s/o things that are changing because fewer kids are being born

[mommyoffive]

2 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

It wasn't a factor for us but its a conversation I've had a dozen times sitting on park benches with moms listening to them talk through trying to decide to go for the next one or not, or if they should go ahead and get the mini van after the first one or two in case they decide that three or four is what they want they'll already have the car.   Almost everyone says that stopping at three or four is partly to avoid needing the next size up in car, almost no one wants to drive the 12 passenger vans.

We got our first minivan either right before number 2 or right after the kid was born.  I can't remember.  I don't think we thought we would have more just that it was easier to get kids in and out of a minivan and an automatic door.  But yeah if our life was different I could see the step up to a bigger vehicle not being an issue.  But at that point when we were thinking about #6  we were commuting 2-3 hours a day for ballet.  And that was 6-7 days a week so the cost of gas would have really hurt us going up. At this point a 6th kid wouldn't really have been a huge issue in the  car as much was all of us don't go in the van all that much.  

[Clarita]

14 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

The issue with food and with people starving is that that is a distribution choice.  We have plenty of food in this country and in the world overall, we waste more than enough food to cover every hungry person, estimates are up to 1/3 of ALL food is wasted. 

This part is actually kind of crazy. My friend was on an email list or something for free food for a while. It was staggering the amount of free food she could get. Absolutely distribution is a problem. So the foods she was foods with best buy dates of today, undesirable foods (a pre-processed food that didn't meet the standard - edible but the flavor is not within tolerance), restaurants/other food service establishments messed up their ordering, many  times packaged in bulk, etc. So it's not like a family who does need the food can actually get and use the food either - definitely not all the time. I know some of the distribution had more of a schedule, but others were more last minute (a bakery made too much bread for the day, come and get it RIGHT NOW).

This is wasted food outside of what a food pantry wants to take because it's unpredictable and not always "good" food.   

[Clarita]

7 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

It wasn't a factor for us but its a conversation I've had a dozen times sitting on park benches with moms listening to them talk through trying to decide to go for the next one or not, or if they should go ahead and get the mini van after the first one or two in case they decide that three or four is what they want they'll already have the car.   Almost everyone says that stopping at three or four is partly to avoid needing the next size up in car, almost no one wants to drive the 12 passenger vans.

It's definitely a conversation to move up from whatever single person commuter car you had to the minivan and then further on up to a passenger van. We actually decided to move up to a mini-van for two kids because DH couldn't fit into the cars we had with both carseats. From a gas mileage standpoint our minivan was comparable to other cars who could also handle two carseats plus DH. Minivans aren't cheap cars. 

[busymama7]

For sure the car situation is huge in deciding family size.   It comes up in pretty much every single conversation around kids and how many to have.   We drove a passenger van and I was happy to because I wanted a big family. But there are people who have told me they would have had more except they didn't want to drive one.  I have a daughter in law, newly married in, who won't have more kids than can fit in an SUV or minivan.

[SKL]

When my sister heard I was adopting two kids (my only 2 kids), she said, "you'll need an SUV or minivan now."  No I won't.  I still drive a [hybrid] sedan, even with a dog and 2 kids who've had as many as 7 different sports/arts activities in one day.  (Granted, we don't play the cello / bass.)

It's now time to start thinking about future car plans.  My car is 10 years old, and my kids are 17yo licensed drivers whose near future includes jobs in different cities and commutes to college.  I was thrilled to note that we have a regional transit bus stop not far from home, but they were less thrilled.

One of my challenges is to get my kids out of their entitled mindset.  They can talk a good game about how terrible their predecessors were to the environment, but they don't want to hear about the fact that their current actions and expectations are worse than ours ever were.  I suspect my kids aren't alone in this.

[prairiewindmomma]

Re: food waste—it’s estimated about 40% of it happens in homes, a bit more than that in restaurants and grocery stores, and the remaining bit along supply chain lines.

Ds had a job in a grocery store. They would receive pallets of perishable fruit and veg that would need to go straight into the dumpster because it was spoiled. Deliveries happen so fast that not all of it was immediately rejectable. 
 

Like many problems, not everything is in the control of the end consumer.

[SKL]

I am curious ... how many boardies and their siblings had more, less, or the same number of kids as their parents?

My folks had 6 kids, though I think they only intended to have 3.

Of the 6 kids, the two oldest each had 1 kid (not counting steps).  Then me, I adopted 2.  Younger sib had 2, and the others had zero.  So all told, my folks' 6 kids had a total of 4 biological grandkids.  (There won't be more, given our ages.)

Why?  I think the fact that we didn't marry young (or at all) may have been the biggest factor.  Partly that it led to more mature choices, partly that it may have impacted the couples' fertility and related things.  Also a likely factor was better birth control options.

[prairiewindmomma]

Larger families may be more efficient when everyone is under the same roof—a pot of soup, hand me down clothes, etc. but a household of 8 eventually becomes 7 separate households as children become adults and move out. A family of 4 becomes 3 households. There are differences down the line.

[prairiewindmomma]

5 minutes ago, SKL said:

I am curious ... how many boardies and their siblings had more, less, or the same number of kids as their parents?

My folks had 6 kids, though I think they only intended to have 3.

Of the 6 kids, the two oldest each had 1 kid (not counting steps).  Then me, I adopted 2.  Younger sib had 2, and the others had zero.  So all told, my folks' 6 kids had a total of 4 biological grandkids.  (There won't be more, given our ages.)

