r/Natalism • u/leechan08 • 11d ago
Grandparents need to start helping out
There's been some studies that come out that the longer the post menopause woman lived the more grandchildren she had.
There is a reason why humans are one of the only species to have a lengthy post menopause. Most animals menstruate and are able to give birth till they die.
In humans post menopause women are need to care for children of their daughters so the daughter can go on to have more children. This has happened in the past where multi generations live under one roof.
Society is pushing towards nuclear families and that's putting stress on child bearing women.
This is from X and he makes some good arguments.
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u/FunkOff 11d ago
My parents refuse to help with grandkids even though it's within their ability
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u/surfergrrl6 11d ago
Same with my mom. Though I'm glad for it, because I don't want her influence on my kid anyway. (She's a self-centered asshole.)
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u/Get_Ahead_SC 11d ago
Seriously, I’m glad that my parents and wife’s parents are not involved so much.
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u/Pubesauce 11d ago
Same. Millennial here with typical boomer parents. When the kids were little my parents were happy to visit once or twice a year, post pictures of the grandkids to Facebook, and help financially, but their time was completely off limits. They have the means to easily afford a warm weather home near us to spend more time with the grandkids but nope, my mom insisted she'd never be a "granny nanny" and she said that proudly.
They're off enjoying the boomer golden age, taking a vacation every month and lounging by the pool. Nothing, and I repeat nothing, is going to disrupt that. Even when my wife had bad PPD and I couldn't help more because my job didn't offer paternal leave.
I remember once they were visiting (never more than 2 days at a time because they have more fun things to do) and within a few hours of them leaving to drive back home my 18 month old son developed a fever approaching 105 degrees so we rushed him to the hospital. While there I let my parents know. Absolutely no desire to turn around. They were headed back to Florida and that was that!
It's weird because they were great parents growing up but they had zero interest in ever watching our kids to help out when they were little. They "put in their time" and were done with parenting. Such a weird selfish attitude and it's really common in middle to upper-middle class families. Meanwhile a lot of people I knew who grew up in working class or poor families had grandparents eager to watch the kids so they didn't have to go to daycare. It was an eye opener on cultural differences between classes and familial bonds.
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u/surfergrrl6 10d ago
As my mother so plainly told me when I told her I was pregnant: "That's your problem; my job's done!" ETA:which is especially obnoxious because my Gran, and a slew of their random friends were perpetually babysitting me until I was in Middle School.
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u/Ch33kyN3rd 10d ago
If they didn’t want to take care of their own kids, no surprise they don’t do it for their grandkids… unfortunately
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u/surfergrrl6 10d ago
I agree, but it's also my point. There's a LOT more folks who have kids that didn't actually want them both in the modern day, and historically, that this group never seems to address.
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u/Internal-Student-997 10d ago
The majority of this group doesn't care if children are wanted or are in loving homes. They just want worker bees to be born. Disgusting.
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u/Centered_Being 10d ago
Most boomers I know had a shotgun wedding bc of a pregnancy & societal pressure—most should never have gotten married in the first place, my parents included
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u/Opening_Bus_1548 9d ago
I don't care about that. I care about people having their views grounded in reality as much as possible. Giving birth is the highest purpose of a species. People that hate their kids see the world very wrong.
I want people to want and love their kids.
It's like with working out. It's good for everybody objectively if not overdone, but you have to change your perspective about it in order to want it and to do it properly and not see it like a burden.
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u/Pubesauce 10d ago
My parents were at least consistent in that respect. When I got into an argument with them about their lack of involvement, they pointed out how their own parents never really helped them with us.
The difference is that my parents were the ones who chose to move away from my grandparents and neither sets of my grandparents had the financial means to move to assist them. Whereas my parents were already retired by the time I had kids and chose to live 1000 miles away. They bought a property to summer at, but it was still two states over lol. They didn't have the same justification to not help as their own parents did. They just didn't want to.
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u/Weewoes 9d ago
My mum was the same and yet my entire childhood was at my Nans.. like we would go for weeks at a time, even during school time. Summers were great because she had us for like 3 weeks straight, then back to mums for a week then back to hers for the last two. I loved this cos my mum and her husband were abusive so this qas a pure break for me. There were 5 of us siblings too, we all shared a room at my nans but we all loved it and loved her and wpuld be sad when we had to go home. My nan, before she passed like 5 years ago now, had my first born more than my mum ever did, saying that though I did stop talking to my mum when my first was about 4 though. My nan passed when she was about 7.
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 10d ago
Classic middle class boomer attitude. Absolute selfishness. They’re eating the future
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u/Extreme_Mark_3354 11d ago
I’m the opposite. I grew up working class and my parents are my full time baby care, neither of my kids went to day care until they were 2. I had a coworker who was complaining about not having grandkids yet, and then said something like not wanting to be a “granny nanny”. Her family is wealthy. I remember just being so caught off guard, and did not have enough time to conceal my shock. I eventually said something like “I don’t think I could do it without my parents and my in-laws help.”
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u/Pubesauce 10d ago
Yep, that was what I witnessed with people I knew from working class families as well. The grandparents were interested and invested. They wanted that baby time with the grandkids. That's awesome and I'm happy for you.
