Birth rates in many countries fell over 10 percent from 2021 to 2023. The mRNA Covid jabs don't seem to be the culprit. Some nations that heavily used them saw large declines, but they were not alone.
Hopelessness. Loss of faith in God and in ones future. Global warming pessimism beat into kids heads from birth. Crazy long term increases in cost to live (housing) and educate kids. Growth in alternatives for women while, simultaneously, men are losing their sense of purpose. So many contributing factors. Makes me sad as a father of 3 --it’s is the great joy of my life to be called dad with respect and affection.
I’ve found your observations true where I live. It’s very sad to me to hear young people anxious, navigating their lives and future around their fear of global warming (I live in a college town). Most seem to be barely making it after college financially so there are few marriages but more living together and eventually committing to a pet. I have noticed quite a few of the more affluent young couples who do get married, struggling with infertility. Never remember in my day so many having a tough time getting pregnant (more like the other way around!). Lots of open talk about best fertility drs, acupuncturists, nutritionists etc. There are many specialties that deal specifically with this now. Definitely something going on there.
Many young women (like my daughters), finished college, got good jobs, all the while being on birth control for way too long. Lots of estrogen in their bodies making it harder to balance out their hormones. Then comes the trouble. When I was young I was skeptical of these pills and never stayed on them long. Now you'll see girls on them for 15 years or more.
And the girls are hooking up with the same 1%-5% of men, who have no incentive to marry and start a family. Too many of the women who want families don't wake up to it and settle for a man from the other 95% until they're in their mid 30s, and by then it's too late for most of them.
Could be multi generational harm since they e been around for decades. Maybe the parents who used them passed on more than we realize? Why did we trust these BCPs all these years? Did you know that when women in BCPs give blood, it is often greenish?
Who would not be surprised if US Big Food (pesticides, GMOs, excess additives e.g., chemicals, soy, Palm this or that, corn this or that) had something to do with it. Adding to the contributing factors.
But prior generations had the nuclear apocalypse to be afraid of, they used to do drills hiding under desks in schools! What’s more terrifying than that? And yet still made babies (eventually)
Prager U has a video by Peachy Keenan, who gave up a six-figure income at an entertainment company to become a wife and mother of five. The most important and rewarding job in life for a woman is being a wife and mother, according to Ms. Keenan, who calls herself a "domestic extremist." My daughter works full-time and has two part-time jobs but her most fulfilling job is raising her two-year-old son. Many women may find satisfaction in a career but even most of these females would find more happiness if they also had families. I know feminism has done a lot for women but it's also done a lot to them.
Not to be critical of your daughter's situation, but does she have a husband? Surely, with her hectic schedule, she has little time to devote to her precious son.
She unsuccessfully tried marriage twice, and I'm glad neither of those guys are in her life. She devotes plenty of time to her son. One of her part-time jobs is babysitting, where she can take him with her, and the other is only occasional.
And don't forget about abortion, which despite the Dobbs ruling, resulted in *more* abortions in in the US last year. On pace for in excess of 1 million babies exterminated in 2023. 1 million would have raised the fertility rate considerably!
Kimberly, thanks for your comment. Sex as birth control has had a negative impact upon male/female bonding, creating families. I serve on the Board of an excellent state right-to-life nonprofit. Sold to women as “choice,” Planned Parenthood, the so-called women’s liberation movement, has altered femininity & the male response. All of what’s been stated in the comments is true. Toss in cost of housing, raising children, two-parents working, social media, isolation from real connections, it all adds up. I do wonder what technology has done to community-mostly the casting out of God, and ushering in of anything goes.
Not everyone wants children. Do really think that if those 1 million women had been forced to give birth that they would have been happy moms? I see 1 million abused children and suicidal women.
Excellent comment -- highlighting another facet to the conversation on why the fertility rate has declined. "Not everyone wants children"... Alex's point exactly.
Esp. the last. Maybe all the liberal atheist protesters will get their wish and live under a muslim theocracy. I'm sure it will be just as nice as they think.
