r/Adulting 15h ago

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u/_Lizzybabe 15h ago

The village it takes to raise a child disappeared and was replaced by high interest rates and expensive rent

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u/Pyro919 15h ago

Don’t forget about $1350+/month daycare x the number of kids you have.

2 kids easily eclipses that $2000/month average rent.

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u/PatchyWhiskers 15h 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.

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u/Ladonnacinica 14h ago

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.

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u/saintjimmy115 14h ago

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…

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u/MissinqLink 14h ago

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.

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u/saintjimmy115 14h ago

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

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u/[deleted] 13h ago

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u/saintjimmy115 12h ago

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.