Being Single in Your 30s Isn’t Bad Luck, It’s a Global Phenomenon

[Elfgore]

I know Elon Musk is promising a Mars colony in the not too distant future but that all seems be riding on his unproven STARSHIP, which I'm currently waiting to see if it actually works. He hasn't even gotten a Crewed Dragon into space yet, which isn't exactly helping the "We're gonna go to Mars! Weeee!" pitch

I was able to pretty much write an entire paper for a college English class on how he's missing the forest for the trees here. What about the radiation, dust storms, and temperature? I know the logistics and infrastructure to get there is important, but it's like half the equation to making a survivable Mars colony.

 

[Sneed's SeednFeed]

This all sounds like a problem for those under 6'5", or as we like to call them in Baku, 'the unhappy ones'

 

[gorfias]

This all sounds like a problem for those under 6'5", or as we like to call them in Baku, 'the unhappy ones'

In my case, it is a problem for a dad with a daughter he does not want making the same mistakes as other women in the extended family, at least not without a good idea of the costs benefits of waiting to ones 30s to get serious about relationships, if ever. From what I'm reading, I need to ask things rather than lecture, which I will do ASAP.

 

[SupahEwok]

In my case, it is a problem for a dad with a daughter he does not want making the same mistakes as other women in the extended family, at least not without a good idea of the costs benefits of waiting to ones 30s to get serious about relationships, if ever. From what I'm reading, I need to ask things rather than lecture, which I will do ASAP.

Think my mom had me when she was 30 or 31. Waiting into your 30s isn't going to prevent you from having kids.

It will make you older when your kids are teens. Dad was 36 when I was born, which put him in his 50s in my teen years. He was old and tired while I was coming into my own. That was something regrettable, and it also makes him unlikely to be around grandkids for very long, given if I wait as long as he did (which looks likely at this point), he'll be in his 70s.

There's not really anything wrong with informing your kids of the drawbacks of waiting later, as long as you're willing to accept that they may still feel like its necessary or what they want to do. I personally think getting married and pumping out kids fresh out of college when folks don't know any better is a significant contributor to the divorce rate. There's not really a right or wrong answer as to when to have kids. Even if you get too old, foster care and adoption are options.

 

[gorfias]

Think my mom had me when she was 30 or 31. Waiting into your 30s isn't going to prevent you from having kids.

Things can become dangerous and difficult. My father and brother in law were born to moms in their late 40s without detriment to their physical health. They were lucky. By 30, a female is out some 90% of her eggs. After 40, a pregnancy is referred to as "geriatric". My wife was mid 30s when we had my daughter. We had to use drugs as her period had flat out stopped. Happily we were successful.

It will make you older when your kids are teens.

I waited too long IMHO but life is what happens to you while making other plans. with any luck, I'll see my grand kids through, maybe, grade school.

There's not really anything wrong with informing your kids of the drawbacks of waiting later, as long as you're willing to accept that they may still feel like its necessary or what they want to do. I personally think getting married and pumping out kids fresh out of college when folks don't know any better is a significant contributor to the divorce rate. There's not really a right or wrong answer as to when to have kids. Even if you get too old, foster care and adoption are options.

It isn't just having kids but husband and family. Women have power (also referred to as Sexual Marketplace Value SMV) in their late teens to very early 30s. If they are to find a mate, striking early matters. And that is part of the 30 is not the new 20 problem. Women complain, of becoming invisible as they get older. It isn't fair. But it is a reality. A female can have a lot of fun in her 20s but this can be seen as a waste if she thinks there is no cost to waiting to her 30s to get serious. I want my daughter to know this and make informed choices. In the end, I have to accept her choices. But I can ask her questions to find out if she knows the costs-benefits of her choices and interject where appropriate.

 

[Sneed's SeednFeed]

In my case, it is a problem for a dad with a daughter he does not want making the same mistakes as other women in the extended family, at least not without a good idea of the costs benefits of waiting to ones 30s to get serious about relationships, if ever. From what I'm reading, I need to ask things rather than lecture, which I will do ASAP.