I lived and worked in the Middle East for 10 years (2 in Iran, followed by 8 in Saudi Arabia). As a women in Saudi Arabia, I was only allowed to teach women. I learned a lot from my students about their lives. I can guarantee that these idiot (especially female) liberal Hamas protesters have absolutely zero idea what they would be in for living in a Muslim Sharia driven theocracy. No frigging idea, the utterly ignorant, uninformed morons. They should volunteer to go over there and experience it for themselves, and I also guarantee they would come back here whimpering and with their tails between their legs.
I went to college in the 1970s. I had some mildly liberal ideas, although I always voted Republican even in those days. But I came back from my Middle East years (1977 to 1989) loving and appreciating everything about America and being oh so grateful that I was born American.
As societies become more secular, more self focused, more stuff oriented, why wouldn't men and women both make the economic analysis that having children is a net negative. They are holes into which you pour your money, time and energy. If it's all about me, then kids are just a drain and distraction. Plus, women are waiting far too long to realize that motherhood is time dependent. Wait til your thirties and very often, the train has left the station and it's not coming back. My husband and I have six kids; I did the professional career, the corner office and big salary. Left it because being a Mom is so much better. You're welcome; now there are six decent people out there who are contributing members of society and will fund your Social Security and government. In fact, four of them have and will fight to defend your country. We as a civilized society have our priorities all screwed up, pray for our country.
Not terribly long ago I got into a verbal sparring match with a woman from Australia who proclaimed in a comment section that “ not having kids was her proudest achievement. “ Putting aside the illogicality of this statement, I basically raised the question of who would be there to take care of her if everyone made that choice. It really made me think that being childless should include a tax burden for one’s elder care. What Alex doesn’t mention is the “socialized burden” that aging creates if there are no family caregivers.
Well what I said here was actually my response to her getting annoyed that I told her — like you do above — that she was welcome that I had provided future taxpayers. She went off on how she’d paid taxes all her life and that Australia has a social safety net or whatever. My point to her really became that — you still need actual people to care for you. And people like me provided them.
This response also applies to “Larry” in. another part of this thread. I think couples who choose to be childless ultimately do depend on other people making the opposite choice.
I have to believe that a lot of the decline is generational. Generation X has almost completely left the fertility pool. The youngest among that generation are now in their early forties, which means only late in life, technology aided pregnancies. Believe it or not, the Millennial Generation is also beginning to exit the fertility pool. They're right behind Gen X, which means the eldest among them are hitting their forties. The youngest Millennials are approaching 30, where fertility begins to decline.
Who does that leave? The most coddled, most skittish, most generally mentally f'd up generation in the history of the planet. I give you your future; the climate change obsessed, VR helmet wearing Generation Z. Do you really need to ask why birthrates are tanking?
Gen X suffered the highest rate of divorce of anyone - half. Given that, it’s amazing they reproduce at all. I am Gen X and thought I never wanted kids because of my dysfunctional childhood. Eventually I did, but it took a lot of soul searching. So glad I did; pets are not a substitute for kids.
Imagine how you felt about your dysfunctional childhood and multiply it by 2. That is how Millennials feel. Multiply it by 20 and you get how Gen Z feels, and they aren't getting over it like you did.
Can you expand? Millennials and Gen Z aren't suffering divorce the way us Gen X'ers did. I do think the phones are ruining things for them in a different way. Gen X were the original latchkey kids... but at least we were always interacting with each other. In person.
So, let me explain by first trying to understand your comment. Based on your comment, I assume you experienced a divorce in your household as a child. There was probably some other bad stuff going on that led up to the divorce. All of this added up to what you term as dysfunction, which made you question whether or not you wanted to have kids.
First off, divorce by itself does not cause the children of divorce to not have kids. What causes them to not have kids is the mental/emotional reaction to experiencing the divorce. I don't know exactly how or what you were feeling; bad about yourself, bad about parenthood or bad about the World in general. So, I will use a general term, angst. It made you question whether or not you wanted kids. But you did some soul searching and you overcame your angst caused by the divorce. That is what I term resiliency. The ability to overcome bad things that happen to us and live a happy life.
