America’s incarceration rate is in decline

I had my children at 36 and 38, and I'm the mother, and energy-wise, I've had no issues. Yes, they considered me to be of "advanced maternal age" in the OB department and gave me special treatment due to it, but my doctors told me that the "advanced maternal age" threshold (35) was based off outdated research anyway. In the bay area, most of the mothers I've met were around that age, and my friends are having their kids at the same age.

It was really nice that I had time to establish my career and figure things out before having kids.

> In the bay area, most of the mothers I've met were around that age, and my friends are having their kids at the same age

San Francisco has the highest rate of geriatric pregnancies in USA. We are in a statistical bubble where having kids late is normal (because careers and hcol).

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/mother-birth-age...

The issue here is this can lead people to pushing it till 40+.

I was talking to a nice girl up until she mentioned still wanting kids in her late 40s. Maybe I’m old school, but telling someone you froze your eggs the same day you meet them is weird.

Society itself is broken. You SHOULD be able to graduate high school and make enough to support yourself and a family with a bit of struggle.

This rapidly transformed into no, get your masters, get 8 years of experience. Earn at least 300k as a couple. Then and only then should you consider a family. Childcare is 3k plus a month in many places.

For myself , I wish I made this happen in my mid 20s. I had to move back home to take care of a family member (fck cancer) and I suffered various personal setbacks due to it.

In my 30s I’ve let go of expecting anything. This world has already given me so much.

Nobody said you should wait that long. As for your anecdote, what’s wrong with figuring out early during dating whether you plan on having children or not? People should talk about those things early, since there is hardly anything that makes a relationship more incompatible long term, and leads to more (even mutual) heartbreak and sorrow than having to break up with a person solely because their most uncompromisable life plan differs.

In my 20s, it felt indeed weird to bring that up early for me, because I wasn’t ready yet and didn’t even really know what I wanted yet. Later in life, when dating we always talked about potential family planning and general outlook on life early. (Unless it was never meant to be a serious relationship to begin with.)

I wish they called it "advanced maternal age" here. They use the delightful phrase "Geriatric pregnancy" in Australia

Yeah, this is exactly something to discuss early. My wife and I were on the same page from earlier in dating about having kids in our 20s.

Bubble implies that it's going to burst. I don't see it. Women aren't going to stop wanting careers, and HCOL is coming for everybody. I expect the whole country to join SF in this "bubble".

This wasn’t even a first date, it was like she said hi to me at an event and just started taking about having a family.

Felt really awkward for small talk.

My point was the economy should support having a family in your 20s if that’s what you want to do. You shouldn’t need a well paid career, a quality lifestyle that supports a family should be available for everyone.

I imagine universal health care, paid family leave ( for months not weeks) and affirmative (free?) childcare could bring that gap.

At a point it isn’t even an age issue. A lot of people will never earn enough to really support a family, and that’s a failure of the social contract.

You should be able to get a job as a Walmart clerk, have your partner work part time and still afford to have a family.

I think I’ve muddled my own point here, but it should be easier. Maybe that Walmart clerk could own a house ?!

My wife is a retired nurse ( American ), she uses that term when referring to such pregnancies.

Bubble in this context means a unique environment that is unlike places on the outside of said bubble. It's not referring to a bubble like in the sense of a inflating market bubble.

I do agree with your point about society. The reason we waited are way beyond monetary issues, and we would have waited regardless, but people should be able to support a family without an “advanced” career if they choose so.

> For myself , I wish I made this happen in my mid 20s. I had to move back home to take care of a family member (fck cancer) and I suffered various personal setbacks due to it.

I hear ya. My spouse developed mental illness after sons 4,5 were born. A spouse can sabotage a lot of things when they set their mind to it - and their mind never stops. Not even at 3am. The first year was hard. The second was harder. After 5ys we run out of adjectives. After 15y we're using Dr.Seuss letters to spell out how things are.

> Society itself is broken. You SHOULD be able to graduate high school and make enough to support yourself and a family with a bit of struggle

This has literally only been true for about 30 years out of the sum total of human history, would you like to guess when those 30 years happened to be?