Why?  I think the fact that we didn't marry young (or at all) may have been the biggest factor.  Partly that it led to more mature choices, partly that it may have impacted the couples' fertility and related things.  Also a likely factor was better birth control options.

I have one sibling. We had four children initially, intending to stop, but after a child died we had another. Dh grew up in a family of 4 and felt 4 was the “right” number. 
 

I had my doctorate before I had kid1. Dh was well established in his career. Maturity wasnt the issue, we were in a conservative religion that encouraged large families.

[mommyoffive]

8 minutes ago, SKL said:

I am curious ... how many boardies and their siblings had more, less, or the same number of kids as their parents?

My folks had 6 kids, though I think they only intended to have 3.

Of the 6 kids, the two oldest each had 1 kid (not counting steps).  Then me, I adopted 2.  Younger sib had 2, and the others had zero.  So all told, my folks' 6 kids had a total of 4 biological grandkids.  (There won't be more, given our ages.)

Why?  I think the fact that we didn't marry young (or at all) may have been the biggest factor.  Partly that it led to more mature choices, partly that it may have impacted the couples' fertility and related things.  Also a likely factor was better birth control options.

My grandma had 4 kids

My mom had 2 kids

I have 5 kids.  My sibling has none.

[Pawz4me]

3 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Re: food waste—it’s estimated about 40% of it happens in homes

I've seen this statistic (or ones that are very similar) before, and it boggles my mind. We waste very little food. If I had to guess I'd say at most five percent (probably significantly less). That's assuming we're not counting things like apple cores, banana or potato peels, the thick end stems from broccoli and similar things. The tradeoff is that we don't eat as wide a variety of foods as we could. I tend to only buy what I know will be consumed. It makes me wonder what other people are doing to waste so much--is it poor management, like buying foods and not using them before they go bad, or not liking leftovers or . . what? It's hard for me to comprehend how a person or family could waste that much of the food they buy.

 

1 minute ago, SKL said:

I am curious ... how many boardies and their siblings had more, less, or the same number of kids as their parents?

My folks had 6 kids, though I think they only intended to have 3.

Of the 6 kids, the two oldest each had 1 kid (not counting steps).  Then me, I adopted 2.  Younger sib had 2, and the others had zero.  So all told, my folks' 6 kids had a total of 4 biological grandkids.  (There won't be more, given our ages.)

Why?  I think the fact that we didn't marry young (or at all) may have been the biggest factor.  Partly that it led to more mature choices, partly that it may have impacted the couples' fertility and related things.  Also a likely factor was better birth control options.

My sibling and I each have two kids, the same number as our parents.

Our reasoning (mine and DH's) was simple and pragmatic--we didn't want to be outnumbered, and we didn't want more kids than we were certain we could easily provide for, including covering college costs.

[busymama7]

My family of origin has 6 kids, my husband's as well.   We had 10, raising 9 as one died at birth.  I wanted 12 to be honest but I didn't get pregnant again after my last even though we didn't prevent.   My siblings had 8,2,4 and 5 kids (one of my siblings died in childhood) and my husbands siblings had 0, 6, 5, 4 and 3 just as more data points.  

I have absolutely no regrets.  My children are amazing people who are going to make a difference in the world.  4 are married and 2 have kids, there other is trying but struggling with infertility, the other is just recently married.  We just went to two college graduations this weekend and are so proud of who our kids are becoming.  They look forward to their future with hope and faith.   

Today is our 28th wedding anniversary. Our middle child called us and thanked us for marrying and giving her her best friends (her siblings if that's not obvious). 

[prairiewindmomma]

I had food waste this week.

I bought a box of strawberries that looked good  (did not open the box in the store, but I did not see mold or soft spots) as a treat as they are coming into season. I came home, put the box in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I lifted up berries to rinse them and all but one had the white stringy mold on it and soft spots. 
 

Ds made basmati rice at one point, and didnt scoop the remaining grains into the instant pot after rinsing, leaving behind a few spoonfulls. He then left the instant pot on keep warm for a bit too long so that the rice dried to the sides and bottom—losing probably 1/2 c or so, and Youngest didnt eat her rice, probably wasting another 1/2 c. 
 

Someone threw away the end slice of the bread in the loaf, it was cut oddly and was too thin for the toaster.

We had some lentil soup leftovers that no one ate—2 c. down the sink today.

I had some veg trimmings that I had to cut out due to dents and age. (Hard veg = safe to trim out, but inedible.) 

The fruit and veg waste are composted here—but it *is* waste. It is impossible to not have waste when dealing with perishable food. There will always be some. Even in my garden, we had some from veg that went from vine to composting due to bird or squirrel or insect damage. The goal is to reduce it.

 

[regentrude]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

One thing though, I think that all other things being equal, people with fewer children will consume more per capita.  

But that is true only on the short time scales while the kids grow up.

Those kids will move out, find partners, and procreate. The resources they collectively consume will be at least proportional to their number (if each only has one kid) or grow exponentially if they have as many kids as their parents did. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

33 minutes ago, SKL said:

I am curious ... how many boardies and their siblings had more, less, or the same number of kids as their parents?

My folks had 6 kids, though I think they only intended to have 3.

Of the 6 kids, the two oldest each had 1 kid (not counting steps).  Then me, I adopted 2.  Younger sib had 2, and the others had zero.  So all told, my folks' 6 kids had a total of 4 biological grandkids.  (There won't be more, given our ages.)