Lots of things aside from divorce can cause kids to have angst. Maybe the parents in the house loved each other deeply, but they had unreasonable expectations of the kids, which the kids could not live up to. Maybe the parents did drugs or were alcoholics. Maybe it has nothing to do with the home. I personally was picked on a lot early in my youth. (I'm an older Gen Xer and we didn't call it bullying back then).
Whatever caused our angst in our youth, most of us were resilient enough to get over it eventually. I did.
Now imagine that you are the average Gen Zer. You spend way too much time online. You're getting non-stop messages of impending doom. Climate change will make the World unhabitable before you're 30. You're trapped in the wrong gender body and so are half of your classmates. If you are not a white male you're the constant target of racism and sexism. If you are a white male, you embody racism and sexism. You're also a homophobe and transphobe if you aren't down with the latest drag queen story hour. You're told that you have to constantly have approval on TikTok. And this is on top of all the regular stuff that caused us angst as children.
To top it all off, imagine you're a kid experiencing all this stuff, and no one ever taught you resiliency. You were never challenged as a child, so you never learned to deal with adversity.
That's what I mean when I say that these kids feel 20 times as bad about the World as you or I probably did, and they don't know how to deal with it.
You forgot to mention that the entire world just experienced the most humiliating, dehumanizing, cowardly loss of freedom and self determination that I can imagine with no sense that the entire thing won’t happen again the next time a novel virus is detected. I don’t think you can bounce back from that.
I’m old Gen X, too, and we were all about resiliency, weren’t we? We raised ourselves and each other in a completely adult centered world. I can’t help but think that because of that the majority of parents have bent over backwards to not let kids experience what we did because we felt ignored… but it’s gone completely the other way and as a result kids have no resiliency and can’t handle a single bump in the road.
At least we interacted with each other. We also got to goof off and make mistakes without worry about it being recorded and haunting us forever. Kids do have it rougher today… something I’ve only come around recently to understanding. They have a more comfortable physical life than previous generations, but far more emotionally damaging things are happening because of these stupid phones. Not to be defeatist, but I don’t see how things get better. And how do we make them tougher, with those phones undermining them?
By the time I was in sixth grade, my mother was on her fourth divorce and all the upheaval that came with it. But I didn’t let it keep me down. I can’t imagine navigating what I went through in today’s smart phone world.
Great conversation going!! I tell people (don't know if it sinks in a lot) there is a difference between intelligence and wisdom. The latter only comes with experiences, and as we know in life, not all experiences are warm and toasty!! Sometimes pulling yourself out of the dirt or recovering from a kick to the 'nads (as examples) teaches you things for the better in the end. A lot of intelligent people never achieve wisdom even if they're "smart."...
As a mom of 3 GenZ, mine at least seem to be growing out of some of the worst characteristics of this group. Although I will say they’ve had a huge advantage coming from a very traditional intact family with a full-time mom. And their blood-related aunts and uncles have all stayed married to one person.
Interestingly my younger two now complain about those horrid Gen Alphas who have no sense irony, are illiterate, over indulged and badly behaved.
In general, they are so self absorbed and selfish that they wouldn't consider taking on the responsibility of a child. They can barely take care of pets, if they have them.
I blame millennials! Ha. I'm 43 and the vast majority of my peers have 2 or 3 kids. But people younger than me? Most I know don't have children and don't look to be setting themselves up for kids.
Hey I know this guy, a friend who I keep at a distance, who has been screwing this guy and is complaining he can't get him Pregnant. Can the US Supreme Court help out with this dilemma?
Why have more than one or 2 children when you have been brainwashed that putting children in daycare and going back to contribute to the GDP are family goals? You simply can not have a large family if both people work. Raising a family the modern way is not enjoyable but it sure makes the processed food companies, daycare companies, Apple/Microsoft, and politicians who bank on that extra tax money incredibly happy and rich.