Your daughter's gonna do whatever she wants to, the only 'control' you have over it is how much she's going to spite you for it, if at all. Don't be like Stefan Molyneux and count your daughter's eggs. If you need to read because you're concerned about your daughter, you're not listening to her when you're talking with her, and it's not up to you to claim what women in your family do or how they're 'mistakes' for your daughter to avoid. Let her be lmao

 

[Elfgore]

It isn't just having kids but husband and family. Women have power (also referred to as Sexual Marketplace Value SMV) in their late teens to very early 30s. If they are to find a mate, striking early matters. And that is part of the 30 is not the new 20 problem. Women complain, of becoming invisible as they get older. It isn't fair. But it is a reality. A female can have a lot of fun in her 20s but this can be seen as a waste if she thinks there is no cost to waiting to her 30s to get serious. I want my daughter to know this and make informed choices. In the end, I have to accept her choices. But I can ask her questions to find out if she knows the costs-benefits of her choices and interject where appropriate.

Sexual Marketplace Value. I don't even need to google it to know that phrase is knee deep in shitty red pill ideology. Your daughter's and family's lives also isn't an annual planning report. Referring to your daughter's and family's choices as not properly viewing "cost-benefits" is incredibly dehumanizing to them.

 

[gorfias]

Your daughter's gonna do whatever she wants to, the only 'control' you have over it is how much she's going to spite you for it, if at all. Don't be like Stefan Molyneux and count your daughter's eggs. If you need to read because you're concerned about your daughter, you're not listening to her when you're talking with her, and it's not up to you to claim what women in your family do or how they're 'mistakes' for your daughter to avoid. Let her be lmao

I can have a conversation with her. I can ask her questions. I anticipate I'll learn from her answers. I cannot make her listen to me but if she does, she may learn a thing or two. If she needs to do so. This thread started with some assuring me, she already knows the stuff I want her considering. So, maybe she does.

Sexual Marketplace Value. I don't even need to google it to know that phrase is knee deep in shitty red pill ideology. Your daughter's and family's lives also isn't an annual planning report. Referring to your daughter's and family's choices as not properly viewing "cost-benefits" is incredibly dehumanizing to them.

Eh. We are animals with brains that can trick us into thinking we are not. Do you agree with evolutionary biology? That certain traits increase the likelihood of procreation? If acknowledging that is dehumanizing I guess I'm not human. I am married red pilled. The rage is real. You get over it and make an assessment about where to go from here and live your best possible life. That means taking into account the costs and benefits of certain choices. In the end you are going to make choices many others disagree with. But it should be informed and you should be free to make them.

 

[Sneed's SeednFeed]

I can have a conversation with her. I can ask her questions. I anticipate I'll learn from her answers. I cannot make her listen to me but if she does, she may learn a thing or two. If she needs to do so. This thread started with some assuring me, she already knows the stuff I want her considering. So, maybe she does.

Eh. We are animals with brains that can trick us into thinking we are not. Do you agree with evolutionary biology? That certain traits increase the likelihood of procreation? If acknowledging that is dehumanizing I guess I'm not human. I am married red pilled. The rage is real. You get over it and make an assessment about where to go from here and live your best possible life. That means taking into account the costs and benefits of certain choices. In the end you are going to make choices many others disagree with. But it should be informed and you should be free to make them.

Your daughter's gonna learn squat if she realises you ask people on forums for advice on what to do if your daughter might want to be single in her 30s and how that's a bad decision common to her family. You are not a patriarch, and this is not something that should concern you at all and should be left for your daughter to think over. I don't get why this is even a topic of discussion and why you bring up 'unhappy women'. Plenty of people are unhappy with the opposite too, of getting into marriage early or getting into long relationships when they don't know what they fully want.

