I’m also seeing a lot of lamenting about replacing the family with the government. While we may not be able to replace families with the government, we can’t replace them with nothing, either, and that seems to be where we’re heading.
The foundation of the U. S. society has been what anthropologists call the “absolute nuclear family”. I’m sensitive to this issue because my Great-grandfather Schuler attempted, unsuccessfully, to continue the social strategy used in Switzerland which is different here in the United States. IMO the “absolute nuclear family” is in trouble in the U. S. I don’t see how it could be otherwise with 17-21% of college students identifying as LGBT+. That compares with 2-3% for older cohorts.
I don’t think identifying as LGBTQ+ is the problem, and I think the spike in people identifying that way is probably a phase.
A bigger issue long-term, IMO, are people not forming families and relationships at all and kids being raised by single parents.
Hillary Clinton was pilloried for it, but in some senses, it really does take a village. My kids are raised in a stable family with by above average SES parents who continue to be married after 23 years and work as a team, yet we often rely on friends and extended family for various support and assistance.
Humans are social creatures, and I am increasingly concerned about loneliness in younger generations – people who have ephemeral connections to other members of society.
You don’t see a relationship between alternative sexual arrangements and family formation? I think it’s obvious.
It’s not the only problem. That it takes two incomes to maintain a middle class lifestyle which used to be possible on one income is a factor as well. Also reduced male fertility. The acceptability of abortion. More years spent in school, among the factors in a general prolongation of adolescence.
“You don’t see a relationship between alternative sexual arrangements and family formation? I think it’s obvious.”
Not really. The vast majority of the LGBTQ people I know are in stable relationships. Maybe my experience is not typical, but I do not think the desire to form family relationships is absent or diminished from this group. If anything, the opposite is the case, where they can be rejected by their families because of their sexuality or lifestyle preferences.
Statistically, married male homosexuals divorce at about half the rate of the general public while married female homosexuals divorce at about twice the rate of the general public. In either case a smaller percentage are rearing children than among heterosexual couples.
Are there any numbers as to how the percentages break down? My guess is that most of the students are answering non-binary. Anything but cis. And, like Andy, I think it’s just a phase. It’s a trend young’uns are following, to create an identity and a feeling of belonging in a community. And they’re probably pretty privileged white kids looking for a cause to hang onto.
I don’t care about the little buggers’ sexuality. Celebrate their damned sexuality in the bedroom. I don’t need to know. They’ll sort themselves out as they get older. Some will be homosexual, most will be straight, some just promiscuous.Nothing more boring than other people’s sexuality.
That’s the least of our worries. The expense of living is one of the highest hurdles to families. People who are inclined to have children can only afford one, maybe two unless one of the parents has an extremely good job. Otherwise there are cars and daycare and housing and food and healthcare and …
Hate to say this Dave but you sound like the old people worrying about the hippies who were all going to have free love, no families and live in communes. Didnt happen. As noted above its a phase. Families have been falling apart on a bad trend well before the term LGBQT was ever invented. Its a real problem but dont think you can blame it on gay people.
Agree that Hillary was correct. Kids do best if they have two parents and extended family and friends support. Parents get sick, run into time crunches at work or sometimes need financial help. It is very helpful to have that extended group to help. Its also good for the kids as they develop relationships with other people.
Essentially all my staff, including the mid-levels, make 6 figures. The biggest concern they all have is child care. Both its costs and finding reliable child care. Other costs are important too but its overwhelmingly child care. That has also been an issue well before LGBQT and it is worse without family to help which was the traditional answer.
Steve
Before you make such confident pronouncements you might want to check on what has actually happened. The marriage rate and fertility rate among Baby Boomers were sharply lower than among previous cohorts. That trend has continued with Gen X and Millennials.
But I think you also mistake my point. I’m not “tsk, tsk”-ing. I’m merely observing that as families become less prevalent, stable, and supportive we will need other institutions to take their place. Some see government in that role. Others oppose that notion vehemently but have no alternative proposal.
Marriages went straight down from 1945-1960. We didnt reach 1960 levels again until 2000. Pretty sure we cant blame the hippies for 1945-1960. However, totally agree with your second paragraph.
https://ourworldindata.org/marriages-and-divorces
The fertility collapse exists everywhere outside black Africa. Its primary cause is that we keep young women in school during their prime reproductive ages, 15 to 25. Women who enter the professions usually only one child or none.
In Darwinian theory, humans have not or cannot adapt to industrial and post industrial economies, and we are going extinct. The Sixth Extinction event is really that of humans.
Radical ecologists, like Paul Erhlich, want humanity reduced to a few million stone age hunter-gatherers, and that is where we’re headed.
“a few million”
But it won’t be me, I’m scheduled to be interred beneath the surface in several impermeable layers of Oak and concrete.
Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of nature programs and have come to see that I won’t really be free until I’ve been eaten by predators and shit out all over the prairie to become one with the soup. But I’ve made my bed.
Family decline is women’s suffrage, all stems from that, a foot in the door and we have the tools, (contraception and abortion),
the motivation, (education, expanded opportunity, and higher standard of living). And the opportunity, (public financial support for one parent families).
So we have the result, few children, neglected children, and women so indistinguishable from men that gender fluidity becomes the norm.
It isn’t distinguishable who you are sleeping with so why bother to ask?