Nailed it. Impossible to afford a house (& taxes & insurance), two cars (& plate taxes & insurance), food and energy expenses, plus pay for daycare for more than two children. Try saving for college for more than two.... at anything less than 80th percentile for family income.
If people remained in communities with their extended family, then it would be easier. But today, job mobility is very common.
Also of note: there is the massive decline in health of our populations. This has to be a factor. From poor diets, to general vaccine damage/autoimmune diseases, low physical fitness..... it all adds up
Can’t believe I left out the cost of health and dental insurance! And with so many kids with significant health expenses these days (autoimmune diseases, autism, and others have significant out of pocket costs on top of premiums), it is no surprise people can’t afford more than 1 or 2 kids!
Is it the phones? A pilot friend quite active in the bedroom area told me last year that the playing around crews used to do on overnight flights has fallen off a cliff (yes, just like they show in movies and TV shows). He blames it on phones; he says everyone just wants to go back to their hotel rooms, alone, and scroll.
Simplistic answer, but I think those phones are ruining more than we realize.
The elder generations did nothing to facilitate mate selection and family formation. Imagine if people put in the same effort to those endeavors as careers for which you will be forgotten the minute you exit. Also, the lack of support for families that are formed from grandparent boomers and silents who have to go on that 4th vacation to Italy or wherever is staggering. But they won't hesitate to demand you drag your kids with you to that condo in Florida. Forget government incentives, start with cultural dynamics first.
Unless of course even the infection itself has an effect. Interesting question that I am sure is being investigated with open hearts and open minds. Not asserting this, just a natural scientific question.
A likely explanation is the fear and nihilism propagated by the elites, and the destructive culture they propagate. Elites who have made no secret of their desire to depopulate the planet, at least of people other than they.
Seems like birth rates should have been thru the roof 9 months after 2020-2021 with everyone trapped at home. Then fall in the coming years when the next generation of snowflake singles refuse to get within 6 feet of someone because they might have Covid and/or other scary viruses.
I agree that the MRNA jabs cannot be solely blamed, as these trends were already in place. However, various OBGYNs have reported an alarming increase in miscarriages and stillbirths since the rollout of the vaccines. The lipid nanoparticles settle in the ovaries and testes, and it is not a stretch to think this is connected. However, to Alex's point, even before the jab, nations around the world have either A) decided that they just want stuff and pets, not children, or B) Something physiological or environmental is happening that reduces fertility. Or both!
Additionally, with the US aborting well over a million per year for a long time, there are millions fewer adults living now than there would have been. Each of those children would have likely become adults, and those adults would have potentially married (or not) and brought children into the world. For every absent child in the world (lost through abortion) you have a compound effect of the loss of children they might have had and so on, ad infinitum. And the US is hardly alone in the high number of children that are murdered in the womb.
This is an issue with Japan I have followed since mid 90s. Back then it was a well known problem and little constructive has been done since to solve it. There have been programs and tons of money spent, yet the problem persists.
Back in the nineties, it was understood that a major factor was that Japan INC. did not allow their young male employees any free time during which they might engage in relationships that could lead to marriage. But not to fear, they came up with a solution that just could not fail; they recruited numbers of young women solely for they looks and mannerisms so that the long hours working together with the overworked young men would spawn relations that led to marriage and childbirth. The fact that the birth rate continues to fall and that this year Japan has the lowest number of young (18 year olds, if memory serves) is a testament to the wisdom of those at Japan’s helm at the time.
Despite the sums of money spent, when our first child was born 10 years ago, there were far far far too few nursery schools available. A little background is due here. The lifetime employment system in Japan is largely a myth since the bubble burst. Even for those who are in more secure positions, the cost of living has risen to such an extent that most married couples must be dual income to maintain the standard of living they were programmed to seek. With that background, consider our experience.
