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Comment by stareatgoats | Hacker News Reader

We can only move forward, not backward. The hunter-gatherer existence is often endowed with some notion of pristine, peaceful existence in harmony with nature, which is likely far from the actual truth. That said, I for one find many aspects (but not all!) of the present situation unsatisfactory, where the needs of macroeconomy and national priorities supersedes many of our most basic needs as humans.

This article could indicate how one of those needs are currently neglected, and point to the need for more grownups to spend more time with their children (and other children) than currently is possible.

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With all the massive life improvements we have with technology we could be investing so much more into our kids. Jobs could be flexible with short work weeks, and we could use that time to invest in kids. Parent, volunteer, mentor. Remote work done on a school site giving even more time to help kids learn.

Having worked remote most of my kids' lives, I'd say there are other challenges. Parents need time away from their kids too, and if every parent in society is working then how are kids supposed to get the adult attention and allow the parents some child-free time?

When I was younger kids played with others in the neighborhood, and there was always a homemaker parent in every household. Now every adult has at least a part-time job. Kids still play in the neighborhood, yet weekly instead of daily. More often they are in daycare, school, or staying home.

I’m thinking about everyone being more involved with kids. Not just parents of young children.

Lots of folks don’t want kids or to be involved with them too, another important consideration.

those that do not want to be involved with kids would obviously not choose to participate in such an environment, so they are out of the picture.

Has to be explicitly said, lots of folks expect a village without asking if the village consented towards the effort (n=1). Managing and openly communicating expectations derisks disappointment and suboptimal outcomes.

Not wanting to be a parent is one thing, but people who don't want to be involved with kids need to work on themselves, that's a deeply antisocial trait - your own existence depended on everyone around you being involved with you to some degree.

That is an opinion, not a fact. Freedom of association and to be happy can include not interacting with children you choose not to, and optimizing for happiness is important (versus a social contract requiring otherwise). No one will optimize for your own happiness besides you.

I have kids, but fully respect people who don’t care for or want to avoid time and interaction with kids. I respect their boundaries, that is what I advocate for here.

I’ve had over a decade of therapy, so I’m fairly confident in my position on the topic.

it is one thing to ask someone who doesn't want to deal with kids for help taking care of them, but quite another to expect them to tolerate kids and behave in a manner that gives the kids space they need. (like not smoking near kids, etc)

in a city i can't choose my neighbors, but some neighbors don't like kids and will complain if they are to noisy because they are playing soccer in the yard, to the point that they force the building management to disallow it, which then takes a lawsuit from the parents to remove that rule because such a rule is in fact illegal since kids playing is natural had has to be tolerated.

if someone feels that kids playing infringes their boundaries then they do need an attitude adjustment.

Agreed. Kids need the space to develop as you mentioned, and it’s somewhat trivial to determine where to live to avoid children using granular census and school availability data if desired.

it’s somewhat trivial to determine where to live to avoid children

given the discussions of how much more housing most cities need, i actually think this is not trivial at all. not wanting to live near children pretty much comes down to not living near people.

I will think on how to improve this.

i am not exactly sure where you are going with this, so i am curious what you have in mind.

> I have kids, but fully respect people who don’t care for or want to avoid time and interaction with kids

How would this sound:

"I fully respect people who want to avoid time and interaction with black people"

Why is okay to say "I hate kids", we would not think kindly of someone who says "I hate Women/Jews/etc.".

Kids were exploited, historically, just like any other minority - we used to send them into the coal mines and many didn't come back.

Even today, we discriminate against young people all the time. A 17 year old is not allowed to vote, but come 18 and they may be forced into the army and sent to fight a war, without ever having a say in the matter.

They are the last minority that we world does not respect, and has no plan to respect as the world is becoming more geniatric (look at the age of congress) whils moving into a climate calamity.

And I am not writing this as a young person, not any more.

how are kids supposed to get the adult attention and allow the parents some child-free time

not everyone is going to work all the time. obviously someone has to be available for the kids but not all the time either. the point is that life improvements, technology and flexibility makes this more easy.

Not if the cost is both parents having to work a day job.

I look at it from this perspective, we have been hunting-gathering for 95% of our time on earth, it may be the case that from our bubble we think we are "more advanced", but if we think about the test of time, we have not yet passed, and call me crazy, but it seems that this "advancement" of ours does not hold up for long at this level.

Today we know that many "non-advanced" cultures, aware of the limits of growth, limited the consumption of resources in many imaginative ways.

It is ok to say, hey you did this better than me.

We may not have stood the test of time (yet?), but we certainly stood the test of population. About as many people are living today as hunter-gatherers ever lived, that is about 10% of the total number of people who have ever lived.

Non-advanced cultures limited the consomption of resources because they couldn't do otherwise, their environment couldn't provide enough. But with agriculture, we made our environment orders of magnitude more productive, and growth is a consequence of that. Also, the "imaginative ways" advanced or not cultures have limited the consumption of resources mostly boil downs to different ways for people to kill each other. From murder to global wars. Killing people is not as popular as it once was in modern society, so instead, our limiting strategy is more about making less kids.

I look at if from a logical lens rather than a romantic one. Modern lifestyle outpaced our human evolution.

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