Obviously the answer is "1950s america".

For the rest of human history, you needed something beyond the education you received until the age of 18 in order to support a family.

People supported families with single incomes with less than high school education for centuries before the 1950s.

You might want to brush up on your history.

Aside from the peer comment pointing out the bleedingly obvious, there's also a bit of history here:

  In 1907 Justice Henry Bourne Higgins, President of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Court, set the first federally arbitrated wages standard in Australia.

  Using the Sunshine Harvester Factory as a test case, Justice Higgins took the pioneering approach of hearing evidence from not only male workers but also their wives to determine what was a fair and reasonable wage for a working man to support a family of five.

  Higgins’s ruling became the basis for setting Australia’s minimum wage standard for the next 70 years.

that you're clearly unaware of.

* https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/harvester-...

* https://www.fwc.gov.au/about-us/history/waltzing-matilda-and...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvester_case

For most of human history, there were no formal schools.

> Obviously the answer is "1950s america".

And the 50s to 80s anywhere else in the civilized world.

It also depends on your health and fitness.

My ex-wife was 37, and I was an year older, when our younger one was born and energy was not the problem so I agree with you that 35+ should not be a problem.

However, a lot of people are having kids significantly older than that.

I not know whether I could cope with a baby 20 years later. Contrary to stereotypes I used to get up faster and more fully if a baby cried in the night. On the other hand, having a baby might energise and motivate me! Not planning to try it out though!

It does not have to be a replica of of 50s society though. In particular, I do not think the model of "men go out to work, women look after home and kids" is a great one.

There are lot of alternatives. Men can be primary parents (I was, once the kids got to about the age of eight or so, and was an equal parent before that) and they could stay at home (I continued working, but I was already self-employed and working from home, and my ex never worked after having children).

I think the ideal set up (it would have been so for me) would have been for both parents to work part time.

Of course it still comes back to, you should be able to raise a family on the equivalent of one full time income.

Of course, if the leisured society predicted a few decades ago had come to pass it would be one part time salary.

All the other members of the family were active and produced useful things - both kids and women. The iddle lifestyle was limited to richer classes.

Can a man support a family of 5 on minimum wage in Australia, or did it stop working?

I think it would be hard to find someone that does not agree with you on the street.

These conversations should not need to happen but they do because of the current inequality that exists. A couple can't change the world so they talk about these things since it's their best option

It’s just the technical medical term. I don’t think “advanced maternal age” is much better (advanced age at 35?). Besides, advanced age is exactly what geriatric means.

Minimum wage is more complicated in Australia. There are effectively minimum wage levels set per profession, known as awards.

This is the list of awards: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/awards/lis... it's pretty extensive

Each award is also complex, and covers a range of issues in the employment. For example, this is the Professional Employee award: https://awards.fairwork.gov.au/MA000065.html just working out what the minimum wage would be for a graduate engineer with 2 years experience is a complex, detailed matter.

But yes, probably, for most professions you could reasonably expect to support a family of 5 on the award, depending on location and definition of "support". Affording a house would largely depend on an additional inheritance, though.

> I think the ideal set up (it would have been so for me) would have been for both parents to work part time.

Beautifully said, very progressive also!

I am a big fan of the 4-day work week (for the same amount of money as 5 days), it's been transformative for my life. The extra energy and focus you get from that 1 day translates to higher productivity in the 4 days where you do work. Sadly, the current "squeeze em', bleed em' dry, and drop em'" brand of capitalism is incompatible with the majority of the people to experience how good life can be like that.

I certainly ain't looking forward to them raising the retirement age to 1337 by the time I get to retire.

It's like a race where they repeatedly move the finishing line because the organizers took the medals and sold them, while waiting for you to drop dead so they don't have to give you what you are due.

In foraging societies - ie, most people for the vast majority of human history - people worked ~15–20 hours/week on subsistence tasks. The rest was leisure or social time (ie, time for being a human later rebranded as 'idleness').