Why?  I think the fact that we didn't marry young (or at all) may have been the biggest factor.  Partly that it led to more mature choices, partly that it may have impacted the couples' fertility and related things.  Also a likely factor was better birth control options.

I had significantly less, but my parents had 9 with 8 surviving to adulthood.  So they are outliers.

My sibling with the most kids has 4.  I have 3, the rest have two or three.  None of us wanted a big family.  I would have had four if I physically could have.

I am shopping for a new car and honestly having three kids plays into that a bit. I really would prefer a sedan for better gas mileage and all, especially since I now travel frequently for work and don’t have all the kids with me most of the time, but they also won’t all fit in the car along with sporting gear and such. It’s kind of an issue actually.

[Corraleno]

13 minutes ago, SKL said:

I am curious ... how many boardies and their siblings had more, less, or the same number of kids as their parents?

My folks had 6 kids, though I think they only intended to have 3.

Of the 6 kids, the two oldest each had 1 kid (not counting steps).  Then me, I adopted 2.  Younger sib had 2, and the others had zero.  So all told, my folks' 6 kids had a total of 4 biological grandkids.  (There won't be more, given our ages.)

Why?  I think the fact that we didn't marry young (or at all) may have been the biggest factor.  Partly that it led to more mature choices, partly that it may have impacted the couples' fertility and related things.  Also a likely factor was better birth control options.

My parents had 4 kids, and then my mother had 1 more when she remarried. I have 2 and my siblings had 2, 0, 3, 2 (twins). My stepmom had 4 with her first husband, and her kids had 2, 2, 3, 3. Of my nieces/nephews (including steps) that have had kids so far, there's 3, 2, 2, 0, 0, 0 (the last 3 do not ever want kids). Pretty much everyone in my generation and my kids' generation wanted either 2 kids or no kids; in most of the families with 3 kids, #3 was an accident. 

[Pawz4me]

1 minute ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I had food waste this week.

I bought a box of strawberries that looked good  (did not open the box in the store, but I did not see mold or soft spots) as a treat as they are coming into season. I came home, put the box in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I lifted up berries to rinse them and all but one had the white stringy mold on it and soft spots. 
 

Ds made basmati rice at one point, and didnt scoop the remaining grains into the instant pot after rinsing, leaving behind a few spoonfulls. He then left the instant pot on keep warm for a bit too long so that the rice dried to the sides and bottom—losing probably 1/2 c or so, and Youngest didnt eat her rice, probably wasting another 1/2 c. 
 

Someone threw away the end slice of the bread in the loaf, it was cut oddly and was too thin for the toaster.

We had some lentil soup leftovers that no one ate—2 c. down the sink today.

I had some veg trimmings that I had to cut out due to dents and age. (Hard veg = safe to trim out, but inedible.) 

The fruit and veg waste are composted here—but it *is* waste. It is impossible to not have waste when dealing with perishable food. There will always be some. Even in my garden, we had some from veg that went from vine to composting due to bird or squirrel or insect damage. The goal is to reduce it.

 

But I take a little issue (not with you, with the people who compile these statistics) with saying forty percent of food waste happens in the home if it includes things that are inedible at the time of purchase. That seems like a misleading statistic to me. It's not your fault you had the misfortune of getting bad berries despite being diligent in your purchase. Veggies will almost always need some amount of trimming. Should those trimmings be counted as waste if they weren't edible (by a reasonable person standard) to begin with? That doesn't seem logical to me. Does it count as waste if it's fed to an animal (not that I'd feed moldy berries to an animal)?

Now sure if I don't plan well and I buy a bunch of veg and then don't use them before they go bad that's on me for being a poor planner. 

Two cups of soup? Here that would absolutely have gone into the freezer for later use (realizing that not everyone has freezer space for things like that).

(I know the food waste discussion is a little bit of a tangent and I don't want to derail. Just airing a bit about a tiny pet peeve regarding the statistic.)

[prairiewindmomma]

1 minute ago, Pawz4me said:

But I take a little issue (not with you, with the people who compile these statistics) with saying forty percent of food waste happens in the home if it includes things that are inedible at the time of purchase. That seems like a misleading statistic to me. It's not your fault you had the misfortune of getting bad berries despite being diligent in your purchase. Veggies will almost always need some amount of trimming. Should those trimmings be counted as waste if they weren't edible (by a reasonable person standard) to begin with? That doesn't seem logical to me. Does it count as waste if it's fed to an animal (not that I'd feed moldy berries to an animal)?

Now sure if I don't plan well and I buy a bunch of veg and then don't use them before they go bad that's on me for being a poor planner. 

Two cups of soup? Here that would absolutely have gone into the freezer for later use (realizing that not everyone has freezer space for things like that).

(I know the food waste discussion is a little bit of a tangent and I don't want to derail. Just airing a bit about a tiny pet peeve regarding the statistic.)

I suspect I balance out other households in my extended family, statistically. My nephew eats two bites of yogurt, and his mom throws the rest away. Same with nearly everything else on the plate. Elderly relative is the same. Sibling orders out extensively, never eats the leftovers. Fruit and veg compost on the countertop and in the fridge and are largely not eaten. They easily throw out over 50% of what they buy—probably closer to 60-70%.
 

Re: my soup. We are short on space right now in glassware for storage as well as freezer space. No one really liked the new recipe, so it didnt get picked for lunch leftovers. (We are rarely all home for meals, so we have a leftovers stash so as people get home at 10pm or 1 am they can reheat and eat.)

But, yes, the berries on my karma tab for food waste are irritating. 