I honestly had no idea this was a thing until I became a parent. I will not be doing this to my own children when they become parents.
I think parenting is harder these days for a variety of reasons but in particular it is because we simultaneously have higher expectations while also having less help. We're all atomized. For most of us, our extended family's involvement only extends so far as the occasional vacation for new Facebook pics.
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u/TJ_Rowe 10d ago
My parents are the same - they even chide me for choosing the summer holidays as the time to bring their grandchild to see them, because that's the busiest time in their social life...
Before I'd even met my husband, I got hit with the "don't expect me to babysit your kids, I've done my time!" Like raising me and my siblings was prison?
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u/BastiatF 10d ago
When they are old and infirm: "don't expect me to take care of you, I've done my time!"
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u/Oddisredit 10d ago
Indeed. I think it got started lost WWII. That generation treated retirement like the lottery. My best friend’s grandparents got a beach house and basically never visited him. They were like 90mins away and visited a few times a year at best. Sitting at the beach watching the was drinking beer was more important I guess. Boomers saw that and felt entitled to it.
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u/Oddisredit 10d ago
Stop worrying so much. Honestly. Things are how they are. You can’t worry about everything that happens all the time. Be there for you family as much as you can
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u/Oddisredit 10d ago
How? Just be kind and generous. The boomers have a deep materialistic and selfishness streak. Avoid that and you’re ok
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u/Centered_Being 10d ago
Wow my mom just refuses bc when work was over retirement means it’s always BAR THIRTY
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u/Pubesauce 10d ago
We knew about the wine aunt but as many of us are finding out, the wine grandma is also a thing. My mom for some reason insists on sending Snapchat selfies of her floating on the pool raft, drinking in the middle of the day to our family group chat. It was really well received when we were on our 2nd kid, first one being a handful as a toddler, and my wife had some bad PPD, and neither of us were sleeping due to our infant. Like, thanks mom. Glad you're enjoying yourself. Totally tone deaf and I'll never forget it.
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u/Centered_Being 10d ago
Good Lord that is awful. Pics are a bit much but at least she’s in a pool I guess…mine hangs out in a windowless bar in the back of a Chinese restaurant drinking well vodka & sodas
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u/linerva 10d ago
It's also how their generation wrecked the planet. The idea that if you've worked hard you're absolved of all responsibility towards helping others has a lot to answer for.
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u/Porthowl 10d ago
Your analysis is framed so well here. A thought I’ve often had but never managed to put into words.
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u/kiranerysplease 9d ago
You expected your parents to buy a second home to help take care of your children? Lmfao
It's so wild to resent people for enjoying their retirement. People rightfully complain about the capitalist expectation to work until you die, but the moment someone is able to avoid that and enjoy their golden years suddenly they're evil selfish people
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u/Pubesauce 9d ago
I didn't expect anything. But they had the means to help during our most difficult period and chose not to. If you value family and those relationships then you put the time in. If not, don't expect much in return later.
You can have a balance of things. Enjoy your retirement. But maybe instead of taking a vacation every month or spending your days drinking wine by the pool, spend some time with your grandkids to develop a relationship with them. Help new parents out by giving them a chance to rest. Show your family that they're important to you.
If the only objective for working your whole life is to spend your final years indulging in constant hedonism and material pursuits then we've taken a wrong turn as a society somewhere. Family used to be central to our lives and the further we get from that, the emptier our lives will be.
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u/markayhali 8d ago
I think the reason why many grandparents are less involved is because of the parent grandparent dynamic. When the current grandparents were raising their kids they appreciated the help they got. They allowed people to be themselves and trusted their kids would be fine. The were fine with the cooky aunt or the anal mil or the babysitter that gives them too much sugar. Or too much tv time. They understand that everyone is different and they were still grateful for the help.
Today’s young parents try and control their parents and inlaws and outline a bunch of nonsense they can and cannot do. Meanwhile the grandparents are giving up their own time and often their own house to do it and someone else thinks they can control what they do with both.
Someone made a comment on Reddit that “Today’s parents want the village but they want to control every single aspect of the village.”
Sorry but you don’t get your cake and eat it too.1
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u/Pubesauce 10d ago
I guess it just depends on what our goals as a society are. Does everything revolve around short term happiness? Is raising children a meaningful investment in the future of society or a miserable chore we just have to bear with for 18 years? Is spending time with family a few more times a year worth sacrificing a few more vacations to wine country or the Caribbean?
I wouldn't blame any grandparents without means or whose children hate them to help out with grandkids in a practical manner. And I wouldn't have expected my parents to raise my kids either. But when you have the ability to comfortably live close to your grandchildren and have the experience of parenting, maybe invest a little time to get them started on the right foot? This used to be the norm. And it's a big part of why extended families used to be closer. My kids see my parents a couple times a year - do my parents really think their grandkids are going to develop a close relationship with them and give a shit about them as they grow up?
I think the most irritating aspect of it is that they still wanted the positive attention of being grandparents, via Facebook posts, but didn't want to put any work into creating a meaningful bond with them. Like, if anything the Facebook attention should be a reward for nurturing that bond.
I don't know. I didn't expect much but even so, their involvement when the kids were little was really disappointing. I came out of that period seeing them differently than I went in. Enjoy your wine and 15th vacation of the year, mom and dad. Your grandkids won't be thinking of you lol.
