Did I miss something, or does this article say that, for example, if one parent lost 5 children, that means that on average 5 parents lost 1 child each?
It's an interesting topic and the recent bumps on the graph have me wondering what caused young child deaths to rise in the '80s and '00s.
But unless I missed different numbers than averaging all child deaths across all parents, it doesn't answer the question in the title at all.
My grandma had cancer. A doctor had ignored her complaining of throat pain for too long, and it didn't look good. The doctor who told us chemo was an option was pushing my grandma really hard to just go ahead and die instead of trying chemo. It was horrible, and I hate the attitude that people shouldn't try so hard to stay alive.
My grandma tried the chemo. She did die anyway, which I'm sure some folks will see as a reason that she never should have tried.
No, I mean I don't get promoted for trying to hear what other people say, while managers can't say enough nice things about the hipster-ass who breaks everything he touches trying to turn it into GraphQL no matter what.
But I didn't write that very clearly the first time.
I always felt like I should want to get married and that I should want kids, but I just... don't. The desire just isn't there. I'm 29 and have been with my partner for long enough that marriage and likely kids are now the next stops on the what you're supposed to do in life train.
And I guess it's not that I actively don't want it. I just don't feel an inclination toward or away from it. There's just kind of an absent feeling about it... There's not anything internal making me want it (there is external pressure from my partner though who does want to get married and from society who expects us to get married).
Does this feeling change? Or am I just weird? Or should I just do it anyway?
Getting married and having kids is not for everyone. Rather, I'd say we should do more as a society to encourage people to think very hard about these decisions rather than continue to treat them as standard operating procedure.
I had a crappy homelife as a kid and I believe that caused me to really want to create a contented adulthood, which included children. Actually, from the time I was just a little kid I was called upon as a mentor to other children, by the time I got to high school I was a camp counselor, was teaching in an evening pre-school program for abused children, etc. So from an early age I found myself in a parent-like role. My kids are my world, but I don't believe for a minute that everyone would find the experience as rewarding.
Most women in a relationship will emphatically tell you when they want to get engaged, married or have kids.
They also have a biological clock to have kids before they're 35, and most listen to that clock.
Men don't have that clock, so there's different types and levels of motivation.
In my case, I wasn't interested in having kids until my late 40s, when the circumstances were convincing (responsible partner, as late in life as reasonably possible.)
Although I prefer being around adults, I understand that kids are doing their job when they require attention. I find my "clone" to be a plus overall, though expensive.
Career-wise, I vaguely thought having kids would be an advantage somehow, but I was incorrect. In the USA, companies don't care about employees ("at will employment"), and the same is true about your family.
That last part depends on the type of employer. In my case, as a male, I started to see a huge improvement in promotions and pay increases once I became a "family man" (although in my case, I'm not married to my partner, and she came with kids -- but it was always treated as a family unit).
I didn't want kids until I was 14 and my mom had an oopsie-baby. The intense love I felt for my baby sister changed my mind. And I wasn't wrong -- despite many, many, many drawbacks to having children, I love them just the way I'd hoped.
But I think people are so different that I definitely would not try to up-sell kids. At least so far, it's like having a 24/7 job, while I have a full-time job.
(Or as the rest of the comments say, women all want all the kids and all your money that's just science...)
You don’t need to get married to have kids. When you get down to it, the number of things you need to have kids is pretty small—healthy gametes is sufficent.
But what you should have is commitment to your relationship. Being willing to demonstrate that commitment is helpful, but it’s not required.
it was probably mostly because "everyone's doing it", but i'm glad we did. a little harder to bail when the going gets tough when the in-laws' friends have given you a cuisinart. ;)
I personally love me some alone time, but yeah, as a lady, tech is a little too lonely even for me. Something that I think would help is if the social types in the engineering department (often men!) would post interesting tech events in Slack.
Maybe I don't enjoy sports or poker; maybe you don't enjoy sci-fi book readings or craft nights, but chances are we both want learn some new tricks (with free beer and snacks). I suppose the risk there is that it can feel like an obligation -- and I actually had a boss accuse me of networking for my next job by going to tech events.
> Something that I think would help is if the social types in the engineering department (often men!) would post interesting tech events in Slack.
I think this is really important. But should add that if you want to do something don't be afraid to make said post. If you feel lonely, reach out.
I moved across the country and had no friends there (into an engineering firm, in an engineering town, with few people my age (mostly engineers)). Being mostly an introvert I was fine being alone 99% of the time, but everyone needs friends. I figured out that when I need friend time that I had to be the one to organize such events. If I didn't then no one did anything, or the groups that already existed would just do their own things. (Can't blame them for excluding me. Not like it was a malicious act. Just no one knew me.) It can just be something simple as "Hey I was going to do $X on $DAY, want to come too?" (direct works better than an open invitation) After learning this I did actually develop friends and got invited to things.
So what I'm saying is that if you feel lonely you have to reach out. I completely understand that this sucks as an introvert. But you do have some control over this and you can't completely rely on others to invite you to things.
Given that another comment says she "suddenly" crossed three lanes of traffic and was on the far side of the car when she was hit, my suspicion is that the car thought she was riding the bike. Of course all of us computers know that bikes always go over 5 mph so surely she'd make it across. Why brake?
I want safe self-driving cars, when they are safe. But Uber's clearly-established cavalier attitude toward human beings apparently can't be trusted with self-driving cars. I'm disappointed that politicians thought they could.