[prairiewindmomma]

In my area, because we have fewer kids being born, our retail store allocations are changing. The baby/kid sections of clothing and toys are smaller than they were, and adult clothing and household decor have expanded.

ETA: We are also getting more MudBay (pet store) locations and fewer childcare chains. 
 

I know housing costs factor into a lot of childbearing here. People who dont earn enough to drop roommates are less likely to marry and even people who marry who can only afford a studio or 1BR are less likely to have kids knowing they’ll need a 2BR apt.

I have three single male cousins in their 30s, never married, who all want kids but arent likely to have them at this point due to finances. 

Edited April 27 by prairiewindmomma

[SKL]

47 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Larger families may be more efficient when everyone is under the same roof—a pot of soup, hand me down clothes, etc. but a household of 8 eventually becomes 7 separate households as children become adults and move out. A family of 4 becomes 3 households. There are differences down the line.

Not necessarily.  Having learned to share as the default, I assume that impacts future lifestyle decisions.

The above also ignores the fact that a good % of adults don't move out to live alone for the rest of their lives, but often move in with another person or people, and sometimes stay in their parents' home.  Mathematically (but simplified), it would make more sense to say 2 families of 4 likely create 2 new households (4 married young adults who may have their own kids).  But meanwhile, older people are dying, so all that's happening is replacement in that scenario.  2 households of 8 likely create 6 new households (3 per FOO), maybe fewer.  And then, their families may have relatively more frugal habits than folks raised as only children.

[regentrude]

2 hours ago, maize said:

The evidence I have seen suggests that the environmental impact of a household tracks primarily with household income and wealth, not with the number of people in the household.

So yeah.

But again, that's for the single household while they are children. A family with a large number of kids will result in a larger number of households once the kids are grown.

[Tenaj]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

I am curious ... how many boardies and their siblings had more, less, or the same number of kids as their parents?

My folks had 6 kids, though I think they only intended to have 3.

Of the 6 kids, the two oldest each had 1 kid (not counting steps).  Then me, I adopted 2.  Younger sib had 2, and the others had zero.  So all told, my folks' 6 kids had a total of 4 biological grandkids.  (There won't be more, given our ages.)

Why?  I think the fact that we didn't marry young (or at all) may have been the biggest factor.  Partly that it led to more mature choices, partly that it may have impacted the couples' fertility and related things.  Also a likely factor was better birth control options.

My parents had 4. (I know they only planned three)  We have eight, my brother's have 4, 3 and 2 so 17 kids between us.

 

My husband's parents had two.  His sister (unmarried) has none.  His family goes back at least four generations in the pattern of two kids, male then female, male married and has two, female doesn't marry or have children.  His family was very tiny before our expansion of the family tree.

It remains to be seen what our kids do.  Oldest has five, second oldest has 1.  So six grandkids so far 

Vehicle size is interesting to me.  My original family has 4 kids before car seats.  We always drove six seater cars.  Three in the front, three in the back.  On Sunday nights we would pile into my Grandma's Buick Century with 3 in the front and four in the back.  We lived rural so no highways to church and back. Wouldn't be legal or possible now and we would never do it because our trip to church involves 25 minutes on a highway at highway speeds.  Totally different life.

We started out our married lives with a tiny Ford Probe.  When kidlet#3  came we bought a station wagon and kept it until between #4 and 5.  Then we went to a Astro van because it could seat 8 and eventually to the 12 passenger van.  We bought our two big vans used from my dh's employer so we always got good deals.  Our last big van is still in our driveway though we have no need of it - my dh is having a hard time with our shrinking family - my Nissan Altima is plenty big enough for us now but he sees the end of an era.  

All that to say, car size was never a factor for us but we were also very willing (and did) drive older cars/vans until they died which changes the cost dramatically.  Now that I'm older I'm definitely enjoying the perks of newer cars (back up cameras, heated seats, remote starts). But, we didn't know what we were missing all those years before when we were managing with lots of kids 

 

[prairiewindmomma]

It’s linear growth, not exponential, but it’s still growth.

[busymama7]

1 hour ago, prairiewindmomma said:

 

 

I know housing costs factor into a lot of childbearing here. People who dont earn enough to drop roommates are less likely to marry and even people who marry who can only afford a studio or 1BR are less likely to have kids knowing they’ll need a 2BR apt.

I have three single male cousins in their 30s, never married, who all want kids but arent likely to have them at this point due to finances. 

I wonder what the difference is.  My son is 27, has 2 kids and owns a house much more expensive than the one he grew up in or we have now.  Other son is 24, just graduated college this weekend, has one child and is moving back to the same city as us and already has savings to go towards a house.  Both of the moms stay home by choice and plan to homeschool. I have two other married kids who are doing fine also while still in college.  One couple is waiting a bit for kids but it won't be all that much longer (1-3 years if I had to guess) and the other has been trying for 3+ years.  

They *were* raised with very low expectations as far as money.  Money was very tight growing up although they never went without.  All but one of the cars the 4 couples drive is old and they still frequent thrift shops etc as we did growing up.   They know how to cook at home and eat simple but nutritious meals.  To be honest they have more disposable income for things like eating out than my husband and I did when in college and with a young family.  I hear people here say how dismal the future is for the upcoming generation and I'm just not seeing it.  We did have college as an expectation which of course has increased their earning power. We have 3 graduates plus their spouses and 4 currently attending (including inlaws) and not a penny of student loans.  They have worked very hard and a combination of that and scholarships has allowed debt free college for all.   And they are good and hard workers which has at least something to do with being raised in large family with lots of chores and expectations.

