the unnecessary noise we put in front of our face, life simplifies a great deal and what used to be hard, is suddenly manageable, because focus and intention isn't spread anywhere near as widely, and there is a lot less disappointment in the choices made. Life gets better.
And no, this isn't about doing with less, it is about opening up to more personal experience. What many people are chasing now isn't personal, it is material. It is a postcard picture to update their Instagram, or a concert attendance just to say they were there. It might be fun in the moment, but for most people in time, those good moments blur and fade, and there isn't much left. When it comes to building family experience though, well, that is an endless reward pool, because there are so many layers and nuances, and it is constantly evolving and setting up new challenges and successes.
But hey, this is just my opinion in a world of decreasing population as the majority of people don't want to have children, because of whatever excuses they have. Yet, they want to feel relevant, they want to be part of something, they want to be recognised and accomplished - but are setting themselves up for lifetime failure. And in the back-half, they will have many reasons why they did what they did and why it was the best thing for them, but in the back of their mind, they will have questions.
Or not.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Be part of the Hive discussion.
- Comment on the topics of the article, and add your perspectives and experiences.
- Read and discuss with others who comment and build your personal network
- Engage well with me and others and put in effort
And you may be rewarded.
There is a lot to be said for the simple life. Since retiring, I have been able to slow down and enjoy some of the more simple things in life. The early morning cup of coffee on the patio. The phone call with one of my sons. A sit in with the wife watching a movie or tv series. No need to travel, go out to eat or a concert. No desire to. Just enjoy being home and ween away from home enough in my life. Don't care to be anywhere else doing anything else much.
I wrote just before about how we have added so much unnecessary into our lives that didn't exist a few decades ago. The costs of living have gone up considerably, but not if you were to cut our the majority of the unnecessary tech and subscriptions. The way we spend out time now, makes everything more expensive.
Simple used to be the goal of design. Now we design our lives around complexity.
Oh, don't get me wrong. I have subs and tech. But can do without it if had to. In fact, if wasn't for the wife (and kdis who piggy back) I would shed most of it. Just don't have a desire for all the fluff anymore.
Yeah I have them too, but I do t see them as a necessary must that can't be lived without. I am considering cutting them all to a bare few.
I still remember most of my concerts. Probably always will. Even the last ones, here in Ecuador, when I already had a cellphone. I didn't take many pictures, but enjoyed those moments. A concert in Quito is a key moment in my relationship to Ellie, early on. We have that memory together.
Children can be expensive, and they can be cheap. They don't care too much. It's the parents that feel pressured into providing certain levels of quality of life, or what they believe it to me. By nature, kids are happy with sticks and stones and a bucket of sand as toys, stories invented on the spot by their parents while cuddling deep into their chests to listen to the heartbeat telling yet another story.
And yet we want so much more for them. And sometimes it's hard to not lose track of that essence among the multiple intra- and extra-curricular activities.
Me too, but I haven't been to that many and the ones I have, were big ones.
And this is the thing, isn't it? Parents putting their pre-teens on e-bikes with the latest iphone.
Not only the E-Bikes and the phones, but also the education pressure. Best schools, best tutors, extra-curriculum that have the most efficient education-fun coefficient. There's little room left for kids to develop naturally.
I know someone who hasn't been much beyond the borders of the town they grew up in and it is kind of sad. I mean, I am definitely not a world traveler, but I've been out enough to explore and even though our parents didn't have a ton of money growing up, we went on day trips and got to experience things. It's a weird dichotomy of not having to go far to experience something amazing, but also being willing to take that step outside of the bounds to stumble upon those things.
It is these days, as it is so easy and cheap to go a little further. But it used to be the norm. Da Vinci was through Italy, maybe a trip to Hungary, and then later in life in France - didn't stop him from being a prolific artist and inventor. I think the "experience" we value might not be very informative for most of us.
Yeah it is. Also, I am jealous of the people who are happy doing so very little.
Yeah, I guess you are right, if they are happy can you really fault them? I guess we all find a little bit of it wherever we can.
If you don't have grandparents here the cost of childcare is high in America. It is about $3,500 per month in Seattle area to leave your child in one of those cheap childcare centers.
Greatest country on earth?
Lol, when my son was 3 years old it was estimated that the cost of one child in America is about a million dollars from birth to finishing college. That was 23 years ago, so it is multiple of that now...