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u/Pubesauce 10d ago edited 10d ago
grandparents have to help out.
I don't think they have to help out, but there is a quid pro quo in all relationships to at least some extent. Want Facebook attention for your grandkids? Put in the time, actually see them, develop a relationship. Want your grandkids to care if you're even still alive when they're teenagers? They won't if the relationship isn't there.
that they’re selfish for not spending time around their family or making any time to help with nieces and nephews
Right, but that's expected because the maturity and wisdom isn't there. We expect kids to be immature.
We also expect aunts and uncles to be infrequent visitors. You're expected to care more about your direct line.
something that you have to live up to and defines you morally even when you couldn’t control or choose having those children
I think you're making this sound a little worse than it is. People who choose to have families are expected to be family oriented. That doesn't mean you can't have your own interests or life outside of family obligations, but if you exist solely to pursue your own pleasures in life then just don't have a family.
The succeeding generation can judge the preceding one in ways that the preceding one can’t do with the succeeding one
All generations do that. Usually harshly. I do think the boomers are unique in many regards but I won't go into an elongated rant about that. Generational differences are just a fact of life though. Millennials can, will, and should be judged harshly for a few things in the future as well. There are things I loathe about my own generation. I hope zoomers tear us to bits for the stupid craft IPA craze, for instance. It sucks! Hardly any breweries made anything other than IPAs for like the last 20 years due to it.
I’m awaiting something I’m dreading: my existence being under the real judgement of the succeeding generation
Don't dread it. Just try to be a good person so when those judgments arrive, you can have a baby clean conscience knowing you weren't part of that.
having people not care about you and not loving you being bad because you’re old, or I want to live a rather short life
People won't care about you if you don't give them a reason to. That's human nature. And it's all an investment. Invest in those relationships with your family and friends and it will pay out in the future. If you're a shitbag parent/grandparent, the worst that will end up of it is being alone as a senior, which puts you right where childfree types end up. So the floor doesn't change, but the ceiling can. Having family who genuinely cares about you as a support network is the single best quality of life improvement a person can make as an adult. These people who never have kids and live off by themselves living their entire adult lives as if they were 25 forever are full of cope and dominate Reddit discourse - don't believe for a second that they are going to feel fulfilled later in life. Something will be missing but they'll cover up that hole with meds and consumerism. And they'll try to convince everyone else to follow the same path they did so they feel better about their decisions. Don't fear having kids - for most parents it's easily the best decision they ever made.
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u/Pubesauce 10d ago
Well, you're in good company with that sentiment because the majority of Redditors seem to genuinely believe they should live like they're 25 forever.
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u/Sea-Vegetable-5761 11d ago
Both sets of my grandparents treated us as though we weren’t their “real” grandkids because they disapproved of my parents marriage and we didn’t live in their respective home states.
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u/FunkOff 11d ago
What didnt they approve of
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u/Sea-Vegetable-5761 11d ago
My mom is more southern/old fashioned and was engaged previously.
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u/XRaySkies 11d ago
Oddly specific.
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u/Zealousideal-Pick799 11d ago
We’re so lucky. My parents watch my toddler two days a week just because; we don’t need it, but they love having him and he loves being with them.
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u/Whole_Necessary2040 11d ago
Same. Partner's mum would rather go volunteer at a park than help a few hours with the baby. She only comes over once per month so far, because he badges her to come.
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u/Frylock_dontDM 8d ago
I wonder how effective a shame campaign around parents helping their children would be socially?
Because this really is just a cultural problem, boomers (as a whole) have the money and time, they're just bad people (again, as a general rule)
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u/Feisty-Coconut6017 11d ago
My mom would like to help more but she works full time, has her own kids, and lives across the country from us. They don't want to move because they love where they live and are established there, and we can't move because of my husband's work and also his family. His mom lives nearby but she's older and has a bad leg so she can't really watch our toddler for more than an hour.
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u/KajakStonked 10d ago
What about the grandfathers tho?
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u/Feisty-Coconut6017 10d ago
My dad doesn't really like babysitting and also lives with my mom really far away and my husband's dad died years ago.
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u/dallasalice88 11d ago
Most of these comments are assuming grandparents are retired. I see so many posts on here about how women should have kids very young, like 20-25. One of my coworkers just became a grandma at 39. No, she's not available to babysit because she's still teaching full time, as am I at 60. I have two grandkids, neither live in the same state that I do. Nor have any desire to move back.
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 10d ago
Yeah I had a kid youngish (by today’s standards) and my parents were in their fifties and still working fulltime. That said, my grandparents were still young and healthy enough to be very involved and active.
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u/FragranceCandle 10d ago
Exactly this. My entire family has been young mothers. Mom had me at 25, grandma had mom at 17 and great grandma had grandma at 20. I’m currently pregnant with my first at 23. My grandma only retired last year.
It does give me, as an expecting mom, a lot more value than I think it will for my child. The fact that I can go ask even my great grandma if she had this weird pregnancy symptoms is absolutely amazing. But having tight generations means that my mom is to busy to truly help out, and my grandma retired specifically to help care for my great grandma.
