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> We pretend that children don’t need to see their parents working to learn what the real world looks like. That age-segregated schools full of hyper-local and transient cultural pathologies are a sufficient role model. Our children enter the world having barely observed what the work of being an adult actually is, and then understandably struggle to reproduce it. Their entire lifetime of exposure to the economy and what it makes consists mainly of the media they consume, and so their conception of fulfilling careers is dominated by making video games and being in bands.

Any ideas on how to solve this problem without going back to the world as it used to be (which is probably impossible anyway)?

I personally don't quite agree with the thesis of the essay, but it is good, and this point is really insightful.

Children have no idea what 'work' is, or why it's done, or even why they are obtaining and education - in my own experience I feel as though it took 20 years of 'actual work and deprogramming' for me to finally 'get it'.

I think that kids having real jobs from an early age is a really good start - doesn't matter what. Sweeping up, flipping burgers, the 'sandwich cart guy/girl at the golf club'. This is a good start.

There's a young kid at my local Chinese Food shop who's maybe 8 years old, and he works there, it's a 'family business' it seems absolutely and perfectly normal, 'healthy' in fact (without knowing all the details). I'm inclined to think this kid will be a little more mature for his age than otherwise.

U Waterloo has 5 year Eng programs that focus on internships, only in hindsight to I realize how infinitely valuable internships are. I think these could be made much more open.

Personally I have been very lucky, my father built architectural models, my mother ran a small (artisan) shirts/nightgowns factory, both my father's workshop and my mother's small factory were situated less than 1 km from home.

As a kid, in the afternoon, after school and homework, I would go to either and learn something and try and help (doing something easy that I could do).

As an example at my mother's there were some kind of dressing gowns that used buttons covered with the same fabric that were to be assembled with a small press. (think today of allowing a 10 year old kid to operate a small manual press) or at my father's there was sometimes the need to make trees (in scale) with some wire, glue and cotton or to sand down a piece of plyboard before painting it.

I learned that work was something needed and that if you love your work (as my parents did) it is rarely heavy or tiring, that if there is a deadline, it must be met, that you need to talk to both customers and suppliers, that there are rules and bureaucarcy and you have to deal with them.

I can see the difference in mentality against that of some of my cousins whose parents had (possibly "better") office jobs, their parents basically left in the morning and were not seen again till almost dinner time.

They had no idea what their parents did, which kind of problems they had to deal with every day, they knew vaguely that they worked in a bank or in an office, that was all.

So this is a great example - I'm not sure if what you witnesses was so much 'work' in the 'the assuming responsibility for society' kind of thing, however the 'artisinal craft' aspect is just as priceless: the breadth and depth of knowledge, skills, planning, problem solving, the diligence. And yes, you're right, I think kids could be naturally more involved in something that 'doesn't feel like work'.

But 'office jobs' are important too!

How would you prevent an anarcho-capitalist devolution back into 19th century child labor?
Because we're an evolved society and nobody is going to be pulling their kids from school to have them work in dirty factories all day? And it's illegal?

Kids helping out at the family business, the pet shelter, the retirement home, at summer camp, this is all within reason. I don't even think we need 'rules', just the notion that it's possibly a good thing to do. Parents can decide as they do for literally everything else.

I should add - aside from 'work' - just 'doing a project' that involves a tiny bit of planning and preparation, seeing it through to completion, with all the little challenges - this is dramatically useful.

Starting at the age of 8, it would be good if kids took 2hrs a day to work on something more 'long term' where they need to learn, plan, build, accomplish, witness the fruits of their labour.

And lastly - the 'harvest'. Kids in most of North America used to take a little bit of time off of school in Autumn to go back to the farm for harvest. I honestly think this is where we should get our surplus labour from. 1/2 days in the field picking berries or whatever for a week or so, it's perfect for kids, maybe basic things for 10-year-olds, but absolutely teenagers can do almost anything including running machinery.

Just an idea, might be completely flawed.