We are on the west coast but not California. I don't have a reference really for what it's like on the east coast as far as cost of living and such.   I'm sure there are a variety of different situations that don't match mine.   But this is my reality. 

Edited April 27 by busymama7

[Carrie12345]

2 hours ago, SKL said:

I am curious ... how many boardies and their siblings had more, less, or the same number of kids as their parents?

My folks had 6 kids, though I think they only intended to have 3.

Of the 6 kids, the two oldest each had 1 kid (not counting steps).  Then me, I adopted 2.  Younger sib had 2, and the others had zero.  So all told, my folks' 6 kids had a total of 4 biological grandkids.  (There won't be more, given our ages.)

Why?  I think the fact that we didn't marry young (or at all) may have been the biggest factor.  Partly that it led to more mature choices, partly that it may have impacted the couples' fertility and related things.  Also a likely factor was better birth control options.

We’re all over the map. My grandparents on both sides had 3 who lived to adulthood. On one side, those had 3, 2, 0. On the other, 3, 3, 0.

I’m one of 3 for my mom, 4 for my father. I have 5, next has 1, and the youngest (turning 40) has 2. Neither of my sisters are married. Well, one was, had a miscarriage, and divorced before kids. I’m the only one who had kids in their 20s. One of them on purpose, lol. 

[SKL]

I do feel like young people have higher expectations on average than I grew up with.  I know this is not a universal opinion.  I think young people really do not understand how much easier a lot of things have become.  And I guess it's politically incorrect to tell them ... which makes it not true apparently.

[busymama7]

Also those estimates of that is costs to have a baby are so ridiculous as to not even be taken seriously.  We were frugal.  I had very few baby gadgets instead preferring to wear my babies in carriers I sewed myself.  We used cloth diapers for babies 3-8.  We thrifted and gratefully accepted hand me downs. I breast fed and did what is now called baby led weaning. Sure older kids cost more with activities and such but even that hasn't been anything like the estimates I see.  We taught our kids not to wait for kids until the could "afford" it because by the worlds standards that would never happen. But my grandkids are well taken care and happy and healthy.  Even though their parents aren't spending anywhere near that amount of money on them.  It's consumerism and totally unnecessary.    We are deeply religious and have an eternal view on families and children. And we are happy and content with less money but lots of joy.  

[regentrude]

None of my friends' choice of family size was dictated by car size. The limiting factor was usually their ability to balance raising kids with the demands of their professions.

[regentrude]

13 minutes ago, busymama7 said:

Also those estimates of that is costs to have a baby are so ridiculous as to not even be taken seriously.  

The biggest expense is not the stuff, but childcare - or the loss of the SAHM's income. You have to figure that into the calculation.

(ETA: for me, four years of being a SAHM were career-ending, reduced my future income irrecoverably, and ten years of working part-time while mothering had severe consequences for my retirement I will never be able to make up. The decision to have children has cost me several hundred thousand dollars over my lifetime, and that's not including a single dollar spent on stuff or the college tuition. To be clear, I'm okay with my choices, but let's not pretend it doesn't come at a cost.)

Edited April 27 by regentrude

[busymama7]

7 minutes ago, regentrude said:

The biggest expense is not the stuff, but childcare - or the loss of the SAHM's income. You have to figure that into the calculation.

Sure. But my kids were raised in a single income household and my boys were raised with the expectation that they would most likely be supporting a family on their single income so they better plan accordingly.   And they have and they are doing great.  My girls worked or are working through college but chose/are choosing carefully a career that could be done from home if needed.   We taught them that nothing can replace a parent at home and they are doing that and doing it well.   It comes down to values and choices.  And some people chose a career over a family but it's not accurate to make it seem it's only about money.   

[Faith-manor]

This is the last I will say and then bow out. Yes, food waste is an issue. Distribution is a massive issue. But the point is crop decimation means there won't be enough food to waste much less to go around especially given how spent the soil is. The science is very clear on this. Dust Bowls are coming. Droughts that make the 20+ year California drought look like a little fret over nothing. Potable water for people to live is going to be a huge issue. This isn't about distributing resources. Yes. That is the issue now. I am talking about the near future, by 2050 and very likely before that. The resources will not be there even IF we manage to unite the globe in some sort of peaceful, share and share alike, United Federation of Planets scenario. 

The earth simply cannot support the expected 9.5 billion people, not when it has been so badly raped and pillaged. Economies and nations must simply brace for this, and stop trying to incentivize reproduction.

Supposedly it costs $237,000 now to raise a child to 18. I have no idea exactly how that number is derived, so it might be too high to be representative of most families. However, I think it is safe to say that the cost of feeding, housing, paying for medical care, school supplies, clothing, personal care, and an extra curricular activity or two over 18 years is well north of $100,000 for sure not to mention licensing them at 16 to drive or helping to launch them into adulthood. If the cost of a minivan is a bridge too far in terms of having another child, then likely one simply cannot afford another one even if the car was not an issue.

I will now slink away. 

[regentrude]

7 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

The earth simply cannot support the expected 9.5 billion people, not when it has been so badly raped and pillaged. Economies and nations must simply brace for this, and stop trying to incentivize reproduction.

Qft.

