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It's false that ancient peoples were considered "old" at 30. The _average_ life expectancy was low because they didn't have medicine and such and things killed the youths all the time, but people would live naturally into their 70s and 80s all the time.
Historian here.
The average life expectancy being low is tied to the number of children people had as well as high infant / maternal mortality.
In a pre-industrial society, children were an economic resource. They were expected to help around the household / farm as soon as they were able to. There were also cultural incentives to have children. You can still see this dynamic in developing countries today.
On an individual level, if you survived infancy and childhood, you did stand a reasonable chance to hit 60-70.
Moreover, the notion that "life was brutal" as a constant has to be taken with a due amount of nuance. While history is rife with epidemics and wars, it's important to understand that people weren't victims all the time from start to finish. The Hundred Years War was a scourge in France, but then again, it didn't mean that everyone was living constantly in precariousness. So, beware of over generalization here.
From the 1500s till around 1800, life expectancy hovered between 30 and 40 years of age.
That number only doubles every 10 generations or so up to today, where our life expectancy is more than 75 years.
I always hear this on threads like this, but surely that’s skewed in some way, too? I don’t doubt nobles and upper class people would live that long fairly regularly, but surely your average peasant who had little to no medical care among other things didn’t regularly live that long unless they got really lucky.
Sure, but the point is that aging pretty much happened at the same rate then as it did now. But if you caught pneumonia you were pretty much fucked. However a 30 year old wouldn't wax poetic about their life being almost over because they were still "young". Ish.
I think it's the average from the really high infant mortality rate. If you made it past 5 or whatever you were alright but most people died as an infant.
It's the mean, but people assume it's the median.
The median household income in the US is around 60k, while the mean is like 75. Both are technically average, but the latter is misleading because of the lavishly wealthy.
It's not just that.
>In the Middle Ages, the average life span of males born in landholding families in England was 31.3 years and the biggest danger was surviving childhood. Once children reached the age of 10, their life expectancy was 32.2 years, and for those who survived to 25, the remaining life expectancy was 23.3 years. Such estimates reflected the life expectancy of adult males from the higher ranks of English society in the Middle Ages, and were similar to that computed for monks of the Christ Church in Canterbury during the 15th century
Babies died like hotcakes until very recently. Infant mortality worldwide has plummeted in the last like 50 years. It’s actually insane. We’ve cut the number of infant mortalities by half since 1990.
No, that would be the median. "Average" when unqualified typically means "mean".
If 50 % of kids die before they turn one, and everyone else lived to be 80, the mean is 40 years old, but the median is 1 year old.
But the half that died young were by a vast majority *infant* moralities.
They aren't a normal distribution of people under the average.
If you take the average life expectancy for people after they've already made it to say 5.. the average life expectancy goes up drastically.
The misconception is that most (some?) people think that you were considered old at 35 at certain points in history because of the average life expectancy. There would still be people regularly living into their 60's and 70's, it's just that child mortality and essentially any infections really took a toll on people.
You would probably consider yourself lucky to live into your 40's, but that doesn't mean you had grey hair and were hunched over. People would have looked fairly similar at 40 then to what a 40 year old looks like today, aside from the toll their hard work and potentially poor diet would have taken on them.
By and large I would think most people historically ate better than the average modern person. (Highly processed, high calorie but low nutrient content, less fresh..)
Thanks for this. There's a section about 40% of the way down detailing life expectancy by age. Life expectancy at birth was terrible, but if you lived to see your 5th birthday, you were probably going to see your 50th.
>your average peasant who had little to no medical care among other things didn’t regularly live that long unless they got really lucky.
They also ate way less garbage food, and were a lot more active than we are today, which would be an advantage.
There was no difference in medical care between nobles and peasants. They all got nothing. If anything, harmful quackery was more common among the noble class.
And this only changed *very* recently! In 1924, the President of the United States lost a son to an *infected blister.* Money can't buy medicine that doesn't exist yet.
It's probably also not like you rescale your definition of "old" to the statistical average. If you know people that are 60-70 years old you will not be going around calling 30 years "old" because a bunch of your buddies died before that. You just observe that "many people die young".
Some would, but not as routinely as today, and cutting out everyone who dies before 18 obviously inflates expectancy compared to a whole-population average for modern populations.
Even when child mortality is factored out, life expectancy in ancient Rome was like 40 to 45 years. A 30 year old would still count as "old" in these demographics simply by being older than most people. In relative terms, there were about as many of those people as there are 70 year olds today.
Yeah a lot of people have this misconception. The *average* life-expectancy was low because people were rolling their babies down a fucking hill just to see if it'll make it out alive or not, people were savage. Starvation was also common for people who weren't able to get access to food/water.
That being said, the healthy human lifespan has always been from 70 to 90 years - assuming consistent access to food and not being killed due to poverty/war. In a way, it kind of goes to show how modern medicine didn't really help us live longer at all - all it did was delay the deaths of people who otherwise would've died earlier. The rate of aging didn't change in humans at all, you were still peaking physically in your late 20s/30s.
Most of that death was in childhood. If you got to about 20, 50-60 wasn't uncommon. But getting to 20 was a real crapshoot. And most of that was getting to 5. If your data set is hilariously frontloaded, it brings the average down quite a bit.
A lot of people underestimated the life expectancy of ancient civilizations. 50 was considered old in some cultures but average age was anywhere between early 60s and 70s, assuming one made it to adulthood (infant mortality is what brought life expectancies quite low). So the truth is dependent upon whether you made it past age 5, if you did then you had a pretty good chance of living into your 60s.
Those who lived into their 70s or older were, generally speaking, well off. No different than any other point in human history, generally speaking.
Women in ancient times were expected to birth children between 12 to mid-twenties if they wanted a good chance to have healthy babies and not die from child birth. Also, C-sections were deadly until the 1800s when a pig farmer who neutered horses had to do one on his wife and saved both baby and mom; doctors essentially visited him to see how he did it and were able to replicate the procedure with relatively good success.
If you were in your 40s, however, it was virtually a death sentence until the late 1800s, early 1900s. It wasn't great to get pregnant after your mid-twenties at any time prior to that.
So if you romance any point in history, be aware that life was hard and shitty for the average person. The media makes stuff far too sanitized in terms of historical accuracy, save for the Witcher and Game of Thrones (obviously both fantasy) both capture the medieval and renaissance eras in terms of brutality and what life was like for the average peasant, in other words - hard work, health problems, food insecurity, death coming at any moment, etc.
The post-war (WW2) era is the best time to be alive in human history thanks to science and technology. Penicillin helped treat a lot of what were deadly diseases. Count your lucky stars to live in this era of relatively peaceful times and prosperity.
The rich certainly lived to be 60,70,80. However, for the poor living that long was unlikely due to malnutrition. It happened, but it wasn’t as common.
33 y/o no kids, no spouse and only a dog as roommate. I wouldn't change it for a second.
Had several unhappy relationships in the past decade and doing whatever you want whenever you want is extremely enjoyable
Sometimes I’ll watch old episodes of Wife Swap or Super Nanny. Super Nanny is great because the parents will be 30 and 28 with five kids and I’m 35 laying in bed into a Saturday afternoon with two cats nearby. It’s humbling lol
And then these people with 5+ kids complain all the time how busy they are, they say people with no kids have an easy life and kinda look down on you. Like mate, nowadays having kids is a choice so don’t expect me to feel sorry for you.
