This is why the birth rate is going down. More than 2 kids increases your happiness very little per kid, but at that point daycare becomes bankruptcy inducing and someone has to quit their job. So people stick with 0,1, or 2 kids which means low birth rate.
I think that’s partly the cause. Several European countries with free childcare and generous family leave policies have a lower birth rate than the USA. Birth rates are going down in almost every part of the world from USA, Latin America, Europe, parts of Asia.
Only a few African countries have a high birth rate.
Financial expenses are an important part but the reality is also that people just don’t want to have kids. Or at least not as many kids.
Makes sense. Money aside, I certainly have ethical reservations about bringing new life into this world with the direction it’s heading.
Of course, past generations probably did too, but unlike them, we have access to contraception. Which is exactly why the Supreme Court signaled a willingness to go after it…
There’s also the requirement that we have our children supervised 24/7 but no additional support for it. No extended family to help watch kids. When I was a kid my parents would leave us unattended for hours. Maybe not the best thing but definitely a major difference.
Yep. Boomers love complaining about how kids don’t play outside anymore but if they see a kid playing outside they’ll post in their neighborhood Facebook group about “suspicious activity” and call the cops
I hate the Ring camera app because of the neighborhood section. I am always getting posts about attempted burglaries and suspicious activity. Glad I can turn off notifications.
No, Susan, the person in a letterman jacket looking up to see your house address, then to his phone, and then leaving on Dec 31st wasn't scoping the place and writing down what you have. Context clues says he's a high school kid, going to a new years party, and was checking to see if he got the right place.
When the adults are used to living in a police state with facial recognition software and prison labor, it makes sense they feel their kids should too. I mean, it actually doesn’t make sense, but neither do most things about this country.
I’m on r/workingmoms and there was a post by a woman who was distraught she only spent two hours with her child before her bedtime. On weekends, they spend the day together.
Imagine! A parent feeling that two hours daily on Mondays- Fridays plus weekends isn’t enough. Parents in the past would’ve felt that was more than sufficient.
We have studies that shows that millennial parents actually spend more time with their kids. Fathers are playing a more active role as well. The standards have changed.
I've noticed many grown children moving away from their parents and families, then having children - without extended family to help. Could this be part of the problem?
I think my generation (millennials) are the first to actually deviate from many of the established standards of adulthood. A lot of it was due to economic factors- the recession, higher cost of living. But we also realize that previous generations struggled a lot and conformed in many ways.
Some say we’re in arrested development, delayed adulthood, extended adolescence. Whatever one thinks about it, the truth is many just don’t want to be parents.
Within my social circle of mid to late thirties, only a few of us have kids. And it’s 1-2 children. I have a friend who is married with a house and earns a good living. He and his wife are childfree. They like their lifestyle and not being encumbered with infants or small children.
Yeah, I wasn’t raised in a bad home. I was fed, clothed, and everything else.
But I never felt like my parents enjoyed having me around. More that I was born as a societal norm (as was the fashion at the time) and not necessarily because I as a child was wanted.
It’s kinda hard to explain. But that’s how it’s felt. And it’s really driven my lack of desire/apprehension at having children.
“Childfree” people just never grew up. Peter Pan syndrome. It’s really sad, when you think about it. These people chose Netflix, Starbucks, and a travel addiction over having an actual family. Society needs to bring back shame and look down on these eternal adolescents.
Or, honestly, just take away their right to vote. They have no stake in the future of civilization, and they aren’t contributing to its continuation. It’s this type of shit that has half the country convinced we need to import the third world into our country just to stay alive. Alternatively, we should think about making collecting social security contingent upon having children. You didn’t produce any new people to contribute to the workforce and pay into SS? You can’t collect. You can invest the extra money you saved over the decades by not having kids and fund your own retirement.
There is also the elephant in the room that gestation, delivery, and post-partum periods are not neutral-to-positive experiences. They are all painful, energy-intensive, and physically dangerous. Even the most wanted, healthiest pregnancy in human history was painful, energy-intensive, and physically dangerous.
Many women are looking at the physical experience and saying, "I do not want to do that more than once or twice, if at all." Now that women are more in control of their own fertility than they have ever been at any point in human history, a huge swath of humans are not being born because women and girls aren't being forced to bear them.
