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points by lurking_swe 1 day ago | 0 comments

> The things normal people with healthy relationships want to be doing.

agree - mostly. Anyone with a young child _and_ aging parents in poor health at the same time can tell you it's hell. Dealing with 1 at a time is a nice "calling" and way of giving back. both is...something i'd wish on my worst enemy lol.

[–] fyredge 1 day ago

To that I disagree. It's not hell that you have to take care both. It's hell when you have to juggle them between a full time job that you need just to survive. Caring for family is a full time job. Unfortunately, it comes with no pay.

[–] vconnor 1 day ago

Caring for a family usually came with help from the community.

Then we decided that nuclear families were the way to go, so we gotta do everything ourselves now, and with both parents working because one breadwinner isn’t enough to live on.

[–] petre 20 hours ago

And the result is no kids.

[–] bigstrat2003 23 hours ago

I certainly agree that the obligations of family can bring serious hardship as well as happiness. But I think that, on balance, most people believe it to be a net positive.

[–] gonzalohm 1 day ago

Then maybe it's best not to have kids no? I don't know why people bring it up like it's mandatory or something Like if you want a robot to take care of your kid you may as well just skip instead of putting your kid through that.

(I'm not saying you specifically, but a lot of people complain all the time about how hard raising a kid is)

[–] werrett 1 day ago

Participating in a democracy, going to school, paying taxes, having a job… Hell, visiting a new country, going camping, climbing a boulder — all of these things involve discomfort and cover a spectrum of ‘mandatory’ to ‘100% chosen’.

‘Complaining’ is part of human discourse. Generally it’s acceptable to share the full range of day-to-day gripes, elation, full tragedies (e.g., deaths), and emotional heights with other humans.

You don’t want to hear constant griping about raising kids. I get that. I might not want to hear griping about national politics or Apple doing something or other. Cest le vie.

Your parents no doubt griped about raising you. You don’t have to have kids but someone has to! We’re going to gripe mate. No one is forcing you to listen.

[–] jdlshore 1 day ago

You’re getting downvoted because having children is a lifelong commitment, and health problems can come on fast. Raising children while dealing with parental health issues isn’t a choice people make, it’s something that life throws at them. Suggesting otherwise is deeply unempathetic.

[–] eluru 1 day ago

Having children should not be something life throws at you, if that ends u happening the bast majority of cases is still your responsability to be there, not to put a clanker in place

[–] gonzalohm 1 day ago

I'm not even referring to that. I'm talking about basic stuff that anyone should research before having a kid like "childcare is too expensive" or "I don't get enough sleep"

I thought that was obvious

[–] fugalfervor 1 day ago

You should say this out loud to the people in your life who have kids!

[–] dana-s 20 hours ago

The people in my life who have kids had them by accident, none were planning for it to actually happen.

[–] camgunz 1 day ago

You should do some basic research yourself. Childcare is too expensive for almost everyone. Is your idea that only the relatively wealthy should have children? You're not worried about the consequences of a .03 fertility rate?

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/child-care-expenses...

[–] gonzalohm 20 hours ago

I think the solution is to make childcare affordable with government intervention. But that's not going to happen if people keep having kids. There needs to be an actual demographic crisis

[–] camgunz 15 hours ago

You'll be surprised to learn childcare is free in Germany

[–] stackghost 1 day ago

So, your argument is “don’t have kids because your parents might develop health problems”?

[–] TheOtherHobbes 20 hours ago

The argument is there's not much life training for having kids before you start, and even less for dealing with elderly parents.

So a lot of people are blindsided by the reality of either, and both together can be unimaginably difficult.

Aside from cash and life stability issues - both very real - I suspect that one of the reasons for the drop in birth rates is that because of the Internet, more people are seeing what parenting involves before they start.

Previously it was more of a rosy and aspirational "Let's have kids!", now it's "You mean I'll be severely sleep deprived for years?!"

Robots could help with all of this just by doing basic chores and automating daily bureaucracy.

In the best of all possible worlds that would free up more time for personal relationships, which can get very stressed by unavoidable demands that are basically a full-time job.

[–] s1artibartfast 1 day ago

No one brought up it being mandatory but you