Industrialization has pushed inequality to extremes while raising hours worked - even as productivity keeps shooting up. There's no good reason for people to tolerate this; it's just exploitation.

You can still do this now, it's just called "being homeless" and it actually sucks.

Huh? Maybe that’s when you saw people on TV for the first time.

High school was advanced education in 2000. Basic education ended around grade 6-8.

The desire to work and have children is going nowhere. Like Hollywood, the careers are going to go away. The money that lubricates the Bay Area is all from the Middle East now, and the return on in-region labor dollars is declining.

Those hours worked are carefully defining a lot of work away. Most things people eat need hours of preparation that isn't counted in you 15-20 hours for example. When you relook at what people did most of the time you realize they had to work really hard for a lot more hours to survive.

The US is already a bubble. Government is currently trying to make it burst as fast as possible. Getting back to the point where what women want doesn't matter again. HCOL will be a luxury term, life in debtors prisons will be the new norm.

The model of men work while women watch the kids was most of history. Of course is completely ignors 'womens work' which was very needed for survival and defined by things you could do while also watching kids. for the first few years kids eat from mom so she cannot get far from them (after that she is probably pregnaunt again thus restarting the cycle). Mens work was anything that needed to be done that could not be done when pregaunt or nursing a kid.

today men have the ability to watch kids thanks to formula (though it is better for the kids to eat from mom - this is rarely talked about because it is easy to go too far and starve a baby to death in the exceptions).

Whether something should be the case has little bearing on whether it has been the case for any length of time particularly in something as flexible as the organization of society. It should largely be fine to point at something and say "I would like things to work this way" and try to organize society in that direction.

Mother's age of 35 at estimated due date.

So, if the due date is beyond your 35th birthday but you give birth early it's still a advanced maternal age pregnancy.

Absolutely. It serves as a filter, if people are being honest. It also highlights the bizarre dating culture and view of life we've adopted. This dating culture has produced a good deal of rotten fruit.

The ultimate purpose of dating is to meet your future spouse. We're turned it into some kind of senseless sexual escapade, and this has poisoned the relations between men and women. It makes them exploitative and dehumanizing in spirit: sprinkling them with the waters of "consent" doesn't change that, as the subjective cannot abolish the objective. We've reduced sex to something that is merely pleasurable and contradicted its intrinsic and essential function which is procreative by employing an array of technologies that impede and interfere with healthy procreative processes. This creates a mindset not unlike that of a drug user who is obsessed with getting another hit with no thought given to the damage, or the bulimic who wants the sensual satisfaction of eating, but not the calories.

The psychophysical reality of sexual intercourse is much more than some passing physical pleasure. It mobilizes processes in us that are completely oriented toward bonding and the strengthening of the relationship in preparation for children. Whence the stereotype that men will often exit quickly in the morning after a one night stand with a strange woman? Because both can feel, if only subconsciously, that the processes of bonding are taking place, and who wants to bond — and in such a profound and intimate way — with someone they've just met? In this regard, the character of Julianna in Vanilla Sky makes an astoundingly profound and accurate remark for a movie coming out of Hollywood: "Don't you know when you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not?" Our capacity for sexual intimacy is likewise dulled.

(Masturbation is even worse. Those processes bond us with a fictional harem of the imaginary and close us within ourselves. For social animals like us, this is a recipe for misery.)

We thwart and ignore our biological nature to our own detriment. The procreative prime spans the mid-twenties into the early 30s. Statistically, most people should be having families by their mid-20s. Our culture confuses people and creates a pointless obstacle course that leads them to postpone such things either because they're too immature (and encouraged to remain so, also by this unserious dating culture) or because they believe they must achieve some arbitrary milestones first. Furthermore, family and community support has been dashed by a culture of hyperindividualism.

The causes of demographic decline are not a mystery. People simply either don't think deeply enough, or they don't want to make the cultural changes necessary to restore normalcy.

A, being homeless and being in a gatherer society are very different things.

