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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3251 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 9, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Question for mainly parents of motte but anyone can answer.

Would you have more or less children if you knew for sure that:

  1. Your children will be very good to you when they grow up but they won’t have offspring of their own.
  2. Your children will be awful to you when they grow you but they will have many offspring of their own.

I am wondering what motivates people when choosing how many children to have. If neither of these would affect your decision but you have another important factor in mind, please share as well

If you told me 1, I would assume that all of them wound up in the priesthood/convent. If you told me 2, I would assume it a reference to shitty parenting. Neither would affect my having them, although I suppose #2 would cause me to make a stronger point about being nice to them.

Of course I belong to a religious sect which doesn't believe in family planning, and takes that very seriously. As far as what motivates the normies to have children, expecting to enjoy raising them is the usual motivator. Rednecks have babies(and they do) because they look forwards to going to teeball games, not because they expect grandkids.

Both of these things are irrelevant. I see my children as a physical manifestation of the love that my wife and I have for one another, as well as a sort of hopeful proclamation about the future.

If I knew either of these for sure, there must be something terribly wrong with me such that I cannot raise my kids with a properly formed conscience. It would be something so wrong that apparently I wouldn't be able to fix it with self-reflection or therapy. If that were the case, maybe I wouldn't have kids, I don't know. I would definitely exhaust all options trying to fix myself. I'm not sure I believe there's a situation where fixing myself would be impossible. Are you including stuff like severely mental disability or personality disorder here?

In any case, to answer your question, I'm (1) pretty sure most of my kids will have kids, and (2) I'm pretty sure most of them will be kind to me when I am old, so we're having a lot of kids.

In both cases, how are they to their mate and kids? Are they treating others the way they are treating me?

If you have four kids and they all grow up to hate you then you either made some major mistakes or married the wrong person, both of which are on you.

That's a good point. Upon hearing a prophesy of terrible children, it might make sense to first try to figure out what went wrong, rather than give up entirely.

Among basically average parents I've seen some have one problematic child and a couple of better ones, in which case maybe it's better to have more children (or at least more than one).

I don't think either? Neither scenario is related to why I have kids now, so they might not be in hypothetical true prophesy world.

Maybe I'd have more kids if I had married younger. Maybe I would have fewer if I were more organized about taking birth control pills at the same time every day and renewing on time.

I hate to do this, but I have to half-hijack the thread:

When is it actually "too late", for a male, to have children? Please don't give me the sunshine and rainbows "it's never too late!" nonsense. I'd like the informed and unvarnished truth that the Motte is (in)famous for.

I ask this as a mid 30s male in great shape with FAANGy levels of income in a non-FAANG job who's just a little too surly about marriage, but has accepted the moral imperative for reproducing and being a good parent.

On the biological level, paternal age is just weakly associated with birth defects. You have something like a 1.3-1.5x increase of autism spectrum disorder (note, this includes high-functioning individuals!) for older dads (>40), which is already somewhat cherry-picked since there is plenty of disorders not associated with paternal age. For comparison, the risk of major chromosomal disorders such as Down Syndrome are roughly around 10x for age 40, 40x for age 45, and 150x for age 50 (not to mention that becoming pregnant at all becomes more difficult, and no you should never rely on IVF). And if your child gets one of these, it's pretty much guaranteed to be somewhere between low or non-functioning.

But I'll still strongly advice for you to start with it ASAP. Having young kids is absolutely exhausting, and vice versa it's lots of fun being physically active with them once they reach an age where they can engage in typical outdoors hobbies. Both you and your kids will be much happier if you're younger.

In addition, most women want a husband who is slightly older than them, but not by too much. This is especially relevant for you if you're as autistic as the base level mottizen. Sure women love the older gentleman stereotype, but as a default you shouldn't be overly confident to fit the bill. If we assume that you want to have 3 kids, spaced decently apart (ca 3 years) with a low risk of major disorders (<35 maternal age), your partner should ideally be ~29 when you're starting to have kids. If you want to have some time to get to know her, this is more like 25 when you start dating. This is already a slightly awkwardly high age difference with your current age. You're probably not be able to pull off the ideal case anyway, but no reason to make it unnecessarily hard for yourself.