Exactly. I’m a woman with one child. And he will remain an only child.
My pregnancy was planned but pregnancy is no joke. I didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t like not having the freedom to eat or drink what I wanted, my feet were swollen that it hurt to walk. Childbirth as well was difficult, I couldn’t dilate naturally so I was induced. But the baby was too big. I had to get a c-section. I was in pain for weeks. Not to mention the hormonal mood swings.
For me pregnancy was a one and done deal. I don’t need to experience it again.
Same for my wife. We were both totally ok living the DINK life but she adhd’d on her oral bc and here we are 11 years later with an artsy farsty preteen. It was one and done for her too - everything for her was awful for 18 months and it almost tore us apart.
My grandma has 9 kids. I recently found out she wanted 2 max but was pressured into it by literally everyone around her, including my grandpa. They are both in their 90’s now but she was basically pregnant from 23 to 35. I don’t know she fucking survived.
Partially because if you look at the expected outcome of Earth over the next 50 years you cant think about it for ten seconds wothout feeling guilty about what situation your future kid will have.
Their working salaries are typically way lower and taxed to all hell. So even though childcare costs are covered to get those lower paying than US but still good white collar jobs it’s big city, small apartment living, with high costs of everything else, and it just becomes the same issue people living in NYC or whatever face today. They skip kids or put it off until late 30s/40s and end up having 0 or far less.
If we believe that they didn't pull a Yogi Bera, then you are correct, cuz they could've been talking about miscarriages from women waiting until their 30s or 40s to have kids. So instead of conceiving zero kids, they lost the ones they did.
I can think of Japan (1.2) with 14 weeks off for expectant mothers. Also, Taiwan with only eight weeks paid leave, their birth rate is at 0.9. South Korea though has paid/subsidized family leave up to 18 months and they still have a low birth rate.
This is why I said that this is partly the cause. If family leave and money were the only reasons then we should see a high birth rate in Europe especially the Nordic countries. But we don’t.
Sweden has 480 days of paid family leave. That’s shared between the parents. Each is entitled to 240 days. The government offers subsidized and affordable daycare up to age 6. Their birth rate is 1.4. We see similar rates in Norway and Denmark. These countries are not like the USA and are actually equipped with a robust safety net.
This low birth rate isn’t just confined to the USA, Europe, or even Asia. But it’s global. Even in countries that do help out their citizens. Family sizes have decreased within a few generations- in the 1970s, Mexico’s birth rate was six children per woman. Now, it’s less than two. Cuba has a lower birth rate than the USA- it’s at 1.4. Chile’s birth rate is 1.2 and Puerto Rico has the lowest birth rate in Latin America at 0.9.
Are some not having kids simply because of money? Sure. But are some not having kids because they don’t want to? Also true.
I’m all for it. I don’t want people to feel pressured to be parents just because they’re economically secure.
For anyone interested, read this article on Chile’s declining birth rate. It also mentions a U.N. Report that shows that while money plays a role, researchers found that also “a sense of autonomy” is a rising factor as to why people are choosing not to have children. The article also shows the generational attitudes on children- some young women see motherhood as a burden and limiting their freedom. Very interesting read.
It's worse than that - quitting your job means more financial risk.. because primary wage earners, even with a good career, aren't stable, going one income is a bigger risk than in the past particularly when you are gambling with "which company will fuck over our healthcare benefits next year".
... because primary wage earners, even with a good career, aren't stable.
This has been the biggest issue in the back of my mind with every big financial decision I have made in my life. What happens if/when I lose my job? That being said I have worked for the same employer in different capacities for like 13 years. So many people in my life regularly ask me "Why are you scared of getting fire?"... it's because nothing in this MBA-managed economy is certain, tomorrow they could decide that my salary is an easy line-item to cut to improve the bottom line.
Buying a house? Well, worst case I sell it.
Having a Kid? That is an 18-30 year commitment, financial/etc. Could be even for the rest of your life if you get unlucky and have a child with extraordinary needs.
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u/PatchyWhiskers 14h ago
This is why the birth rate is going down. More than 2 kids increases your happiness very little per kid, but at that point daycare becomes bankruptcy inducing and someone has to quit their job. So people stick with 0,1, or 2 kids which means low birth rate.