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Comment by noname2021 | Hacker News Reader

noname2021

Here's a thought and I am writing this as I don my kevlar flame retardant jacket.

For most things in life where we could impact the lives of other people materially - driving is a good example - we ensure some minimal amount of training before letting people perform that activity.

However with parenting we have nothing and the result it seems is we pay with a ton more resources downstream in the way of therapy, detention centers, jails etc.

How about some minimal coaching so that all parents are aware of the state of the art in child psychology and techniques to do better as parents. Potentially break the cycles of bad parenting that have been running in families for a long time (I write this as one such person).

I expect it will be hard (nay impossible) to institute a parenting license (like a driving license) in a democratic society. So instead have a strong incentive in the way of a financial grant for every parent who clears a parenting curriculum sometime before their child turns 1 (or some appropriate marker). Keep the freebees /incentives piling on during the kids childhood so parents are motivated to undertake "continuing education"

Parenting is truly important stuff - for many parents it is the most important responsibility we'll ever have in our lives- but we seem to leave it to chance to get the right outcomes.

View on HN

A simple question for you, what exact measurable and quantifiable differences would you expect to see in, for instance, the children of psychologists of the sort this article appeals to, and those of e.g. Joe [demographically equivalent] Normal's children? And this naturally somewhat leads into, and what factors, as a society, should we prioritize?

To me it seems quite trivial to create unfalsifiable arguments, for near anything, using extremely nebulous terms like "reducing public health risks." It's not like anybody's ever going to say, "No way man - I really think we should work to increase public health risks!" But what separates science from pseudoscience is falsifiability. So it's only once you break things down into actual, specific, and measurable goals that the conversation can even begin.

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As but one example, the most fundamental component for a society to perpetuate itself is fertility. And so, in my mind, a child's upbringing should absolutely be focused on ensuring this person will be able to both raise and support their own healthy family in the future. Yet of course even this simple goal is going to prove controversial because there's some conflict between it and certain cultural norms. And you'd need to reconcile this in some way that people, independent of worldview, can be generally happy with. I'm not sure this is possible.

> measurable and quantifiable differences would you expect to see.

Amount of psycological trauma and repression, neuroticism, insecurity. Suicides.

All easilly measurable.

define trauma. sometimes kids need to learn hard lessons. where is that line?

define repression? given that this is HN I'd imagine the definition will be different than from someone who was from, say, Malaysia or Saudi.

what does neuroticism mean? at some level we can agree what "crazy is" but where do you draw the line? ditto for insecurity.

most of this is NOT easily measurable, outside of suicides, which are discrete events. definition of things like sexual assault, child abuse, or repression vary by state, and even more so by country.

> definition of things like sexual assault, child abuse, or repression vary by state

Definition of homicide also varies by state, so what? Homicide is not real?

So basically you do not believe we can objectively measure psychological issues, so any parenting, no matter how bad, even outright abusive parenting, can't produce psychological issues.

Why do we have parents at all then, let's have all kids cared for by a commercial company, will be more efficient, right?

It's exactly what my father did. He took parenting classes at the library, because he wanted to learn more and didn't think that just because he considered himself successful in business and life, he would necessarily understand pedagogy. To that, I am eternally grateful to him.

It's very hard for people to swallow their pride and admit humility, to say "I don't know" and listen to the experts. I have an immense amount of respect for anybody who does, and it is an example I try to live by (though not always successfully).

Also you were a bit lucky. Over the years there has been an insane amount of bad advise from "health specialists".

I was born in a time when kids were supposed to sleep with their backs up and mothers were supposed to wash their nipples using antibacterial before breastfeeding...!

Sometime before that there was a time (at least around here) were kids were supposed to eat sour cream porridge from early life.

Of course kids died left and right, but the logic was, if so many died following the best practices, how many wouldn't have died if babies were left drinking only milk! (Retold as best I can describe it from what an older person in the family told me.)

All this is before we start talking about parenting fads like "no rules parenting" (not sure about the exact English term) which must have caused untold harm.

So creds to your dad for finding the correct advice and sticking with it.

I'm not at all disagreeing with you, but your examples also demonstrate that a lot of parental advice rely and reflect the era's zeitgeist.

How do we make sure that what you call 'correct advice' is not again a reflection of today's zeitgeist and 50 years from now will make fun of these suggestions in a similar way as of applying antibacterial before breastfeeding?

We don't, and that's why we should encourage parents to diversify their approach as opposed to doing the same set of things mandated from the above.

We're currently undergoing a mass experiment in what happens to children if they are denied sun exposure. I guess we'll discover the outcomes in a few years.

Nordic countries are regularly denied sun.

That's simply untrue: https://www.ndsc.ncep.noaa.gov/uvspect_web/Polar/

Moreover, people of Nordic ancestry tend to have paler skin, which is arguably an adaptation to the low levels of UV.

I've read somewhere that just buying a parenting book, even without reading it, can make some people better parents or have a positive influence. Simply thinking about how to be a better parent and showing an interest in improving can lead to self-reflection and conscious consideration of parenting approaches.

While reading the book (attending the course) would likely provide more benefits, just the intention to be a better parent and the willingness to reflect on one's parenting practices may still be valuable step leading to an improvement in parenting abilities.

That's interesting.

A little nitpick : you seem to imply that buying a book is having an influence on parenting skills. I'd argue that's its correlated but does not have a direct influence.

As you said, if you're buying a book it means you're ready for self-reflection, which is what has an impact on parenting.

I'm fairly sure they are referring to a Freakonomics episode (or book). The researchers found "successful" parents, then found various statistics around them.

One of the conclusions was that they "type" of people that would go out of their way to buy a parenting book were already the type of people to do the "right thing" when parenting and the book itself offered no additional support.

I've been around the block a decent number of times, having had a kid way too early at the age of 19. Now I'm 42 and watching friends raise kids, along with many others throughout the years - my kid is 22 now.

The sole thing that is universal is simply giving a shit and putting effort in. If you legitimately care about your kids and live a life to ensure they get the best reasonable outcome you can achieve for them, things are likely to turn out fine.

This goes across countries, continents, cultures, socioeconomics, you name it.

Anything else after that is basically focusing on micros vs. macros. It's amazing how rare this train in parenting actually is.

After that it's largely on society in most places. The suburbanized atomic family expected to handle everything on their own are extreme headwinds for the average parents to push against for example. Only once you get beyond this would I feel "parenting education" would be worthwhile of any serious society effort.

I really wish schools taught humility.

As a new parents we got tons of books as gifts on pregnancy and baby's first year or two. But then it ended. I continue to buy books on parenting, child psychology, etc. But sadly it seems once baby turns toddler, most parents are done with learning.

One of the most common toxic phrase I keep hearing from these parents is I was raised this way, look I turned out to be fine. Of course, later in the same conversations they will admit they are not fine.