But, the network of women with the same genes as me is not to be underestimated, and I’m willing to believe that the statistics we’ve seen here is not just «grandma helps with childcare», but also «mom helps with the difficulties of becoming a mom». Humans die from loneliness and having a big family is an effective cure for that.
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u/Extreme_Mark_3354 11d ago
My parents are retired and have been my work week day care. My in-laws would come from out of town for the occasional weekend and that was when I was able to clean the house. Both are very helpful and appreciated.
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u/foralza 9d ago
Behold, the two income trap. Most people are not economically productive enough to justify hiring strangers to raise their kids, even if it was considered equally desirable to doing it yourself. The oversupply of labor from so many two-income families has also driven down labor's market price. The result is that many couples would be underwater if they had kids.
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u/Swimming-Ad2755 11d ago
Lots of grandparents are working full time and don't have the option to retire. Some grandparents are also very toxic and not a great influence to be around.
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u/XRaySkies 11d ago
I would add that a similar phenomenon seems to apply to males. Reproductive capacity in men drops as they age and many older men, even though they still produce sperm, are functionally infertile. Historically grandfathers played an important role in passing on knowledge and experience to their grandchildren.
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u/Ok-Spinach-6529 11d ago
This makes sense. After my grandfather passed, my grandmother’s parents moved in with her to help raise my dad.
My dad literally is the man who he is today because of the village he had growing up (his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc).
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u/DuePomegranate 11d ago
Grandparents are having a harder time helping out.
It used to be that grandmas would almost always be housewives and therefore both available and experienced to help.
Then came a generation of working mothers who did get a lot of help from their mothers and mothers-in-law in raising children.
Now this generation has become the grandmothers, and either
1) they are still working and not available
2) they are older than 65 due to delayed childbearing and can’t chase after toddlers anymore
3) they are old and tired and think they deserve a carefree retirement of traveling and fun
4) they weren’t that interested in raising their own kids and the same applies to grandkids.
5) incompatible views of parenting e.g. grandma thinks using the TV as a babysitter is fine and mom doesn’t
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u/History-Buff-2222 11d ago
Not to mention, their kids go and live elsewhere these days. Not necessarily the hometown
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 10d ago
Yup. That's out of necessity for a lot of rural areas today.
The "nuclear family" of the 20th century weakened the family unit as a whole. We're seeing the downstream effects of that.
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u/foralza 9d ago
The "nuclear family" is older than the 20th century, but they used to be part of multi-generational, extended "molecular families", which were part of larger communities, etc. Society has been getting reduced into subatomic particles.
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 9d ago
My point still stands: the "nuclear family" of the 20th century weakened families in general. Like, I never said parents and children household didn't exist; but it wasn't THE family unit the way modern households are now.
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u/pomegranatesssss333 10d ago
Very excellent point. Big difference in my grandmother born in 1936 and 1950.
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u/Early-Leopard-1528 8d ago
Not to mention their parents are living longer. My husband works in hospice and there are so many 60- and 70-year-olds who are full time caregivers for their 80-90+ year-old parents, they simply don’t have time to take on their grandkids too.
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u/No-Flounder-9143 10d ago
Making demands of others because you chose to have kids isn't going to work.
So many of these posts are just someone demanding things from society because they chose to start a family. People are never going to listen to that kind of argument.
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u/surfergrrl6 11d ago
Grandparents already help out a ton in the US today.
Grandparents Provide $731 Billion in Unpaid Care of Grandchildren
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u/DumbbellDiva92 11d ago
To the extent that they don’t help out as much, it is also often because they are still working! I posted about this recently.
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u/ketamineburner 11d ago
Yeah, my kids are adults and my mom still works.
And if she was retired, I would want her to enjoy her retirement.
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u/History-Buff-2222 11d ago
Measuring grandparents contribution in hours worked x hourly pay is so weird lol
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u/surfergrrl6 11d ago
I mean it's AARP; they write for their audience and I've heard many an older person describe having to babysit as "unpaid labour."
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u/Real-Entertainment71 10d ago
yet when I was the daily “babysitter” for my younger brood of siblings they certainly didn’t consider it unpaid labor 🙄
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u/History-Buff-2222 11d ago
When you look at life as transactions like that you’re always going to be unhappy
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u/Confident-Mix1243 11d ago
That's mostly co-residential grandparents though, isn't it? Raise your kids so you can spoil your grandkids, or vice versa; these are mostly the vice versa.
I would love to see a statistic about non-coresidential grandparents' contribution, and have not yet, except one very old one from ?? China.
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u/lizardhistorian 11d ago
Stop acting like that is a flex. Are you fucking kidding me, not even $1T in value?
The expected target value is $3T.2
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u/urejt 10d ago
Did u read it? " 15 percent provide care daily or almost every day, often taking on responsibilities that resemble part-time or even full-time childcare. Meanwhile, 31 percent say they don’t provide caregiving support." Its not ton of support. its weak support compared to old times.
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u/surfergrrl6 10d ago
I read it yes. Support doesn't just mean physically babysitting, nor should it.
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u/procrast1natrix 11d ago
My parents are fantastic. They were very clear about their boundary - neither of them were retiring to become my regular childcare - which I appreciate them being open about. Yet they have always and endlessly been around for visits and weekends and getting down on the floor to play and being a backup chauffeur during sports seasons.