It's never absolutely too late, but the earlier the relatively better.

Do it ASAP. Your kids deserve a dad who's young and energetic, not a tired old man. Give them best years, don't fritter them all away on yourself.

I realize this and agree. My main concern is marriage.

Convincing a woman to give you her hand (as it were) or selling yourself on a lifetime commitment to one female? Or something else?

Zero problem with commitment, not worried about actually meeting and dating a girl (have done this many times, a few that looked like they could go all the way).

My opinion, unfortunately, is that marriage is fundamentally broken in the west. I see this in my own laptop class PMC constantly where the pair got married on nothing more than the basis of "it seemed like the time!" Even if they don't end in divorce - which is common - the day to day subtle resentment between the partners is really astonishing. The hyper fixation on individual achievement or "actualization" paired with the toxic comparative nature of social media means that couples are living not for each other but for their imagined perception of themselves in the minds of other people outside the marraige. That's an insane way to be.

So, just find a down to earth girl who doesn't care about any of that. Maybe go a little more trad-ish, too, right? I (kind of) tried that. Started going to the Young Catholic events at a parish known for being very pro-coupling. The first girl I met was already engaged but we hit it off nonetheless and she became a good friend. A couple months into me going to these kind of events, having a few coffee dates etc. she pulls me aside and drops the truth bomb on me - a lot of the women in these groups are LARPing for a provider husband who they feel is utterly domesticated and low risk of ever straying away .... the men in these groups are pretty much doing the exact same thing but with a weird eye towards "sex on demand" and "thy wife shall submit!" This latter group are pretty much incels who went RadTradCath online, the former group are often party girls who wish to exit the hook-up culture and want to find a guy who is low risk, low dynamism. Both groups are entering relationships with a fundamental lack of respect for the other party. It's self-referential all the way down.

I want to commit to building a life with a partner, that is in no way the problem. I don't care about the leveling off of the passionate attachment phase of the relationship. But I do have sincere concern about the ability of most any firmly "in the matrix" person to really commit to the idea of marriage at the level of depth that I think is necessary for the marriage to last. Simple screening based on religious or political affiliation doesn't guarantee much (see above) and, what's more, I feel that social pressures and relative comparisons to other couples or imagined states of marriage are so omnipresent that they're a constant source of erosion of the commitment to the marriage itself.

I can recognize my own neuroticism here and I am aware that the only solution is to just do it and continue to work at it with a wife who also wants to work at it, but these thoughts persist.

I can recognize my own neuroticism here and I am aware that the only solution is to just do it and continue to work at it with a wife who also wants to work at it, but these thoughts persist.

Just settle and deeply commit to loving your wife. With prayer and effort you can make it work.

Whether that was a truth bomb or just her cynical opinion is probably something to consider. Cynicism (in the couples you mention, in the viewpoint stated about the group) is never, in my experience, attractive long-term. People who complain--about whatever is around them--generally become intolerable, but it's a slow poison.

Apart from that, it's possible to overthink this stuff. I'm a small-picture guy. I never really think about the scheme of things, the larger frame, etc.

Have you met any southern girls? Sorry, women.

If you main concern is finding someone to stay committed and married you can statistically hit a homerun if you follow the research. Household income over 200k reduces divorce stats with all other factors from around 50% (which includes people that get married multiple times and really skews the stats) to 30%, more analytical fields have an all divorce risk of 15-25% as opposed to bartenders etc which are above 50%, White and asian women have a divorce rate of only about 25%, Bachelors or higher also reduces all divorce rate to 25%. Making at least 38k more than your wife reduces divorce rates as well.

If you combine all those factors, ( I couldn't find many sites detailing the "intersectionality" of those traits and impacts on divorce, and I'm not enough of a mathematician to tease out a final %). But I've seen rates as low as 5 or 10% for college and above education, good family, high income, stable job, white/asian. Anecdotally zero of my good friends or immediate family are divorced, and none of that is for religious or cultural reasons.

Now you just need to find someone in that catagory that you like, and it won't be at a youth Catholic mixer.

168 million women 13.7% are 25 to 35 = 23 million * 40% college educated = 9.2 million. 67% white/asian =6.2 million you can take it from here with your own personal criteria, does not come from a divorced family, makes X amount, occupation, looks.

and it won't be at a youth Catholic mixer.