Maybe it is us geeks who love to learn and feel proud to deep dive into whatever we get into.

Ok but if hubris is profitable, why couldn't or wouldn't a private school teach it?

There's alot of people pissing on public schools, whether to sabotage the general public or have special non-standard curriculum only available in private schools, I have no idea.

There is a lot of pissing on public schools because the public has lost sight of why they exist.

There is a lot of religious-y "If you don't go to school you will spend an entirety in hell, er, flipping burgers" or "Those who graduate will make more money – please don't notice that incomes are stagnant and that those with struggles in life that will make them economically unproductive fail/drop out because of the same struggles" nonsense floating out there, but not a lot of concrete details on what value is actually delivered. Other governmental departments put a lot of effort into communicating their value proposition, but schools seem rest on faith.

Which may have been fine a century or two ago when people still remembered why the schools were created, but people now forget. As such, they seek out things they think the schools should do to justify an existence.

Well schools can teach whatever, but if your parent raises you to think education is bullshit liberal brainwashing, you aren't exactly going to listen to it.

For example, plenty of schools teach media literacy, and yet the kids who desperately need it don't pay attention because they are not motivated to learn, nobody encourages them to learn, they and the people around them do not value education on it's own merits, and sure enough ten years later they are posting that Obama is a lizard person.

We have a giant amount of, essentially, knowledge skepticism. These people are convinced that studying something robustly for four years is valueless, and meaningless. Some of them are so "skeptical" they want to homeschool their kids expressly to just teach them the bible and nothing more.

>to say "I don't know" and listen to the experts

Seeing this repeated in this thread. Who are these "experts"? What makes them "experts"? Is there some kind of track record I can look at?

In my case experts are people who raised well adjusted children and are still happily married! It can even be your own parents as much as people (very prideful) don’t want to admit that.

My parents read child psychology and based on that changed their mind on whether spankings were something good for your kids.

They updated their views based on expert peer-reviewed evidence instead of relying on their own armchair theories. I laud them for that. I used to be pro-spanking since I turned out OK and was stunned to later learn my parents regretted it all after what they subsequently learnt. They earnestly wish they had learnt sooner it wasn't necessary.

Yes! The old refrain, "they don't come with a manual!" is such a load of ignorant self-serving garbage. There are plenty of resources to learn from. Ideally, not mommy-bloggers who misrepresent parenting techniques.

At the other end, modern parents have so many restrictions and expectations put on them.

> How about some minimal coaching so that all parents are aware of the state of the art in child psychology and techniques to do better as parents.

1. We don't know as much as people think we do about what constitutes "good parenting". At best, we know some behaviours which are typically harmful (molestation, violence), but everyone already knows that, and the people exhibiting those behaviours need therapy themselves, so a parenting course won't fix that.

2. You're basically turning what is normally considered an innate human right into a privilege for which you need to earn a license. This invites all kinds of abuse (only the right kinds of people get this license!).

Is childbirth an innate human right? Why don't you think you need your unborn child's consent before birthing them?

> Why don't you think you need your unborn child's consent before birthing them?

That question is incoherent.

It's a perfectly coherent question! I'd kindly ask that you try to comply with Hacker News's guidelines about engaging in kind dialogue, and specifically the line "please don't post shallow dismissals".

Here's what I consider to be a simpler question to answer: do you think people have the right to give birth to a child whose existence would be only horrible, endless suffering before eventually succumbing to death?

This isn't just a hypothetical: people tend to agree that a parents who are at high chance of birthing a child with a terrible genetic disease probably shouldn't take that risk (or, at least, should protect against it with some preimplantation genetic testing).

But everyone suffers at least a little bit at some point in their life. If you don't think people have a right to birth children whose lives would be pure suffering, but you do think people have a right to birth children who would suffer at least a little bit in their lives, then how do you justify one but not the other? Is there some threshold amount of misery which you think is okay to inflict on someone without their consent?

There may be some other moral framework or argument which articulately justifies this, and I'm genuinely curious to see if someone has come up with an interesting answer to the question.

Pretty much.

Unless you've worked out how to obtain consent from someone that doesn't exist either we create kids without their consent or society ends.

Inability to obtain consent does not imply consent.

Do you consider the continuation of our society to be more important than respecting consent?

>Why don't you think you need your unborn child's consent before birthing them?

Is this satire?

It's a legitimate question! Many people wish they had never been born. What right do you have to force such a person into existence without their consent?

In the absence of someone's ability to give consent - ie. Informed consent in medical terms- the responsibility is assumed by the parents or guardian.

Since an infant or fetus is unable to provide consent, why would you think a parent is incapable of doing so?

This is a baffling line of thought to me.

2 is tricky because we live in a society where the group is responsible for an individuals bad parenting decisions.

Our options are to keep creating support programs to cover for bad parenting (not nearly as effective as good parents) or to stop “bad” parents from having kids (not super moral).

>we know some behaviours which are typically harmful (molestation, violence), but everyone already knows that

Horse crap, a huge amount of parents genuinely believe violence is a necessity for child rearing (including frequent repetitions of "spare the rod, spoil the child") to the point that they've even pushed to bring it back into public schools!

Even the very basics are not accepted as fact by many.

> Horse crap, a huge amount of parents genuinely believe violence is a necessity for child rearing (including frequent repetitions of "spare the rod, spoil the child") to the point that they've even pushed to bring it back into public schools!

The effects of corporal punishment are small compared to the effects of molestation and physical abuse. If corporal punishment were our only "issue", we'd be much better off. I wouldn't even classify this under "the very basics".

What are you saying here?

Corporal punishment is physical and psychological abuse. It is in the title: punishment is a judgement and corporal is the violence.

There is no such thing as corporal punishment that is also not an abuse. Maybe there is a scale of it but it is abuse.

> It is in the title: punishment is a judgement and corporal is the violence

Are you suggesting that judging your child's actions as wrong is psychological abuse?

> There is no such thing as corporal punishment that is also not an abuse.

That's incorrect, and the legal precedent has been clear on the legality of spanking and the distinction from abuse:

https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/can/defining/disc-abuse/

> Are you suggesting that judging your child's actions as wrong is psychological abuse?

Nobody said that. We are saying that corporal punishment is physical abuse.

> the legal precedent has been clear on the legality of spanking and the distinction from abuse

An action does not need to be illegal in all areas (or illegal at all) to be a form of abuse. Corporal punishment causes negative emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes in children regardless of whether it is used in an area where it is legal or illegal. It is physical abuse and a poor method of parenting that is detrimental to the children's long-term welfare.

> Lifetime spanking/slapping was independently associated with increased odds of mental health disorders, physical health conditions, and defiant behaviors in adolescence after adjusting for childhood adversities and child maltreatment (unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios ranging from 1.29 to 2.19).

