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Comment by gnfargbl | Hacker News Reader

I don't think much of the other proposed societal changes in BNW. They're a backdrop which Huxley uses to illustrate some aspects of human nature and to tell the rest of his story, but that's about it. We've had plenty of opportunity to move to the transient sexual model he outlines, for instance, and yet long-term relationships are still overwhelmingly the most popular choice.

I also don't believe people generally have children to fulfil a wider societal responsibility. As a parent myself, we had children mostly because we thought it would be nice to have children around. It has been much more than "nice," in a way that I could never really put into words. However, I can honestly say that the maintenance of my own health and wealth into old age has never been remotely a concern; if anything, I spend my time trying to find ways to insulate them from the consequences of an ageing society. I don't see those aspects of parenthood changing.

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Societal pressures/responsibilities don't need to be consciously acknowledged by an individual for them to have an effect on that individuals' decision-making.

True. My anecdata is that I don't see even the echoes of these pressures/responsibilities in my own historical choices, and as a result I doubt their effect on others.

In my experience, social pressure to have children is such a ubiquitous experience that it's difficult for me to think it doesn't have an effect. I wonder how this might vary between men & women

You have to keep in mind the millions of years of evolution that surely managed to leave some instinct-level mechanisms to encourage having children.

Do you have kids? I find that my desire for children, and the ways in which I enjoy mine, are very “primitive” pleasures in the same way as my desires to eat or sleep are.

Maybe we eat because of social pressure, but obviously there is something deeper too.

>social pressure to have children is such a ubiquitous experience

One aspect of growing older that I eagerly can't wait for (unlike most others) is getting old enough that people will stop fucking pestering me about marriage and kids.

All those people can sincerely fuck off into their own bedrooms, pun intended.

Just about 20 years more of this noise...

Yes and it can be quite absurd and right on the nose.

While Putin feeds humans to the dogs of war, he will at the same time chide his countryfolk that they are not having enough children.

There is a softer version in the west where elders and the wealthy are 'concerned about birthrates' while at the same time squeezing their young on living costs(shelter+food).

I suspect it's enormously different between men and women, and of course inter-culturally. As a straight man living in Ireland, despite having extremely traditional catholic parents, I've faced literally zero pressure from family to have kids. My siblings (male and female) have both chosen to have kids (very closely together in time), and I enjoy being an uncle a great deal. But I don't have any interest whatsoever in parenting. I have some friends with kids - although they tend to fall off the radar if I'm honest, but haven't felt any pressure from them either.

There are also societal pressures the other way. A lot of people do not have children because of the cost.

In the UK there has also been a cultural shift to regarding children as a lot of work - parents are under more pressure to do more and be perfect. That also deters people from having children.

Then there are those who argue that there are too many children so people should not have children.

There are pressures to have kids, of course, but its not clear to me that there is a net societal pressure towards having kids.

I had kids because I like having kids. Its fulfilling in a way nothing else is in most parents lives.

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