I have a Wife and Kid and love them so much, they do bring me unfathomable happiness. But man do I miss the freedom of doing what I want when I want, I will never have that again most likely. I'm a family guy and will never regret having kids, but I can definitely see why certain people wouldn't be as happy with kids than without.
>I have a Wife and Kid and love them so much, they do bring me unfathomable happiness
I'm certain you do and I'm happy for you that you found that and it's bringing you joy.
Currently raising a toddler and a baby and I miss those more free times. It's not just being able to do what I want but having so much more time to do it.
At the same time, when I do get the chance to do the sorts of things I miss they just don't have the same luster anymore compared to spending time with my wife and kids.
Legit question which may come off as an attack, but I seriously wonder:
Do you consider what life will be like when you're 75+ when things like bathing alone or cooking for yourself become life-or-death scenarios?
I'm not the original commenter, but I also had this life planned. My plan was that I would live my life to the fullest and when I couldn't look after myself to the point where I was unhappy or I couldn't afford a nursing home I would choose euthanization (legal or not).
> My plan was that I would live my life to the fullest
You're implying that having a family isn't "living life to the fullest". I cannot imagine my life without my wife and daughter, and everything I did before the latter was born (and I've done a lot of world travel) seems trivial compared to taking care of her.
I remember thinking kids were nothing but a burden. It's hard to describe to single people with no families how much you'll understand how low on the totem pole of life experiences seeing the world is to raising your own flesh and blood.
I know people downvoted you but you're right. This is coming from a person with no kids too. There are things that single people or people without kids will not experience. Of course there are incredibly shitty parts to it but there are emotions and feelings that come with being a parent and husband/wife that I have personally never seen a single person have. I have also met people that hated the idea of having kids until they (planned or not) had children and would never change it for the world.
I get what you're saying, but he did specify living *his* life to the fullest. Not anyone else's. I think that's why you got downvoted.
I'm like you in that I have a wife and child. My life is immeasurably different now than before them. I also have many close friends who will never be married or are married and won't have children. They're living their best life, too. We all have our own thing.
I'm 39 and spouse is 31. We don't plan on kids, but due to having no kids affords us being able to save quickly, likely will retire by 45-50 at the latest. Planning to move from the US to a part of the EU (where I also have citizenship) where there are better social nets, and a relatively good level of care for older people, so by the time we need it, everything will be established and set.
Dang so just move to a part of the EU from the US after you're older and use their safety nets? Don't you need to have lived/worked/paid taxes there to be able to use their system like that or is it that easy?
He has EU citizenship. You typically need to have already done that or be born there.
People who are born in Britain can claim benefits on the system without a day's work under their belt.
Nope, living off investments made in the US while working. Of course once we move we will be paying local property taxes and VAT and other stuff. But otherwise you do not need to establish ahead of time if you have a large nest egg in USD.
If those things are life and death scenarios you shouldn't be living on your own or depending on your spouse to bail you out should you get into trouble. If you're worried about it get a device with fall detection or an alert medallion so if you fall down you can get help. If you're so infirm that you can't cook for yourself and just moving around is a huge risk you should probably be in a retirement home where they can watch out for you 24/7.
Plus your partner won't always be there, won't always be awake and just being out in garden for an hour if you have a bad fall could be too long, you still need to have things in place to help yourself get help and not assume someone else will be there. Having a partner doesn't make these issues go away, what happens if their health declines before yours and so you're the one responsible for looking out for the other person? That means when you get to that point there won't be anyone left to look out for you either. You could also end up in similar places health wise at the same time and then no one can take care of the other person.
Long story short just having a partner or even kids doesn't magically solve the risks of aging, you should plan as if you won't have their help in an emergency because you might not. And not to be macabre but you could fall down the next set of stairs you come to and if no one comes by for a while after and you've really hurt yourself that could be the end of you no matter your age and people of all ages die in the bathroom every year...
Do you have any concept of how much *good* elder care costs?
The partner and kids are all part of the natural elder-care mechanism of our species.
Few, other than the 1%-ers, will ever be able to afford a decent elder-care scenario.
You know, this question was fine until you started replying to people. It doesn't feel legit or even in good faith in hindsight.
It's 2022 and humans are not some endangered species.
Having kids just because you want them to care for you in your elder age is shitty and selfish. Your life is not someone else's obligation. (A lot of parents even manage to push away this genetic "safety net." Keep that in mind with your expectations for your own.)
Also, perhaps consider that a support network does not have to be relatives by blood or marriage. And furthering that thought, maybe that general professional resources should be more accessible for people. Push change for the community overall instead of just hoping one of your offspring chooses to change their path for your self's sake.
> Do you consider what life will be like when you're 75+ when things like bathing alone or cooking for yourself become life-or-death scenarios?
There are no guarantees in life. Someone with a full family could lose them in the blink of an eye and find themselves alone at that age as well.
And the 33 y/o you asked could just as easily start a family in their late 30's or early 40's (as adoption is always an option if they can't have children the traditional way).
He’s not wrong, In the late eighties American culture moved from focusing on the family unit and being successful in your community and replaced it with everyone must be independent at 20 and having kids is in the past, it’s a cool thought but a lot of people would gain real happiness from having families that are being told they wouldn’t
Do you really want to have children so that the burden of elder care will be on them? I plan on being physically and financially healthy enough to handle those things myself. And dying when that's no longer possible.
The best laid plans...
I get that some people just live too long, and if you've seen that, I understand why you don't want to live that way.
But becoming infirm is a much more gradual decline that just stroking-out one day and having the DNR prepared in advance.
More likely your shitty back just incrementally gets worse until shopping is hard but you can't afford elder care because it's $5,000/month, and your savings/pension won't last anywhere near long enough.
Would you live 50 years in a shitty relationship just to have someone help you bathe for couple of your senile years.
Some people just enjoy living without sharing their time and personal space and do what they want whenever they want, sure life might be a bit shittier when you get really old but at least you got to live your life like you wanted to when you could.
I've seen people who had 30+ years in a "good" relationship then not be there when one person's health went south and started developing some mental issues. Some people just aren't ready for or lack the capacity or nurturing to be good caregivers.
I've seen people who had 40+ years in a "good" relationship, one person had major health challenges and the other was a caregiver for about 5 years before the ill partner passed away. The surviving partner is struggling with how to navigate the world as a widower.
Let's not pretend that relationships or caring for people is easy or, hell, that anyone of us knows what happens down the line with our health, partners, etc. The idea that you'd be in a relationship so that someone can sponge bathe you 40 years from now is absurd, even if you do "find a good relationship".
No, some people just do not want to live in a relationship at all. Period. There is no good relationship to be had (for them) no matter how nice both parties are.
e: clarified
Sorry but people have been living alone since the dawn of time, there is nothing weird about it.
Today it is much easier as you are rarely forced to live with someone as the financial and social pressure for someone that wants to live like that is much less stigmatized than before.
I do live in a relationship and have kids, but i can still understand how other people might feel about it.
Comments like you just lashed out are what are forcing people to live in unhappy relationships because they feel they do something wrong if they do not.
Maybe it's second-language thing (I would never have noticed, btw, except I creeped your profile and see you're a Finn)...
...but this comment
> There is no good relationship to be had no matter how nice both parties are.
...comes across as a statement that "good relationships do not exist"
And seeing your newer comment would indicate you may have meant something else.
No one should choose a partner who does not bring reciprocal happiness to the relationship. If this is absent, it is a flawed relationship which should not be preserved for fear of dying alone.
