[Poll] The fannish baby boom.

[thefourthvine]

Okay, first, I want to thank everyone for the snowflake cookies. It was awesomely fun, particularly as that's the only snowfall we'll be seeing this year. (I know, I know, everyone who is currently buried in snow is saying, "Oh, my heart bleeds for you." Let me keep my snow fantasies, people!) Also, um, it turns out there's a setting you can have

Comments

[musesfool]

I would bet that fans are probably having the same number - or fewer - babies now as ten years ago, but ten years ago, we were mostly on mailing lists, and so wouldn't have discussed it as regularly etc. So it just seems like more, because people post about it to their LJs instead of leaving it for private mail or off-topic list posts.

[cofax7]

Seconded. I think it's just a function of how we interact that we're more aware of people having babies.

[bitter_crimson]

I bet this also. Additionally, it's hard for me to gauge, b/c ten years ago, most of my fannish friends were my age (that is, in high school), and thus weren't really having many kids. Now I have a much wider range of ages in my fannish friends, in addition to being older myself.

[lapillus]

You see, I based my response on who I know who goes to cons who are having babies. I'm going to the same or fewer number of cons and the number of fans who are pregnant or not coming because they have a new little one in the last couple of years is much higher than I remember it being when I started in fandom.

[thefourthvine]

I actually do wonder if part of what we're seeing is the more visible fans - the con-goers, the BNFs, whatever - having babies. But then, I don't know that the previous crops of BNFs didn't have kids, so yours is the first evidence I've seen that this might be the case.

[lapillus]

I think most of the ones who had kids had had them before I knew them and in many cases before they found fandom. I not sure that the percentage with kids has actually changed, but the relative ages of finding fandom and having kids may have shifted.

[suchthefangirl]

Hmm, I can tell you that I've been going to cons for many more years than I've had kids. (I've gone to ComicCon, for example, every year for the last 23 years except for the year that my daughter was supposed to be born and then wasn't).

I have seen many more kids there than I used to, so I figured that more people were bringing their kids. There are a lot more women than there used to be as well, but then I tend to go to comic cons and they used to traditionally be male dominated, which is no longer true. I now see women dragging spouses instead of the other way round...

[thefourthvine]

That's my guess - that it's a combination of fans talking about it more, plus maybe those who have been in fandom a while aging (and thus being more likely to have kids).

[lilacsigil]

Definitely - people I knew on mailing lists and Usenet turned out to have kids when we all made it over to LJ.

[jacquez]

thiiiiiiiiiiis. *admires musesfool's brains*