In the short term, shrinking aging societies will  certainly create problems. But in the long term, there is no alternative to reigning in unfettered human reproduction. Some young people I talk to now consider it unethical to have large families. It's not the cost of the minivan that stops them. It's recognizing that humanity cannot afford an increasing population, and that limiting family size is part of good stewardship of resources.

Edited April 27 by regentrude

[Rosie_0801]

3 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

It makes me wonder what other people are doing to waste so much--is it poor management, like buying foods and not using them before they go bad, or not liking leftovers or . . what? It's hard for me to comprehend how a person or family could waste that much of the food they buy.

Anything that makes people fragile. An autoimmune flare up, for example. 

[maize]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

Qft.

In the short term, shrinking aging societies will  certainly create problems. But in the long term, there is no alternative to reigning in unfettered human reproduction. Some young people I talk to now consider it unethical to have large families. It's not the cost of the minivan that stops them. It's recognizing that humanity cannot afford an increasing population, and that limiting family size is part of good stewardship of resources.

I don't know why anyone is concerned about unfettered human reproduction. It is clear that, for whatever complex combination of reasons, fertility rates continue to drop worldwide. We've already passed the point of maximum children in the world by nearly all expert population studies estimates.  Nobody is expecting human populations to keep increasing indefinitely.

That doesn't in any way mean that human usage of resources isn't going to keep increasing. As has already been pointed out many times in this thread, per-capita consumption of resources has been increasing at a much faster rate than populations, especially in the developed world. 

We need to deal with the realities of an aging population with fewer young, healthy people to support it; I do think that means that any rapid and drastic population decrease could not be collectively healthy, and that is a matter that does deserve policy attention. Eldercare and social security systems in many countries are already strained and we've barely begun to scratch the surface of what is to come. These are real, urgent issues that cannot be ignored.

And if we are concerned about our planet, we need to drop the nonsensical presumption that a perpetually expanding economy is either possible or desirable.

But every concentrated repository of wealth and power in the world is fundamentally opposed to considering any alternatives. 

[KidsHappen]

4 hours ago, SKL said:

I am curious ... how many boardies and their siblings had more, less, or the same number of kids as their parents?

My folks had 6 kids, though I think they only intended to have 3.

Of the 6 kids, the two oldest each had 1 kid (not counting steps).  Then me, I adopted 2.  Younger sib had 2, and the others had zero.  So all told, my folks' 6 kids had a total of 4 biological grandkids.  (There won't be more, given our ages.)

Why?  I think the fact that we didn't marry young (or at all) may have been the biggest factor.  Partly that it led to more mature choices, partly that it may have impacted the couples' fertility and related things.  Also a likely factor was better birth control options.

My grandmother had 4 kids, my mom had 4 kids, I have 6 kids and I have 6 grandkids so far from my 3 oldest kids. I don't think that the next 2 will have any kids at all and my youngest plans on 2.

[Pawz4me]

1 hour ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Anything that makes people fragile. An autoimmune flare up, for example. 

I have two AI diseases. I've had my share of bad flares, but they've never led to any food waste that I can recall. When I'm flaring I don't feel like shopping so we eat from the freezer. Those are the times we start pulling out the leftovers that were frozen to avoid wasting them.

ETA: FWIW -- my father was old enough to have lived through the Great Depression. He always raised us to "get whatever you want, but eat whatever you get." Not in a punitive, "eat your peas or you're not leaving the table" way, but in a not wasting food way. That applied whether we were at home or in a restaurant. So not wasting food, either by buying too much, filling my plate too much at home, or ordering too much in a restaurant, was something that was thoroughly instilled in me from birth. It's entirely possible my outlook on this is vastly different from someone who wasn't raised hearing a parent's Great Depression stories.

Edited April 27 by Pawz4me

[maize]

4 hours ago, regentrude said:

But that is true only on the short time scales while the kids grow up.

Those kids will move out, find partners, and procreate. The resources they collectively consume will be at least proportional to their number (if each only has one kid) or grow exponentially if they have as many kids as their parents did. 

Reality is far more complex than this.

Suppose a couple has three kids. Let's assume that this family now consumes approximate the same amount of the planet's resources as a single person earning the same (modest) income. Suppose this is a single-income family with one parent focusing their energy full-time on raising kids and managing a household.

If each of these kids marries and chooses a lifestyle similar to their parents, living modestly off of a single income, they and their entire family use no more of the world's resources than their spouses would potentially have used alone--that is, about half the resources each spouse would have used had they remained childless and fucused on maximizing their earnings and consumption. Net increase in resources used compared to if our original couple had no children at all? Potentially negative since, had they had no children, their income and consumption as a couple would likely be doubled with both spouses focusing on career.

As populations increase overtime, it is true that there is an increase in necessary resources used proportionate to the increase in population. Necessary resources though make up a small fraction of the resources that are actually used in wealthy societies. Necessary resource use is not a prime driver of the depletion of our natural resources in modern times. The increasing consumption happening in society is largely driven by lifestyle choices NOT by population size. And at this point in time, population increase through births is not even on the radar in most of the developed world; we're all below replacement rates. And yet our consumption soars...

Consumption of resources is not proportional to number of people; consumption of resources is proportional to assets. 

What this means is that these young people choosing to not have children and instead, in many cases, to maximize their financial status--are likely using far more of the world's resources over the course of their life than they would have otherwise. 

Oh, if nobody at all has children, human utilization of resources  eventually drops to zero...as does humanity.

That's not something I personally embrace as a goal.

