[21eleven]

I disagree. We live in the most materially abundant country in the most materially abundant time.

It is not a material problem. It is cultural. Society is feeling like a less good joyful place for children. "It takes a village to raise a child". There have never been fewer villages.

[hogepiyo]

I'm not sure how you can say something like this in good faith

Sure, in raw numbers, maybe that's true

Compared to previous decades where you could get on the housing ladder reasonably easily and support a family with only one full time income, not so much

[xyzzyz]

You can easily get 1950s quality housing and support a family to 1950s quality of life on today's single income. Our parents and grandparents quite simply expected much less from life than we do today.

It is really quite blatantly clear: as societies get wealthier, the fertility falls instead of rising.

[Hermitian909]

> You can easily get 1950s quality housing and support a family to 1950s quality of life on today's single income. Our parents and grandparents quite simply expected much less from life than we do today

I'm curious what you think makes a 1950s quality of life? I agree that people expect more material things today, but many of those things e.g. computers are de facto requirements to be a member of society. It seems to me that it is significantly more expensive to afford a good meal or a decent sized apartment.

Qualitatively, I know a large number of people who grew up in the 50s and their experiences of the time are different qualitatively. None of them ever struggled to meet their housing needs as long as they were able-bodied, and then generally only needed 20-40 hours of work (this include lower end work: construction, landscaping, retail).

While I don't have the stats handy* materially we know that during the mid 1900s the bottom 50% of americans owned a higher percentage of private property than in any time in history. Since then, we have reverted to a much more unequal distribution. It's hard to imagine this does not impact the current feeling of people feeling they can barely afford a place to live.

*if you have access to a copy of Capital and Ideology I believe you can find references in chapters 9 and 10

[weatherlite]

You can easily get thrown out of the workforce due to offshoring, AI automation or ageism. Our grandparents didn't need to deal with all that they had strong unions and kept the same job till retirement. I'd take the 50s if this is the future the elites are planning for us.

[Thorrez]

>Our grandparents didn't need to deal with all that they had strong unions

Larry Page's grandpa was an autoworker, and had to carry around a pipe with a hunk of lead on it to avoid getting beaten up by his employer.

https://www.businessinsider.com/larry-pages-grandfather-kept...

[weatherlite]

Some things got better and some things got worse, we can all find interesting anecdotes. You're saying the average American's story is more closely resembling Larry Page's than the one I described? I'm really not so sure that's true.

[xyzzyz]

Your understanding of the past is very mistaken. Our grandparents had to deal with the same issues.

I live Washington, and frequently travel around the rural areas here. The state is littered with coal mining towns abandoned a century ago, with lumber mills closed before WWII, with towns like Index, WA, which was established in late 19th century, and had its population and industry peak in 1920s-1930s.

Our history is history of dynamism and change, and while some fraction of Americans lived and retired working for the same big factory in Detroit, this has by no means been an universal experience of our ancestors. In fact, if you look at the data, people today move for work less than our ancestors had. Our past was indeed glorious, but it was not a past of wealth and stability.

[weatherlite]

> In fact, if you look at the data, people today move for work less than our ancestors had. Our past was indeed glorious, but it was not a past of wealth and stability.

Indeed it depends how far you go back. I mostly talk about the baby boomer generation (who are "our" parents in many cases as many people here are 25-50 years old). In general they experienced more financial and occupational stability than us since they had much stronger unions and globalization was only starting.

[xyzzyz]

There was a brief period in American history where workers were quite well off, but it had more to do with the rest of the industrialized world being bombed to pieces than with unions.

When boomers started entering job market en masse in 1970s, they entered the economy of prolonged stagnation and high inflation, saw rationing of fuel, and by no means enjoyed significant stability. When they were buying houses, the nominal price was low, but mortgage rates were 8% at best times, 16% at the worst, making the mortgage payments scarcely more affordable than they are today. When they were entering job markets, the unions were already declining for two decades, and only something like a quarter of people were in a union in 1970.

Really, the boomers only made a killing in last decade or two, resulting from the low interest rates pumping values of assets. They certainly did not have it easy or stable in their youths, when they were forming families. I think your understanding of economic history needs more research.

[bamboozled]

The issue is, your kids will need / expect as much as other kids.

So you might be happy with having little, but it's not going to be easy to send your kids to school and tell them they shouldn't have an iPad or an international holiday so mummy doesn't have to work.

