> it was your kids taking care of you when you get older
This oversimplification has never been true. Humans evolved in extended family groups generally between 30 - 300 people. And humans are far more promiscuous and willing to adopt chosen family than most will admit.
The nuclear family is a shockingly recent invention.
It doesn't negate the claim that parent made though. "Your kids" had a wider meaning (and still has in a lot of places) but the principle remains: an adult had to provide, and protect a limited number of (usually related) kids to be cared by those of them who survived later in life.
That's not how it works unless you try to say that adults in general are interested in kids survival. This would be true but it's not what drives larger efforts, and resources allocation. For that there are always related kids which get the most of one's resources, and other kids which may get something sometimes. And there are your elders and others' elders as well. Actually, there are plenty of countries where pensions either not a thing, or too small even for basics. I lived in some of them and I dare to say I know what I'm talking about.
Word. I haven seen so many misconceptions about our state here in these comments, planted in our consciousness by our capitalist system to justify its existence. This, that we don't naturally rely on mutually supporting each other, is one of them. That our elderly are useless and unproductive, is another one. That it will take people working until they are 70 and utterly worn out to provide the pitifully inadequate support our society provides our elderly and our poor, is yet another one. Such inhumane beliefs persist all while a tiny minority skim off a sizeable proportion of the the wealth our labor produces for themselves.
I think nearly all of it is starting with people not wanting to pay taxes (who blames them?) and reasoning backward from there. It doesn't seem like an attempt to have a consistent non-hypocritical worldview so much as an attempt to justify wealth hoarding which capitalism encourages and happily provides ideological tools for. Nevermind that by allowing ourselves to be split from each other and our extended family support structures, we are all becoming more vulnerable and in need of the very societal support some would rather withhold.
This oversimplification has never been true. Humans evolved in extended family groups generally between 30 - 300 people. And humans are far more promiscuous and willing to adopt chosen family than most will admit.
The nuclear family is a shockingly recent invention.