[Rosie_0801]

25 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

I have two AI diseases. I've had my share of bad flares, but they've never led to any food waste that I can recall. When I'm flaring I don't feel like shopping so we eat from the freezer. Those are the times we start pulling out the leftovers that were frozen to avoid wasting them.

Most of my mates with similar issues are either alone or are partnered with other people who also have autoimmune problems. They know their best is substandard.

[regentrude]

19 minutes ago, maize said:

Consumption of resources is not proportional to number of people; consumption of resources is proportional to assets. 

I do not think you can make a blanket statement like this. It doesn't agree with my observations.

Having a higher income doesn't necessarily mean consuming more resources. It can mean being able to afford a more sustainable lifestyle, buying organic food, fair-trade products, or long-lasting clothing that was manufactured ethically and environmentally friendly - as opposed to buying the cheap, short-lived sweatshop stuff from Walmart. This is how I see many young people make ethical purchasing choices - choices they have the financial ability to make. 

Cheap food and cheap stuff isn't resource-conserving or sustainable, and having funds to choose more ethically produced goods doesn't make a person consume more resources.

Eta: I see this approach especially among younger and more educated people. They put their money where their mouth is and often eschew the rampant consumerism of their elders who drown in stuff.

 

 

Edited April 27 by regentrude

[Dmmetler]

6 hours ago, SKL said:

I am curious ... how many boardies and their siblings had more, less, or the same number of kids as their parents?

My folks had 6 kids, though I think they only intended to have 3.

Of the 6 kids, the two oldest each had 1 kid (not counting steps).  Then me, I adopted 2.  Younger sib had 2, and the others had zero.  So all told, my folks' 6 kids had a total of 4 biological grandkids.  (There won't be more, given our ages.)

Why?  I think the fact that we didn't marry young (or at all) may have been the biggest factor.  Partly that it led to more mature choices, partly that it may have impacted the couples' fertility and related things.  Also a likely factor was better birth control options.

I had one sibling. L is the only grandchild. My SIL had gotten a tubal before they got married (health issues that make pregnancy dangerous) and I ended up with multiple miscarriages, pregnancy loss, and eventual secondary infertility. 

 

DH was one of four. He has 1, his sister has 3. 

[Heartstrings]

6 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

I tend to only buy what I know will be consumed. It makes me wonder what other people are doing to waste so much--is it poor management, like buying foods and not using them before they go bad, or not liking leftovers or . . what? It's hard for me to comprehend how a person or family could waste that much of the food they buy.

I don't think it's families causing most of the waste.  Farmers mow under crops that won't sell for enough and throw out food that is "ugly", supermarkets over buy and toss stuff, restaurants, catering, etc. I know I was at a Jimmy John's and watched them throw away several trays of bread that looked fine but had risen funny.  I'm sure it was edible but it wasn't up to standard.    Then cities make it illegal for them to give it away or for people to take the already thrown away food out of the dumpster. 

I'm sure some of the fresh stuff from farms gets composted or fed to animals, but that's not the same as feeding hungry people.  And who knows with mega corp farms. 

[Faith-manor]

Sorry about this. I forgot to answer SKL's question before leaving the discussion, and so do want to answer that. Apologies.

I am one of three. I had 4 children, and my brother had 5. My sister has none, and never wanted to have any. 

Our 4 children: 2 are married and 1 has had 3 children. Married son and dil do not think they will have children for a whole host of reasons. The other 2 are committed bachelors who believe that it would be very selfish to bring children into the world given what is coming. 1 has had surgery to make that a permanent decision. 

From my brother's 5: Eldest son and wife do not want children and have taken permanent measures. Middle and youngest sons each have 2 children and also have had surgery to limit their family size. 1 daughter has 3 children. The other daughter, only 22, and her husband have also taken permanent measures to not procreate.

My grandparents, paternal, had 5 children. 2 had 2 children each. 2 had 3 children. 1 had 1 child. Of these 11 grandchildren, 4 have chosen not to produce. 2 had only one child. 2 have had 2 children each. 1 had 5. I have 4. 1 has 3. 

Maternal grandparents had 3 children. My mom had 3. 1 sibling had 2, and the other had none. In the next generation, my mom has 9 grandchildren, but her sister's sons had none.

Okay, back to thinking about something else.

[maize]

55 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I do not think you can make a blanket statement like this. It doesn't agree with my observations.

Individuals absolutely vary. But averaged out?

There are reasons that charts showing the countries with highest carbon emissions per capita have a huge overlap with charts showing countries with the highest GDP per capita, but not with charts of the countries with highest population growth rates. There are, of course, many factors at play here, but the correlation isn't one to ignore.

Population has never been our primary issue. It's a red herring--and if we don't acknowledge that, we are incapable of looking deeper and sorting out the real issues at play, and the real problems we need to address. To the extent that population growth was ever a valid concern, it's clearly already sorting itself out on its own.

Young adults in high-GDP countries have no valid reason to pat themselves on the shoulder for opting out of having kids under the mistaken perception that they are serving the planet by doing so. They may have other perfectly valid reasons for their choices, but this one is balderdash.

 

[regentrude]

My maternal grandmother was an only; orphaned young. She had three kids. My aunt had 2, my uncle had 2, my mom had 3.

My paternal grandmother was an only; her father was killed in ww1 and never saw his daughter. She had one child, my dad; his father was killed in ww2.

My sister has an only (born premature and disabled, sis was single mom and didn't date until my niece was an adult.) My brother is mentally disabled and has no kids. I have 2.

Dh' parents were both only kids. He has one brother.

