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Comment by redvenom | Hacker News Reader

Man, this is messed up. I mean, if it works, it works...but I wonder if this is a symptom that traditional relationships are becoming harder because of our changing lifestyle. Or maybe they were always hard, but now it's just easier to see how hard because of the internet.

I don't know, but it just doesn't feel right to me.

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When I look at all the messed up families I met in my life, co-parenting seems like a good alternative.

This article presents a false dichotomy. There is nothing preventing these two people from hating each other and having some divorce-like custody hearing. It may even be more likely, there is no data on this new “approach”.

You know what data exists? For traditional families (divorced included).

Yes I am aware, did my comment suggest otherwise?

Commitment is quickly becoming a foreign term, but I don't think that applies to the people in the article.

> “Except we could be totally honest about wanting to have a kid soon, without the goofiness and flirting of a first date. You’re looking to achieve a common goal.”

Here's a crazy idea: IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW YOU MEET PEOPLE! If both are willing, then that's that! It sounds like they are ready to raise a family and commit because literally YOLO. There are plenty of people who are old and haven't found someone they organically vibe with. In my opinion, this isn't any different than an arranged marriage, so I feel like your fear/discomfort makes little sense here.

> In my opinion, this isn't any different than an arranged marriage, so I feel like your fear/discomfort makes little sense here.

But many people object to arranged marriages. I actually think most people in the world would object to arranged marriages.

People object to arranged marriages because people are often force or pressured into them. Here, the participants set the terms.

India? Also, you'd be surprised how common arranged situations are in even the US. Forgetting about Tinder, et al -- what about friends setting up friends? In the US matchmaking is more subtle, but it is extremely common. It's a matter of culture and norms.

Meh, arranged marriages used to be the norm everywhere for thousands of years. In many ways, the assumption that a marriage must be out of reciprocal love was established by Romantic writers barely 200 years ago; most tales from before tend to end up with “passionate lovers” meeting a tragic fate, to reinforce the societal message that infatuation is wrong. In traditional rural societies, the brutal realities of survival came first.

As an aside, I still have no idea how these books ended up making romantic love fashionable. The central example, Werther, is about a man who tries to get a woman away from her husband (while she's having none of it) and then kills himself. And the authorial voice clearly treats Werther as sad and misguided. Why did people take so strongly to it?

The word "romantic" changed meaning. Romantic period of literature is not same thing as romance a genre.

The romantic period was about strong emotions in general, solitude, beauty of nature and host of other love unrelated things. Suicide implies stronger emotions then kiss. Love or passion was just one thing.

Romance as genre is something different.

I would say that you have to review your assumptions. Maybe lifelong love that we've been thought was the norm was actually a minority throughout history.

Which love?

Maniac eros Maniac ludus Maniac storge Agapic eros Agapic ludus Agapic storge Pragmatic eros Pragmatic ludus Pragmatic storge

I don’t think people argued that eros lasted a lifetime, but others fill the gap as one matures and life circumstances change. If one is lucky enough to achieve this, it makes for a very happy life (according to self-satisfaction surveys over the decades).

I think relationships have always been hard, but it has never been easier to leave one, or to be tempted by alternative partners.

I'd be much happier with this if it was platonic co-adoption.

It's tough enough to support yourself these days, let alone a family. A single earner can't look after a family of 5+ as was once possible. Additionally, the increasing stress of careers in the middle class seems to make it harder to build strong relationships in the first place.

I thought this article would be highlighting the economic shift towards coliving with friends, which we've seen to be getting more popular, and therefore the rise of platonic parenting. But I think the same causes can explain the article's subject.

> A single earner can't look after a family of 5+ as was once possible.

Sure they can. It just means the family can afford a 1920 level of material wealth: a room for the boys, a room for the girls, the parents sleep in the living room, the kids wear hand-me-downs and read books from the library for entertainment, the other partner knows how to cook and cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner, the family has chicken once a week and meat on special occasions.

Exactly this. If your expectations time travel, you can do anything.

Should there be more government support for families that want to try this with one parent at home? Singapore is paying $10k, so they are starting to understand the economic impact of having well educated citizens:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54429706

For me it's just female dual mating strategy in the open: concieve a baby with the hottest available guy (easy), then find a person who will provide the resources to raise the baby (much harder). Of course the best result comes if the two roles can be fulfilled by the some person, but quite often that doesn't happen. DNA tests make the hidden version of this mating strategy harder, but doing it in the open gets more accepted over time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_pluralism

I love how you're being downvoted, even though dozens of species of animals do this in nature.

I get that a lot of humans like to believe they aren't animals, though.

It's a sensitive topic for many people, so even not being flagged yet is a big thing :)

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