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The glaring what?
And yes, this seems correct but is making me sad. My own mom waited until she was 42 to give birth to me, which means she's already aged out of the phase where she can easily look after any kids we have on her own. Sucks.
That being said the lady's family is a little more spry but... have their own problems. Man this whole thing is scaring me off of having kids not gonna lie.
Sorry, edited it after posting.
It really shouldn't if you have a worthwhile community to draw on.
My roommate from college and his wife have popped out 5, and while he makes enough money to support them all, easily, he puts in his fair share of effort, and he and his wife are VERY CATHOLIC so there's a deep well of local experience to draw on.
I think the fear of having kids is really just the projection of having to raise kids all by yourself. In an atomized society that's terrifying. If you have the support network, its very doable. Every single generation before us was able to do so, to varying levels of competence.
Yeah I’m freshly Orthodox so still integrating into the community. I think it will come with time but not sure how much we have before kids becomes a bit harder. We’ll see.
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Parenting was never meant to be done as "first time dad and mom, mostly mom, handle it all by themselves". The idea was you're grow up around younger siblings/cousins so you saw how it was done, then when you had kids yourself the grandparents, older married sisters with kids, aunts, cousins, etc. would be living not too far away and would give you advice and help. Those kids would grow up around siblings, cousins, and in neighbourhoods where there were plenty of other kids, and it was socially acceptable for any adult to step in and discipline any shenanigans.
That's a long way from the modern state of affairs.
Yes, the decline of alloparenting and loss of opportunity to develop child-minding and child-rearing skills shouldn't be underestimated. I made a similar point here 5 months ago (along with discussing children's toys and sex ed classes fighting teen pregnancy).
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As the oldest child, I was often put 'in charge' of the house with the younger ones for most of a day if needed.
I was given instructions and restrictions by dad (sometimes mom), and I just had to make sure nothing really caught fire, and know what to do if some emergency DID happen. I took a class centered around first aid and CPR for children when I was, I think, about 13 years old? Had a kit and everything.
My younger cousins lived around the corner from us for a while, so I also helped out there sometimes.
Helps that we lived in a safe neighborhood, with neighbors who would have helped out if something went very wrong.
The daughters of the family across the street were also available for babysitting regularly. Tragically, I'm pretty sure neither of them married.
When I got my driver's license and had about a year of experience under my belt, they would trust me to shepherd the younger sibs around too.
In short, I'm certain that I'd make an excellent father.
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I've got a 1 year old now. I did the first 6 months in Australia in essentially the standard Western mold of 2 parents and 1 newborn and then moved to Malaysia to live 5 mins walk from about 50 extended family members.
The quality of life improvement for the baby, my wife and I has been immense. I do recognize the privilege of my wife coming from an upper middle class educated subclade so I'm not worrying about any meth addict cousins, but it's hard to overstate how much smoother parenting is in this setup than as a nuclear family.
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