I suspect in the US 70% of that is college.
Probably, I went the cheap route, he did a running start of college in high-school which was practically free and then two years in university of Washington which was only $50k
The pressure from social media can feel like a lot, but I think we should keep in mind that true happiness usually comes from the little moments spent with those we care about.
People should get off social media entirely - it is just a stream of constant advertising.
I've seen some survey data around that suggests that people do want to have kids, but don't feel like they're able. In the US, with 40% of families unable to cope with a $500 surprise cost, and their support networks being scattered all around the country, I can totally empathize with that sentiment.
If society seriously wants more kids, then we have to solve housing costs, childcare costs, cost of living and work expectations. Men have to shoulder way more of the load than they traditionally have.
I totally disagree that people who don't have kids are setting themselves up for a lifetime of failure.
Don't you see this as a larger issue though? Also, I would suspect that a lot of people choosing not to have kids these days, aren't necessarily in that 40%. The US is a shambles for sure, but it isn't representative of everywhere.
Again, I think that this is very dependent on the location. In the Nordics, it is far more even than in the US. It could be more so of course, but isn't the gap it once was.
A lot of these costs are driven by the consumer mindset, not the family mindset. Demand drives prices, and when people are investing into houses to capture tourist and student dollars etc, then that is what happens. childcare costs in Australia are ludicrous though. Here in Finland, about 50% of kids have free day care. Some pay a little and the max is about 300€ a month.
Work expectations is another interesting one, considering many young people who are working, expect not to do anywhere near as much as their parents, or even people ten years older than them.
If you read back, that is not what I said. Chasing all of the other crap that they put above having children is going to lead to a lifetime of failure, because it is an endless chase that will ultimately bring very little satisfaction. Most of what they are doing to be relevant and feel accomplished, is irrelevant and useless. But, many people are willing to try that path.
I do think that if people are living paycheck to paycheck then it's probably not a good idea to then also have a child. Parenting is so hard and if you're already struggling to keep the lights on or feed yourself, that's not a great environment to nurture children.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by the consumer mindset versus the family mindset in regards to housing, childcare, and cost of living. I'm not sure I actually know what a family mindset is... are you talking about people living with their parents/grandparents to help raise children?
When you say 'chasing all the crap above having children' what do you mean? Are you talking about people's careers or something else?
Are you sure?
Prices don't live in a vacuum, they are all connected. For instance, there are about 175,000 just Airbnb places in Australia. That is almost 2% of housing stock - what drives this? Childcare for people who have a parent at home full-time? What's with that - it didn't exist when you and I were kids. Cost of living? The expectation of what is required has increased dramatically, with far more emphasis put on tech, subscriptions, convenience and entertainment in general.
No. Travel, consumer goods, constant entertainment... All the unnecessary crap that doesn't make life better, but turns a profit for a few.
It's fun with the kids. This evening we discussed the Americans' mission to the Moon; the rocket is supposed to lift off in a couple of hours, and the flight will last 10 days.
Are they landing on the moon?
They'll just fly around the moon for now. They'll need a few more years to remember everything :)
Don't you find it weird that it 50 years later, it is still so hard?
No, it's really difficult today, but back then it was incredibly difficult. We're taking off in 20 minutes, I'm watching live.
Aaahhhh yay that's so awesome :D
Sometimes (or a lot of the time) you just hit a wavelength with a lot of other people XD
While I'd agree that's kinda fundamental my brain went spinning off on a tangent of what's considered "fundamental" as apparently everything is of absolute critical importance and has to be forced in when they're 2 or they're going to completely fail to thrive and launch and you're a terrible failure of a parent if they don't know everything there is to know and saved the world at least once by the time they're 10 XD
I think I'm going to have to hard agree here.
the two big kids seem to be starting to see things that way too even though I still think if asked none of them would ever agree XD
Congrats to your friend! Hearing news like that always brings a special kind of joy. some of the most meaningful moments in life come from simple family connections, not the big things we see online. Children do add a different kind of purpose and warmth to everyday life.
Kids are great, but we don't seem to be doing a very good job on average of raising them - probably because adults are so immature these days.
You probably won’t hear about the best philosophers at school or university—that’s why I want to share a great one with you: Stories from Thucydides by Thucydides 4/81
Cheers
A present present of a presentation,