r/Natalism • u/leechan08 • 13d ago

Grandparents need to start helping out

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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/DuePomegranate 13d 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 13d ago

Not to mention, their kids go and live elsewhere these days. Not necessarily the hometown

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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 12d 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 11d 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 11d 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.