> These findings suggest that lifetime spanking/slapping is uniquely associated with harmful mental, physical, and behavioral outcomes in adolescence, and efforts should focus on its prevention.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07067437211000...

I notice you consistently take data that says that lifetime physical discipline can be detrimental to welfare, and then claim that all physical discipline, no matter how infrequent, is physical abuse that is detrimental to welfare. One does not follow the other.

The data shows that the use of physical discipline is independently associated with negative emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes. If there are any studies of the same quality that show otherwise, go ahead and post them. Otherwise, your argument is just like saying that infrequent lead exposure may be beneficial because studies only focus on the negative effects of lifetime lead exposure.

> Otherwise, your argument is just like saying that infrequent lead exposure may be beneficial because studies only focus on the negative effects of lifetime lead exposure.

No, it's saying that infrequent lead exposure is not as harmful as most think, and certainly not as harmful as other environmental pollutants that are more pervasive.

Corporal punishment is much more pervasive than molestation and rape, which is why it is being highlighted as a major problem. Lead exposure is actually more harmful than most people think, just like corporal punishment.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/30/one-in-t...

> Are you suggesting that judging your child's actions as wrong is psychological abuse?

How is that judgement communicated? Without that information the question is incomplete.

> The effects of corporal punishment are small compared to the effects of molestation and physical abuse.

That even worse abuses such as molestation, rape, and murder exist is not a justification for corporal punishment (physical discipline), which has been shown to cause negative emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes in children. Corporal punishment is a form of physical abuse, considering these negative outcomes.

> The Resolution on Physical Discipline of Children By Parents, adopted by APA’s Council of Representatives in February, relies on strong and sophisticated longitudinal research that finds physical discipline does not improve behavior and can lead to emotional, behavioral and academic problems over time, even after race, gender and family socioeconomic status have been statistically controlled.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/physical-discipline

> That even worse abuses such as molestation, rape, and murder exist is not a justification for corporal punishment (physical discipline)

Fortunately, that's not the argument I made.

You don’t learn how to parent, you learn how to live, in a wholehearted way, and you model that for your children.

Good parenting is foremost about growing up before your kids do.

Wholeheartedly agree, the thought that we can school our way out this seems overly simplistic. And I'd go as far as to say the schooling philosophy is part of this pathology.

Society decided to dump most doctrinal support but unfortunately this has left a significant portion of the masses with little direction. But also many have little inclination or time to work it out for themselves. And even if you did start to read Jung, Nietzsche, Hegel, Hiedeger or whichever philosopher you chose there's a myriad of directions one could take it and it's a heady mix. I've started to read these philosophers but I bring it a traditional Creator grounding and it's still pretty wild.

Ultimately I don't think we have a clue what we're doing and we are prone to getting very scared and taking it out on those around us or in our care.

This is terrible "magic thinking" advice.

Kids are VERY counterintuitive (mine at least). Our kid has had behavioral problems at school and at home. And it's extremely difficult to understand the root of the issues (it turns out that the pandemic, moving houses, starting school and having a baby brother all at once can be a bit much for a 3 year old).

Literally EVERYONE who is not a professional told us to smack our kid into submission. But by reading stuff and talking to professionals, you learn that some kids do have weird ways of expressing their emotions, and that acknowledging that and supporting them works. You have to completely turn the way you speak to them around. It's really hard to do cause nobody wants to confort a kid who's annoying, but it works.

None of the stuff I do with my kids would have been possible had I not learnt it as an adult. Stop the magic thinking. Read about children, they're weird and wonderfully different.

> smack our kid into submission

What does this mean? I never talk child care in any significant way on the net, so I feel there are way to many ways too misinterpret this. Even the nice interpretation of this would border on illegal here.

(FWIW I think I agree with you on all accounts and I have had it easy)

Beatings. I'm in my 30s and I was beat as a kid. You'd be surprised how legal and still often recommended it is, especially with neurodivergent young boys.

One of the founders of the DevOps movement once gave a talk on Dallas where he described striking a young boy who had hit his daughter because he thought especially young white boys need to learn consequences.

Especially in neurodivergent young boys, for sure. Speaking from experience.

Getting hit as a kid didn't teach me anything positive.

If hitting kids did anything positive, we'd be living in the worst not the best time to be alive.

What?

I am in France, where hitting kids has become illegal only in 2019. There is a practice we call fessee which consists of slapping the butt of your kid, which sort of hurts but fades quickly. It’s been around forever here and when I was a kid in the 80s was the ultimate threat (our fathers got the “martinet” which is small whip).

Anyways, although illegal, hurting your kid is a very common practice around here.

On that subject: humiliation in school by teachers has been prohibited since 1953, and is still common here too. In the first school my kid went to, there was a board on the wall in the hallway where they would write the name of bad boys to public-shame them.

In the US it's called spanking, and would be carried out manually, via a belt (using the buckle if you're a true sociopath), a "switch" - a small, whiplike sapling or tree branch, or a paddle which looks like a small cricket bat.

When I was in primary school in the 90's, it was technically still allowed by the state, and was threated by teachers, but I don't believe it was ever actually done, and I believe is illegal now.

That said, this entire thread is a shitshow and further convinces me that no one has any idea what they're doing or probably even any coherent idea of why they're raising children in the first place or what they want for those children, and reinforces my decision to opt-out of the whole idea.

Also, car battery jumper cables are a timeless favorite for this purpose.

> When I was in primary school in the 90's, it was technically still allowed by the state, and was threated by teachers, but I don't believe it was ever actually done, and I believe is illegal now.

In the US? Of course not. Still allowed and in fact being done: https://theconversation.com/video-shows-students-still-get-p...

So you are opting out because you perceive others as doing something wrong. Ok.

Having a child necessitates raising the child. Rather simple.

>> smack our kid into submission > What does this mean?

It only has one possible meaning: beat your child until they comply. A large percentage of parents have no other response. If they don't use physical violence they may use verbal or psychological violence instead.

People have a biological urge to reproduce which they're happy to indulge but are often unprepared for the challenges of raising children. Exasperation and exhaustion make shouting at or striking your child an attractive strategy. Note that this is different to (effective) discipline in that these responses are often arbitrary and unpredictable, leading to anxious and depressed children.

> often unprepared for the challenges of raising children

I don't think there's any way to really understand what raising a child entails until you've done it.

I don't think this was intended as "physically hitting". The intent was "ignore what the kid is requesting, and communicate to them 'no you don't want that, it is wrong to want that'". One way to do that would of course be to "hit", but the idea is about insisting that 'your view is right', and ignoring/not acknowledging the need the child is trying to communicate. My point being, this can do almost as much damage, even if you are not 'hitting'. Source: Am parent, was child.

It is hard living some problem, and then experiencing that the people who are in charge of taking care of you, consistently communicate "No, there is just something wrong with you, you don't want that/that isn't really a problem".

> I don't think this was intended as "physically hitting".