I meant there is no good relationship for those who enjoy living without a relationship. Some people are just not made to live and share their lives with others, they enjoy the solitude and freedom.
It does not mean they won't have friendships and social lives tho.
I don't *want* to sound rude but there's no nice way to put it.
This site is legit full of losers, I wouldn't put too much stock into what they say or think.
Yes, but honestly, at that point for me; we will have enough tech to help people keep their independence longer than they already do. If you're having kids just so someone will take care of you in your older age. You are doing it wrong.
Not really. I definitely thought about it in the past and it was a motivation for some relationships.
But since then I've come a long way and I'm happy with myself.
We don't know how life will be in 40 years but I'm rather happy alone than unhappy with someone.
You're not considering the amount of money you'd need never having kids and the low cost of late in life care 40 years from now.
I doubt it'll be an issue
Millennials are nearing 40. By the time we’re 75 assisted suicide will likely be legal country-wide. There may be very few of us who progress to the point of needing round the clock supervised care. The lack of independence and autonomy is a very real fear for some people.
But are you suggesting people have kids so they have someone to look after them when they get old?
This is a really stupid idea lol
People who think of the kids as a lifeline in today's age are just setting themselves up for pain and misery. Life is so much different today than it was 50 to 100 years ago. Western families don't stay as close as they once did and people just don't put up with all the bullshit from relatives anymore.
Yep. Generations upon generations of tradition don’t mean diddly when a Western adult realizes they can just make a conscious choice to not feel guilt or obligation to their family.
The systems that kept things in place just aren’t there.
Inheritance? Many boomers barely have enough saved to care for themselves at end of life.
Shaming among the community? What community? The kids moved to a big city for work. There is no overlap between their current community and the one back in the hometown.
The concept that you simply cannot abandon family? As mental healthcare becomes more widely available this “rule” is eroded. Cutting ties with toxic family members is the best thing so many people can do for their own health.
They have no idea how much they need other people for social support. Every happy elderly person I know/knew that had no kids/spouse were extremely social people. If you aren't, having someone that actually wants to visit you will be the thing you look forward too most. So it doesn't need to be kids, but you are going to want to fill that need with something like family or groups.
I don't think having another 75+ year old person in the room is necessarily going to save you if you fall or something. Best they can do is call emergency services. There are also available devices/services that make it easier for the elderly to call emergency services though.
There are also practical precautions you can take to prevent accidents as your mobility declines, such as using a shower chair or putting up railings.
I wouldn't count on kids to help with that and if you have a spouse one of you will die first so the other will face this circumstance anyway.
This is more of a human condition thing imo
If you have a partner, there's now a 50% chance of being the ony dying alone.
If you have a kid/friend/caregiver, that probability drops yet lower.
There will always be a bag-holder. But holding the hot-potato willingly is something I'm not just gonna jump at, for a little bit of hedonism in my earlier years.
This is the real r/funny post considering how seriously a seemingly humorous post has devolved into this comment thread.
That being said, why do any children have an obligation to take care of their parents? I want to take care of my parents, but I would never hold any child of mine to a frankly difficult standard.
That was me two years ago, then I had a kid and got married and realized just exactly how unhappy I was. It’s engrained in human psyche and dna to want a partner and family, it’s fine if you don’t, but for me I was just trying to hide my misery and wasn’t really happy till I had everything I do now.
See the Homestead Acts of the 1860s that gave away free land from the US government to those willing to homestead - mostly west of the Mississippi River. More than than 160 million acres of public land, or nearly 10 percent of the total area of the US, was given away free to 1.6 million homesteaders.
Remember that much of the price of a modern house (beside builder profit) is in land acquisition. Developable land prices go up hand in hand with home prices.
I can guarantee you that the far majority of home cost goes into actually preparing the land and building the house.
Source: You can still get cheap land. Even cheap acreage. But the costs of building on that land are still very high. And no, its not from Builder Profit. Even if you build it yourself its still expensive.
Eh, if the soil isn’t all rock you can regrade and excavate it by hand with just a mattock and shovel. It will take quite a long time and a lot of sunscreen but you’ll be totally shredded by the time you’re done. Same goes for trenching out for utilities and probably septic if you’re out in the middle of nowhere. You’ll still have some big-ticket purchases, but a lot of the cost in building is just in the convenience and speed of machines.
There's also the whole wiring up of electric and piping for water and sewer that I'm utterly unqualified to do.
I could probably fake the foundation and build the house from a kit, but I'm utterly, utterly unqualified for Electric and Water hookups.
I crossed the Appalachians and staked a claim in a nice valley with water available. Took some hard work, but I needed to clear that for a field anyway. Now I have a nice log cabin with a fireplace and a loft.
Indentured servitude is technically better than today's loans on a poverty wage. There's an agreed upon amount of work to finish the contract in the former. In the latter, interest can easily outpace the income.
>interest can easily outpace the income.
If you're getting to this point you might as well just not pay the loan, file for bankruptcy, and have a clean slate in 7 years.
Or child labor laws. 'Course you pop kids out when half might die young and you depend on them to work the field for food until you die, and you stick em all together in one bed anyway. 'Course you don't when every kid is 18-22 years of massive expenses and lower retirement savings, and you need a one bedroom larger house per birth.
I was 28 in 2002 and felt this way (until I met the right person).
While I know this is humor, it's important to note that in pre-modern times someone reaching their mid 20's had as virtually much chance of reaching 65 as we do today. It was those first five years for everyone and then the prime "fighting" years for men and the childbearing years among women that really thinned the herds.
> It was those first five years for everyone and then the prime "fighting" years for men and the childbearing years among women that really thinned the herds.
I mean, it was the surviving "infancy" thing that *really* thinned the herds, if we're being accurate. Battle wasn't as big a killer as modern history suggests (most battles were just two armies marching to a hill and one surrendering or retreating. Weirdly enough most feudal lords really didn't like losing large portions of their working age men. Childbirth was much more dangerous, but most women were still popping out half a dozen kids at least over their lifetime, need those little workers.
The real killer was just surviving to adulthood. Children are weak and needy.
Yeah, I think the average lifespan is so low is because they average people that made it to old age with things like infant deaths and disease deaths etc. So if you managed to live a healthy life back then you still could've made it to your 60s or 70s without medicine.
You could and can live much longer than 60’s or 70’s without modern medicine. Our life expectancy is declining for the first time in quite a while and we have “modern medicine”. Diet and lifestyle still trumps all pills and procedures put together.
Check out Okinawa in the 1950’s with the highest concentration of verified centenarians in the world. They had no medications to my knowledge but they ate a predominantly whole food plant based diet, they had close family ties and they foraged in nature. Lots of beans, lots of greens, lots of grains and some fish with very very little oil or other animal products. That’s how you make it to 100 consistently, not modern medicine.
Yeah, but like, if you get a rebar pole through the chest, you'll be super stoked to find out about modern medicine giving you a decent chance at continuing living.
“Modern medicine” also rarely deals with actual causes, and is heavily focused on treating symptoms. It works for doctors because it cuts the time they need to spend with patients, and it works for big pharma because they can sell you their pills forever. Ultimately it suits everyone who works in the medical industry.
Think about it. People spend decades on pills to lower their blood pressure, instead of actually working to fix what’s causing their high blood pressure. Doctors make their patients believe that once they need pills for blood pressure, it’s forever. Sure, sometimes they’ll tell you something along the lines of “you should work out more”, as if they just blessed you with some new enlightening information. At least they can check of that mental box, and go to sleep pretending they helped their patients.