I would put together children in "interest groups", not by age, but by the field that they should (or are interested to) learn. There would be a defined curriculum in each of the fields, and each kid would have a certain level in each field, which would be certified by exams, and they would be encouraged to work towards those exams. (Say every half a year, you would get a level if you pass an exam.) There would be no marks, only levels, up to unattainable mastery.

Within each interest group, children of different levels in that group would intermingle. The children with lower level of skill would respect (follow instructions of, do not bother, etc.) children with higher level of skill. On the other hand, the children with higher level of skill would have obligation to also mentor and help the children with lower level of skill to get to the next level, and not to be judgemental about one's skill level. Everybody would have an obligation to learn (or practice) and get to the another level.

The whole operation would be partly supervised by adults, ideally people with the high level in the particular skills.

That's hard in this anti intellectual, bureaucratic world.
> That's hard in this anti intellectual, bureaucratic world.

I have a funny, off-topic, story. For some reason, we had twice as many students as usual in my grade which meant we would need to have two sections: A and B. Initially, the plan was to divide the class into two right down the middle by grades: top half in section A and bottom half in section B. Apparently, when the parents found out, they stopped by to request the school to "promote" their kid to section A. The school "promoted" all the students in proposed section B to section A and "demoted" all students in the proposed section A to section B, effectively just renaming A <-> B which apparently made everyone happy.

I have found that work from home can make a bunch of time up in most people's day. That makes it easier to both spend time with my kids and talk about what it is I am doing right now. I see many more professionals with their kids at the park these days too.

Obviously, the current state of things is not likely to last but it seems like it might be a way closer to the goal

I can personally relate to this. I am a university student and living the past few months with my dad working from home, has taught me quite a bit about money management, the workplace, how R&D jobs feel like, and much more that nobody ever thought to tell me about without asking.
I like this essay but I'm going to disagree hard on one point:

> To accommodate our education and to achieve financial security we delay commitment and childbirth to the edge of biological feasibility. Even when finally successful, after miscarriages and struggles to conceive (and increasingly, after IVF) we find that the exhaustions of raising young children hit us in middle age instead of in our prime. When I was a teenager, I would stay up all night for the hell of it. As a 35 year old, a few hours of missing sleep set me back for the next few days. When the time finally comes to raise children, we deal with the 1AM nursing and night terrors with the body we have left. In two generations of delayed childbearing the toll of time compounds, and leaves us as grandparents physically unable to provide the depth of support that a young family needs.

Most 20-year-olds are still finding out who they are and don't really know what they want--in a partner, in a child, in life in general. There are real, if unfortunate, biological issues with waiting too long, but also healthy societal advantages.

(Me saying this as a 26-year-old doesn't quite feel right, but I still think I'm correct. I certainly don't feel ready for a child yet, and not merely because of economics.)

> Me saying this as a 26-year-old doesn't quite feel right, but I still think I'm correct. I certainly don't feel ready for a child yet

Our first kid was born a week after I turned 27. We got married at 23. If you had asked me at 25 whether I was ready for a kid I would have said no.

That summer my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. That put things into much sharper focus, and it turned into a question of "if not now, when?". So then we decided to go for it.

My dad got to meet his first grandchild. Three weeks later his cancer started growing again. Three months later he was dead.

In my opinion, the greatest disservice we do to the young is shielding them from the reality that life comes to an end and it's going to pass by whether you are ready for it or not.

Adulthood is basically accepting that there are things you want / need to do, even though you are afraid or uncertain how they will turn out.

>Adulthood is basically accepting that there are things you want / need to do, even though you are afraid or uncertain how they will turn out.

This seems to imply people should have kids before they are ready or know its what they want. Consider the fact that for you it might have worked out but for many they are left with children they are unable to support or do not have any feelings for. Having children is not an essential end goal for life and not having them is just as valid of a choice.

I can see how you would read it that way, but when I wrote it, I meant it more as a tie-in to the sentence before it:

> In my opinion, the greatest disservice we do to the young is shielding them from the reality that life comes to an end and it's going to pass by whether you are ready for it or not.

> Adulthood is basically accepting that there are things you want / need to do, even though you are afraid or uncertain how they will turn out.