I am very sure it was. In many parts of the world (including the USA) that is still completely accepted and normal.

FYI “smack” is British English for American English “spank” and they are just about synonymous, modulo cultural differences on what kind of smacking/spanking is acceptable.

> Literally EVERYONE who is not a professional told us to smack our kid

Respectfully, if that's true I urge you to find a new social circle.

They may be referring to close family members. These are the people mostly likely to offer unsolicited parenting advice in my experience.

That and (though I’m not speaking on behalf of OP) social media destinations like Facebook, where most of us are likely to have had “friends” we haven’t seen since high school and will never see again in person.

The people in my family who smacked their kids aren’t professionals. Plenty of professionals hit their kids though.

Right? Kids are different, but honestly not that different from adults. Just more impressionable, because they are learning the world. And of course less knowledgeable and developed by definition. But they work a lot of the same ways.

Would you make it practice to hit adults??? No? Why are you teaching kids that this is what happens?

It makes no sense.

Of course it makes sense. Pain is the universal teacher. It's why every organism that can move under its own power experiences pain. We are extremely good at learning pain avoidance. We even used to hit adults (and far worse) to get them to behave. So yes, of course it makes sense. Whether it results in positive outcomes is the only legitimate question.

For many of these people, yes. They would absolutely make it practice to hit adults.

My parents were married in 1966 ages 22 and 23, two children the next two years, a house three years after married. Dad was a high school dropout although his Dad my grandfather had a painting business. But my grandfather died aged 52 just as my Dad was beginning his life with Mom. So yes he did some growing up fast I really forget how hard it must have been for him and Mom with all that happening all at the same time.

My grandfather was married to my grandmother and had nine kids and then even a few grandchildren all before the age of 52 when he died.

So here I am now no children, not married, I'm past at the age my grandfather died. Staggering to my mind how mature the previous generation was or had to be.

> Staggering to my mind how mature the previous generation was or had to be.

Or how immature they really were?

I can't downvote this enough. Sure, it's true that experience is the best way to learn but that method leads to alot of dead ends that society then has to deal with. Saying that parents can self-learn and self-evolve totally distracts the reader away from the original comment which is about the critical need for society to better support parents structurally. Most of us don't live in multi-generational communes where this stuff might happen without a structured approach ... and for all those new parents who do not, the need is great.

> You don’t learn how to parent

Actually I do.

This is exhibit A, not only have they learnt nothing, but will reject every opportunity to learn. Exactly like my Father.

I have a daughter growing up, and every time there is a decision to make, I check what people like this would do, and do the opposite. Or at least make sure to avoid that.

This is such bullshit.

My mother tried to be a good mom but never addressed her mental health issues, leading to four kids having pretty severe problems twenty, thirty years later.

She took decades from us, though she "tried to live" but didn't want to learn anything she didn't already know.

This is the mistake that most parents make. They assume that what worked for them will work for their children.

>> Good parenting is foremost about growing up before your kids do

This unfortunately is not a given and that's the crux of the discussion.

If every parent were able to achieve complete knowledge and wisdom about all things parenting before they had kids we wouldn't be talking of any of this.

Would you be surprised to learn that there is something similar in Japan? Though not necessarily required, there are "mama papa" classes done by the government with the basics covered. And there are checkups (1 month, 3 months, 6, 1 year, 2, 3) which have some involvement in checking the child's health, wellbeing, development, as well as that of the parent(s).

Plenty of parents in America have taken classes like that at local hospitals or through their school, but the reality is that a lot of people don't have the means and the desire to take some.

If we wanted to incentivize attendance, pay parents to attend the classes, with a bonus at the end for doing well on the test.

That we wouldn't actually do that speaks spades about our priorities.

And usually those that take the classes would have done fine anyway since they are engaged in parenting. I am critical of a governmental breeding licence, even if it is just for additional monetary support. Difficult to quantify anything that reflects successful parenting and the bureaucracy would probably be counter productive. Stressed parents are often bad parents, you don't want to make it worse with audits.

Also, as someone not from the US who heard unsubstantiated rumors about parents getting in trouble with law enforcement for leaving their kids alone for 5 minutes, I doubt this could in any way be sensibly handled. Similar problem exist in other countries too of course.

Best make room in school for some basic education, as there isn't any in most countries.

They shouldn't need means, it should be free and at convenient times.

> For most things in life where we could impact the lives of other people materially - driving is a good example - we ensure some minimal amount of training before letting people perform that activity.

> How about some minimal coaching so that all parents are aware of the state of the art in child psychology and techniques to do better as parents.

In my country, we had a housekeeping class in school, that taught everything from basic cooking skills, to safety with electrical appliances. There was also a woodworking class, where you were taught how to use various tools correctly and safely. Later, in university, there were courses that concerned things like paying taxes in more detail, employment law and how small businesses work etc.

I think that parenting classes sound like a good idea. It can also help people figure out when they're absolutely not ready for something or are not comfortable with it - like happened to me and getting a driver's license.

Along this same thought - if you know anyone who has ever adopted the process and review procedures of the adoptive parents can be intense... and this is for people who desperately WANT to be parents, meanwhile at least in the USA you have a ton of people not being able to terminate a pregnancy that they are not prepared for and this leads to children raising children, hurting both.

My city (Munich, Germany) automatically sends "parent letters" to every child registered here (they are addressed "To the parents of <child's name and address>), which contain advice on dealing with common problems and questions as well as providing information about support services, sorted by age.

So for example, the one for 3,5 years has sections on how to deal with food pickiness, or with excessive preference for one parent.

There’s a saying: “it takes a village to raise a child.”

Historically, the role of the “parentin school” you’re proposing has been played by the family, most importantly grandparents. As we move away as a society from relying on family structures, we need to recognise their utility and find equivalents.

We moved away successfully from family structures in many areas of society: succession of rulers, for example. So this doesn’t need to be a bad thing. But I think the role that grandparents played should be studied carefully when proposing certain types of schooling for parents.

Not necessarily family structures but tribes. Could be a small group of families helping each other. Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the values imparted on the youth come from a position of trust (from the youth) and not a forced daytime prison run by folks whose dreams died when they found out how much they owe for their PhD without deferment.

Seriously though, those tribes or large familial structures that keep the youth accountable because their authority is established and trusted is what all children need. Sometimes that trust comes from teachers but rarely.

> find equivalents

There is no equivalent. Full stop.

Maybe you could re-create an extended family w/ friendship and local community - "the village" so to speak - but let's say I have my severe doubts about finding enough like-minded people in at least the US to accomplish it. Very few with options have the commitment.

The government and institutions seriously cannot even hope to replace a tiny fraction of this support structure though. People actually have to care about each other on a individual human level. It turns into checkboxing CYA otherwise - having seen a bit of this implementation in social work.

