That's mostly a factor of lower childbirth rates. Put plain and simple: people used to have 3+ kids (or more, if you counted those who died before age 6), so if one or two died, got severely injured, turned mad, criminal or celibate-religious there would be still at least one or two other kids to inherit whatever wealth the family had (i.e. usually the farm or trade shop) and pass on the family name.
Nowadays middle-class people tend to have just one or two children, they literally cannot afford the space or childrearing costs for more - for lower classes eligible for government assistance such as the un(der)employed the situation does look different as society picks up large parts of the tab. Additionally, ever rising requirements in employment criteria make it necessary to invest more and more into their education: up until maybe 2-3 decades ago, even a school dropout could work in construction, a factory, retail, farm or mine and make a relatively decent living. But these jobs have largely gone away to China/India or to automation, so the few employment options for "undereducated" people are highly contested.
And so, the kid must turn out perfect: there is no room for the kid to make mistakes, especially not ones that endanger their career prospects, and hence all the helicopter parenting.
On top of all of that come decades of media/politician "fear brainwashings" (aka, the "pedo child-snatcher van" myth), as well as the legitimate collapse of a high-trust society (homeless, drunk and mentally ill people literally everywhere in major cities; police simply not enforcing laws any more).
Sure they can. Early North American settlers lived in tiny, one room log cabins, and raised those 3+ children in them just fine. Homes that small are not even allowed in most jurisdictions these days. The middle class have way more space to work with these days.
Let's face it, the reality is that middle class people just don't want children. It's not 'cool' to have children. Society says you need a career instead, and so that's what most people buy into and turn their attention towards.
Logically, yes, but the parent comment is saying that you have to contend with Mrs. Busy Body who won't be happy seeing your children in the "unsafe" lakes and rivers. You're considered an "asshole" if your kids are anything more than porcelain dolls to show off to guests. Letting kids be kids is unthinkable in this day of age.
Poor people aren't apt to care if someone thinks they are an asshole, but the middle class people we're talking about feel like they have to keep up appearances for some reason. And, so, they miss out on having children they claim they want because of it. Strange, but that's people for ya. They don't put much thought into things.
> Logically, yes, but the parent comment is saying that you have to contend with Mrs. Busy Body who won't be happy seeing your children in the "unsafe" lakes and rivers. You're considered an "asshole" if your kids are anything more than porcelain dolls to show off to guests. Letting kids be kids is unthinkable in this day of age.
whoever thinks this is true is either in a thought bubble or have surrounded themselves with shitty people.
none of this is anywhere near true for me, but I live in flyover country. Who knows, perhaps we're lucky that the dicks fly over rather than land and stay.
Not true, or you personally just don't care enough to think about it? Let's say someone literally approached you and your kids in the river and called you an asshole for subjecting your kids to that "unsafe" environment – would you be offended and scurry back home as quickly as possible or would you laugh at them and get back to the water?
Let me get this straight, your supposition here is that I'm at the river with my kids and someone else, who is also at the river, gets offended about being at the river with kids and comes and calls me an asshole.
Let me draw a far more likely scenario, so likely I've actually seen it.
You're at the river with lots of people with kids and teenagers of various ages. One kid disappears under the water. Every adult and teenager goes diving into the water, as in full on sprint from the bank into the water. Kid gets pulled out of the water and everyone is concerned regardless of whose kid it is.
Given the complete lack of situational awareness presented here, I guess we will have to assume someone could straight up call you an asshole to your face and you wouldn't even notice. Not a bad way to live life, to be fair.
> Early North American settlers lived in tiny, one room log cabins, and raised those 3+ children in them just fine. Homes that small are not even allowed in most jurisdictions these days. The middle class have way more space to work with these days.
Sure, but... who wants to go back to the days of the early settlers "living" in such conditions? We're in 2024, not 1607 after all. As a species, as a society we should progress, not regress. Just because our ancestors had to live in filth, it doesn't mean we have to as well.
> Let's face it, the reality is that middle class people just don't want children. It's not 'cool' to have children.