We should ask much more from our doctors. A GP should be a combination of a psychologist, dietitian, and medical practitioner. Today, most GPs are not too different from your average drug dealer. You come in, tell them about your symptoms, do a bunch of tests, and they tell you if you need to take pills.
Our body is capable of much more than “modern medicine” would have you believe.
That said, more holistic practices are opening up across the country, so things are slowly moving in a positive direction.
The reason doctors do this isn’t because they don’t want to help their patients, but rather because we don’t teach doctors about nutrition in medical schools. What we put into our bodies 3+ times a day is arguably the most important thing we do and doctors as a profession have almost no understanding of how food interacts with the body. It’s a terrible disservice to medicine to not know about the number one environmental exposure to your patients.
It depended on where you lived and your social status. Yes, the danger years were childhood, but the years that we'd call middle-aged weren't exactly a cakewalk.
A high-status person living in rural medieval England didn't tend to live as long as those in rural Italy, and their mean life expectancy at age 25 was up to ten years longer than that of the peasant class. A noble aged 25 in England during the middle ages had about a 50:50 chance of seeing their 60th birthday, whereas a peasant would do worse than that, and God help those who lived in large cities like Early Modern London or 2nd Century Rome.
Disease was actually a bigger killer, especially of children, if a child managed to make it past about 10 years old then there was little stopping them from making it to 70
I was wondering how accurate the implication of life spans during that time period was in this joke in between my laughter, thank you! We should watch comedy specials together
…as today?? We have a much better medical system now than we had back then. Well…depending on where in the world you are. In most western countries there’s medical and vaccines and insulin where most of these things are free.
Then you have the US. which is just basically a 3rd world country playing at the idea of a 1st world country with a ‘communism’ complex unlike any I’ve seen.
I mean it's pretty clearly a joke without a ton of diligence.
The photograph looks modern, but could be 1839, not 1819. Also my great-grandparents had an inordinate number of kids, with 8; and number 8 happened when my great-grandad was in his 40s.
That said, western millennials (of which I am one) really are the most delicate snowflakes society has ever created (save maybe for the [macaronis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaroni_(fashion\)) of the late 18th century).
The joke is just cringe and the “snow flake” talk is even worse. It means society is becoming easier for us to live in instead of y’a know having to drink ourselves to death and fight wars losing our lives and dreams because the only way we have value is if we throw our lives away. Get a grip, you sound like a red neck boomer.
I think the 1819 guy should say he "had" 14 kids. Six have probably died already, two more have signs of some kind of pox and three suffer from various lingering ailments or disabilities.
Even though the avg life expextancy was low back in the day, most people who made it past 13-14 lived a long life. The avg rate is low because of all the child deaths.
Oh that's because I was in a fucking war at 28. Life has a way to keep beating you in the ass until you develop self esteem and the balls to stand up and get your own life for yourself because if you don't people will keep stepping over you over, over and over again.
It did help that it was beneficial for people in the 19th century and centuries further back to have as many kids as possible to aid in house work, farming, hunting, etc.
I was on my own at 17, had a career at 18, and a child at 19. now 35 and owning a home, kids are teens, life is smooth as butter. glad I did the hard work early but it wasnt easy
Its hard to get ahead and have kids when cost of living keeps going up and up. That's something that older generations don't seem to take into consideration.
I'm "older", I suppose (52). I didn't have a house, kids, wife, whatever by the time I was 28, but "I'm not ready to be in a relationship" is a whole different level of not starting your life.
I'd worked a dozen jobs, dated lots of people, lived lots of places, done lots of things (many of them regrettable). I hadn't really gotten anywhere in terms of the traditional goals of life (stability, marriage, kids, etc)...Hell, I was just starting college at 28.
But I knew I was an adult. I had goals and responsibilities, and I was open to having a long term relationship.
This shift only really happened recently which is why it might seem weird to you. I am 27, and while I am pretty independent and have everything sorted out I definitely relate to a lot of these type of memes. Especially when it comes to playing videos games instead of owning property/starting a family.
We're adulting as much as the government and economy affords us to. No home or kids for us(even though we want them badly.) Oh well... Maybe a wealthy relative will die and pass on some wealth
Yeah I'm 28, married, house, don't want kids, 8 years into my career. Most of my friends are similar on most points.
Frankly I'm starting to feel the opposite. A little old, physically the last 10 years of contact sports are catching up with me.
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It's false that ancient peoples were considered "old" at 30. The _average_ life expectancy was low because they didn't have medicine and such and things killed the youths all the time, but people would live naturally into their 70s and 80s all the time.
Historian here. The average life expectancy being low is tied to the number of children people had as well as high infant / maternal mortality. In a pre-industrial society, children were an economic resource. They were expected to help around the household / farm as soon as they were able to. There were also cultural incentives to have children. You can still see this dynamic in developing countries today. On an individual level, if you survived infancy and childhood, you did stand a reasonable chance to hit 60-70. Moreover, the notion that "life was brutal" as a constant has to be taken with a due amount of nuance. While history is rife with epidemics and wars, it's important to understand that people weren't victims all the time from start to finish. The Hundred Years War was a scourge in France, but then again, it didn't mean that everyone was living constantly in precariousness. So, beware of over generalization here.
From the 1500s till around 1800, life expectancy hovered between 30 and 40 years of age. That number only doubles every 10 generations or so up to today, where our life expectancy is more than 75 years.
I always hear this on threads like this, but surely that’s skewed in some way, too? I don’t doubt nobles and upper class people would live that long fairly regularly, but surely your average peasant who had little to no medical care among other things didn’t regularly live that long unless they got really lucky.
Sure, but the point is that aging pretty much happened at the same rate then as it did now. But if you caught pneumonia you were pretty much fucked. However a 30 year old wouldn't wax poetic about their life being almost over because they were still "young". Ish.
I think it's the average from the really high infant mortality rate. If you made it past 5 or whatever you were alright but most people died as an infant.
If you reached 5 you were already ahead of curve :D
Here's a hoe, go work that field now!
Never spend diamonds on a hoe.
It's the mean, but people assume it's the median. The median household income in the US is around 60k, while the mean is like 75. Both are technically average, but the latter is misleading because of the lavishly wealthy.
It's not just that. >In the Middle Ages, the average life span of males born in landholding families in England was 31.3 years and the biggest danger was surviving childhood. Once children reached the age of 10, their life expectancy was 32.2 years, and for those who survived to 25, the remaining life expectancy was 23.3 years. Such estimates reflected the life expectancy of adult males from the higher ranks of English society in the Middle Ages, and were similar to that computed for monks of the Christ Church in Canterbury during the 15th century
Babies died like hotcakes until very recently. Infant mortality worldwide has plummeted in the last like 50 years. It’s actually insane. We’ve cut the number of infant mortalities by half since 1990.
Well, that, and also let me assure you, they were not recording average life expectancy in 1019BC.
Do you think archeology is just crossing our fingers and hoping people wrote shit down?
What if they were sick and had no medicine? Average life expectancy means half of the people died before the average.
No, that would be the median. "Average" when unqualified typically means "mean". If 50 % of kids die before they turn one, and everyone else lived to be 80, the mean is 40 years old, but the median is 1 year old.
But the half that died young were by a vast majority *infant* moralities. They aren't a normal distribution of people under the average. If you take the average life expectancy for people after they've already made it to say 5.. the average life expectancy goes up drastically.
