Only get pregnant if you can afford it.
OK
No, not like that
The cost of living is too high. Having children is really expensive and you have to worry about whether they’ll make it as adults or whether things will be even worse then
This, 1000%. Every study I’ve looked at states the current economy makes having children more of a drain than a gain.
I can’t prove it but I suspect that they are having about as many children as they want and our expectations of ‘fertility rates’ are actually skewed by the number of unwanted pregnancies that were forced on people who then existed in the space of ‘We didn’t ask for this but now we love the little shit so I guess we’ll make the best of it.’ The world is and has been changing so fast for the last century or so that our sense of long term trends is much harder to understand.
My take is “How can I afford to have a kid when I can’t even take care of myself?”.
Countries can’t have children, they’re not alive.
Check out the big brain on BreadOven
Thebes begs to differ.
For being alive or bearing children?
Bearing children. The founder, Cadmus, killed a dragon and buried the teeth in the ground and from that were “born” the Spartoi, fully grown and armed. They fought until only the strongest remained who then sired the noble houses of Thebes.
It will differ by country but I’ve seen some poll from Poland recently:
For those few that don’t speak polish:
- I don’t need kids (37%)
- I can’t afford it (20%)
- I’m worried about wars and instability (14%)
- Poorly working healthcare system (13%)
- I don’t have the right partner
- I’m worried about unemployment
- Not enough support form the government
- Being a parent is too hard
- I’m worried about climate change
- Other (20%)
- I don’t know (14%)
don’t need kids
rather just be the fun uncle/auntie, borrow them for a weekend and enjoy the fun times.
Let the parents deal with the daily childhood drama
As an uncle, I approve. I used to buy them loud noise making toys or some shooting thing to play outside. Go have fun and annoy your parents.
This is a great data pull btw. This is similar across much of the Global North.
This sort of track. I can identify with a lot of these answers at various times in my life.
It really does seem to be a combination of things.
As a middle aged person I’d also say that most people I know with kids were surprised for the first, or very religious.
We’re like pandas in captivity. We’ll fuck if the conditions are right. They haven’t been right in a loooooong time. A little bit of enrichment in our enclosures would help tremendously.
Have you seen how the world is doing?
Here are my reasons:
- We are already starting to feel the effects of global warming, it will only get worse and people don’t take it serious. Why should Ibput another soul into this world just to suffer from the stupidity of others?
- Child care is super expensive and quality isn’t great and being a stay at home parent isn’t really an option if you want too keep up in the work market place.
- Why should I have a kid, if I’m not gonna spend time with them? I mean to feed them & offer them all the anemities, me and my partner would need to work full-time, so when are we gonna spend time with our kid?
- edit see bellow why.
- I like my freedoms.
- The schooling system is shit. Why should I raise kids in a society that starts the “grind” at age 5 and keeps you going until you are 65?
- etc.
we all dream of having […] neurotypical, cis kids, but it’s a high possibility of that not being the case.
Is that a personal gripe of yours of there being more recognition for more neurodivergent and transgender recognition?
Oohhhhh shit, I worded that one horribly… my add brain fucked it up and it came out so worng… I first wanted We all dream of having healthy kids but what if they are not (thinking of cancers or other medical diseases) and than a second bullet point as in, what if your kid is not neurotypical or non cis (queer) are you able to deal with everything that comes with? (Thinking of how bad society has turned against them in the past few years with the rise of the far right and how dificult it is tobstand up for peoples rights).
I truly have nothing against neurospicy and queer people. I know the way I worded it was terrible, and should I have offended anyone, I’m terribly sorry. Also thank you for pointing it out!.
Ok cool, I wasn’t sure so I figured I’d ask rather than accuse
Other activities outcompete children.
The other points like difficulty and money are valid but I think primarily kids are just not worth it for many and they’d rather travel or just have their own time which imo should be a perfectly acceptable take.
That’s for the first child but once you got one the barrier for more is almost always finance or pregnancy difficulties. Kids don’t scale as well as they used to.
You can only raise kids properly if you can afford it.
I don’t think you’re wrong, but poor people never being able to have children would certainly be… Problematic. My forefathers were by no means well off, but having children was (and in many countries still is) seen as way to ensure your own health and safety as you grow older. Sadly, our society is no longer designed for families to thrive. Instead we work for others so we can pay people to look after our loved ones. It’s pretty fucked up when you think about it.
I, too, think all people should be able to raise kids. That society makes it practically impossible is the problem.
You might call me old-fashioned, but being able to have one person at home to care for the kids and actually raise them is something that I consider a cornerstone.
Why put kids in the world, just to have to provide for them and have other people raise them, because you cannot afford to do this yourself?
It’s one of the great scams that industry pulled off - deriding staying home with a family as somehow failing and getting both parents out to the grind. Then selling it as progressive. I’m in favour of equal opportunity in the workplace, but we’ve been left with the worst of both worlds.
capitalism
Capitalism
I think we need to accept that humans really just don’t want (many) kids, and that the so-called ‘urge to procreate’ is really just the ‘urge to have sex’ - and unlike 500 years ago they are no longer the same thing. We can choose to have all the sex we want without becoming pregnant. That is what people want, and it has nothing to do with affordability.
Sure, money might be one factor of many for some people, but if money was really the main issue, then rich countries would have a higher fertility rate, right? Rich people would have more kids, right? Well, the opposite is true. People getting richer, more educated, having better access to healthcare, and last but not least: women obtaining more rights… All of this has made it so people have fewer children. Are we really going to keep deluding ourselves and write it all off as a financial issue? People nowadays are not poorer than in the past. All throughout history poor people have been having kids. It’s just that now they have a choice. And they choose not to.
tl;dr I think what has changed is that people (read: women) have a choice now and they simply choose not to have (as many) kids.
You’re absolutely right
There’s a reason why decreased “fertility” is correlated with women becoming more educated, not men
Here in Northern Sweden the preschools in the cities are all closing down due to lack of kids. We have the opposite problem in the villages. Long waiting lists and shortages. Our municipality, population 5000, has 6 existing preschools and just built a new one. City housing costs more than 3 times as much as the villages and small towns. Families can’t afford housing in the city. It’s all rich retired people in the larger houses and young single people in tiny apartments.
TL;DR: people don’t like being packed in like sardines. Give them space to have kids.
Anecdotally, I’d say money and the world would be the two big things.
People don’t have enough money to raise kids. Americans can’t afford to give birth with hospital bills. Childcare is expensive, but the alternative is no income. People can’t accumulate generational wealth, so there’s nothing to pass on, therefore no need for anyone to pass it to.
Environmental anxiety is real. Why bring kids into a world that’s about to burn?
Maybe one last factor is rebellion. A small sample I feel like chooses not to have kids so as not to perpetuate the system. The billionaires can’t exploit my kids if I don’t have any.