 

[gorfias]

Your daughter's gonna learn squat if she realises you ask people on forums for advice on what to do if your daughter might want to be single in her 30s and how that's a bad decision common to her family. You are not a patriarch, and this is not something that should concern you at all and should be left for your daughter to think over. I don't get why this is even a topic of discussion and why you bring up 'unhappy women'. Plenty of people are unhappy with the opposite too, of getting into marriage early or getting into long relationships when they don't know what they fully want.

I think people should keep an open mind and learn a lot of things in all sorts of different places. Sorry you don't feel the same.

I've been doing this sort of thing for years and sometimes I think someone is irredeemably wrong. Other times, I learn stuff including that I am wrong about something.

And, when you are in a family, you should care for other members of that family. If you think they're making mistakes or uninformed about something, you should do what you can. Sticking your head in the sand helps no one.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I'm not terribly familiar with Greer's body of work, but what little I have read and this summary of her position makes me think that she's the same kind of snakeoil salesman as many "life style gurus": The kind that will tell you that the solutions to your problems is to just shut up, nut up and take charge of the situation.

That is incredibly spot on, in my opinion.

A lot of that whole "liberationist" trend in the 60s and 70s was just repurposed self-help tropes masquerading as "consciousness raising."

Did the Daily Times deliberately misquote her?

As far as I'm aware, they did not. However, she didn't actually say in that interview that she regretted not having children. A lot of conservative "hot takes" claimed that she had said or admitted that, but she actually didn't.

For all your conspiracy theories that there's some kind of propaganda effort to get women to not have children, it's telling that you're actually basing this on a seemingly very deliberate propaganda effort to ridicule or undermine a woman who chose not to have children by presenting her as this sad old woman full of regret, when actually she's living an incredibly aspirational life and seems far happier than most people I know at that age.

That we glamorize the singleton lifestyle which has its costs and benefits.

I don't think we do.

I mean, going back to Sex and the City, the characters in that show spend a significant proportion of time in relationships. Miranda has a child, and Charlotte tries unsuccessfully for a baby. Carrie and Samantha both end up in committed relationships by the end of the show's final season. The message of Sex and the City was never to be single forever and avoid relationships or children, it was to value your friends and not compromise whatever it is you want from life for the sake of a relationship.

I think what people have become increasingly negative towards is this idea that you need to marry in your early 20s purely for the sake of getting married, because when we look at the actual real figures, it turns out that didn't ever make people happy. The majority of divorces are either people in their 20s who marry without thinking and then realise they're trapped in an unsatisfying relationship, or people in their 50s who married in their 20s, who are no longer forced to stay together for the kids and want to get out because they might still be able to find a relationship they want to be in before they die. Most single people in their 50s and 60s now are divorcees fleeing miserable relationships.

I think today, we celebrate not having kids. Culturally, politically, socially, we are very anti-natalist.

I think that is incredibly untrue. I think if anything we live in a society which aggressively pushes and markets to women the idea that having children will give them a sense of accomplishment or make their lives less lonely, when the reality is often the opposite.

What I think people are increasingly aware of, at least by the time they reach adulthood, is that having kids isn't actually very rewarding compared to other things you can do with your life. It's easy for men, who never faced any pressure to give up their careers or other aspirations, to talk about how great having children is, but for women it is an enormous sacrifice, an enormous cost and an enormous risk if you do it with the wrong person.

Which brings me back to my original point. If you want women to have children, how do you propose we make doing so more rewarding? Because the propaganda effort isn't working so well any more.

 

[gorfias]

For all your conspiracy theories that there's some kind of propaganda effort to get women to not have children, it's telling that you're actually basing this on a seemingly very deliberate propaganda effort to ridicule or undermine a woman who chose not to have children by presenting her as this sad old woman full of regret, when actually she's living an incredibly aspirational life and seems far happier than most people I know at that age.

I have read that only 1/4 of women regret not have kids as they age and realize they are alone.