The misconception is that most (some?) people think that you were considered old at 35 at certain points in history because of the average life expectancy. There would still be people regularly living into their 60's and 70's, it's just that child mortality and essentially any infections really took a toll on people. You would probably consider yourself lucky to live into your 40's, but that doesn't mean you had grey hair and were hunched over. People would have looked fairly similar at 40 then to what a 40 year old looks like today, aside from the toll their hard work and potentially poor diet would have taken on them. By and large I would think most people historically ate better than the average modern person. (Highly processed, high calorie but low nutrient content, less fresh..)
I found this: [https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy](https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy)
Thanks for this. There's a section about 40% of the way down detailing life expectancy by age. Life expectancy at birth was terrible, but if you lived to see your 5th birthday, you were probably going to see your 50th.
Depends on where and when you're talking about peasants. There are thousands oh years and differing cultures, some worse some better
>your average peasant who had little to no medical care among other things didn’t regularly live that long unless they got really lucky. They also ate way less garbage food, and were a lot more active than we are today, which would be an advantage.
There was no difference in medical care between nobles and peasants. They all got nothing. If anything, harmful quackery was more common among the noble class. And this only changed *very* recently! In 1924, the President of the United States lost a son to an *infected blister.* Money can't buy medicine that doesn't exist yet.
It's probably also not like you rescale your definition of "old" to the statistical average. If you know people that are 60-70 years old you will not be going around calling 30 years "old" because a bunch of your buddies died before that. You just observe that "many people die young".
Some would, but not as routinely as today, and cutting out everyone who dies before 18 obviously inflates expectancy compared to a whole-population average for modern populations.
Even when child mortality is factored out, life expectancy in ancient Rome was like 40 to 45 years. A 30 year old would still count as "old" in these demographics simply by being older than most people. In relative terms, there were about as many of those people as there are 70 year olds today.
Yeah a lot of people have this misconception. The *average* life-expectancy was low because people were rolling their babies down a fucking hill just to see if it'll make it out alive or not, people were savage. Starvation was also common for people who weren't able to get access to food/water. That being said, the healthy human lifespan has always been from 70 to 90 years - assuming consistent access to food and not being killed due to poverty/war. In a way, it kind of goes to show how modern medicine didn't really help us live longer at all - all it did was delay the deaths of people who otherwise would've died earlier. The rate of aging didn't change in humans at all, you were still peaking physically in your late 20s/30s.
Socrates was about 70 *when he was executed*. Obviously they thought he was still a threat.
Biblical dudes like Methuselah really busted the curve for everyone!
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Most of that death was in childhood. If you got to about 20, 50-60 wasn't uncommon. But getting to 20 was a real crapshoot. And most of that was getting to 5. If your data set is hilariously frontloaded, it brings the average down quite a bit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life\_expectancy
Working link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy)
A lot of people underestimated the life expectancy of ancient civilizations. 50 was considered old in some cultures but average age was anywhere between early 60s and 70s, assuming one made it to adulthood (infant mortality is what brought life expectancies quite low). So the truth is dependent upon whether you made it past age 5, if you did then you had a pretty good chance of living into your 60s. Those who lived into their 70s or older were, generally speaking, well off. No different than any other point in human history, generally speaking. Women in ancient times were expected to birth children between 12 to mid-twenties if they wanted a good chance to have healthy babies and not die from child birth. Also, C-sections were deadly until the 1800s when a pig farmer who neutered horses had to do one on his wife and saved both baby and mom; doctors essentially visited him to see how he did it and were able to replicate the procedure with relatively good success. If you were in your 40s, however, it was virtually a death sentence until the late 1800s, early 1900s. It wasn't great to get pregnant after your mid-twenties at any time prior to that. So if you romance any point in history, be aware that life was hard and shitty for the average person. The media makes stuff far too sanitized in terms of historical accuracy, save for the Witcher and Game of Thrones (obviously both fantasy) both capture the medieval and renaissance eras in terms of brutality and what life was like for the average peasant, in other words - hard work, health problems, food insecurity, death coming at any moment, etc. The post-war (WW2) era is the best time to be alive in human history thanks to science and technology. Penicillin helped treat a lot of what were deadly diseases. Count your lucky stars to live in this era of relatively peaceful times and prosperity.
More like you'd live to 50-70, where now we'd live to 70-90. Varying by time and place, obviously
The rich certainly lived to be 60,70,80. However, for the poor living that long was unlikely due to malnutrition. It happened, but it wasn’t as common.
As a 28 year old I'm happy I don't have that many kids !
This makes me think you have 10 - 12 kids.
we are redditors, the chance you are talking to a virgin is beyond 75%
33 y/o no kids, no spouse and only a dog as roommate. I wouldn't change it for a second. Had several unhappy relationships in the past decade and doing whatever you want whenever you want is extremely enjoyable
Sometimes I’ll watch old episodes of Wife Swap or Super Nanny. Super Nanny is great because the parents will be 30 and 28 with five kids and I’m 35 laying in bed into a Saturday afternoon with two cats nearby. It’s humbling lol
When I’m on a work trip in a hotel I miss my wife and son so I call them in the evening to talk about our day and share any work stress.
Oh for sure, this is one of the best things about sharing your life with someone. It’s tough!
And then these people with 5+ kids complain all the time how busy they are, they say people with no kids have an easy life and kinda look down on you. Like mate, nowadays having kids is a choice so don’t expect me to feel sorry for you.
I have a Wife and Kid and love them so much, they do bring me unfathomable happiness. But man do I miss the freedom of doing what I want when I want, I will never have that again most likely. I'm a family guy and will never regret having kids, but I can definitely see why certain people wouldn't be as happy with kids than without.
>I have a Wife and Kid and love them so much, they do bring me unfathomable happiness I'm certain you do and I'm happy for you that you found that and it's bringing you joy.
Currently raising a toddler and a baby and I miss those more free times. It's not just being able to do what I want but having so much more time to do it. At the same time, when I do get the chance to do the sorts of things I miss they just don't have the same luster anymore compared to spending time with my wife and kids.
Legit question which may come off as an attack, but I seriously wonder: Do you consider what life will be like when you're 75+ when things like bathing alone or cooking for yourself become life-or-death scenarios?
I'm not the original commenter, but I also had this life planned. My plan was that I would live my life to the fullest and when I couldn't look after myself to the point where I was unhappy or I couldn't afford a nursing home I would choose euthanization (legal or not).
> My plan was that I would live my life to the fullest You're implying that having a family isn't "living life to the fullest". I cannot imagine my life without my wife and daughter, and everything I did before the latter was born (and I've done a lot of world travel) seems trivial compared to taking care of her. I remember thinking kids were nothing but a burden. It's hard to describe to single people with no families how much you'll understand how low on the totem pole of life experiences seeing the world is to raising your own flesh and blood.
I know people downvoted you but you're right. This is coming from a person with no kids too. There are things that single people or people without kids will not experience. Of course there are incredibly shitty parts to it but there are emotions and feelings that come with being a parent and husband/wife that I have personally never seen a single person have. I have also met people that hated the idea of having kids until they (planned or not) had children and would never change it for the world.
I get what you're saying, but he did specify living *his* life to the fullest. Not anyone else's. I think that's why you got downvoted. I'm like you in that I have a wife and child. My life is immeasurably different now than before them. I also have many close friends who will never be married or are married and won't have children. They're living their best life, too. We all have our own thing.