If a Catholic young adults mixer(a 'youth' mixer is for high schoolers in this context; I sincerely hope he's not going to those) has any women there at all, white teachers(k-12) and university students from stable Catholic families will probably be a comfortable plurality of them. This is pretty close to the scenario you describe.

It was stated originally as a "young catholic" mixer. Of course it isn't high schoolers and he clearly didn't mean that nor did I in "this context". Why you gotta make it weird dude?

You're also not going to meet a lot stimulating successful people at a mixer of any type, they don't need to go to them...

I appreciate the effortpost and math.

But the divorce rate is only half the battle. High income earners with college degrees may not get divorced at a high rate, but how many of the marriages are anywhere near healthy? In my own extended family, we have zero divorces but a bakers dozen incidents of infidelity that I only learned about at the family reunions after I could start drinking with the older cousins. In my own PMC circle, I've had both male and female acquaintances confide that they're only staying married for the kids and once they're out of college a divorce is guaranteed.

Again, I don't hold any fantasy notions about finding an easy marriage. I understand they take work and evolve over time. I've actually written about this on the Motte, but if I can't find a partner who I really believe has a similar concept of commitment (let alone level) - I'm reticent to risk it.

It doesn't have to be hard. Find someone that shares your values and wants the same things, or can learn to share your values and want the same things. I'm not a big marriage guy and I don't see the difference between long term relationships and marriage except in a legal sense. LTRs are in some ways more romantic and special because you're waking up each day and choosing to be together with no penalty for leaving, although if you are married and both work and don't have kids then those penalties are low as well, except having to say you're divorced.

Having kids is the big one; I do know very unhappy people that still need to interact with their hated former spouse due to shared custody, they never get over it. But if you want marriage and kids, there is only one way to do that, find a good woman and go for it! If you make a ton more and are worried about that then protect your assets.

Your reasons are somewhat valid but at the end of the day so what? You are a man. Nobody will give you a pity trophy. If there is adversity it’s your job to overcome it.

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What's your main concern about marriage?

I know several people whose fathers were in their 50's and mothers were ~40 when they were born, some of them being the youngest sibling of a large number and others being the only child. The latter sort might be a bit more socially awkward than normal, but that seems to be more from similarity to their parents than anything else. I would say the main concern in such a situation is the child having to care for their elderly parents earlier than the norm, but apart from that there are no major issues.

I am one of those people, and think there are serious issues with being somehow even more autistic than my dad.
It really screws with your life in lots of little ways, and even as an adult I regret missing the opportunity to do fun stuff with my dad when he was still in decent shape. We wanted to go sailing together, go hiking in Europe again, build another house together... That's not happening in his 80s.

My dad is 43 years older than me, and they weren't married all that long beforehand. So you can look at my posting history and determine what level of autism risk you're comfortable with.

I would say like, now-ish is time to get cracking on it. Any good strategy is going to take years, so you need to give yourself as much runway as possible.

So you can look at my posting history and determine what level of autism risk you're comfortable with.

"Kettlebell aficionado" is, to me, an exquisite level of applied autism. I'd actually rank it above "rainman math genius hedge fund quant" but below "geospatial imagery wizard"

Mid thirties is probably your last chance before finding a mail order bride, assuming you want a woman who’s A) young enough to have children the natural way and B) doesn’t already have kids.

Early-mid 40s for a relatively attractive man with a high (but not extreme) income is certainly possible, provided he is willing to marry a woman in the 29-33 range looking to settle down (and in the PMC, almost all of those women will be childless). Rare for a woman in the 21-25 range to marry a 35+ year old unless he’s very handsome and she’s on the plainer side ime.

But looks are an under appreciated part of this calculation. I’ve known quite a few uglyish 28-30 year old women marry much older men, but no very pretty ones unless he’s Don Draper handsome and wealthy, famous or actually megarich.

but no very pretty ones unless he’s Don Draper handsome and wealthy

So what's the modal match for "Walton Goggins 'handsome' and permanent Delta Diamond status"

I tend to assume internet strangers asking romantic advice will never be above average in looks, no matter how much cosmetics, gym time, fashion upgrading, etc.