And B, even if you wanted to live that way you can't any more; because the commons has been relentlessly exploited past its breaking point for centuries.

I shouldn't really have to explain any of this, but people generally seem to have some weird ideas and blind spots surrounding our history as a species.

Look man if you want to write a refutation of Marshall Sahlins' work, go ahead. I might even read it. But I'm not going to just take the word of a random commentator - are you even in anthropology?

Like, this is a broad consensus thing. There's not really much debate; ethnographic studies have backed it up. Where are you getting your info from?

In many countries the only obstacle is the legality of living on government lands. In Canada there are people living a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle on crown land. The option is totally available for many people who chose not to do it.

Sounds like her biological clock was ticking very very loudly

so people feel better about having kids when its riskier?

There seem to be two main points of critique there:

1. That there was war and war sucked; disease; and also infant mortality was high - therefore life sucked back then. None of that really factors in to the debate of how much free time people had; and those thing are all still very much with us (especially in America).

2. That food prep and gathering firewood takes time. Well, gathering firewood is also known as 'going for a walk in nature', and it's actually good for you. You can chat with your friends while you do it. It's not like your average job. It might not be technically 'idle', but it's a lot closer to 'idle' than flipping burgers in a sweatbox.

Same with food prep - picking through some dried beans, or stirring a pot every 30 mins and making sure it doesn't boil over, while you tell stories around the table just isn't comparable to working in an Amazon warehouse pissing into plastic bottles.

It's critique, and you can buy it if you want; but there's nothing there I would call substantial.

> the only obstacle is the legality of living on government lands

Yes, the obstacle of living illegally on land that has been systematically over-exploited for centuries (or too harsh to bother), without any community or experience. Not sure I'm seeing your point.

No reasonable person considered high school advanced education in the 70's let alone 2000. If 85%+ of people get it for half a century, it is by definition not advanced.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Grad-ra...

Who wouldn't be a fan of 80% of the work for 100% of the pay? It's a built-in raise equal to or greater than what you'd get from changing jobs, without the switch in seniority or experience.

Is "inheritance" used in a different way here similar to how "award" is, or are you saying you often need to inherit money from your family in order to be able to buy a house in Australia?

1. how many hours a day would you work if it meant not watching 6 of your 7 children die.

2. How'd you get those dried beans out of their pods? Where'd you get that pot? Where'd you get the water?

3. You didn't actually read the critique did you, you the wikipedia paragraph characterizing the critiques.

You'll probably be 80 by the time your oldest grandkid enters kindergarten. How energetic will we be in our 80s? That's the bit that's scary to me.

> this can lead people to pushing it till 40+

…which is not necessarily problematic either. I was 43 and my wife 41 when our daughter was born. Our child has had a great life and so have we. While I’m 60 now and don’t have quite the same energy I had at 20-30’something, everything has worked out well for us.

Everyone’s path, goals and priorities is different and as long as would-be parents consider the trade offs all around, it’s hard to be prescriptive about this.

> Society itself is broken. You SHOULD be able to graduate high school and make enough to support yourself and a family with a bit of struggle.

No argument there. The complex socioeconomic forces that has created this dilemma are going to tough to unwind.

1. The choice isn't between having free time and having modern maternity care. And it's not what was being debated. Like, yeah, antibiotics and anesthetic are great to have, but working 40+ hours a week isn't a prerequisite for them to exist so I have no idea why you're bringing it up.

2. Sitting around the table, singing songs, telling stories, or quietly reflecting; all working at my own pace, in the comfort of a home that's been owned outright for generations, surrounded by organic soil free from pesticides and plastic.

3. I read your link, not every cited article. I've personally lived that way, and I know what I'm talking about. There's a big difference between shucking corn with your family or stacking logs, and shuffling numbers at a bullshit job which exists to make two or three incredibly rich people thousands of miles away a tiny bit wealthier. That said, if there's something more you'd like to bring to the discussion, bring it.

