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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   27540 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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Fair point, but grandparents working full-time up to a set age and then suddenly becoming fully available is not a fixed law of the universe. Grandaprents growing older and less capable is.

Especially these days when it's increasingly normalized to teleport off into the Everglades or onto a cruise instead of remaining part of the household fabric.

Or for the kids to head off to somewhere more exciting than the place they grew up. I am aware that the West is denormalising high-effort grandparenting in multiple ways, and it sucks. Although the comparison with 1st-world Asia suggests that it isn't driving the fertility decline.

I'm currently parenting my kids in first world Asia (which is a way better deal especially for child-rearing), partly due to my parents being in my home country's equivalent of Florida and therefore being of limited help during childrearing. So chicken and the egg I guess

It's probably a downward spiral. Parenting and grandparenting are becoming less rewarding in part because of low fertility, and so fewer people are prepared to make that investment, which further drives down fertility. Or so I might speculate.

The point is that whatever the mechanism is, it is affecting 1st-world Asia worse than the West, so it isn't something primarily Western like the decline in extended families.

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