I think no matter what your goals in life, there is a need to actually get around to them rather than waiting for "someday." For me, it was having children. For others, maybe it's something else.

> Having children is not an essential end goal for life

Having children is actually an essential end goal of life. Without children there is no life. That doesn't mean everyone needs to make that choice though.

Thank you for posting this. One of the best comments I’ve read on HN! (We had kids at 29 — and I completely agree with your takeaways.)
I'm going to say that finding out who you are sometimes doesn't happen until you HAVE to find out. Maybe that has less to do with the freedom to explore as it is ... what you do when you don't have that freedom and you're busy with other things.

I know some good folks out there spending huge amounts of time trying to find out who they are, and in the meantime they're challenged with ... really predictable 20 something challenges. Good things like getting outside, learning to climb, traveling and productive stuff. But I talk to them and they seem to expect things to just sort of jump out at them doing some of these things with some truth. But I'm not sure that's when you really learn those things...

> I'm going to say that finding out who you are sometimes doesn't happen until you HAVE to find out. Maybe that has less to do with the freedom to explore as it is ... what you do when you don't have that freedom and you're busy with other things.

When I said that, I was thinking of marriage more than anything else. To go to the extreme end of the spectrum, there's a reason most high school romances don't work out over the long term (although of course there are exceptions), you're just too young and changing too much.

Yes, I felt the same way, but it's really a big deal because our 'social progression' is not lining up with our 'biological progression'.

The reproductive process is more than 'sex, parts and birth' it's about the social condidtions that drive it, and it's obviously essential to our survival. So it's scary.

And FYI - when people actually do start to want to settle down and have kids, the 'finance' issue will hit really hard. Sister has 3 kids, she's a Director and her after-tax income basically pays for daycare and not much more. She works basically to maintain status, so when the kids are a little older, she's still earning well. That's nutbars.

This is a seismic shift from How humans lived from the beginning of the species until just over one hundred years ago. Which I believe is the authors point.
I suspect you could ask a person of almost any age if they know who they are and what they want and none of them could come up with a cogent big-picture answer. We try things, we make mistakes, we look for the things that will give us satisfaction and joy, and we live life. Don't wait.
Idk, I feel like all the way back to primary school I have known pretty much exactly what I want. I always knew I wanted to be a programmer. The only things that have changed from my original plan was where I want to live and finding out my sexuality.
Those societal advantages are only that way because of the defaults the article is describing. You could imagine a set of norms that better encourages and supports young parents (in child rearing as well as personal development).
I got my son at 30. I'd say noone is ever ready and you just gotta learn parenting as it happens. On the other hand I fault noone to wait or even forego parenting as you can really kiss your freedoms goodbye.
One of the most commonly repeated pieces of advice I got about having children from other parents is that "you will never feel ready for it".
I have thought about this many times and all I can think of is that people just have unplanned children and once the child is there parents will structure their life around the child. This isn't something you can prepare yourself for.

The idea of a responsible parent that is choosing to have children at the perfect time is basically a myth.

This is a great essay, and worth the read. The first part is descriptive in nature, and I highly recommend reading that at least through the "Parenthood" section.

The article is short on prescriptive advice, however, and it really loses some of its steam because of it. This is partly due to the authors frank, humble admission of ignorance about how to build a culture that honestly evaluates itself, an admission which is admirable.

But the prescriptive section also seems weakened because it is devoid of any consideration of religion and spirituality on culture. Both in history as well as the present, one of the "experiments" the author could refer to is the removal of religion from all aspects of public life.

Still, this essay does much to point out the impropriety of our Current Culture emperor running around in the nude, and for that, it's worth the read.

Towards the end there's this:

> So I’m going to be more experimental, and more generous towards other people’s experiments. I’m going to pay more attention. And I’m going to look with the clearest eyes I can at the world as it is, instead of the world as it was or as I wish it to be.

That is my takeaway from the article, but reading the whole thing to see how the author arrives there was also very interesting.

"Christmas is a celebration of the triumph of humanity over winter"

For half of the world, Christmas is in the middle of the summer

Go ahead and read the rest of the article, please.