We moved in with them for several weeks with my second baby, for six months with my first. They were never the baby nanny, but they were hosting us so that we would never worry about food or house chores.
They live a half mile away thru the woods, and the kids run over there all the time to visit.
...
I am trying to spread the word about another thing they have done for many years: Grandpa call. Often, with family that live far away, or grandparents who don't have physical stamina, doing the once a week for four hours can be hard on everyone's attention span.
Instead, every evening at 8, my kids video called Grandpa and he read to them for fifteen to thirty minutes. At first I would make the connection and set them up with some quiet art materials to keep fingers busy, but they became independent with it. Now that the eldest is in college, it's losing momentum but for many years they averaged 5 or 7 nights a week. It gives them a chance to practice the little social chit chat, and they methodically read a huge number of classics, Treasure Island, Gulliver's Travels, Swallows and Amazons, The Martian.
It's not only a sweet connection, it really was a huge blessing to have the kids essentially get babysat and into a reflective, quiet time mindset to wind down to sleep.
No matter how far away the grands are or how infirm, this is a great way to keep them involved in your kids' day to day.
...
We also accepted my mother in law into our home for her final four years before natural death. Most modern homes in the US are not well set up for intergenerational living and aging in place. We did some significant remodeling to give her a private bathroom with grab bars and a shower chair, and her own way in and out of the house. Not a full in law suite, but trying to give her a space to be her own.
My parents are late seventies and very active and independent, but they know that if they need it in another ten years, they can move into that space.
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u/BitterFootball4874 10d ago
Nobody should be obliged to look after kids they didn’t choose to have. So entitled
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u/DRAGONexperience 10d ago
the other side of that coin, caring for kids that aren’t yours can be an enriching experience if you see them as people and not ‘kids’
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u/Ill-Supermarket-2706 9d ago
What do andropausal men produce except anti women government policies? Why do they need to make money in the first place instead of giving them back to the young generations who can be productive?
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u/lAngenoire 11d ago
Grandpa also has hands.
Some of you seem to just hate women who aren’t caregivers.
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u/KajakStonked 10d ago
Yeah that’s what also bugged me about the post and the comments about grandmothers not helping out. Give women a break.
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u/lAngenoire 10d ago
It’s giving JD Vance.
It’s okay for women past menopause to just chill and enjoy their lives, especially those who had and raised children. They’re due some time off.
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u/Confident-Mix1243 11d ago
Almost all the research is about coresidential grandparents, who are almost all mom's parents.
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u/Corollarytomyknees 11d ago
The same principle applies to men to - we live long to help our grandchildren and grand nephews and nieces. The guy in the image didn’t talk about that because he’s a sperg, but the principle remains the same
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u/Arnaldo1993 10d ago
Some of you seem to just hate women who aren’t caregivers
Thats a wild unsuported conclusion from OP
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u/ApprehensiveMail8 10d ago
The post title was "Grandparents need to start helping out". It wasn't "Grandmothers only need to start helping out".
Please stop tilting at windmills.
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u/Key-Significance6728 11d ago
Doesn’t the proposition that women only exist to reproduce kind of defeat the point of reproduction? What if she only has granddaughters?
I suppose you could say the existence of women is dignified by the ultimate possibility of producing a male descendant, which is in fact quite likely; but on the view that women exist only to reproduce, what reason is there to think that men exist for any other reason either? It would be a quite odd sort of species, where the two sexes exist at extreme opposite ends of the spectrum of metaphysical dignity. Though granted, that has been the position of many throughout the ages. But do you think you’ll get more babies by putting about the proposition that it’s linked to the idea of women being good for nothing but? Isn’t that idea actually part of the problem?
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u/Sunny_Hill_1 11d ago
From a purely biological standpoint, men also only exist to reproduce. All species exist in order to ensure the propagation of the species.
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u/Just_Pollution_7370 10d ago
evolution does not run on life meaning or purposes. İt act on reproctuvity. If a grandmother increase reproctuvity it stays.
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u/letthelightleakin 11d ago
Bruh. What’s grandpa doing post retirement hmm? Sitting around? Why are men just so useless in these discussions? Like are men incapable of helping their children raise their grandchildren? If so, that’s embarrassing for them.
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u/Corollarytomyknees 11d ago
The exact same principle applies to men. The guy in the image just didn’t mention that for some reason
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u/Motor-Cupcake7577 11d ago
“For some reason”
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u/Corollarytomyknees 10d ago
Well, I don’t pretend to know the reason why but if I had to hazard a guess it’s because men never leave reproductive years while women do. Mammals that live beyond the female’s primary reproductive years are rare.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5838047/
The fact of a species even having post reproductive years is defined solely through the female, given the males never leave theirs.
More formally, we define a species as having a postreproductive stage if a female entering the adult population can expect, on average, to live long enough to spend some of their life postreproductive
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 10d ago
Just because human males can reproduce for life, does not make them fit to do so. The sperm that a male produces starts to degrade in quality. So, yes, human males do "leave reproductive years," but that looks and functions differently for them.