This is an underrated comment. American lifestyle forces people to make tough choices about their extended, sometimes even closest family. The % of the population who earn enough to support one or more dependents comfortably, be it a child or a parent, is probably in single digits. The result is the mental health epidemic.

Or we could recognize their utility and not move away from them… wouldn’t this make more sense?

The daylight between instituting a parenting license and eugenics is not very much.

that's a hell of a leap - saying take some basic classes (likely not that much unlike how catholic churches require couples classes prior to marrying folks) to understand how to properly care for a child is nothing like eugenics and gene manipulation.

All eugenics requires is reducing to fertility of a target undesired population to below sustenance. It's actually extremely easy to do because of how 'invisible' it is. Imagine there was a society where literally every single woman had an average of 1 child. It'd be quite weird to claim they were being driven extinct as everybody loads up on diapers, yet that society's population would indeed be trending towards 0 at an exponential rate, but with an 80 year 'lag' in the first wave of deaths that would mask the impact.

And country after country has demonstrated how relatively easy it seems to be to reduce fertility. Iran is a not so well known example. Back in the 80s Iran started to feel that their fertility was a problem. Their population was growing far faster than they had the resources to sustain, so they instituted birth control availability and mandated 'marriage classes' [1], not entirely unlike what's being suggested here. And in these classes they worked to try to reduce overall fertility.

It succeeded far beyond any expectation. Their fertility went from 6+ to 2 in less than a decade. And then it just kept dropping. Today it's down to below 1.7 and it keeps falling. They've long since tried to reverse this trend and started an equal but opposite pro fertility program, but like China also showed - it's far easier to reduce a population's fertility, than it is to bring it back up. These sort of programs work as a perfectly viable proof of concept of a practically invisible eugenics program, and that's quite dangerous.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran

> Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population.

What you described is not eugenics though.

Eugenics is generally carried out not through selective breeding, but by removing the populations you do not want to breed. Same thing in 20th century America where the main effort was simply on removing elements from society that "we" didn't want breeding - which has the same effect while reducing the constraints on liberty, which would not be well received otherwise.

See, for instance, the famous quote from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. that, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." Interestingly enough, the ruling from that court case (Buck v Bell) was never formally overturned. It's simply that eugenics fell out of fashion, following it being taken to extremes by a certain vegetarian artist in Germany with a knack for rhetoric.

People have this weird thing where, if something comes about as an emergent property of a market system, then it’s fine, but otherwise a much more carefully organized result is not fine. Like if corporations raced towards an AI apocalypse then there’s no one to blame but if a central planner did it, then that would be an evil plan that should be stopped. Same with non biodegradeable plastic, destruction of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, and so on. (By contrast to all these, fossil fuels are a slowpoke.)

For example — we don’t particularly need to do anything to reduce birth rates of technologically advanced societies societies with human rights. That’s because women choose to study and work on their career in their 20s, while men try hard to save up to afford the sky-high real estate prices. The market does the eugenics for everyone.

If anything, the fear that uneducated populations or those in low-cost-of-living countries are going to “replace us” is a result of that simple fact. Comparing continents, Africa is expected to continue to have a ton of kids per woman compared to, say, Europe or USA.

Religion, of course plays a role. When the condoms are off, the religion doesn’t matter — you’re going to have a lot of babies. The only difference is, how early do you get married? Religions tend to frown on premarital sex.

> Comparing continents, Africa is expected to continue to have a ton of kids per woman compared to, say, Europe or USA.

Fertility is most strongly correlated with child mortality IIRC. The more likely your kid is to die young, the more likely you are to have lots of kids. Very low child mortality in developed nations, so very low fertility.

Correlation doesn't imply causation. Child mortality in Africa has now approached the same as in other countries. Women going to school is a big one.

You're assuming an immediate effect. We didn't see such an immediate effect in the developed world either. I suppose we'll see in time.

> we don’t particularly need to do anything to reduce birth rates of technologically advanced societies societies with human rights.

Other than the hard work put in to scaring would-be parents. Indeed, the birth control pill put people in control, but it it is only since the "16 and Pregnant" movement, which campaigned on demonizing having children and stressed the importance of not being saddled by a child, that we've seen below replacement levels.

As a result, the youth of today in their prime rearing years look negatively upon having children, and by the time they "snap out of it" they are into their geriatric child birthing years and biologically don't have much time left, putting tight constraint on how many children can be birthed.

> That’s because women choose to study and work on their career in their 20s

Trouble is that, thanks to the same campaigning, those who choose to have children in their 20s (or earlier) have to face the scorn of society. Unless you are strong-willed, you have little choice but to study and work on your career, even if children is what you truly want, because everyone else is going to try and make your life miserable if you don't.

Isn't there a MASSIVE difference between "you are not allowed to breed because we don't want you and think you're inferior" vs "you did a course and have worked hard and have clearly demonstrated your commitment to rearing a child carefully and thoughtfully, here is some state-sponsored fund to help you "

Drawing an equivalence between these two is like saying a school system that punishes mistakes with physical abuse as a matter of policy to make a smarter population is identical, morally speaking to society at large, as a school system that just rewards good and hard work as a matter of policy to make a smarter population.

It makes no sense. I can't believe anyone could actually believe rewarding parents who have demonstrated a commitment to rearing a child well is identical to enforcing undesirables not have children.

... and if you fail the class?

Well there already is eugenic like behavior going on. Partners select for money, tall and handsome. It's just not framed that way. End result is the same.

The media perpetuates certain ideals deemed desirable, the masses follow. You don't need a vegetarian artist somewhere in Europe spewing nonsense. You can still achieve the same thing. I would even go as far to say that modern day advertising and public relations borrowed a lot from Goebbels.

As much as I loathe advertising, I think this assessment is provably wrong. We're genetically driven to pick out mates most likely to produce fertile, healthy, and effective offspring. Even in relatively isolated tribes with 0 access to advertising of any sort, preferences like low waist-to-hip ratios are ubiquitous [1] (random study that also references a bunch of others - this is not a controversial statement). The reason is that low waist-to-hip ratios correlates with all sorts of health, fertility, and genetic strengths. So we are genetically attracted to such.

I think you could also make an argument in reverse here as well. An increasingly large chunk of Western advertising is actively seeking to push values like contravening said genetic proclivities, yet it seems to have had little to no impact on what people find attractive. That's even more telling as obesity is rapidly becoming the norm rather than the exception.

[1] - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01916-9

"Preventing births within a group" is one of the definitions of a genocide.

This is a great idea.

One of the things that Finance people do is force employees to have short computer-based trainings every year. They seem stupid and bother everyone, but I think they are fairly effective (and they've been going on for years, so they must have proven some level of effectiveness).

Health insurance providers could be forced to have parents do a yearly 1-hour training on how to handle kids to enable benefits.

You're not going to solve the biggest problems, just like SEC trainings don't prevent money laundering, but whateveer moves the needle a little bit may be worth doing...

