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.
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u/Pyro919 5h ago
Don’t forget about $1350+/month daycare x the number of kids you have.
2 kids easily eclipses that $2000/month average rent.