Originally, we planned for my wife to take the full 18 months her company offered for maternity leave. Her boss advised against it, stating that he had not had any female subordinate or colleague successfully reintegrate into the company after more than 12 months of maternity leave. Thus, we decided to go with just a year. However, my wife miscalculated her pay during her time away and decided on just 6 months once she discovered her error. I was against this, thinking it was much too short but thank God she convinced me. Two other families we met at a nursing school informational meeting stuck with their plans of sending their kids to nursing school after their first birthdays. As all the kids involved were born in September, this meant they would be trying to find an open slot in the middle of the school year. We were advised against this. They were unable to do so. After what had to be a stressful wait, after 6 months one of the families was able to find a position for their child but in a school that was inconveniently located for them. The other family could not find a day care for their child for 3 years.
Having to wait three years for a day care for our child would have destroyed our family’s finances. I did not then earn enough (Thanks to the panicked anti Covid policies, I make next to nothing now.) then to support a family of three on my own. My wife did and does. If I stayed with our child, it would have ended my career and earning potential ten years earlier than the panic has. A student of mine had her first child days before mine was born. They live in Tokyo and had an even harder time finding a nursery school. Since then, my city has become the shinning light in regards to daycare, opening many new nursery schools and daycare centers; but Tokyo as a whole and surrounding areas have not.
Then there is “The Wall”. This takes a bit of an explanation, but is important to understand how this issue is both next to impossible to fix, yet the easiest to fix; a lesson that needs learning by those in other lands. Group think rules Japan. That is not earth shattering news to anyone who has any understanding of the country and its society. But it is deeper than all Japanese acting in concert or just following the crowd. Each group demands 100% of its members time and fidelity. Not only does your employer, including part time, demand that you are able to meet their demands for meetings on days you normally are not working (at that employer for part timers), so too do your kids’ schools. It does not matter that you have a job, you must pick your child up from school once they start the the first year of elementary school. They are not allowed to walk home on their own until the second grade. Further, school lets out at a different time each day; often as early as 11:30 am. The schools do not care that both parents are working. If you can not meet the school’s scheduling demands, you shouldn’t have children, is their attitude. Employers have the same attitude. Towards the male employees, if you could not land a wife who is happy to stay at home and take care of their kids, that’s your problem. Hire a nanny. Most companies in Japan expect their female employees to quit upon marriage and if not then, then surely shortly before the first child is due. The fact that this is no longer economically feasible for most does not enter into their minds. They could not care less. Single parents are really hit hard with these unyielding demands.
Then there is the financial help that is offered. It think it still is a one time payment of ¥30,000, roughly $500 US with the current exchange rate. That is/was what the national government offers. Full time employees may receive considerable aid from their employer, which helps immensely but does not offset the costs of having a young child entirely and this often ends after the child enters grade school or shortly afterwards. Part time and gig employees are S.O.L. here too.
When “regular employees” make only 1/4 (roughly) of the nation’s work force and they are they only ones who can hope for any aid from their employers, is there any surprise that the birth rate has been below replacement levels for a couple of generations?
The problem is priorities. As long as they try to solve the problem and maintain their culture of “you gotta devote all your time to the group” for each group one is required to belong to, it ain’t getting fixed. However, if the priority was to solve the problem of a low birth rate without concern for these petty demands, the problem would soon correct itself. Well, would have if they focused on fixing it earlier on. The adult population of cannot increase for at least 18 years. If every woman of child bearing age gave birth today, it would not change the number of adults until 18 years from today. Any solution will take a minimum of 19 years to show any effect upon the work force. Japan does not have enough working aged people to cover for the number of mothers on maternity leave required to build back the population without destroying its economy. From which labor pool will they draw upon to man the necessary medical positions required for the massive uptick in births Japan needs? Who is going to produce the food the population needs once the elderly farmers and fishermen die off? The young shun these trades and there are not enough of them to replace those doing them anyway.
Japan has delivered itself a death blow; it just hasn’t sunk beneath the waves yet.
I’d bet that every single society experiencing low birthrates has allowed malignant ideas to be woven into their social fabrics that they have no desire to remove. Many are too poor to raise children but we cannot reduce taxes as that would mean we would have to cut social programs that rely on the revenue. Not enough people are getting married and having kids but it is more important to neuter our children to support the LGBTQWTFO agenda. These are just a couple of examples.
