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Comment by philosopher1234 | Hacker News Reader

I would reread the chart. Time with friends and time with partner stays the same through 60. You just don’t work as much, and your kids move out. It doesn’t seem so tragic to me.

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that you implicitly reduced family to "partner" says a lot. Not seeing your adult kids or them not seeing you or their grandparents, not maintaining a multi-generational and extended family, as used to be the case until very recently is a sad state of affairs in my opinion.

I agree. I think we have taken a wrong turn when we 'decided' to ditch the extended family. As I get older I increasingly feel the deep wish to live with the ones I love in a group. Including my children and their children.

This by the way would solve a lot of societal problems we have, including health care, mental health, financial problems, parental care to name a few.

One of the greats - Kurt Vonnegut - on this topic:

"A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys."

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/300997-ok-now-let-s-have-so...

I absolutely agree that maintaining a multi generation, extended family is a goal worth having. But the chance of the endeavour succeeding seems to be, anecdotally, around 50%. Some families are just miserable when they are together.

Tragic for folks without a friend circle - your main remaining company is basically your partner which, unless you delight in each others company, isn't great.

I highly recommend delighting in each other's company.

You can still lose your partner and you'll always be better off having friends in that case.

If I lose my partner, the best thing I could've done is delight in her company and give her my focus for what was her entire life.

Of course you should do that ideally, but you shouldn't use it to substitute for friends.

Have you ever had a long-term romantic partner whose company you enjoyed so much that you felt tempted to substitute it for that of your friends, and have this feeling continue consistently, over many years?

Have one of those weddings where you say “my spouse is also my best friend” then you don’t need a friend group too

And some people don’t even end up with a long term partner. The outlook for some is incredibly bleak.

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