> and they've been going on for years, so they must have proven some level of effectiveness

They are effective

In reducing the liability of the company that is forcing it's employees to take the course. As for actual behavioral change, that is often not the case.

> However with parenting we have nothing and the result it seems is we pay with a ton more resources downstream in the way of therapy, detention centers, jails etc.

I think it’s a situation where we can’t stop people from having babies so we don’t even attempt to limit.

There have been attempts to prevent births in “undesirable” populations that people thought weren’t capable of properly raising kids. [0]

But unless we’re going to have a super controlled society with forced birth control and abortion, there’s not a qualification to give birth. And developing nations have really low birth rates so anything to further lower birth rates has some negative societal and economic impact.

That being said, there are many free programs available to parents but they have to reach out to find them. I live in a pretty backwards, relatively speaking, state and there were numerous state, county, charity, and religious programs to help with parenting coaching before and after birth.

It does seem like a good idea to add coaching into the maternal health programs to give more education and support to expecting and new parents.

[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/14/43208...

> developing nations have really low birth rates

Did you mean to write developed, perhaps? I'm under the impression - and a quick google confirms - that the more economically developed a country is, the lower its birth rate tends to be.

(I'm sure I'm oversimplifying. I've not studied in this area, which is why I'm replying)

Thanks. You are right. I meant developed[0]. I like to think I typed “developing” and didn’t check my autocomplete.

There does seem to be a function of the more money and education for women, the lower the birth rate. Some countries are increasing immigration to compensate.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

This already exists if you wish to adopt in the US - just doesn't apply to the other method

interesting - one way to test the efficacy of something like this might be to compare median outcomes of adopted kids (whose parents went through some parenting education) with that of the non adopted general population (after controlling for other factors).

Now which PhD candidate will bite :)

Hard to imagine how to design such study: (close to) 100% of people that adopt kid WANTED to have kid, and planned for them. Some XX% number of people having kid via pregnancy wasn't planning for them, and some even smaller YY% number doesn't want the kid at all.

Not to mention that unless the adoption of kids are done blind by parents, there has to be some biases there. As an example out of my ass, kids with behavioral problems might have way less adoption rate, and potentially those are the one with below median outcome in any case.

Compare adoptions of infants (handles the behavior issue) with parents who took blatant processes to improve pregnancy odds (IVF, etc).

That gets you two categories of people do definitely want kids, and only one is subject to the classes, interviews, and checkups.

There's certain to be natal/genetic/etc differences in the kids, though. (Are infants put up for adoption more likely to have been born to mothers who are in poverty? Who smoke, drink or use drugs? Who are younger or older? Does IVF itself have positive or negative effects? Etc)

Really the ideal test would be, in order of preference:

1. randomization (some parents get the classes, some do not, chosen randomly)

2. geographic (parents in state/area A get classes, rest do not)

3. temporal (parents after year X get classes)

4. twins (parents of twin A get classes, twin B do not)

Obvious way to remove that bias would be to start by recruiting couples who are not parents but want to become parents and then follow them through their lives and their childrens lives. Within that cohort you would have a large number who would conceive naturally, some would go for IVF etc, some would adopt and some would not end up having children.

>How about some minimal coaching so that all parents are aware of the state of the art in child psychology

What is "state of the art" in psychology? A bunch of irreproducible papers?

Yes exactly that. Appeal to authority.

Many people have such broken relationships with their parents that they refuse to believe their parents can offer them good advice.

Before they take a parenting class, they might be better served taking a counseling class to repair their relationship with their own parents.

Something I don’t think many people know about is that marriages licenses, (yes you need a license to gain some tax benefits) often have an incentive to do pre-marital counseling. Tennessee, for instance, at least halves the price of the marriage license if you got any premarital counseling. Which they very broadly define, so you could get it from just about anyone a reasonable person could call trained in counseling.

Something along those lines, such as cheaper hospital stays or government covering part of childcare or some incentive like that could support what you are thinking. Not required, but a financial incentive. This is especially useful because it targets lower income families, hopefully reducing the correlation from parental income and career/health/etc outcomes.

PS: Smart of you to wear your nomex, this thread is a conflagration.

I guess this is simply straight-up unenforceable. Making babies is the one thing almost anyone over 12 is capable of doing, with no effort. A key tenet of public policy is that it must be achievable, else forget about it.

It could be that parenting isn’t as much of a factor as growing up poor.

Oh, parenting is absolutely a factor and this can be observed in underdeveloped or developing countries.

Kids in families with good parenting, a focus on education, etc are the ones that make it out.

It seems that poverty is much more of a factor than good parenting.

In rich countries, most of the kids "make it out", not just the ones with good parenting.

Poverty is certainly a factor but its another factor. There are kids who have the basics covered and then some but don't get the emotional support they need and that impacts them over their adult life.

every factor we mitigate helps

<< For most things in life where we could impact the lives of other people materially - driving is a good example - we ensure some minimal amount of training before letting people perform that activity.

The issue is that in US driving license is trivial to get and it shows on the roads ( queue explanations that it is just the function of car being a necessity -- true, but irrelevant too the point ). Even if instituted, I don't think people would accept that kind of infringement though I admit this is probably one place, where we should be able to self-regulate ( we clearly can't though and some systems are built for ever increasing population, which is a separate force that would prevent that kind of change ).

In short, I agree. I don't think we are doing it well now.

What to do about multiple parenting styles that are at odds with one another (sometimes even in the same household)? How about the baggage that parents are carrying that influence how they’re gonna parent, many of those suitcases inherited from their parents? That’s one thing for sure, but some parents aren’t even parenting for various reasons, not enough time, lack of responsibility or not being around for various reasons. If we could tackle all that we’d basically get a much better society but it’s a nearly impossible problem to solve in a practical way…

People aren't having enough children. Every extra hurdle is going to reduce the number of people who end up parents.

> Potentially break the cycles of bad parenting

You can't break cycles of bad parenting, because they are 2nd order effects of cycles of trauma. And cycles of trauma have been a fundamental part of human civilization since we've existed. We absolutely should teach compassion, good parenting 101s and basic logistical upskilling as a part of high school for both men and women.

But, expecting humans as a whole to suddenly start acting with decency is not going to happen.

> People aren't having enough children. Every extra hurdle is going to reduce the number of people who end up parents.

There's 8 billion of us.

Reducing the number of (unfit, unwilling, unplanned) parents is a net positive.

Birth rates are plummeting everywhere.

I'm with you. We can have fewer people on earth. But, that means 2-ish generations will have to do 2x-the-work per capita while receiving 0.5x the care when they retire. Our social welfare and economic systems are not built to deal with decreasing populations, let alone halving of population every 2 generations.

I am approaching 30. I very much feel like the generation that is going to pay for a comfortable retirement for boomers, never be able to afford real estate, pay huge amounts to raise kids and get nothing in return. Because, by the time I retire, the work-force will have halved. If even fewer people have kids, society will find itself staring at collapse.