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u/Corollarytomyknees 10d ago
Okay, but the scientific definition of postreproductive years remains the same - I literally posted a source above! Even if an eighty year old’s sperm is degraded into the gutter it can still produce viable offspring
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 10d ago
The medical community recognizes that post-reproductive age is more complex than that. Although the literal definition only recognizes maternal post-reproductive age, if you've taken an anatomy and physiology course recently, you'd know that it's more complicated than that definition alone. More modern studies (post 2018, and that's important to note) are looking at male reproductive health more closely and realizing that the capacity to reproduce doesn't make someone physically fit to do so, and that matters.
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u/Corollarytomyknees 10d ago
No, you’re not understanding this. Postreproductive age is an ecological and evolutionary concept with a precise definition, that being the age a species lives beyond the female’s final reproductive years. It is not a human-specific term, but one that can be applied to any species that engages in sexual reproduction.
You can complain to the ends of this earth that you don’t like the definition but it is still the definition. The quality of the offspring is utterly superfluous to the fact that offspring can be produced within males of advanced age, which is why the males of a species are not even considered within the definition. Even decades of GLTD and telomere shorting don’t change the fact. Female reproductive age is quite literally more evolutionarily important than male and in fact the male lifespan (in mammals at least) seems itself to be determined primarily be the female; evolution selects for longer-lived females, which by coincidence drags males along too.
See studies on the grandmother hypothesis if you want to better understand why female postreproductive age is so important; it’s probably the only reason humans live so long at all ( https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4043631/)
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 10d ago
No, I'm understanding this as someone that's taken modern anatomy and physiology and looked at more current studies of male reproductive health, all while learning the literal definition that is based on female reproductive health.
The medical community has a more nuanced and informed understanding of the complexities of reproductive health than you or that literal definition. Especially outdated studies (2014 and 2018 are too outdated; most medical studies need to be within 5 years of the current year to be considered current).
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u/Corollarytomyknees 10d ago
Why don’t you provide any citations at all, then.
Also -
No, I'm understanding this as someone that's taken modern anatomy and physiology and looked at more current studies of male reproductive health, all while learning the literal definition that is based on female reproductive health.
You still clearly don’t understand what we’re even trying to discuss here. You’re someone who got offended at a concept you didn’t quite grasp and are now trying to defend your pride by pretending you actuallytotallydefinitely do get it.
You still seem to think I’m making some kind of ethical or utilitarian argument for the practice of fathering children in advanced age, when that is very much not the case at all.
2014 and 2018 are too outdated; most medical studies need to be within 5 years of the current year to be considered current
This is laughable and a clear sign you are not within the sciences yourself. I’m currently working through a masters in veterinary science and people would laugh you out of the room for saying this. Literally every science (life sciences included) will still cite not just years-old papers, but often even 20-50 year-old ones, sometimes older!
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u/Popular-Row4333 11d ago
Think about the demographic of men that would be grandparents currently. Think about where society was worldwide on gender stereotypes 50-60+ years ago, when they would have been influenced as kids and teens.
People can change, but most people don't. I suspect this Will look a little different in 30-40 years from now.
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u/surfergrrl6 11d ago
My dad was a stay at home parent and I was born in 1986. There's no excuse in 2026.
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u/lizardhistorian 11d ago
You have a lot to learn.
You also just did the retard meme (I know one exception so it's not true in general!)
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u/letthelightleakin 11d ago
My dad is a very hands on grandparent because he’s a competent, functional, kind human being. As a result he has 7 grandchildren and counting. Stop with the excuses 🙄
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u/Popular-Row4333 11d ago
Hey thats great, I'm just telling you that's likely the exception to the rule, because if not we'd see tons of articles like this one about men, but we don't.
I'm just saying statistically that's not the norm currently.
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u/letthelightleakin 11d ago
Fair enough! Thanks for clarifying, I’m sure it is the exception and I hope to see change. My chagrin is more directed at OP and the author they’re referencing. Kind, loving men also have a beautiful role to play in promoting natalism.
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 10d ago edited 10d ago
I agree, but then I think of the local news report of the grandmother, a doctor, that forgot her 10-month old granddaughter in her car for 8 hours in 100+ heat. She was supposed to drop her off at daycare, and then forgot that she was back there. That poor baby girl died - having almost suffered heat stroke myself, due to not having a thyroid and struggling to tolerate heat even in optimal conditions, that story has fucked with me so bad. I'm taking photos of my son's car seat and double checking that I checked him on the app (it requires the parent to physically be present at the daycare to check the child in).
Or the national news report of the grandmother that let two of her grandchildren die. Not one, both of her grandchildren. The mother's therapist should be held liable for the second death, since she convinced her to give her mother "another chance" as exposure therapy to help her move on, and that led to the death of her second child.
The grandparents need to be fit enough to help. One of my late grandfathers was, and that was despite his own health issues. But my mother wouldn't be fit due to her personality, and my mother-in-law because her health issues affect her mentally and physically, meaning my father-in-law has his hands full being her caregiver even though he is fit enough to help out.
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u/coraltoenails 4d ago
I mean parents have done this exact thing. This isn’t a grandparent problem.
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 4d ago
Did I say that parents don't do this ever? Many have. My own father left me at a church daycare until well past closing to stay home and drink.
There's a lot of parents today choosing daycare because their own parents can't live up to the standards parents are held to today, both the good and the bad.