Additionally, those who would normally be at least seeking the act that leads to birth have been terrified to leave their residences for much of the past 4 years. They are afraid of meeting people, especially strangers, from fear of Covid. Those brave enough to do so, depending on location and time, were denied places to socialize. Even in the U.S. it has been reported that many do not want to go out without a mask. Masks are not attractive. The masked are not likely to out compete the unmasked for a mate.
Hopelessness. Loss of faith in God and in ones future. Global warming pessimism beat into kids heads from birth. Crazy long term increases in cost to live (housing) and educate kids. Growth in alternatives for women while, simultaneously, men are losing their sense of purpose. So many contributing factors. Makes me sad as a father of 3 --it’s is the great joy of my life to be called dad with respect and affection.
I’ve found your observations true where I live. It’s very sad to me to hear young people anxious, navigating their lives and future around their fear of global warming (I live in a college town). Most seem to be barely making it after college financially so there are few marriages but more living together and eventually committing to a pet. I have noticed quite a few of the more affluent young couples who do get married, struggling with infertility. Never remember in my day so many having a tough time getting pregnant (more like the other way around!). Lots of open talk about best fertility drs, acupuncturists, nutritionists etc. There are many specialties that deal specifically with this now. Definitely something going on there.
Many young women (like my daughters), finished college, got good jobs, all the while being on birth control for way too long. Lots of estrogen in their bodies making it harder to balance out their hormones. Then comes the trouble. When I was young I was skeptical of these pills and never stayed on them long. Now you'll see girls on them for 15 years or more.
And the girls are hooking up with the same 1%-5% of men, who have no incentive to marry and start a family. Too many of the women who want families don't wake up to it and settle for a man from the other 95% until they're in their mid 30s, and by then it's too late for most of them.
Could be multi generational harm since they e been around for decades. Maybe the parents who used them passed on more than we realize? Why did we trust these BCPs all these years? Did you know that when women in BCPs give blood, it is often greenish?
No, I did not
Bingo!!!
Who would not be surprised if US Big Food (pesticides, GMOs, excess additives e.g., chemicals, soy, Palm this or that, corn this or that) had something to do with it. Adding to the contributing factors.
But prior generations had the nuclear apocalypse to be afraid of, they used to do drills hiding under desks in schools! What’s more terrifying than that? And yet still made babies (eventually)
Yes.
Jinx, more or less...
Devalue the full time job of Mother and this is what you get.
Prager U has a video by Peachy Keenan, who gave up a six-figure income at an entertainment company to become a wife and mother of five. The most important and rewarding job in life for a woman is being a wife and mother, according to Ms. Keenan, who calls herself a "domestic extremist." My daughter works full-time and has two part-time jobs but her most fulfilling job is raising her two-year-old son. Many women may find satisfaction in a career but even most of these females would find more happiness if they also had families. I know feminism has done a lot for women but it's also done a lot to them.
Not to be critical of your daughter's situation, but does she have a husband? Surely, with her hectic schedule, she has little time to devote to her precious son.
She unsuccessfully tried marriage twice, and I'm glad neither of those guys are in her life. She devotes plenty of time to her son. One of her part-time jobs is babysitting, where she can take him with her, and the other is only occasional.
Nailed it
Blame access to pornography, social media via tiny screens and a fall away from God.
And don't forget about abortion, which despite the Dobbs ruling, resulted in *more* abortions in in the US last year. On pace for in excess of 1 million babies exterminated in 2023. 1 million would have raised the fertility rate considerably!
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/07/us/abortion-data-bans-laws.html
Kimberly, thanks for your comment. Sex as birth control has had a negative impact upon male/female bonding, creating families. I serve on the Board of an excellent state right-to-life nonprofit. Sold to women as “choice,” Planned Parenthood, the so-called women’s liberation movement, has altered femininity & the male response. All of what’s been stated in the comments is true. Toss in cost of housing, raising children, two-parents working, social media, isolation from real connections, it all adds up. I do wonder what technology has done to community-mostly the casting out of God, and ushering in of anything goes.