The definition of 'good parenting' has changed rapidly over the last few decades and it is going to keep changing. As of now, it seems like an impossible bar to reach. It's better to expect just 'slightly less worse' from each generation, and let the momentum carry it forward.

Look at it from the bright side: you are likely born towards a local maximum in terms of human development. Too late not to notice the decline, but early enough that you aren't likely to suffer too much from it for the best part of your life.

Current forecasts put generalized famines, all around the globe, at somewhere between +2.5ºC and +3.0ºC of global warming. We are on track to cross +2.0ºC around 2050, at best 2055 [1]. So really, it's just around the corner.

At current trend, it's not lack of birth, but lack of food that is going to drive population decline...

[1] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/world-lik...

Not to whom you're replying, but as a parent this concerns me for their futures.

It mightn't be my problem, but fuck I'm a bad person if I just drop it on the floor for my kids to pick up - or slip over and die on.

That doesn't seem to be humanity's prevailing trait though...

The earth is getting greener. There are a ton of untapped opportunities in farming but it's mostly unprofitable and mismanaged. People don't care and will blame the government for rising food prices.

> Current forecasts put generalized famines, all around the globe

I am not aware of any such forecasts and call BS on that. If we are having a famine, it's because of a war or a conflict that disrupted our supply lines. Climate change effects are really minor (beyond having a bit of a hotter summer).

> Climate change effects are really minor (beyond having a bit of a hotter summer).

That's patently false. It goes way beyond hotter summers. We're already observing today the increased frequency of extreme weather events (droughs, floodings, hurricanes). Even not taking into account the other changes, just the extreme weather events will massively impact the US.

While I agree that the US will not suffer a famine (though a massive movement of farming activities), there will be global famine events that the richer countries will compensate by buying up all the market and letting poorer countries to suffer.

Interesting that we may get to be test subjects for:

What will be prioritised when there aren't enough workers for all the current positions? - necessities for everyone - luxuries for those who can afford exorbitant prices

It can be both, to some extent, but with any luxuries will come a sacrifice of necessities, and a sacrifice of necessities will increase the prices. The best of people will tend towards being paid more, which shallows the pool of talent for necessities, which reduces quality at the same time as increasing price.

> What will be prioritized when there aren't enough workers for all the current positions?

I'll give you the politically incorrect answer.

Until recently, a large population of old people oppressing a slighter smaller population of young people (by majoritarian voting patterns) meant violence.

Humans have eliminated the 3 main uncertainties that ensured some level of demand-supply elasticity : unprotected sex, starvation and violence.

So now, instead of society promptly reacting to a disgruntled workforce, we instead get slow but perpetual decline because the workforce cannot retaliate in any real manner. They can't vote out old people. They can't enforce violence. In any other world, bored-young-people would be having tons of unprotected sex and brute force replacing the old population. But, contraception allows people to engage in their most primal instinct (sex) without the resulting rise in work force.

Now, I am a 100% not suggesting that we need a return to older times. But, we need an awareness that the removal of these avenues means that history might not repeat itself and nature might not heal on its own.... because we have conquered nature.

If there are fewer people, won't there be less competition for housing and thus affordability would improve somewhat? If you need to spend less on a mortgage or rent, you may not need to work as much, or a single income couple might be viable once more, etc. (Or perhaps this just means cheaper property can continue to accumulate in the hands of wealthier people.)

No. Japan is a good example of that. It'll just centralize the area more, draining the periphery and raising the prices in the center.

> Our social welfare and economic systems are not built to deal with decreasing populations, let alone halving of population every 2 generations.

They better make it work then

Most work is unnecessary, bureaucratic and consumerist bs. Still many people are unemployed. Automation is held back by unions who fight for their right to do even the crappiest work, like mining. Inhabitable land is overcrowded. Less people is definitely net positive. Surely the economy might take a hit, cause it requires steady growth, but while that is bullshit in its own, we can still have growing economy with declining workforce, everyone would have to get very wealthy then.

> Birth rates are plummeting everywhere.

Birth rates are plummeting in many first-world countries but it's skyrocketing in most places.

Nope. Sky rocketing would mean that the numbers were low previously and are increasing now. Birth rates are still high in a small number of countries but even there they're lower than they were in the 60s.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Total_Fe...

If no one will have kids these 8 billion will go to zero in about 100 years.

That assumes there are no fit and willing parents.

Yes, sure. My point is that absolute numbers don't matter and the population can plummet faster than people usually imagine.

You know it won't happen.

> People aren't having enough children.

By what metric? Economics?

Economics, ironically, is the reason I don't have more kids. My family is doing, what I would consider, "quite well", but we'd still be pretty fucked with one more mouth to feed, the need for a larger car and possibly larger house.

I truly don't know how people that aren't that far below us on the resources / income scale have any hope of comfortable retirement prior to actual death.

By failing to maintain the population. The richer people get, the fewer children they have. This is the same in countries all over the world. Your intuition is wrong on this one.

And why should we maintain the population ? Have we reached the perfect amount of people on earth ?

We could be a lot less humans on earth, it would be amazing for the environment, and I think we'd be as happy.

The only downside I see is economic (in the sense that everything is built with the expectation of growth). But it is to me an economic problem, and not a reproduction problem.

> > And why should we maintain the population ? Have we reached the perfect amount of people on earth ?

Because when people are happy they fuck on impetuous and fucking on impetuous generates children (modulo vasectomy and morning after pill)

It’s not about the outcome , it’s about the happiness on the way there, whatever outcome it might be.

Also when people are happy they wind up perishing by fucking around in the real world due to excessive confidence doing dangerous activities such as drinking and driving, jetski accidents, drug overdoses etc

You have to substitute these people somehow and not only that, Nature installed a mechanism inside their brain so that the more they engage in dangerous activities the more they tend to have unprotected sex.

So to summarize we want to have a world above replacement rate because having a world above replacement rate is correlated with having a good time, wheras realities such as Japan represent a dystopian world where everybody live to 100 but they are miserable throughout their lives

> I truly don't know how people that aren't that far below us on the resources / income scale have any hope of comfortable retirement prior to actual death.

"Comfortable retirement" is a luxury of the recent past. It wasn't a concept for most of human history and will stop being one for most people fairly soon.

If anything, for most of human history, having someone to take care of you when you're old has been a primary incentive to have kids.

A formalized retirement age is a recent invention but human biology alone has always required people to transition through various stages in life. I think the idea of retirement = doing nothing is quite new when applied to broad sections of society. But going back millennia, older people would transition from often hard physical/dangerous occupations to tasks focused more on maintaining social networks, helping to raise kids, supervising, etc.

