its almost always the one thing that is a problem in most low-birth rate countries, that the govt ignores. HCOL, raising a child is very expensive+ political instability, causing deaths and misery.
I’d really like to see the evidence for this statement, since it really seems like this trend is just an extension of the phenomenon we see in poorer countries: when you give women education, opportunities, and birth control, fewer of them will have children. It stands to reason that the more education, the more opportunities available, and the more freely accessible birth control is, the fewer women will have children.
There is also that sure but biologically people want to have kids, the extreme cost of living experienced by many prevents them from having kids
If that were true, we would expect richer countries to have higher birth rates. Instead, we see roughly the opposite trend. The richer a country gets, typically, the lower the birth rate. You can’t tell me that a teacher and a data entry clerk in Virginia are less economically capable of raising children than subsistence farmers in Malawi, no matter how high the rent in Virginia is.
If you want to see high income places with high birth rates, then you end up in very traditional/religious cultures, like Mormons and the Arab petro-states, where women face extremely high cultural pressure (if not force/violence) to be child-bearers.
Richer countries tend to have really shitty work life balances though, You need both money to raise a kid and time to do it as well, if both parents are working full time and barely making rent then of course they aren’t going to have kids. Japan and South Korea are perfect examples of this.
I wonder how many are white people with a decent income who have two dogs, want to travel and to play Elden ring.
Me, but I have no dogs and don’t play video games.
Me. But I have 3 dogs.
People without financial security: “kids are too expensive and I would be exhausted trying to provide for them”
People with financial security: “I’m having a good time, adding a kid to this mix would really require a step back in my lifestyle.”
And yet the people most concerned about birth rates fight the hardest against anything that would make people have more kids
There’s also the moral question of “do I want to add a living person to the world I wish I didn’t exist in?”
That’s why I think if I’m gonna have a kid some day it will be via adoption.
I want kids, but the government is doing their damndest to make it as difficult as possible for us by crashing the economy, cutting all federal programs, staffing agencies with NPCs, etc. Give generous paternity leave stipulations, tax credits, legalize surrogacy, and give credits for AI (artificial insemination) and surrogacy. Not to mention universal healthcare and child care credits.
Make it easy for us to have kids, and we will, lol. Quit cockblocking us.
Quit cockblocking us
It’s more like semen blocking
I don’t want kids because I’m selfish with my time and don’t want to dedicate it to taking care of them. I don’t like kids because they are loud, smelly, and annoying.
That’s all there is to it. There’s nothing deep here. I like free time and quiet and don’t want to sacrifice that for 20+ years.
All these people with great rational reasons… Meanwhile, my wife and I just don’t like children.
This is my boat… THEN I got a lot of rational reasons I didn’t want.
Honestly I don’t either, but I am also not above using it as a philosophical cudgel against fascism. If I’m going to get shit for not wanting kids the least I can do is redirect the conversation to politics.
I’ve never really liked “children” in the sense of the age group, but I know a bunch of people who have really great, meaningful relationships between adult children and their parents, so I wanted adult children in my late middle ages and retirement ages.
Now, with my own children, I primarily see them as future adults who I get to watch develop into cool people.
I’m sure the evolved brain chemical soup would make me like my own selfishly, but generally yeah I just don’t like kids. I don’t like interacting with them at all. I didn’t even when I was one, and I’m certainly not a “cool uncle.”
I had to warn my sister before she had her first not to get mad at me for not conforming to some fantasy relationship that might only exist in her head. She’s like that, so it was to get ahead of any hurt feelings. I couldn’t realistically make that happen even if I wanted to.
I love my kid, but the time suck is real.
I get about an hour and a half a day of free time, which I should probably be using to clean.
If we had shorter work days it would be far better, though we bid up housing prices using loose monetary policy so that’s not happening. Most people aged to procreate are funding boomers poor retirement planning.
eg, thier medicaire/caid. you would have to be very poor to use medicaid. the most chronic conditions people have on medicare, is DIABETES TYPE 2, AND comorbidities.
while i was at a uni library, i overheard these 2 barely 20 something woman(assumed they were 18-19 by the way they were talking), talking about having kids at 25-30, where you going to have kids if you dont have a career yet, and you are barely an adult right now.
when i was HS, a mother waited too long to change his sons way (future direction) she would often come in during his classes and moniter his classwork for any lowering grade, and would chatised the class “your parents would care this much if they care about his son”, i was thinking, “this bitch, you waited 4years too long to change him, he was dead set on not going to college, when he told us”. shouldve done it before he was in HS, and not waited til he was about to graduate with a low or participation passing gpa(like many people in the hs at the time).(i havnt kept track of him, only saw him once when i was IN CC)
Seriously. I can handle being with family for a while, but would absolutely lose all will to live if I had to be near children every single day. Even more if I was actually supposed to be responsible for them. There are a lot of good reasons to not get children, the best one I have is that I just don’t want to be near them.