Not everyone wants children. Do really think that if those 1 million women had been forced to give birth that they would have been happy moms? I see 1 million abused children and suicidal women.
Excellent comment -- highlighting another facet to the conversation on why the fertility rate has declined. "Not everyone wants children"... Alex's point exactly.
Esp. the last. Maybe all the liberal atheist protesters will get their wish and live under a muslim theocracy. I'm sure it will be just as nice as they think.
I lived and worked in the Middle East for 10 years (2 in Iran, followed by 8 in Saudi Arabia). As a women in Saudi Arabia, I was only allowed to teach women. I learned a lot from my students about their lives. I can guarantee that these idiot (especially female) liberal Hamas protesters have absolutely zero idea what they would be in for living in a Muslim Sharia driven theocracy. No frigging idea, the utterly ignorant, uninformed morons. They should volunteer to go over there and experience it for themselves, and I also guarantee they would come back here whimpering and with their tails between their legs.
I went to college in the 1970s. I had some mildly liberal ideas, although I always voted Republican even in those days. But I came back from my Middle East years (1977 to 1989) loving and appreciating everything about America and being oh so grateful that I was born American.
I'm still blaming the jab for a portion of it.
Definitely, upped the ante for the problem. Trump plus Covid exposed it all.
As societies become more secular, more self focused, more stuff oriented, why wouldn't men and women both make the economic analysis that having children is a net negative. They are holes into which you pour your money, time and energy. If it's all about me, then kids are just a drain and distraction. Plus, women are waiting far too long to realize that motherhood is time dependent. Wait til your thirties and very often, the train has left the station and it's not coming back. My husband and I have six kids; I did the professional career, the corner office and big salary. Left it because being a Mom is so much better. You're welcome; now there are six decent people out there who are contributing members of society and will fund your Social Security and government. In fact, four of them have and will fight to defend your country. We as a civilized society have our priorities all screwed up, pray for our country.
Not terribly long ago I got into a verbal sparring match with a woman from Australia who proclaimed in a comment section that “ not having kids was her proudest achievement. “ Putting aside the illogicality of this statement, I basically raised the question of who would be there to take care of her if everyone made that choice. It really made me think that being childless should include a tax burden for one’s elder care. What Alex doesn’t mention is the “socialized burden” that aging creates if there are no family caregivers.
Did she have a response?
Well what I said here was actually my response to her getting annoyed that I told her — like you do above — that she was welcome that I had provided future taxpayers. She went off on how she’d paid taxes all her life and that Australia has a social safety net or whatever. My point to her really became that — you still need actual people to care for you. And people like me provided them.
This response also applies to “Larry” in. another part of this thread. I think couples who choose to be childless ultimately do depend on other people making the opposite choice.
I have to believe that a lot of the decline is generational. Generation X has almost completely left the fertility pool. The youngest among that generation are now in their early forties, which means only late in life, technology aided pregnancies. Believe it or not, the Millennial Generation is also beginning to exit the fertility pool. They're right behind Gen X, which means the eldest among them are hitting their forties. The youngest Millennials are approaching 30, where fertility begins to decline.
Who does that leave? The most coddled, most skittish, most generally mentally f'd up generation in the history of the planet. I give you your future; the climate change obsessed, VR helmet wearing Generation Z. Do you really need to ask why birthrates are tanking?
Gen X suffered the highest rate of divorce of anyone - half. Given that, it’s amazing they reproduce at all. I am Gen X and thought I never wanted kids because of my dysfunctional childhood. Eventually I did, but it took a lot of soul searching. So glad I did; pets are not a substitute for kids.
Imagine how you felt about your dysfunctional childhood and multiply it by 2. That is how Millennials feel. Multiply it by 20 and you get how Gen Z feels, and they aren't getting over it like you did.
Can you expand? Millennials and Gen Z aren't suffering divorce the way us Gen X'ers did. I do think the phones are ruining things for them in a different way. Gen X were the original latchkey kids... but at least we were always interacting with each other. In person.