I think that societies should return to supporting this approach to life (but through valuing an individual's contribution, not sanctions). Growing older will always come with changes in one's abilities (not always to the worse) and personal priorities. This should be embraced and encouraged basically up to the point of death. I.e. my village has an organization called "Rentnerbande" (="gang of pensioners") where older guys help local schools, kindergartens and people with beautification and handicraft stuff for free.

Retirement isn't supposed to be about "doing nothing". It's about not having to work a job to be able to afford the lifestyle you have, as you reach elderly life. There are huge swaths of retirees who still "do things", and some of those things even bring money in! But the difference is, if one was able to prepare for their retirement, that money isn't needed to put food on the table and keep the lights on.

I know and agree, but in modern western societies there is no real expectation of or preparation for doing anything in retirement, least of all something that benefits society at large. Yes, some people transition and find fulfillment in something there do after retirement, but some also are scared and frustrated because they have tied their identity to their job. In my view, it should be the norm (which comes with corresponding support and encouragement) that people comprehend the last couple of decades of their life as simply an opportunity to follow their passions and support others follow theirs with less economic pressures.

It's interesting that when people talk about having another child there is almost always the implicit assumption of maintaining at least the same lifestyle.

I was quite amused that in your comment you explicitly talk about expanding your lifestyle to have another child: "the need for a larger car and possibly larger house".

Poor people have more children than well off people until you hit top >1% incomes. Economics is not the thing stopping people from having kids, reduction in lifestyle is.

> Economics is not the thing stopping people from having kids, reduction in lifestyle is.

Technically you're somewhat correct, because it sucks to have kids when you know they'll be raised by an economically poorer you.

And as most of the people don't see themselves as economically stable given the socio-economic conditions that have been in place for the last 15-20 years, that means that many people give up having kids because of said economic reasons (so, you're also incorrect, because economics is indeed stopping people from having kids), saying something like this: "I'm already only scrapping by as it is, bringing a kid into the equation will only make things worse for me and my spouse and definitely for the kid".

Not saying that everyone thinks and acts like this, because otherwise no-one would have had children by now, but it's a strong part of the population I would say.

>And as most of the people don't see themselves as economically stable given the socio-economic conditions that have been in place for the last 15-20 years

But as the OP says, this is almost backwards. The poorest in America are continuing to have children; their lifestyle isn't encumbered by a family.

Meanwhile, it's the young professionals, who sometimes have a skewed view of what it means to be "poor", who aren't starting families because they don't want to give up aspects of their lifestyle. Again, not a judgment, just observing.

This is a cultural thing. My wife and I ended up with a child at a fairly advanced age. We moved to a rural area about 5 or 6 years ago. Now that our child is of the age to play sports and other activities, we are socializing with other parents. They are sometimes half our age, married with families in their early 20s. These people are what would generally be considered "lower-middle class". And yet most of them have everything they need. There's no expectation that you're going to be a globe-trotting nomad, or live in a 5000 sqft house here. Raising a family is a priority.

> who sometimes have a skewed view of what it means to be "poor

I don't think is a skewed view when you don't own a house/apartment, and many of the young professionals from around the world, not only from America, are now exactly in that position.

Honestly glad that it worked out for you moving to the rural area, where I suppose housing is way cheaper, but that option is not on the cards for a lot of younger people out there.

>The poorest in America are continuing to have children; their lifestyle isn't encumbered by a family.

And those kids most often have all sorts of problems when they grow up. Sure, my poor as fuck mom could raise us, and technically keep some food in our mouths, but the stress of doing so while having an anxiety disorder that the back asswards rural community we lived in didn't even know existed until 2010 basically broke her. Thankfully we were predisposed to intelligence by genetics, and a strong family value of education, so the kids all "made it", by varying degrees.

Each and every one of us is in therapy, and on multiple medications. How much does that cost society over a lifetime? How much would it have cost society to just give my mom a little help to raise us instead? Helping poor families not drive themselves crazy struggling to do the basic things of being alive has a huge potential upside, and it's abhorrent that we don't do it because some people think they don't DESERVE help.

The problem with "only scraping by" is that a lot of people have very high baselines for "scraping by".

"I'm barely scraping by", says the person with an above average income, living in an expensive city, frequently going out, going on multiple vacations per year, buying luxury items, etc.

People who are actually scraping by do not talk about needing to buy a bigger house if they have more kids, because they literally cannot afford that.

https://twitter.com/kitten_beloved/status/166761594887723417...

>My family is doing, what I would consider, "quite well", but we'd still be pretty fucked with one more mouth to feed, the need for a larger car and possibly larger house.

What do you consider "quite well"? Does your car have a backseat? Does your home have more than one bedroom? If so, you don't need larger of either.

Yes, there are some sacrifices to having a family. Nothing in life is free. The problem is that it sounds like you don't want to your lifestyle hindered by a child. That's fine, but saying you "can't" is untrue. People much poorer than you are doing it all around the world.

> The problem is that it sounds like you don't want to your lifestyle hindered by a child

But that's not really a problem. The world has plenty of children. If you visit the border of Mexico you can probably snag a handful. Given their state of poverty they won't even mind.

So to the original question. What does it mean for a birthrate to be "too low". Too low for what? Sustaining some level of GDP output? Propping up Wal-marts bottom line with fresh souls to work the checkout counter?

> People aren't having enough children

People, who have enough resources (financial, educational) don't have much children. I don't think that this will affect this group.

People, who have no access to education or anticonception, have disproportionally more children. Many of them are unwanted. Some are irreversibly damage due to abusive susbtance intake.

> People aren't having enough children

If anything it's the opposite.

> You can't break cycles of bad parenting

Because you said so?

Schools may present the set of validated (consensus among pertinent professionals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_who_work_with_... ) explanations/guidelines to each adequate target (from children to young adults).

I think a society would have better outcomes by teaching young people the consequences to their lives of having children, such as time and financial costs. In one of the classes in my high school, students had to carry around a sack of flour for a week without damaging it.

A reward/benefit system is possibly better. We can examine how teaching consequences concerning the law, isn’t working sufficiently if we look at the US prison system population and the US prisoners reoffending rate. I think something like offering a tax deductible for completing a parenting program that’s specifically designed for outlining psychology negatives of not being there for the child is obvious. The money for financing the said program should be taken by a tax of adults with kids that haven’t completed the said program. I wouldn’t apply and cutoff age as well because everyone that has kids regardless of how long ago would still benefit society by completing such a program.

Only problem with tax deductible is that it doesn't benefit lower income families as much.

I think a better reward would be the ability for someone having gone through the parenting program to have the ability to tell child protective services, or law enforcement, to fuck off straight to their face without any negative consequences.

High School class?

It is funny that you mention driving as an example. Driving and cars are not designed for pregnant woman. As a typical man with passion for cars and driving, this never occurred to me until my wife got pregnant.

Lobotomy was once state of the art and the last one done in the US was 1967. Experts and gatekeepers who think they know better are not helpful here.

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