Edited April 28 by regentrude

[maize]

I waste tons of food every year because I don't have the time to dedicate to preserving everything I grow on my quarter acre so a fair percentage of what doesn’t get eaten fresh just falls to the ground. That waste ends up feeding birds and bugs (and my chickens, directly or via the bugs!) and returning to enrich the soil. I've got more than two dozen fruit and nut trees on my lot, and grow pistachios (my favorites because if I don't get around to harvesting them all they hang on the tree all winter and are still good for eating in the spring!), walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, almonds, figs, apples, pears, cherries, plums, pluerries, mulberries, grapes, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, currants, gooseberries, nectarines, jujubes (another favorite because they are completely free from pests in my area)...I have a few others I'm trying to turn productive but haven't succeeded with yet because we're borderline for them climate-wise (I did get a single ripe pomegranate last year!)

I think my version of wasting food is far better for the environment than the perfect monoculture lawns most of my neighbors invest their resources in.

[Frances]

6 hours ago, SKL said:

Not necessarily.  Having learned to share as the default, I assume that impacts future lifestyle decisions.

The above also ignores the fact that a good % of adults don't move out to live alone for the rest of their lives, but often move in with another person or people, and sometimes stay in their parents' home.  Mathematically (but simplified), it would make more sense to say 2 families of 4 likely create 2 new households (4 married young adults who may have their own kids).  But meanwhile, older people are dying, so all that's happening is replacement in that scenario.  2 households of 8 likely create 6 new households (3 per FOO), maybe fewer.  And then, their families may have relatively more frugal habits than folks raised as only children.

An ever increasing % of adults are living alone though. It has changed significantly over the years.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/06/more-than-a-quarter-all-households-have-one-person.html

My son is an only as was my mom. I’ve seen no evidence IRL or read any research that being raised as an only makes one more or less frugal. 

[Frances]

5 hours ago, busymama7 said:

And they are good and hard workers which has at least something to do with being raised in large family with lots of chores and expectations.

Only children or those from small families can also be raised with lots of chores and expectations and become good and hard workers, both my husband and I were as was our son. My son definitely had more chores and more responsibilities than any of his friends (except those that lived on farms), as there was no one to share the chores with except us.

[J-rap]

8 hours ago, SKL said:

I am curious ... how many boardies and their siblings had more, less, or the same number of kids as their parents?

 

Kind of interesting because this has gone back and forth with both my dh's and my families over the generations:

Most of our grandparents (born in the very late 1800's) were from larger families (4-7 children).

Our parents (born in the late 1920's) were all from smaller families (2-3 children).

My own family had 3 children, and my dh's family had 7.  

We have 5 children.

I think it's very, very unlikely that any of our own children will have 5 children, and quite likely that some will have none.

 

 

[Corraleno]

 

5 hours ago, busymama7 said:

It comes down to values and choices. 

... and geography, genetics, and luck.

I have a niece who recently married a guy 10 years older than her who owns an HVAC business with his dad, plus they live in a LCOL area so they were able to buy a nice 2000 sq' fixer upper for $250K (and my BIL is a contractor who can do the work for free). They plan to have kids and can afford for my niece to be a SAHM.

My daughter would also love to have kids, but for her and her partner to be able to afford to buy a house they'd have to move to a much cheaper area far from family — which would also mean lower wages and no option for free childcare. Or they could stay here where their parents are available for childcare and resign themselves to renting for a very long time, if not forever, because no amount of "cooking at home" and "wearing thrifted clothes" is going to make up for living in an area where a 950 sq' 1960s fixer upper will set you back half a million (and then there's the cost of "fixing it up," maintenance, high property taxes, etc.). And renting is likely to constrain family size, because 3 BR apartments are very expensive and harder to find.

If DD lived in niece's area, or happened to fall in love with a guy who owned a successful business instead of someone her own age who works P/T while taking online classes, she would also have the choice of being a SAHM. And if my niece lived in my city and fell in love with someone with student loans making $20/hr, the choices available to her would be very different, even if her values were the same.

[maize]

5 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

 

... and geography, genetics, and luck.

I have a niece who recently married a guy 10 years older than her who owns an HVAC business with his dad, plus they live in a LCOL area so they were able to buy a nice 2000 sq' fixer upper for $250K (and my BIL is a contractor who can do the work for free). They plan to have kids and can afford for my niece to be a SAHM.

My daughter would also love to have kids, but for her and her partner to be able to afford to buy a house they'd have to move to a much cheaper area far from family — which would also mean lower wages and no option for free childcare. Or they could stay here where their parents are available for childcare and resign themselves to renting for a very long time, if not forever, because no amount of "cooking at home" and "wearing thrifted clothes" is going to make up for living in an area where a 950 sq' 1960s fixer upper will set you back half a million (and then there's the cost of "fixing it up," maintenance, high property taxes, etc.). And renting is likely to constrain family size, because 3 BR apartments are very expensive and harder to find.

If DD lived in niece's area, or happened to fall in love with a guy who owned a successful business instead of someone her own age who works P/T while taking online classes, she would also have the choice of being a SAHM. And if my niece lived in my city and fell in love with someone with student loans making $20/hr, the choices available to her would be very different, even if her values were the same.

The crazy cost of housing is why my family moved 13 years ago to a different state where we could afford a home. 4 kids in a 2-bedroom apartment wasn't cutting it and we couldn't afford a 3-bedroom apartment.  Most landlords won't even rent to larger families. This is a very real constraint.

Edited April 28 by maize