I don't think we do. [encourage women to stay single no kids]...
Most single people in their 50s and 60s now are divorcees fleeing miserable relationships.

Link to your divorce stats?

I am interested in different types of marriages. Long suggested: different marriage licenses. When marrying, choose a type: easy no fault divorce, fault based, and no divorce option but only annulment. I'd add to that a marriage for term. You know you want to partner up with someone to have and raise a kid, and then have the option to walk away after term, no hard feelings, or, if you want, renew. The idea has been met with enough hostility that it has never been tried in the USA.

Gloria Steinem got one thing that I can agree with. The institution was created when people died in their 30s. We may live to long for marriage to be sustainable for most people.

ITMT: In my personal life and extended family, the unmarried women my age (60ish) are a mess. They may not regret their decisions. Maybe they should.

I think if anything we live in a society which aggressively pushes and markets to women the idea that having children will give them a sense of accomplishment or make their lives less lonely, when the reality is often the opposite.

I am from the USA. Of our 2 parties, one has made a virtual religion out of abortion rights. For example, when abortion rights went far to the left of most Americans, NYC lit up a sky scraper in pink to celebrate. Women openly wept with joy in Ireland as abortion rights advanced. You can find articles that critiques that advocates do not only want the freedom to abort but are hostile to choose life efforts such as that advertisement about the value of even a down syndrome person's life. (French? Swedish? Don't recall for certain).

Politically, divorce is now easy. Marriage, the right to legally bind oneself in marriage, is currently unsupported by law. Culture? Even when Carrie marries, one critic wrote that what the couple has in common is that Mr. Big likes to buy Carrie stuff, and Carrie likes getting the stuff. Not enough to justify government, legal or cultural support of their relationship.

Which brings me back to my original point. If you want women to have children, how do you propose we make doing so more rewarding? Because the propaganda effort isn't working so well any more.

Not by giving married women more rights. As it is, our Family court systems are a mess. The biases men face in them are staggering.

Check this if you have a minute. Me and the critic disagree about the quality of this movie. I loved it (Marriage Story on Netflix). But he relates his personal experiences which to my knowledge reflects the reality most men face in divorce court:
I don't know that I want more women to have children. I want MY kids to know of the costs and benefits of marriage, kids and family so they can make informed decisions.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Link to your divorce stats?

Here's one.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...es/divorce/datasets/divorcesinenglandandwales

It turns out I was actually wrong (or rather I was relying on information I learned in A-level sociology and which is now outdated). Nowadays, divorce among young people is actually quite uncommon. Instead, as you can see, the average age of divorce has risen consistently, peaking in the 40s. Even in the early 50s, people still divorce at a similar rate to people in their 30s.

This is why you suddenly have a lot of single elderly people, it's not because people have turned their back on monogamy and want to live a glamorous single life, it's because marriage isn't working out for most people. Half of marriages end in divorce. Half of people married at any given time report that their marriage is unhappy. If you want to look for the social engineering in our society, look at the way people (especially women) are constantly fed a romantic fantasy that marriage is their path to happiness. It statistically is not.

I am interested in different types of marriages. Long suggested: different marriage licenses. When marrying, choose a type: easy no fault divorce, fault based, and no divorce option but only annulment. I'd add to that a marriage for term.

I can't see this happening, because it doesn't really solve any of the problems with marriage as an institution. People who get married do not typically intend to divorce.

Instead, I think what will happen is that we will keep the concept of marriage, but we will increasingly recognise that it is not a lifetime commitment but instead a contingent commitment that people are free to leave if they want to. I think eventually we will also get round to dismantling the economic need for marriage out of necessity.

I think we will end up with a system where it is normal for children to have two families, and where much of the financial and labour burden of raising children is spread across society as a whole rather than being the sole responsibility of parents. I don't think this will happen quickly and I think it will be strongly opposed, but I think it will ultimately become necessary because the current institutions we have are failing.