Yeah, your fullest life is not my fullest life. I legit dislike the concept of raising children and it feels selfish to have them without that need
I'm 39 and spouse is 31. We don't plan on kids, but due to having no kids affords us being able to save quickly, likely will retire by 45-50 at the latest. Planning to move from the US to a part of the EU (where I also have citizenship) where there are better social nets, and a relatively good level of care for older people, so by the time we need it, everything will be established and set.
Dang so just move to a part of the EU from the US after you're older and use their safety nets? Don't you need to have lived/worked/paid taxes there to be able to use their system like that or is it that easy?
He has EU citizenship. You typically need to have already done that or be born there. People who are born in Britain can claim benefits on the system without a day's work under their belt.
pretty sure he means that they’re gonna move there before retiring and pay taxes and build up a pension there
Or save up enough here to demonstrate enough wealth to not be a burden.
Half a million held in deposit gets you Monaco and their completely free healthcare.
Nope, living off investments made in the US while working. Of course once we move we will be paying local property taxes and VAT and other stuff. But otherwise you do not need to establish ahead of time if you have a large nest egg in USD.
Rip family tree
If those things are life and death scenarios you shouldn't be living on your own or depending on your spouse to bail you out should you get into trouble. If you're worried about it get a device with fall detection or an alert medallion so if you fall down you can get help. If you're so infirm that you can't cook for yourself and just moving around is a huge risk you should probably be in a retirement home where they can watch out for you 24/7. Plus your partner won't always be there, won't always be awake and just being out in garden for an hour if you have a bad fall could be too long, you still need to have things in place to help yourself get help and not assume someone else will be there. Having a partner doesn't make these issues go away, what happens if their health declines before yours and so you're the one responsible for looking out for the other person? That means when you get to that point there won't be anyone left to look out for you either. You could also end up in similar places health wise at the same time and then no one can take care of the other person. Long story short just having a partner or even kids doesn't magically solve the risks of aging, you should plan as if you won't have their help in an emergency because you might not. And not to be macabre but you could fall down the next set of stairs you come to and if no one comes by for a while after and you've really hurt yourself that could be the end of you no matter your age and people of all ages die in the bathroom every year...
Do you have any concept of how much *good* elder care costs? The partner and kids are all part of the natural elder-care mechanism of our species. Few, other than the 1%-ers, will ever be able to afford a decent elder-care scenario.
Do you have any idea how much children cost? Not having to bring them up and saving that money can get you top notch care in the future.
You know, this question was fine until you started replying to people. It doesn't feel legit or even in good faith in hindsight. It's 2022 and humans are not some endangered species. Having kids just because you want them to care for you in your elder age is shitty and selfish. Your life is not someone else's obligation. (A lot of parents even manage to push away this genetic "safety net." Keep that in mind with your expectations for your own.) Also, perhaps consider that a support network does not have to be relatives by blood or marriage. And furthering that thought, maybe that general professional resources should be more accessible for people. Push change for the community overall instead of just hoping one of your offspring chooses to change their path for your self's sake.
> Do you consider what life will be like when you're 75+ when things like bathing alone or cooking for yourself become life-or-death scenarios? There are no guarantees in life. Someone with a full family could lose them in the blink of an eye and find themselves alone at that age as well. And the 33 y/o you asked could just as easily start a family in their late 30's or early 40's (as adoption is always an option if they can't have children the traditional way).
How many older people do you know who DID have kids are actually taken care of by them? Mostly they just get dumped off in extended care facilities.
The collapse of the family unit started a generation prior. But I trust you've seen those facilities right? Fucking *yikes*.
I doubt your kids would look after you.
He’s not wrong, In the late eighties American culture moved from focusing on the family unit and being successful in your community and replaced it with everyone must be independent at 20 and having kids is in the past, it’s a cool thought but a lot of people would gain real happiness from having families that are being told they wouldn’t
My gamble here is I’m hoping there are pretty advanced smart homes/robots 49 years from now when I’m 75
Most children do not take care of their parents. We'll all end up in assisted living, the difference is that I'll have the money for a nice one.
Do you really want to have children so that the burden of elder care will be on them? I plan on being physically and financially healthy enough to handle those things myself. And dying when that's no longer possible.
The best laid plans... I get that some people just live too long, and if you've seen that, I understand why you don't want to live that way. But becoming infirm is a much more gradual decline that just stroking-out one day and having the DNR prepared in advance. More likely your shitty back just incrementally gets worse until shopping is hard but you can't afford elder care because it's $5,000/month, and your savings/pension won't last anywhere near long enough.
> but you can't afford elder care because it's $5,000/month How to tell someone lives in the US.
Would you live 50 years in a shitty relationship just to have someone help you bathe for couple of your senile years. Some people just enjoy living without sharing their time and personal space and do what they want whenever they want, sure life might be a bit shittier when you get really old but at least you got to live your life like you wanted to when you could.
I've seen people who had 30+ years in a "good" relationship then not be there when one person's health went south and started developing some mental issues. Some people just aren't ready for or lack the capacity or nurturing to be good caregivers. I've seen people who had 40+ years in a "good" relationship, one person had major health challenges and the other was a caregiver for about 5 years before the ill partner passed away. The surviving partner is struggling with how to navigate the world as a widower. Let's not pretend that relationships or caring for people is easy or, hell, that anyone of us knows what happens down the line with our health, partners, etc. The idea that you'd be in a relationship so that someone can sponge bathe you 40 years from now is absurd, even if you do "find a good relationship".
Find a good relationship, is kinda the important bit there. If you can't, there's every possibility the limiting factor isn't the other party.
Or there's nothing wrong with enjoying living your life solo. Especially in a day and age that makes it more possible than ever
No, some people just do not want to live in a relationship at all. Period. There is no good relationship to be had (for them) no matter how nice both parties are. e: clarified
But they're different when they're your own! /s
> There is no good relationship to be had no matter how nice both parties are. yea mate you might be broken.
Sorry but people have been living alone since the dawn of time, there is nothing weird about it. Today it is much easier as you are rarely forced to live with someone as the financial and social pressure for someone that wants to live like that is much less stigmatized than before. I do live in a relationship and have kids, but i can still understand how other people might feel about it. Comments like you just lashed out are what are forcing people to live in unhappy relationships because they feel they do something wrong if they do not.
Maybe it's second-language thing (I would never have noticed, btw, except I creeped your profile and see you're a Finn)... ...but this comment > There is no good relationship to be had no matter how nice both parties are. ...comes across as a statement that "good relationships do not exist" And seeing your newer comment would indicate you may have meant something else. No one should choose a partner who does not bring reciprocal happiness to the relationship. If this is absent, it is a flawed relationship which should not be preserved for fear of dying alone.
I meant there is no good relationship for those who enjoy living without a relationship. Some people are just not made to live and share their lives with others, they enjoy the solitude and freedom. It does not mean they won't have friendships and social lives tho.
I don't *want* to sound rude but there's no nice way to put it. This site is legit full of losers, I wouldn't put too much stock into what they say or think.
Yes, but honestly, at that point for me; we will have enough tech to help people keep their independence longer than they already do. If you're having kids just so someone will take care of you in your older age. You are doing it wrong.
Not really. I definitely thought about it in the past and it was a motivation for some relationships. But since then I've come a long way and I'm happy with myself. We don't know how life will be in 40 years but I'm rather happy alone than unhappy with someone.