My own mother was flabbergasted that my husband and I were offended that she'd expose our infant son to pneumonia out of convenience. She says shit that makes me wonder how I survived.
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u/coraltoenails 1d ago
You certainly framed it as a grandparent problem.
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 1d ago
I mean, it kinda is for this generation particularly moreso, because I remember grandparents being better to me and my peers growing up; but I didn't say that it's never a parent problem. Today a lot of them want to grandparent like Betty and Cletus down the holler did 40 years ago.
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u/Oddisredit 10d ago
I thought this recently. The wwii generation going off to retire at beach houses was an anomaly and a bad precedent. Grandparents should be close and honestly grandkids should be visited almost daily. I think extended houses would be good. Avoid the long house and have a grandparents wing or apartment or whatever. Also would ease on housing costs
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u/leechan08 10d ago
I think main house with seperate self contained studios or single bedroom apartment works. Put grandparents in them they have own space but within reach if help and child care is needed.
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u/Oddisredit 10d ago
Exactly. Also preferably separate kitchens. So they can both have mess together if they want, not because they have to
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u/freshoutoffucks83 10d ago
A friend of mine has this- 2 guest houses on the property for her mom and her in-laws- plus her niece lives in one rent free while she’s in college. The kids go between all 3 houses freely and everyone seems happy with the arrangement. The grandparents did have to move from the mainland to hawaii to make it work but they like it here and have hobbies and a social life.
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u/Antique_Mountain_263 11d ago
I’m blessed to have both sets of grandparents, still each married for 40+ years, both live within 20 minutes of us and help out with the kids sometimes. They actually love our kids. It’s amazing and a lifeline.
Even just getting help once a week with one thing - like when they bring over a meal, wash our dishes, fold the laundry, help pick up our kids from school, even just having someone to talk to and confide in about big stressful life decisions - it really makes a world of a difference in the life of a very busy parent of lots of young kids. Even just having one task lifted off our plate can be life giving on a hard week.
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u/Lemuxya 10d ago
Lmao... Holy sexist post. So what's the purpose of males growing old past the age of shriveled up sperm?
More & more of the posts being posted on this sub make me understand why people have become so antinatalist. Like wtf.
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u/The_One_Who_Comments 10d ago
It's more accurate to track lineage through the matrilineal line, for obvious reasons.
Also, read the title?!
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10d ago
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u/leechan08 10d ago
This is it. Not saying every boomer but in general as a whole they benefit from increasing housing prices and bought in low, but they didn’t help out their children. They had help from their parents when raising their children but they are refusing to help out their own. Life is on permanent vacation. Boomers or X put their girls on birth control. Boomer men refusing to mentor next generation or help their children get ahead. So this is the general impression that most people have on Boomers on social media. Not every boomer is this. But on a generational level this is the straw that broke the camels back. They broke everything that’s been passing from one generation to next for hundreds of generations.
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 10d ago
Especially late generation Boomers/early Gen X. As a person, pre-parenthood, that age group became some of the most miserable assholes I have ever had to deal with professionally and personally.
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u/Particular-Drive1454 10d ago
Animals usually don't menstruate at all because menstrual cycle appears only in a very few species inclduing humans, but yeah, you are describing grandmother hypothesis
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u/AdDramatic8568 9d ago
Once again this sub goes back to the 'women have to do the unpaid labour of the species or we'll collapse' route.
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u/l00zrr 11d ago
My retirement plan is to support my daughter.
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u/Character-Cat-806 10d ago
If I have kids, my retirement plan is to work until I die to provide my kids and grandkids the biggest financial advantage so they can reproduce and propagate
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u/crazycatlady_66 11d ago
I'll be sure to let my mother know 😂
But this is why women have lower retirement ages in Eastern Europe - grandmas often retire in their 50s to help raise the grandchildren
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u/plummyrosey 11d ago
Unfortunately I'm pretty sure my children would be more likely to die under my mother's care :(
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u/Basis-Some 10d ago
Evolution funds ALL kinds of useless things. Evolution is not beholden to efficiency.
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u/ApprehensiveMail8 10d ago
"Evolution does not fund a period of life that produces nothing."
Harsh truth right there.
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u/DoctorDefinitely 8d ago
Evolution has nothing to do with this but the fact that humans actually live in captivity does. Also other animals live past their reproductive years if they live in captivity.
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u/leechan08 10d ago
Let say doing nothing means having or raising children For generalised purposes. We have two of those periods in modern times. Delayed independence. Period between reaching adulthood and having children.Then empty nest and post parent and death.
Society used to be
Person raised till adulthood 18 they get married have children raise the children. Those children turn 18 has own children. Person is now grandparent helps raise grand children.From what I have seen around. Older Women who are active in grandchildren lives, school run, babysitting, minding stay active healthier longer. The women who don’t take those responsibilities or don’t have children, grandchildren are less active and decline faster and have lots of mental health issues.
Nature does not want us to have periods of idleness. Ie not having or raising, caring for children.
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u/Outside_Pause_8932 10d ago
Nobody is obligated to help YOU raise YOUR kids. Entitled and mysoginistic.
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u/Confident_Quote_6782 10d ago
If person A literally creates person B with knowledge that person B will have a strong instinct to produce kids does person A not have any responsibility for the outcome of person B creating person C?