You can find articles that critiques that advocates do not only want the freedom to abort but are hostile to choose life efforts such as that advertisement about the value of even a down syndrome person's life.

The abortion debate is built on hostility, violence and religious dogma. So called "pro-life" advocates have literally murdered people, actual adult humans with families and dreams and thoughts, in order to protect the "lives" of fetuses. The reason liberals care so much about the abortion debate is not because they hate babies, it's because that debate is the frontline in a conflict between liberals, who want to live in a secular society, and religious conservatives who want to live in an authoritarian Christian society.

In most of Europe, secularism is much more deeply ingrained into the political system than it is in Ireland or the US, and thus the abortion debate doesn't really happen. It's an issue that was already settled decades ago, and thus there's no reason to bring it up. The reason people care in Ireland and the US is because their right to have medical control over their own lives is constantly under threat from lawmakers who are using the political system to advance their own religious agenda.

Not by giving married women more rights. As it is, our Family court systems are a mess. The biases men face in them are staggering.

This is a myth, especially now.

In the past, there was a certain anxiety about how the experience of shared custody affected children, and it was generally considered better for children to have a single, stable home with occasional custodial visits. This is where the "father's rights" narrative of the biased family courts came from, because in cases of contested custody the court system typically favoured granting custody to a child's primary carer, who was usually the mother.

The idea of a bias in family courts was based solely on statistics about who was awarded custody, without any consideration of context. For example, in the majority of cases in which women received sole custody, the arrangement was mutually decided and agreed upon by both parents without court involvement at all. Only a tiny proportion of cases in which women received sole custody were due to court order. Furthermore, statistically, mothers typically spend twice as much time on childcare activities when compared to fathers, which would factor into court decisions around custody.

What has happened in the past few decades, partly due to our greater research into the outcomes of joint parenting, partly due to a greater effort towards mediation and amicable resolution in divorce cases and (unfortunately) partly due to misinformation and political pressure to not appear biased, family courts have shifted towards a model whereby joint custody is generally seen as the ideal solution. It is now the most common outcome in divorce cases involving children which actually make it to court, and it is written into law in most US states that family courts should seek joint custody as the preferred solution in cases of divorce.

And this is generally a good thing for most children, but there is an extremely, extremely dark side to it. Content warning for accounts of rape, child abuse and other nasty stuff.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...athers-then-i-found-the-rot-at-the-core-of-it
https://www.theguardian.com/society...an-you-share-parenting-with-an-abusive-parent
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2015/november/1446296400/jess-hill/suffer-children#mtr
http://www.ncdsv.org/images/RB_What...-children-during-the-Family-Court-process.pdf
https://www.louisehaigh.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/74/2019/08/Family-Court-Consultation.pdf

If you don't want to trawl through those links (and I could provide more links, this is a pretty well documented phenomenon), the family courts at this point are typically so concerned with protecting parental contact for both parties that they have, on occasion, actively enabled very serious cases of child abuse, or actively threatened parents who report child abuse with a loss of custody. That's how "not biased" the courts are.

 

[Agema]

So what's wrong with not having kids?

Our economic system relies on the principle that future generations will earn as much or more than preceding ones in order to pay the social security, healthcare and national debts incurred by their forebears.

Not enough kids, the country runs out of money, or the elderly do without care. And the more specific bad news is that when that shit hits the fan, the people who are going to be elderly is likely to be us.

 

[Hawki]

Our economic system relies on the principle that future generations will earn as much or more than preceding ones in order to pay the social security, healthcare and national debts incurred by their forebears.

Not enough kids, the country runs out of money, or the elderly do without care. And the more specific bad news is that when that shit hits the fan, the people who are going to be elderly is likely to be us.

Yeah, but there's too many people consuming too much, so what's better - short term pain, or long term collapse?

And I'm referring to the First World in this as well. Good news is that fertility rates have fallen below 2.1, bad news is that levels of consumption remain high. Getting people to have fewer children will probably be easier than cutting down on that consumption.