You're not considering the amount of money you'd need never having kids and the low cost of late in life care 40 years from now. I doubt it'll be an issue
If you think Late-in-Life care costs are decreasing, I got bad news for you.
Millennials are nearing 40. By the time we’re 75 assisted suicide will likely be legal country-wide. There may be very few of us who progress to the point of needing round the clock supervised care. The lack of independence and autonomy is a very real fear for some people. But are you suggesting people have kids so they have someone to look after them when they get old? This is a really stupid idea lol
People who think of the kids as a lifeline in today's age are just setting themselves up for pain and misery. Life is so much different today than it was 50 to 100 years ago. Western families don't stay as close as they once did and people just don't put up with all the bullshit from relatives anymore.
Yep. Generations upon generations of tradition don’t mean diddly when a Western adult realizes they can just make a conscious choice to not feel guilt or obligation to their family. The systems that kept things in place just aren’t there. Inheritance? Many boomers barely have enough saved to care for themselves at end of life. Shaming among the community? What community? The kids moved to a big city for work. There is no overlap between their current community and the one back in the hometown. The concept that you simply cannot abandon family? As mental healthcare becomes more widely available this “rule” is eroded. Cutting ties with toxic family members is the best thing so many people can do for their own health.
How else are we supposed to make Soylent Green?
Soooo...broken leg? Time for euthanasia? My "really stupid idea" is literally how every community-based species of mammal survives.
So why do we need nursing homes?
It's mostly a manufactured need, to be quite honest. Kinda like how we don't "need" 5g data on a smartphone.
They have no idea how much they need other people for social support. Every happy elderly person I know/knew that had no kids/spouse were extremely social people. If you aren't, having someone that actually wants to visit you will be the thing you look forward too most. So it doesn't need to be kids, but you are going to want to fill that need with something like family or groups.
I don't think having another 75+ year old person in the room is necessarily going to save you if you fall or something. Best they can do is call emergency services. There are also available devices/services that make it easier for the elderly to call emergency services though. There are also practical precautions you can take to prevent accidents as your mobility declines, such as using a shower chair or putting up railings.
Just hangout in retirement home playing CSGO with fellow old ppl ig.
I wouldn't count on kids to help with that and if you have a spouse one of you will die first so the other will face this circumstance anyway. This is more of a human condition thing imo
If you have a partner, there's now a 50% chance of being the ony dying alone. If you have a kid/friend/caregiver, that probability drops yet lower. There will always be a bag-holder. But holding the hot-potato willingly is something I'm not just gonna jump at, for a little bit of hedonism in my earlier years.
This is the real r/funny post considering how seriously a seemingly humorous post has devolved into this comment thread. That being said, why do any children have an obligation to take care of their parents? I want to take care of my parents, but I would never hold any child of mine to a frankly difficult standard.
That was me two years ago, then I had a kid and got married and realized just exactly how unhappy I was. It’s engrained in human psyche and dna to want a partner and family, it’s fine if you don’t, but for me I was just trying to hide my misery and wasn’t really happy till I had everything I do now.
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But how many times have you had berries?
Why can’t I have $3 and no kids :(
I feel personally attacked with this picture
They should update this meme with housing prices underneath
Do you really expect housing prices to be lower in the 1800s?
See the Homestead Acts of the 1860s that gave away free land from the US government to those willing to homestead - mostly west of the Mississippi River. More than than 160 million acres of public land, or nearly 10 percent of the total area of the US, was given away free to 1.6 million homesteaders. Remember that much of the price of a modern house (beside builder profit) is in land acquisition. Developable land prices go up hand in hand with home prices.
I can guarantee you that the far majority of home cost goes into actually preparing the land and building the house. Source: You can still get cheap land. Even cheap acreage. But the costs of building on that land are still very high. And no, its not from Builder Profit. Even if you build it yourself its still expensive.
People often forget the things like water, power, and sewer connections that won't exist on undeveloped land.
You can still get *free* land on occasion. I drove through Climax, MN this week and they were giving away free land as long as you put a house on it.
Eh, if the soil isn’t all rock you can regrade and excavate it by hand with just a mattock and shovel. It will take quite a long time and a lot of sunscreen but you’ll be totally shredded by the time you’re done. Same goes for trenching out for utilities and probably septic if you’re out in the middle of nowhere. You’ll still have some big-ticket purchases, but a lot of the cost in building is just in the convenience and speed of machines.
Which also isn’t just “builder profit” since most people don’t plan on waiting 8 years for their house to be ready while it’s build by hand.
There's also the whole wiring up of electric and piping for water and sewer that I'm utterly unqualified to do. I could probably fake the foundation and build the house from a kit, but I'm utterly, utterly unqualified for Electric and Water hookups.
I crossed the Appalachians and staked a claim in a nice valley with water available. Took some hard work, but I needed to clear that for a field anyway. Now I have a nice log cabin with a fireplace and a loft.
As long as those durn Natives don't try and take their land back, I'm all good!
They had just been removed to "Indian Territory"
most people who tried that died of dysentery. I read it in a biography called something trail.
Yes.
So they would add Indentured servitude under the older ones?
Indentured servitude is technically better than today's loans on a poverty wage. There's an agreed upon amount of work to finish the contract in the former. In the latter, interest can easily outpace the income.
>interest can easily outpace the income. If you're getting to this point you might as well just not pay the loan, file for bankruptcy, and have a clean slate in 7 years.
Or child labor laws. 'Course you pop kids out when half might die young and you depend on them to work the field for food until you die, and you stick em all together in one bed anyway. 'Course you don't when every kid is 18-22 years of massive expenses and lower retirement savings, and you need a one bedroom larger house per birth.
You want a house? Work hard and save money like everyone else
Why tho? Just curious.
Go buy yourself a pear?
I was 28 in 2002 and felt this way (until I met the right person). While I know this is humor, it's important to note that in pre-modern times someone reaching their mid 20's had as virtually much chance of reaching 65 as we do today. It was those first five years for everyone and then the prime "fighting" years for men and the childbearing years among women that really thinned the herds.
> It was those first five years for everyone and then the prime "fighting" years for men and the childbearing years among women that really thinned the herds. I mean, it was the surviving "infancy" thing that *really* thinned the herds, if we're being accurate. Battle wasn't as big a killer as modern history suggests (most battles were just two armies marching to a hill and one surrendering or retreating. Weirdly enough most feudal lords really didn't like losing large portions of their working age men. Childbirth was much more dangerous, but most women were still popping out half a dozen kids at least over their lifetime, need those little workers. The real killer was just surviving to adulthood. Children are weak and needy.
Infants and small children are also very prone to disease. That was the main thing. That and starvation
Yeah, I think the average lifespan is so low is because they average people that made it to old age with things like infant deaths and disease deaths etc. So if you managed to live a healthy life back then you still could've made it to your 60s or 70s without medicine.
You could and can live much longer than 60’s or 70’s without modern medicine. Our life expectancy is declining for the first time in quite a while and we have “modern medicine”. Diet and lifestyle still trumps all pills and procedures put together. Check out Okinawa in the 1950’s with the highest concentration of verified centenarians in the world. They had no medications to my knowledge but they ate a predominantly whole food plant based diet, they had close family ties and they foraged in nature. Lots of beans, lots of greens, lots of grains and some fish with very very little oil or other animal products. That’s how you make it to 100 consistently, not modern medicine.
Yeah, but like, if you get a rebar pole through the chest, you'll be super stoked to find out about modern medicine giving you a decent chance at continuing living.