I’m on holiday right now with my extended family. The youngest is 18. It’s been great but today is the sixth and final day and I’m ready to go home so I can chill out on my own. The thought of going home and spending more time with this group of adults I’m related to fills me with dread. I can’t imagine what it would be like if one of them was a young child, let alone one that I had to be responsible for.
I love my daughter. She’s 4yo. She’s so amazing. But if I knew what I knew now in the US… I would not put her in it.
deleted by creator
If I hate the capitalism rat race I’m stuck in with all the uncertainties and the never ending grind and the deteriorating planet, why would I be motivated to bring kids into this world, knowing full well that I don’t have the fuck you money needed such that they wouldn’t have to go through the same rat race grind as me. Seems cruel.
The economy is going great.
Never want kids = realizing I’ll never be able to afford them
realizing I’ll never be able to afford themrealizing I’ll never be able to afford them without sacrificing the slightest inch of my current lifestyle
FTFY
I don’t fault you. You do you. Just stop blaming the economy.
People have been willingly having children through times tougher than anything you have or ever will experience.
You just don’t want kids. And that’s fine.
Just stop scapegoating the economy.
Well yeah but there’s more too. The climate is a factor in people’s choices as well.
It’s it that they don’t want kids as in no matter what they are never having kids… or they only don’t want them because of economy…etc. I took it as they do not want kids under any circumstances.
Well in the usa at least, the birth rate started to drop after the 2009 meltdown. That also when young people that are most likely to start a family couldn’t afford it. Survey data from the 60s until today shows very little in how many know da people want.
So ueah its like 90% money
I took it as a generalized statement, which upon re reading i may have misinterpreted
Also, they’re sticky, and no one wants to deal with that.
Governments do slim to nothing to invest in supporting their populace education, daycare, cost of living.
Why would I bring life into this country to experience the harsh, expensive, cold existence?
They cant even properly care for the sick or elderly. Only thing they care about is making money off of us.
most of them are just nagging, or trying to encourage more sex. no support for mothers and childcare, housing, wage crisis, political issues, climate issues. the wealthy dont want any of this to happen so thats why they have used propaganda and culture wars/
That’s why Donald loves the uneducated.
Any politician in a democracy would love the uneducated. My country is the prime example, literally all the parties just want to impress the dumb and uneducated
Originally I never wanted kids because it sounded like it’d get in the way of all the other stuff I want to do in life.
Now I don’t because I see it as unethical.
How about “Number of Americans who responsibly agree not to raise kids into poverty doubled in 20 years”
40 years of raising the burden on the middle class without applicable wages will do that to a society.
Raising what burden you say? Wages to cost of living.
This. If you don’t have kids there are basically no support systems to start a family. Wages aren’t high enough and it looks like a daunting task. But if you have kids, suddenly you can qualify for food stamps and assistance(which is good). The system is basically set up to help prevent you from failing once you’ve already done it, but not to set you up to do it successfully beforehand. To have kids, you basically have to say “fuck it, we’ll just figure it out”. A lot of people aren’t willing to take that risk.
suddenly you can qualify for food stamps and assistance(
I wouldn’t bet on that being a sure thing in a couple of months/years :)
neither is medicaid/medicare, republicans are so dependant on too.
“I wanna be a fireman when I grow up!”
rubs kids hair
(He doesn’t have a future)
^ that’s why. I’m not raising someone on the idea that their life will be complete shit because there’s zero proof to the contrary.
Trust me. It’s crushing raising a child right now In America. I have to navigate these weird questions without scaring the shit out of him. Hes almost 10, and is too sweet for the world we exist in now. He shouldn’t have to bear the weight of our future, but people who like trump don’t deserve a future, and God forgive those who opposed my child. Fuck my life but I’ll go nuclear for my child.
I feel so guilty towards my 10 year old. I never planned to have kids. I never wanted to have kids. But it happened anyways and I love him more than anything, and its so depressing knowing for a fact that he doesn’t have nearly the same outlook on his future. I cut off my MAGAt mother and now me and my kid are solid, but I know the future has shit foundations and a mild win only lasts so long, but it feels so good to cut toxicity out of your life. Shame that it’s mostly meaningless these days.
