Interesting, given the decline in birth rate that seems to be the inevitable consequence of widespread prosperity.
"Happiness" is one of those words that has thousands of different definitions, so I would frame it this way: Parents almost always describe their children as the greatest joy in their lives, but (in America at least) they also generally express more dissatisfaction and frustration with their lives than childless people.
> It really is a type of growth that would be dare say impossible to duplicate without kids.
Perhaps, but as a childless adult who had to take over my parents' affairs as their physical and cognitive health declined, I marvel at the wonderful hits of dopamine parents get as they watch their children grow. It's an adorable perspective on life that I didn't get to share as my mother gradually forgot who she was.
Strangely enough, I think I do understand. As near as I can tell, life's two greatest pleasures are
1. Love (both loving and being loved)
2. Voluntary hardship
I mean, what is parenthood if not love and voluntary hardship?
On the other hand, I think you are describing your subjective experience. I've talked with some "one-and-done" parents who deeply love their child, but wouldn't want another one if you paid them.
> Many of the parents I know are deeply and profoundly unhappy.
As a childless person, I believe this is a societal problem, not a biological one. We've broken apart the tribe and made just two people (at most) responsible for most of child rearing. And worse, we pretend the parents are directly responsible for a child's safety and development at all times, even though we all know some kids are just way easier or harder to raise, right out of the box.
Are you insinuating that childless people never fully mature? Because as a childless person I've noticed that a lot of the distance I felt with my friends with kids disappeared as soon as their kids were grown. Essentially we're all childless now, and think of the world in the same terms.
Yeah, I think that's the part that I was suggesting should be "banned". All neighborhoods should connect with all adjacent neighborhoods via pedestrian or multiuse paths. And yes, that means across arterials as well -- either have an official surface crossing with appropriate traffic calming measures / pedestrian islands, or build a tunnel.
True. I grew up in the country, along a busy road. I never walked or biked anywhere, and it was very isolating. Moving to a city that had quiet residential streets, wide sidewalks, and actual bike paths was a game changer for me.
I wonder how much damage that did to me, to have that lack of physical activity during my formative years.
True. Older (in the U.S., pre-war) neighborhoods actually provide kids with far more opportunities for walking than newer, cul-de-sac based suburban neighborhoods. I keep wondering when we're going to stop allowing such immobilizing, isolating neighborhoods to be built.
I don't know much about what Germany is experiencing, but even Germany's neighbors in the Netherlands and France seem to be having a renaissance predicated upon getting people out of their personal automobiles. Perhaps the problem is actually the outsized influence of the auto industry in Germany?
The ghetto is that bottom 20% living in Hell, not the 79% who merely deal with things that suck.
Although I was more referring to our systems more broadly (health care, education, transportation - the topic of this post), let's go with neighborhoods. Are you really trying to pretend that red-lining didn't happen? Or that de facto sundown towns didn't exist at least into the 1980s?
Actual Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems are in place all over the world, where there are physical barriers protecting the bus lane, and transit signal priority along the entire route. They work extremely well when they don't rely on motorists being on their best behavior.
I'm going to guess that you're a fellow American. That's our answer to everything - build a ghetto. Why make anything nice for everybody when you can make it suck for 79% of us, Hell on Earth for another 20+%, and nice for the privileged few?
> I doubt they'd care if a democratic president wanted to do the exact same thing...
Of course they would. They literally blocked Biden's student loan relief, calling it unconstitutional. These people are not there because they are exceptional legal scholars or because they established themselves as outstanding judges in their previous appointments. The six majority justices are there to help their side wield power, pure and simple. And they understand that part of that job is making it difficult for the other side to wield power. Because only their side is legitimate, you see.
> The Supreme Court doesn't really seem to be exceptionally awful.
The are exceptionally, extremely, extraordinarily awful. When the DC circuit court ruled on presidential immunity, legal scholars across the land pointed to the ruling as the probable last word, given how sterling the ruling was. Many were shocked that the Supreme Court even took the case up afterward. After all, what more was there to say? To have the SCOTUS overrule two centuries of established precedent in making the entire Executive branch above criminal law shocked just about everyone - this entirely for the purpose of keeping a single man out of jail.
> It's not the Supreme Court's job to override laws passed by congress because they're terrible or anti-American.
That is exactly their job, if said laws are unconstitutional.
We get it, @ExtraRoulette. You're big pimpin'.