Anecdata ahead: many of my relatively middle-ish class friends want children but no one can afford them - the biggest road block is of course housing (the market is completely dead here in Germany - sales aren't happening because everyone fears the market correction / to realize a value depreciation, and rentals are routinely at 300+ interested candidates for a single apartment), but also a lack of stable career perspective: academia is a shitshow of limited-term contracts anyway, government doesn't pay anywhere near enough to be competitive with the private sector (usually about 60-70%, but IT and legal staff <<40%), NGOs pay even less than government, and the only way to get raises in the private sector outside of highly competitive unionized shops is to regularly churn companies which has the downside you're the first one to be on the chop block in case of layoffs.
Back in '91 when I was born, a lowly police officer could support a family on his own, even in a big city like Munich. Nowadays? Completely impossible.
> Sure, but... who wants to go back to the days of the early settlers "living" in such conditions?
Those who want to have children. But I agree, people don't want children, they want other things in life. And fair enough. It is their life to live as they see fit.
> many of my relatively middle-ish class friends want children but no one can afford them - the biggest road block is of course housing
So they say. But really, they're just complaining about the housing situation using a device that they hope will pull on the right heart strings (and most likely are just repeating what they heard someone else say). Let's face it: Whatever housing they've already got, even if just a tent, will be fine for the children. Children don't care.
> Back in '91 when I was born, a lowly police officer could support a family on his own, even in a big city like Munich. Nowadays? Completely impossible.
Or, perhaps, children were the contributors that made those things possible? We don't have to go too far back in history to find a time where adults were unable to survive without children. Being able to opt to not have children today is a luxury afforded to those well off (yes, that includes the middle class).
People want their children to have good standards of living, too. Certainly there is a sense that bringing out a child to live in squalid conditions is irresponsible, even reprehensible, no?
> We don't have to go too far back in history to find a time where adults were unable to survive without children. Being able to opt to not have children today is a luxury afforded to those well off (yes, that includes the middle class).
That was when children helped on the farm or with odd jobs to earn extra income. You're talking about industrialization and child labor laws, not luxury or even class.
> Whatever housing they've already got, even if just a tent, will be fine for the children. Children don't care.
This is just hyperbole on verge of trolling. Yes, those kids in Dorothea Lange photos sure look like they're having a good time.
> People want their children to have good standards of living, too.
The average woman in Niger will have seven children. Clearly that's a good enough standard of living, else they would have no children by your logic.
You can't provide a better life to one child, let alone seven, than someone in Niger? And if not, how do you explain your parents? That means they had no trouble bringing you into a horrible existence. Something doesn't quite add up here.
> You're talking about industrialization and child labor laws
I agree that industrialization was the catalyst that made everyone richer, allowing them to no longer need children to support them. In the first world, even the poorest people are much, much, much richer today than rich people were in earlier times.
People living where the standard for middle class families is fewer than seven children usually find having seven children to be expensive, leading to dips in standards of living. They do not want to live at the standard of the average seven children Nigerien family. Certainly, if they were able to have seven children and still be comfortable, that might be an option, but then they would no longer be considered middle class.
> You can't provide a better life to one child, let alone seven, than someone in Niger?
We are not talking about having no children. We are talking about why people might have one or two children instead of more. The focus of this conversation is on costs of living, of which housing is the chief expense. More children means more space means more cost.
Yet, hilariously, the average home size keeps on growing. Where I live, the average home built today is 25% larger than in 1990 and 100%+ larger than the average house prior to 1950. There is a pretty strong inverse correlation between family size and housing size – as families get smaller, houses get bigger.
It seems people have no trouble bearing the cost of larger housing. They just don't want to fill them with people. Again, because people don't want the children.
Why would they? You don't need the 'mule' anymore. Rich people can hire someone else from outside of the family to do the work. Today, you don't need a kid slaving away in the kitchen to ensure you are fed, you can simply go to McDonalds.