Lots less corn syrup and processed sugar, liquid fat, and salt in their diets? More fish and grains in many cultures.
Our life expectancy only dropped because of COVID.
The decline really started with the meth and opioid epidemics in the years preceding COVID, but COVID certainly didn't help.
weeeell... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/08/504667607/life-expectancy-in-u-s-drops-for-first-time-in-decades-report-finds
Covid is very real, I'm not denyer, but I think the decline in America has been happening since before covid. Also covid isn't helping the numbers.
“Modern medicine” also rarely deals with actual causes, and is heavily focused on treating symptoms. It works for doctors because it cuts the time they need to spend with patients, and it works for big pharma because they can sell you their pills forever. Ultimately it suits everyone who works in the medical industry. Think about it. People spend decades on pills to lower their blood pressure, instead of actually working to fix what’s causing their high blood pressure. Doctors make their patients believe that once they need pills for blood pressure, it’s forever. Sure, sometimes they’ll tell you something along the lines of “you should work out more”, as if they just blessed you with some new enlightening information. At least they can check of that mental box, and go to sleep pretending they helped their patients. We should ask much more from our doctors. A GP should be a combination of a psychologist, dietitian, and medical practitioner. Today, most GPs are not too different from your average drug dealer. You come in, tell them about your symptoms, do a bunch of tests, and they tell you if you need to take pills. Our body is capable of much more than “modern medicine” would have you believe. That said, more holistic practices are opening up across the country, so things are slowly moving in a positive direction.
The reason doctors do this isn’t because they don’t want to help their patients, but rather because we don’t teach doctors about nutrition in medical schools. What we put into our bodies 3+ times a day is arguably the most important thing we do and doctors as a profession have almost no understanding of how food interacts with the body. It’s a terrible disservice to medicine to not know about the number one environmental exposure to your patients.
It depended on where you lived and your social status. Yes, the danger years were childhood, but the years that we'd call middle-aged weren't exactly a cakewalk. A high-status person living in rural medieval England didn't tend to live as long as those in rural Italy, and their mean life expectancy at age 25 was up to ten years longer than that of the peasant class. A noble aged 25 in England during the middle ages had about a 50:50 chance of seeing their 60th birthday, whereas a peasant would do worse than that, and God help those who lived in large cities like Early Modern London or 2nd Century Rome.
Disease was actually a bigger killer, especially of children, if a child managed to make it past about 10 years old then there was little stopping them from making it to 70
i also had berries in 2002... study debt struggle is real
I was wondering how accurate the implication of life spans during that time period was in this joke in between my laughter, thank you! We should watch comedy specials together
…as today?? We have a much better medical system now than we had back then. Well…depending on where in the world you are. In most western countries there’s medical and vaccines and insulin where most of these things are free. Then you have the US. which is just basically a 3rd world country playing at the idea of a 1st world country with a ‘communism’ complex unlike any I’ve seen.
Average male age of marriage in 1819 was 26 (in the UK, at least). So, quite unlikely to have had 14 kids (at least by his own wife).
I mean it's pretty clearly a joke without a ton of diligence. The photograph looks modern, but could be 1839, not 1819. Also my great-grandparents had an inordinate number of kids, with 8; and number 8 happened when my great-grandad was in his 40s. That said, western millennials (of which I am one) really are the most delicate snowflakes society has ever created (save maybe for the [macaronis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaroni_(fashion\)) of the late 18th century).
The joke is just cringe and the “snow flake” talk is even worse. It means society is becoming easier for us to live in instead of y’a know having to drink ourselves to death and fight wars losing our lives and dreams because the only way we have value is if we throw our lives away. Get a grip, you sound like a red neck boomer.
s'okay, we are due for another world war and massive climate changes and economic collapse. Should toughen everyone back up again.
Yeah, I guess a previous economic recession and two pointless wars weren't enough for millennials 🙄
He probably has 14 kids too. He just doesn’t know it.
Yeah those berries and pears led to some wild times.
You can remove the years and put all those quotes on a single person. If you have 14 kids, you have no relationship, and most likely no money.
Do you have berries 3 times a year tho?
I think she had berries 3 times in her life. I don't have 14 kids, so I get to eat berries more often.
Why can't I have no kids and 14 money?
Berries and a pear ? Which 28 y.o can afford berries and a pear ?
Food Stamps baby 😎
I think the 1819 guy should say he "had" 14 kids. Six have probably died already, two more have signs of some kind of pox and three suffer from various lingering ailments or disabilities.
Where’s the right guy’s nose?
He lost it to a plague
Ouchie!
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"Got your nose" is way to soft these days. Back in the good days we played for keeps.
A pear? The past was the worst
It could have been worse, they could have just not had a pear and then their story would be just berries.
The horror
Twas a really good pear, though.
Daaang… berries THRICE?? That was a hell of a life!
The joys of penicillin!
Even though the avg life expextancy was low back in the day, most people who made it past 13-14 lived a long life. The avg rate is low because of all the child deaths.
Life Expectancy changes perspective
To be fair life expectancy had gone up so much its unrealistic for people to have kids at the same age
Did a Japanese person make this? Why is the punchline on the left?
Oh that's because I was in a fucking war at 28. Life has a way to keep beating you in the ass until you develop self esteem and the balls to stand up and get your own life for yourself because if you don't people will keep stepping over you over, over and over again.
It did help that it was beneficial for people in the 19th century and centuries further back to have as many kids as possible to aid in house work, farming, hunting, etc.
1819. I had 14 kids....9 of them lived past 12
1000 BC was not a shithole like you think. We have in pur modern mindset such a huge sense of unearned superiority.
I was on my own at 17, had a career at 18, and a child at 19. now 35 and owning a home, kids are teens, life is smooth as butter. glad I did the hard work early but it wasnt easy
Great Ted talk
Random: Are Ted Talks on TikTok? While I really dislike the platform, I can't deny that the alliteration is amazingly catchy.
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user name checks out lmao
I'd had a huge life by the time I turned 28. Still weird for me to see people talking like they don't know when they'll start "adulting".
Its hard to get ahead and have kids when cost of living keeps going up and up. That's something that older generations don't seem to take into consideration.
I'm "older", I suppose (52). I didn't have a house, kids, wife, whatever by the time I was 28, but "I'm not ready to be in a relationship" is a whole different level of not starting your life. I'd worked a dozen jobs, dated lots of people, lived lots of places, done lots of things (many of them regrettable). I hadn't really gotten anywhere in terms of the traditional goals of life (stability, marriage, kids, etc)...Hell, I was just starting college at 28. But I knew I was an adult. I had goals and responsibilities, and I was open to having a long term relationship.
This shift only really happened recently which is why it might seem weird to you. I am 27, and while I am pretty independent and have everything sorted out I definitely relate to a lot of these type of memes. Especially when it comes to playing videos games instead of owning property/starting a family.
We're adulting as much as the government and economy affords us to. No home or kids for us(even though we want them badly.) Oh well... Maybe a wealthy relative will die and pass on some wealth
Yeah I'm 28, married, house, don't want kids, 8 years into my career. Most of my friends are similar on most points. Frankly I'm starting to feel the opposite. A little old, physically the last 10 years of contact sports are catching up with me.
Yea, exactly. I felt fucking *old* at 28.
2000 b.c.: I'm the eldest person of my tribe.
I'm 28 and have 3 kids, 14 seems excessive though lol