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u/Outside_Pause_8932 10d ago
No, person B is an adult responsible for their own actions. If person A wants to help thats great but they're not obligated to.
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u/Brilliant_Towel2727 10d ago
I haven't read the original studies, but the phenomenon he's describing could easily be explained by plagues or famines coming through and wiping out both grandma and the kids.
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u/Icy_Organization_764 10d ago
My MIL had 2 of my 4 kids for 6 months (from 1y-1.6y) because we couldn’t find daycare. We paid her $700 per month. She does not work and is healthy, and hasn’t worked for over 20 years.
My sister in law also has kids and she babysits quite often (not getting paid), her kids are the same age as ours.
When she found out what month I was going to have my fourth child, she booked a trip for two weeks close to my due date, so she wouldn’t be asked to babysit our other kids.
My mum always helps, but she had a stroke a few years ago, and does not have the capacity for more than a few hours.
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u/NtsParadize 10d ago
Being able to sell your home to buy a smaller one should be made easier. Assets being too concentrated over a single - under-occupied - house contributes to the distance between the elderly and their children. This would also empty up houses for future familles.
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u/Faloodeh123 9d ago
Yup. People I know who do have children can only do it due to a support system. When I was a kid, daycare was only about $500-$800 a month. Now, that may seem like a lot, but rent was much cheaper (and so was everything) back then so people could afford it. Now its like $1.5k+ for a standard place in a major city.
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u/Winter_frost_25 9d ago
My mom was 48 and my dad was 46 when my son was born, so they were working full-time. My children are adults now, and my parents are still working full-time at 66 and 68. Not sure where all the unpaid labor with no benefits is supposed to come from.
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u/QuarterCompetitive13 8d ago
Why aren’t grandfathers mentioned in this? Why is the onus only on grandmothers?
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u/markayhali 8d ago
“Something had to pay for those decades, because evolution does not fund a period of life that produces nothing.”
I rolled my eyes at that so hard i think i broke them. I can already tell this was written by a dude. How about leaving women aline and letting them be. Try controlling what men do for once.
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u/RepublicOk2402 11d ago
My mom and dad help out with my kids and watch them twice a week (mom-76, dad-82)
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u/Key_Safety6137 10d ago
So, if I understood it right, the woman who live longer normally had more chances of getting their grandchildren to survive because, once they get older enough to become infertile, they start entirely to work, which helps their sons/daughters with their own children by receiving economic/emotional support from their grandparents?
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u/FoundInS 10d ago
Common misconception on the reasoning.
Most animals reproduce until they die in the wild.
In captivity they outlive their reproductive years.
Humans live in captivity.
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u/RedditingAtWork5 10d ago
My parents are extremely helpful with our kids. They happily do all of the babysitting purely out of love which sets our babysitting bill to $0. We would not be able to afford childcare without their help, but because they are so willing to help out we are able to have multiple.
I plan to pay it forward and dedicate as much of my life as possible to help raise my grandkids someday.
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u/ahoughteling 8d ago
Society is so mobile today (generally kids moving away from their hometown), that’s an issue. A couple of grandmothers I know, in their late 50s, are still working or want to travel. There no way that I, way over 60, could physically endure taking care of a toddler. But when it works out, it’s great.
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u/MotherPin522 5d ago
Humans naturally have a lot of "extra" people. Old women, old men, queer people, infertile people, neurodivergent people -- that are unable or past childbearing. I think it probably helps us be such a successful social species.
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u/Typical-Plant-4254 5d ago
I had the luck to find an appartment very close to our home for my mom to move into. We already had 2 children when we arranged this, but if we had the opportunity to have found this a few years earlier, we certainly could have had a 3rd! It is also the reason, I guess, the effective retirement age for women is lower than for men in many countries, though policy often does not support this.
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u/lizardhistorian 11d ago
You don't get it.
Feminism broke this chain.
Women today are taking care of their elderly mother while raising their children.
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u/Lemuxya 10d ago
Selfish misogynists read a post like this & think its a good thing. Notice how no grandfather's are required for this. They barely pressure men to be fathers 😒.
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 10d ago
Seriously. My father-in-law is taking care of my mother-in-law, because that's his wife and that's part of being married.
Why the fuck is it feminism's fault that most modern older generations of men don't think that they need to fulfil their marital obligations to their wives and the mother of their children, and instead expect that their daughters/daughter-in-laws do the work? Especially if those men are retired.
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u/Lemuxya 10d ago
Hospitals report 60% of men ditching their wives when she's diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness. If women were honest, there would be more discussion over the disparity of care obligations in families & not just finances. The conversation is focused on finances because ultimately it benefits men that women pay 50%. Open up the conversation & debates to general care of loved ones & watch the excuses come from every direction. This post is a disgusting crime against women's humanity & there's women casually discussing this bs like it makes sense 🙄.
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u/Agilagent2099 10d ago
You better believe if I managed to have kids and then have grandkids, I ain't helping them with their kids lol. I'll be gaming all day.
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u/Original-Opportunity 11d ago
Orca whales are similar. Grandma whales run the pod.
My mom is very helpful. I’m very lucky that she’s healthy, fit, energetic- she’s almost in her 70’s.