[pacija]

It's even harder to teach them that what one knows, what one does and what one gives, is more important than what one consumes and what one has. But I think it will be worth it.

[Thorrez]

In the 1800s they had 6-8 people living in a single room in NYC, with no windows and no plumbing.[1]

My grandma (still alive today) grew up in the US without plumbing. She had to use an outhouse.

There's an inverse relationship between wealth and fertility. Wealthy countries are less fertile than poor countries. Within wealthy countries the wealthier people are less fertile than the poorer people.[2]

[1] https://youtu.be/RL7BECNn-RI?t=151

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility

[nxmnxm99]

People on HN and Reddit seem to think the only “past” that exists is 1950s America

Not like life in America today is better than 99% of the rest of the world past and present. Spoiled people.

[rippercushions]

People in ye olden days didn't get married because they "felt good and joyful" about raising children, they did it because it was the only way to have sex and the only way to have children, which was not just for fun, but because you needed helping hands on the farm and somebody to take care of you in old age.

[csomar]

It’s funny everyone is oblivious to this, or wants to be. In almost all religions and cultures, universally, having sex outside of marriage is outlawed. In order to have sex, you must get married.

>> When looking into the Maya world of Yucatán, we find that during the 18th century and beginnings of the 19th century, it was the custom for males to marry at age 17 or 18, and females at age 14 or 15.

>> The parents preferred, for their sons, girls from the same social class and town. As well, it was considered petty if the male looked for a companion for himself or his children, rather than obtaining the servces of a professional matchmaker (ah atanzah).

>> Once the matchmaker was selected, the ceremony and the amount of the dowry were discussed. This usually consisted of dresses and other items of little value, which were paid by the father of the groom to the father of the bride as a marriage pledge; for her part, the groom’s mother prepared the clothing for her son and for her future daughter-in-law.

What drives you to have children, as a human male, is the desire for sex. Once you remove that, many will pick to not have kids anymore.

[tsimionescu]

So your theory is that extra-marital sex is a modern invention?

I would say your example of the Maya shows more that many old societies had extremely powerful marriage pressure put on what we would consider children or at best adolsecents, who would have been far less able to resist such pressures than today.

I don't see any agency about sex in the citation you give.

[refurb]

I think you're mistaking "we don't talk about pre-marital sex" with "we don't have pre-marital sex".

[nikanj]

Material is cheap, I can get a new TV or a set of tools for a fraction of the price they cost in the past. But actual necessities (education, shelter, healthcare) are incredibly expensive.

I’d be happy to trade my cheap plastic crap from Walmart for a $45000 house and a $1200/y tuition

[hjgjhyuhy]

Materially abundant nowadays means cheap felectronics, clothes and low cost flights. However, supporting family was much easier in the 50s because housing was so much cheaper and much better job security with less education. It’s insane what boomers could afford by their 30s.

[imtringued]

The future is unevenly distributed.

[Ztynovovk]

18k a year for a kid is expensive. Like a quarter of the median household income.

Not to mention the time commitment. My friends lives were never the same after they had a kid.

It’s a no for me dog. At least rn.

[nashashmi]

Live small with less material and less consumption. Less services too. And you will do just fine. But no. That is not what you have been taught to do. That is not the sacrifice you have been told to make.

I have known that when I start, it will be the smallest of homes with the cheapest of foods and reduced living which means no internet, no cell phone service, no tv. For the simplest of things, I would go to the library or the nearest cafe or use some known Wi-Fi point. And I am ok with starting life like that. How many other people are ok with that?

[imtringued]

I am not okay with that because internet and computers are very cheap. A single rental payment is enough to pay for almost two years of 100mbit internet. Three rental payments are enough to pay for a reasonably high end PC which lasts 6 years (no I don't mean a PC with a thousand dollar graphics card).

And we are still talking about a cheap 500€ per month apartment with only one bedroom here. In practice you would pay more. Products made in Asia are a drop in the bucket compared to rent in even the cheapest parts of Germany.

I don't think 500€ is an excessively high rental price, I just disagree that anyone would have to do without these products.

[thriftwy]

Can you please provide some context what these 18k stand for?

[adrianN]

Anectdotally, for me, just moving to an apartment with an additional room increased my expenses for rent by about 15k€ per year.

[Ztynovovk]

Stack. Band. G. A Rack. 1000s bro. 18,000 USD.

[starik36]

There are lots of things that are expensive. Sometimes because they are worth it.

[Ztynovovk]

Sure, whatever. Obviously it’s a personal choice.