 

[McElroy]

I am from the USA. Of our 2 parties, one has made a virtual religion out of abortion rights. For example, when abortion rights went far to the left of most Americans, NYC lit up a sky scraper in pink to celebrate. Women openly wept with joy in Ireland as abortion rights advanced. You can find articles that critiques that advocates do not only want the freedom to abort but are hostile to choose life efforts such as that advertisement about the value of even a down syndrome person's life. (French? Swedish? Don't recall for certain).

Abortion has very little to do with it. People use contraceptives all the time and the pregnancies prevented number up magnitudes higher than abortions. That's a dumb take, really. About Ireland -- taking control of people's lives away from the church is a reason to celebrate. Reasons to have kids should come from other sources, not divine law. I think the Down's "ad" was French (but it was a long time ago already, 6-7 years or something). IIRC it was a reaction to Iceland and Denmark having the capabilities to screen all babies for Down's and similar conditions and that those countries already had almost no babies born with trisomy-21. Chromosomal defects like that should be screened and taken care of, anyway.

What I think people are increasingly aware of, at least by the time they reach adulthood, is that having kids isn't actually very rewarding compared to other things you can do with your life. It's easy for men, who never faced any pressure to give up their careers or other aspirations, to talk about how great having children is, but for women it is an enormous sacrifice, an enormous cost and an enormous risk if you do it with the wrong person.

Which brings me back to my original point. If you want women to have children, how do you propose we make doing so more rewarding? Because the propaganda effort isn't working so well any more.

Fertility is low even here in Finland; "enormous sacrifice and cost" doesn't really apply that much. In national polls the main reason of childlessness is the lack of a good partner and then the issues of *lifesty-le and interest towards raising a family. The only good propaganda I can think of at this point is to make sure people know just how much resources there are for families because there usually is a lot, and your *lifesty-le doesn't have to take such a grave hit. The other two are difficult. The rising epidemic of mental health problems must be curbed that's for sure. If one's interests are mainly focused on personal hedonism, it's hard to get them to try to look into the future. People in general should be encouraged to do the opposite of huddling into a comfy corner and letting years go by, fearing they will get hurt upon trying something else.

Half of people married at any given time report that their marriage is unhappy. If you want to look for the social engineering in our society, look at the way people (especially women) are constantly fed a romantic fantasy that marriage is their path to happiness. It statistically is not.

I wonder just how the differences between Finland and the US and UK play a part in it, but here the self-reported happiness is still the greatest if you're married. Maybe those divorce rates are thought about more realistically, I dunno.

Yeah, but there's too many people consuming too much, so what's better - short term pain, or long term collapse?

And I'm referring to the First World in this as well. Good news is that fertility rates have fallen below 2.1, bad news is that levels of consumption remain high. Getting people to have fewer children will probably be easier than cutting down on that consumption.

There is absolutely no benefit to population decline in one part of the world. I go more into it in my earlier comments in this thread.

*this word and "w-h-e-r-e" mess up replies for me for some unknown reason so that's what the hyphen is for

 

[gorfias]

Abortion has very little to do with it. People use contraceptives all the time and the pregnancies prevented number up magnitudes higher than abortions. That's a dumb take, really. About Ireland -- taking control of people's lives away from the church is a reason to celebrate. Reasons to have kids should come from other sources, not divine law. I think the Down's "ad" was French (but it was a long time ago already, 6-7 years or something). IIRC it was a reaction to Iceland and Denmark having the capabilities to screen all babies for Down's and similar conditions and that those countries already had almost no babies born with trisomy-21. Chromosomal defects like that should be screened and taken care of, anyway.

Little to do with what? I was saying it is evidence of anti-natalism. Dunno if it has been 6 years since the ad, but would you write that there has been a sea change attitude there since then? That the pro--choice crowd is not actually anti-life at this time? It doesn't show by your last statement. There is no treatment that stops down syndrome. They're testing for it and aborting it almost universally. That explains why there are nearly none born.