The Motte is, of course, peopled entirely by beautiful sophisticates with impeccable taste.

Not to hijack, but, with apologies to all the aphantasia folks, I am always visualizing, and have clearish mental images of most Mottizens (probably inaccurate, spooky if they were accurate.)

Tag the motteizeans with beards, let’s see how accurate you are.

Full beards or scruffy Hollywood shadow meant to drive the women wild?

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We have a family acquaintance (doctor earning lots of money, tall, handsome etc) who stayed single until late 40s despite the entire very large social and family network around him mobilising to find him a wife. I am not super sure what was the issue but he would just reject any candidates for decades. I guess he was either somewhat gay or was having too much fun being single.

Anyway eventually he married some 21 year old gorgeous redhead nurse and immediately proceeded to have 3 sons. So perhaps it wasn’t a bad life strategy after all.

You are considerably older than me so I can’t give any real advice. Just an anecdote.

It’s not a terrible strategy if tall, handsome and rich, but it does come with the downside of (in all likelihood) fewer years with one’s children, and a lower chance of meeting (and certainly raising) the grandchildren.

I would say it mainly depends on how young a woman you can attract, which only you can answer. It is literally possible for men in their 80s to father children, but it rarely happens outside of Hollywood because for a guy in his 60s or 70s to attract a woman of reproductive age usually requires him to be very rich, very famous or (ideally) both.

A man's biological fertility really only starts to decline in his forties, and doesn't have the hard cut-off that female fertility does, although the risk of sub- and infertility increases with time. Even then, IVF allows you to increase the odds in your favour.

Get yourself a marriage-minded woman in her twenties and get busy!

Option 2 for me. I want my kids to have kids, and grandkids, and so on till the stars go cold.

Then again, I expect the future to be so different from "business as usual" that I don't particularly care about this hypothetical, prosaically, I intend my spouse and I to be entirely self sufficient regardless of our kids (my parents and grandparents managed that, not that I can ever claim anyone treated anyone awfully, it's nice to come from a good family). That means that other than the emotional damage from raising kids with best intentions who don't reciprocate (how the hell did it end up that way?), I can bear it.

And in the latter case? Fuck them, time for round 2, let's see if these lot turn out alright, especially when I fully expect things like gene editing and the like to be an option. And I can at least pray the grandchildren come out better, you don't have to get along with your kids to get along with grandkids after all.

The main reason I value my genes is that they're the only robustly reliable method I have right now for creating offspring that I can expect to have a great deal of overlap with me (and someone I considered amazing enough to let chip in), be it mental or physical. Why would I particularly care if I've ended up as a post-biological entity or at least genes are as malleable as makeup? It's not like similarity is the only thing that matters, I'd happily raise a clone of myself, but I'd only consider that option when it was possible to tweak or solve the issues that plague SMH Mk. 1, but obviously I'd love my kids even if they weren't a literal clone of me too.

I choose 1.

It's like you have sex technically to pass on your genes, but you don't consciously think as much. Same with children. You might not pass on your genes, but it's a life better lived.

Because you can never know this I don't even let it cross my mind. Common sense suggests that if you are good to your children and take care of them when young, they will at the very least visit you when you're decrepit (In a way I proved myself wrong in my own life, for while my (now late) parents were good to me I made the choice to live 8,000 miles away from them. Which was in a way unavoidable but the guilt of this still nags at me.)

My own boys are young--teenagers. I can't project to the day they will have children of their own, though it is true of my own age-mates are grandparents now, having married considerably younger than I.

As for why we stopped at two--we were both raised in households of two children--my wife had a sister, I had a brother. It seemed a normal, replacement-level family size. I was getting older by the time she would have been ready for a third--and though she probably would have been game (and I would have liked to have had a daughter) various life difficulties got in the way and we just didn't go there, and I can't imagine us going there now. Plus although I am not sure the science of it I have read there is some correlation in father-age and autism of children. I am not sure how accurate this is. Having said that I can't imagine not loving my child regardless of how neurodivergent they may have been. My kids are the biggest joy of my life--and I say that with reverence, with no desire to tempt the fates.

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