A cursory glance as to why housing might be increasing while family sizes are not mentions that an 87.4% increase over the past two decades in Americans aged 25–34 living at home in 2021. With more adult children living with aged parents, the need in space is understandably different from those of young children. And one would reason those adult kids are at home because of economic reasons, thus casting doubt that there is an equal increase in wealth at all levels of society.
Also, while past generations may have expected much from children in terms of work, I don’t think forcing kids to literally cook supper was a typical responsibility.
> And one would reason those adult kids are at home because of economic reasons
No doubt. Poor people have always had to leave their family behind to make a go of life. There weren't enough resources found "at home" to support multiple adult generations. But when one is rich, they don't have to set out unto the world. They can bring the resources to where they already are.
> I don’t think forcing kids to literally cook supper was a typical responsibility.
Alone? Probably not. Alongside a parent? Most definitely. There wasn't enough time in the day to get everything done if you didn't have their help. I will also note that rich people today also have modern kitchen appliances to further replace those children, so even if you're not going to McDonalds, you're probably using things like a food processor and dishwasher to do the work the children would have historically done. So, again, no need for the 'mule'.
Historically multi-generation homes are the norm, so that would put assertions like “poor people have always had to leave their family behind to make a go of life” into grave doubt.
> you're probably using things like a food processor and dishwasher to do the work the children would have historically done
That recontextualizes your earlier statements, which are made even more dubious. Chopping vegetables and handwashing dishes are chores, not “slaving away in the kitchen.”
> Historically multi-generation homes are the norm
Where the people were rich, sure. Of course you were going to have all the generations living in your castle. Why wouldn't you? But for a poor family in that 200 sq.ft. thatch hut? Yeah, no.
> Chopping vegetables and handwashing dishes are chores, not “slaving away in the kitchen.”
Fine, slave away in the dining room. I don't care where the actual chore was done. The significance is the act, not the precise location.
> for most of American history, multigenerational living has been the norm, not the exception. […] Throughout the 19th century, most Americans lived in a multigenerational household, with a majority of elderly Americans living with an adult child. The main driver of this living arrangement was the country’s agrarian economy. For farmers, there was an incentive to have many children, as this meant more help around the farm. It was common for one child to remain at the farm after reaching adulthood to continue working with the anticipation of eventually inheriting it. If more than one child stayed, the land was sometimes divided between children, forming smaller farms.
You must have copied the wrong account, then. The American farmer in the 19th century owned their land. They were not under serfdom. These were quite wealthy people. By the 19th century, anyone who was poor was relegated to the city.
> The act is not “slaving away,” it is a common chore.
Is there something actually here or are you just trying to go down some silly semantic rabbit hole because you don't want to admit that people don't have children simply because they don't want to have children?
Your entire line of “argumentation” is based on half-truths and half-cocked understandings that is not based on historical reality. This, I suspect, has thoroughly skewed your understanding of how humans act and should be addressed in the next model version.
> So they say. But really, they're just complaining about the housing situation using a device that they hope will pull on the right heart strings (and most likely are just repeating what they heard someone else say). Let's face it: Whatever housing they've already got, even if just a tent, will be fine for the children. Children don't care.
Quite a cynical reply. Social services will care if you try to raise a child in a tent here where temperatures are freezing. And the child will prefer better lodging after a single sleepover with the neighbor kids.
> Social services will care if you try to raise a child in a tent here where temperatures are freezing.
Sure, so as you point out there is absolutely no reason why you can't have children, even if you are in the most dire of straights[1]. As you point out, other people will happily help you out with those children if you are struggling to make it on your own.
The only reason to not have children is because you don't want them. Anything else is a lame excuse.
[1] Of course, we're specifically talking about middle class people here. Middle class people don't live in tents. They live in comparatively large houses that are far bigger than would ever be necessary to raise many children. Even if they wanted to live in smaller houses, must jurisdictions don't allow it.
Interesting that you believe a “comparatively large” house is the same thing as a giant house.
I guess that’s why the average home built today is ~100% bigger than an average home built 100 years earlier - ironically, when people actually had large families. No concept of what large even is.