 

[Sneed's SeednFeed]

I think people should keep an open mind and learn a lot of things in all sorts of different places. Sorry you don't feel the same.

I've been doing this sort of thing for years and sometimes I think someone is irredeemably wrong. Other times, I learn stuff including that I am wrong about something.

And, when you are in a family, you should care for other members of that family. If you think they're making mistakes or uninformed about something, you should do what you can. Sticking your head in the sand helps no one.

You've yet to say how it is a mistake and not an arbitrary choice other than you not liking some women in your family doing that and the author of Sex In The City regretting it. I think this talk is missing the forest for the trees considering knowing what you want or what makes you happy is something that has been a subject of philosophical and psychological inquiry since arguably the dawn of civilisation, so it's pretty bold to claim that there's an optimal solution here, or that some discussion about what you'll do in your 30s is the essential topic. Especially considering the cultural and social context of the 21st century, with its immense pressure to demand relationships from everyone, commodification of sex and love, as well as a total alienation from any desire formation that is not mediated by some commodity.

 

[gorfias]

You've yet to say how it is a mistake and not an arbitrary choice other than you not liking some women in your family doing that and the author of Sex In The City regretting it. I think this talk is missing the forest for the trees considering knowing what you want or what makes you happy is something that has been a subject of philosophical and psychological inquiry since arguably the dawn of civilisation, so it's pretty bold to claim that there's an optimal solution here, or that some discussion about what you'll do in your 30s is the essential topic. Especially considering the cultural and social context of the 21st century, with its immense pressure to demand relationships from everyone, commodification of sex and love, as well as a total alienation from any desire formation that is not mediated by some commodity.

Not marrying, not having kids can be a choice. I read of a woman who, I think had herself sterilized so as to never have kids interrupting her mountain climbing career. At 55 she maintained she felt she made the right choice for herself and more power to her. But you'll also find women in articles asking aloud, now that they'd had a blast in in their 20s, why have all the best male prospects dried up and now it is difficult to find a serious mate in their 30s. They don't know that those men are looking for women in their 20s. Someone ought to tell them it works like that so they make informed choices.

 

[Terminal Blue]

In national polls the main reason of childlessness is the lack of a good partner and then the issues of *lifesty-le and interest towards raising a family.

So.. sacrifice and cost.

Having to give up or severely compromise your career is a sacrifice. Having to take time away from things you enjoy is a sacrifice. Having to compromise things you enjoy or which make you happy because you no longer have the money to afford it is a sacrifice. Being stuck in the same relationship for decades because you can't raise kids alone is a sacrifice.

The rising epidemic of mental health problems must be curbed that's for sure.

It's extremely unlikely that there is any kind of "rising epidemic" of mental health problems. The fact that more people are diagnosed with mental health problems today than in the past does not mean those problems did not exist in the past.

It might be convenient in some ways to imagine that mental illness is a product of our complicated modern lives, and that in the past when everyone knew their place it didn't happen. From what we can tell though, it was kind of the opposite. Mental illness was so common in the past that symptoms of it were sometimes written off as entirely normal.

I wonder just how the differences between Finland and the US and UK play a part in it, but here the self-reported happiness is still the greatest if you're married. Maybe those divorce rates are thought about more realistically, I dunno.

Self-reported happiness is a very nebulous quality, and I generally feel that surveying it is kind of useless. Whether you perceive yourself as "happy" or not may depend on which parts of your life you see as important, rather than how you actually feel on a day to day basis. For example, unmarried people may have bigger aspirations, and thus might feel that their lives are not as good as they could be even if, in practice, they're quite content. Similarly, a married couple could be really struggling, but might perceive this struggle as just something they have to live with, rather than an actual problem with their life. People do not look at or judge their lives in the same way, which makes comparing them difficult.

Asking someone whether their marriage is happy is a much more specific question with less room for interpretation, and thus I'm more inclined to take it at face value.