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Comment by throwaway-blaze | Hacker News Reader

There's also an interesting correlation between the advent of car seat / booster seat laws and the drop in number of kids per family.

https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2020...

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3665046

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How would you have a family with 9 kids, own only one vehicle, and still go to the drive in theater today?

Car seats aren't really the problem in that situation though. Most people struggle to do that even without them, even with mini-vans it could be a problem. 9 kids was reasonable for people who worked on a farm, expected a bunch of their kids to die early, and needed free labor. There's really no reason for 9 kids today.

I'd consider car seat laws to be an indicator for improvements to safety expectations. They are are a lot higher now.

You didn't have an 11 seater back in the day. You just put people wherever they fit and hoped nobody noticed. It was "fine" at one point. You'd be raked over the coals for it now.

There is a generational divide for those who rode in the back of a truck as kids and those who never will.

Trucks were a great loophole because you were allowed to have more people than seatbelts as long as every seatbelt was in use. At least that was my understanding of the law.

For me it was sitting on a milk crate in the back of a van. I liked watching the road pass underneath us through the rust holes.

Car seat? No.

Seat belt? No.

Seat? No, not even one of those.

> no reason for 9 kids today

I've always felt more kids makes for better adults.

Although I've just realized that I don't really have any friends from one-child families (and I myself have two siblings). Sampling bias, or just statistically normal for XGen?

I'm XGen and two dear friends are from 7 kid families (not due to religious reasons). I've always felt they had some maturity I lacked, eminating from having many siblings to get on with.

Does one have kids for them, or for oneself?

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