“Trends in Mental Disorders” by Arnold Kling (an economist whom a friend follows):
So why are we seeing an increase in people being labeled as depressed, or autistic, or ADHD?
Some of these labels have become high status. Nonbinary is high status among affluent teenagers. But I do not believe that the desire for status is the main driver.
I suspect that more children are being born with innate mutations, because their parents are older, reducing sperm and egg quality. These mutations result in unusual personality characteristics.
I suspect that children are spending less time with other children. Families are smaller. There are fewer neighborhoods with a lot of children. And there is a reluctance to let children go out on their own seeking children with whom to play. I suspect that having close adult supervision most of the time stunts children’s growth in social competence and confidence.
Children are skilled at manipulating their parents. When parents are easily manipulated, the child’s self-control is less likely to develop. When there are four children, no individual child has a good chance to manipulate parents. When there are one or two, manipulation is easier.
Children are skilled at manipulating their parents. When parents are easily manipulated, the child’s self-control is less likely to develop. When there are four children, no individual child has a good chance to manipulate parents. When there are one or two, manipulation is easier.
I wonder if it’s time for my standard line: “If you think teenage parenting is bad it’s only because you haven’t seen old people with kids.”
Any chance that the above trends will reverse? It doesn’t seem likely among native-born Americans who are college-educated. I talked to a senior at Brown the other day (considering how kids will do almost anything to get into an Queers for Palestine League school these days, she was surprisingly diffident about the overall experience there). She’s moderately religious/conservative and, therefore, might be expected to have more children than average for her cohort. She said that she didn’t want to have any children until she was at least 30 years old (“my 20s are for me”). Also, she didn’t want to have any kids until she’d been married for at least two years (“in case I want to divorce,” she noted, expressing zero commitment to marriage per se (i.e., she would stay married only if it seemed like the best option going forward)). So her life plan was to get married at some point between 26 and 28 and then have children at some point between 30 and 32. This is a recipe, I think, for having exactly the kind of family that Arnold Kling decries (older parents, 1-2 children, maybe just one parent if things don’t go perfectly).
Loosely related…
A screen shot in case this Israel-hating Asian-American is disappeared…
$5000 may cover hospital birth care, significant help for any parent up to and many including upper middle class. I do not see it as a decisive driver in increasing birth rates but it is nice. Nothing can substitute believes or religion, preferably enlightened. Myself a late child, I would not say that I have been totally useless or weak or not athletic, but what is said about late birth genetics is true, I can feel the limitations. I know one case when elder by a few years sibling is very mentally accute and successfull while his younger sibling is quite a looser failing at most things he set to do, with physical disadvantage missing from the older one, so nothing is sure in human development.
Seem to recall exploding down’s syndrome & autism cases being blamed on delayed parenthood. Almost every kid a few years ago was going into special education. Meanwhile, all the women we ever encountered insisted it was raining gainfully wealthy men, they were having kids right away, & we should get lost.
#1 human factor cause for Down syndrome is alcoholic intoxication while baby is being conceived.
It would be better evidence to provide a scientific reference rather than an economic one. The causes of autism & ADHD seem most likely to be related to the toxic soup that we live in nowadays. The primary culprit is probably the changes to the vaccination schedule since 1986, There is plenty of scientific evidence pointing in this direction but most scientists choose to parrot the “safe and effective” mantra and follow the cult of Fauci in order to keep their jobs. New HHS secretary, RFK Jr, has promised to provide proof by September, and he spent the past 15 years or so collecting the scientific evidence that vaccines are the cause.
So after year of occupatioanal therapy, a repeated grade, and EAP, and repeated hemi-educational-semi-official-pseudo-medical entreatments to drug the kid up, this kid i was maybe raising admitted the truth: he just didn’t feel like paying attention.
I suspect the kid learned the malingering from his caregivers and it is not impossible that there was an inherited paternal pattern.
Late births all around maternallty and paternally going back generations.
There’s a loty of money in the autism game — don’t muck tha grift — you get dem or craps and reps of lincoln both cryin out to science fer da cure to childhood. People gettin paid to tell kids they stoopid so they got da sturmann juice like rommel goin fast metamphetamine time-release style.
Hey, all dem late births in genesis da book of those hebrews kinda i ‘member lots of late births so like maybe like that explains mankind better than the apple myth, yay science.
Wut ’bout all the incest and cannibalism and half our genetic material beboombop of exogenous origin?
It’s gotta be the shoes (TM)
Is the boom in ADHD real, or is it just parenting style changes and increased external influence?
Try disciplining a child, whether in public or even in private, and you are likely to get a visit from child protection services.
Additionally, when an *expert* in the field says, “Your child has ADHD; this medication will help,” parents, for a quick *fix*, take the bait.
Disciplining in public doesn’t always work, though:
“Cartman wants an IPAD”:
https://youtu.be/LU7JklH-ycE
> I wonder if it’s time for my standard line: “If you think teenage parenting is bad it’s only because you haven’t seen old people with kids.”
I can anecdotally attest to this. I came across someone who was a teenage mother, and I can attest that she was happier and more satisfied than childless women over 30 whom I’ve met. However, I would say that because of how European society places value on things, she did feel that she had done something unusual and went into a my-weakness-is-my-greatest-strength mode, not realizing that it wasn’t actually a weakness, at least to me.
> She said that she didn’t want to have any children until she was at least 30 years old (“my 20s are for me”)
This is again a weird kind of capitalism-induced extreme individualization, like not believing in the synergy of a marriage due to societal forces. IMO, extreme capitalism is making “my 20s are for me” the opposite of “having a child in my 20s”. According to Schopenhauer:
“Nature has provided women, even more than men, with the instinct of the species, in order that they should take care of the propagation of the human race.”
We live in a society where this instict is being lost.
“She said that she didn’t want to have any children until she was at least 30 years old (“my 20s are for me”)”
Certainly a lie. Women are delusional.
😀 No more delusional than any other group, IMO. I think that overall our actions are informed by what the society deems acceptable, and what it encourages us doing. One gender informs the other. So, one cannot point to an individual member or a gender and blame them or insult them. If a society wants to end itself then it will encourage its members to do things which will reduce its population, independent of the gender.
An interesting idea regarding illusion, not delusion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(religion)
I offer two reasons:
1. Parents who are trying to help their kids get into higher end schools are using adhd diagnosis to get concessions for test taking
2. Feminized schooling: boys need to burn off energy with boisterous behavior during recess, but schools hardly give recess; boys are not good at sitting quietly for hours and this leads to the teacher labeling many boys as adhd; but really they are just boys.
We live in post-scarcity society. There is no rational reason to get married or have kids. You can fuck and party, why would you choose to do hard things instead?
The only reason any procreation is happening is animal instincts.