I’m sure the return on in region labor dollars decline that you note is real but is it regional? Where in the US is the return on labor dollars not declining? Housing costs, including taxes, seems to be the big problem in the Bay Area. Workers are still productive, but they require higher pay to offset the demand for housing caused by all the foreign “lubrication” and tech-49ers.

This is a much more reasonable position than many will believe. I think writing like a 19th century nonfiction author probably contributes to that aha

Edit:

To be clear I appreciate this comment and agree with it in the large. It’s hard to talk about these things without being quickly dismissed in the current zeitgeist.

What was the nature of her illness and was it directly related to the kids? If you don’t mind me asking, of course. That sounds like a very challenging thing all the best

That was only true for 1950s USA if you were a white male with a pretty good job and a wife staying home taking care of the kids.

You have far too much of an obsession with sex here and really need to stop and take a breath.

Dating culture is evolved to help you find a mate based on YOUR choices and capability not your parents or class level. This allows you to “trial” compatibility over shorter time and find better fits.

What you seem to be talking about is 'Online Hookup Culture' which is more of a hobby if we are being honest than a way of finding a mate. And ultimately probably STILL better when faced with a society increasingly not finding mates or having kids at all. So basically all of your thoughts are self-contradictory due to a bit of self righteousness here.

Please don’t let your hangups around sex (correct or not) become a world view. It’s not a healthy obsession.

Some of it is economics but some of it is the structure of relationship choice. Feminist scholar Eva Illouz in Why Love Hurts talks about the reasons why women find it hard to get into committed relationships where they feel safe having children:

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Love-Hurts-Sociological-Explanati...

Not least the idea that if you keep dating you can find somebody better than you've found so far -- a problem that's worse in large cosmopolitan cities where the dating pool is large and perceived to be large.

Same here. The issue is mainly the likelihood of getting pregnant after about 36, from what the fertility folks shared with us. It drops off a cliff.

> Most things people eat need hours of preparation that isn't counted in you 15-20 hours for example.

Yeah, and we now expect women to work 40+ hour work weeks and house work on top of that. That is the thing causing societal reproduction rates to plummet.

Let's just do the math: a day has 24 hours. The recommendation for healthy sleep is 8 hours. Then, you work for 8 hours, with 1 hour added for the unpaid lunch break. That's the two largest blocks, leaving 7 hours to distribute... dedicate 3 hours for the "staying alive" stuff (preparing for going to work in the morning, aka breakfast, shave, getting dressed, preparing dinner, eating dinner, have a shower and at least some unwind time to fall asleep).

And that in turn leaves only 4 hours for everything else: running errands (aka shopping, dealing with bureaucracy, disposing of trash, cleaning), just doing nothing to wind down your mind from a hard day at work, hobbies, social activities (talking with your friends and family or occasionally going out) and, guess what, actually having sex.

Easy to see how that's already a fully packed day. Society just took the productivity gains from women no longer having to deal with a lot of menial work (washing dishes and clothing, as that got replaced by machines, and repairing clothes) and redistributed these hours to capitalism.

And now, imagine a child on top of that. Add at least half an hour in the morning to help get the kid ready for school, an hour to drive the kid to errands (because public transit is more like "transhit"), and another two hours to help the kid with homework because that workload is ridiculous and you don't want the kid to fall behind kids of parents rich enough to afford private tutors. But... whoops, isn't that just about the entire "everything else" time block? And younger children need even more work, constantly changing nappies, going to the doctor's all the time because it's one new bug every new week and sometimes the bug also catches you cold...

> or are you saying you often need to inherit money from your family in order to be able to buy a house in Australia?

Tell me a place in any Western society (outside of run-down rural areas/flyover states) where an average employee (i.e. no ultra-rich tech hipster bros) is able to afford a home before the age of 30 purely by his own savings and income. That is frankly no longer a reality for most people.

A 4 day work week can always be implemented as 4 10 hour days instead of 5 8 hour days.

Where'd the corn come from? hunter gatherers had teosint. How'd you turn a tree into logs? Where'd the house come from, where'd the table come from?