So, let me explain by first trying to understand your comment. Based on your comment, I assume you experienced a divorce in your household as a child. There was probably some other bad stuff going on that led up to the divorce. All of this added up to what you term as dysfunction, which made you question whether or not you wanted to have kids.
First off, divorce by itself does not cause the children of divorce to not have kids. What causes them to not have kids is the mental/emotional reaction to experiencing the divorce. I don't know exactly how or what you were feeling; bad about yourself, bad about parenthood or bad about the World in general. So, I will use a general term, angst. It made you question whether or not you wanted kids. But you did some soul searching and you overcame your angst caused by the divorce. That is what I term resiliency. The ability to overcome bad things that happen to us and live a happy life.
Lots of things aside from divorce can cause kids to have angst. Maybe the parents in the house loved each other deeply, but they had unreasonable expectations of the kids, which the kids could not live up to. Maybe the parents did drugs or were alcoholics. Maybe it has nothing to do with the home. I personally was picked on a lot early in my youth. (I'm an older Gen Xer and we didn't call it bullying back then).
Whatever caused our angst in our youth, most of us were resilient enough to get over it eventually. I did.
Now imagine that you are the average Gen Zer. You spend way too much time online. You're getting non-stop messages of impending doom. Climate change will make the World unhabitable before you're 30. You're trapped in the wrong gender body and so are half of your classmates. If you are not a white male you're the constant target of racism and sexism. If you are a white male, you embody racism and sexism. You're also a homophobe and transphobe if you aren't down with the latest drag queen story hour. You're told that you have to constantly have approval on TikTok. And this is on top of all the regular stuff that caused us angst as children.
To top it all off, imagine you're a kid experiencing all this stuff, and no one ever taught you resiliency. You were never challenged as a child, so you never learned to deal with adversity.
That's what I mean when I say that these kids feel 20 times as bad about the World as you or I probably did, and they don't know how to deal with it.
Hope this helps.
You forgot to mention that the entire world just experienced the most humiliating, dehumanizing, cowardly loss of freedom and self determination that I can imagine with no sense that the entire thing won’t happen again the next time a novel virus is detected. I don’t think you can bounce back from that.
I’m old Gen X, too, and we were all about resiliency, weren’t we? We raised ourselves and each other in a completely adult centered world. I can’t help but think that because of that the majority of parents have bent over backwards to not let kids experience what we did because we felt ignored… but it’s gone completely the other way and as a result kids have no resiliency and can’t handle a single bump in the road.
At least we interacted with each other. We also got to goof off and make mistakes without worry about it being recorded and haunting us forever. Kids do have it rougher today… something I’ve only come around recently to understanding. They have a more comfortable physical life than previous generations, but far more emotionally damaging things are happening because of these stupid phones. Not to be defeatist, but I don’t see how things get better. And how do we make them tougher, with those phones undermining them?
By the time I was in sixth grade, my mother was on her fourth divorce and all the upheaval that came with it. But I didn’t let it keep me down. I can’t imagine navigating what I went through in today’s smart phone world.
Great conversation going!! I tell people (don't know if it sinks in a lot) there is a difference between intelligence and wisdom. The latter only comes with experiences, and as we know in life, not all experiences are warm and toasty!! Sometimes pulling yourself out of the dirt or recovering from a kick to the 'nads (as examples) teaches you things for the better in the end. A lot of intelligent people never achieve wisdom even if they're "smart."...
As a mom of 3 GenZ, mine at least seem to be growing out of some of the worst characteristics of this group. Although I will say they’ve had a huge advantage coming from a very traditional intact family with a full-time mom. And their blood-related aunts and uncles have all stayed married to one person.
Interestingly my younger two now complain about those horrid Gen Alphas who have no sense irony, are illiterate, over indulged and badly behaved.
Is that b/c they aren't getting married in the first place?
In general, they are so self absorbed and selfish that they wouldn't consider taking on the responsibility of a child. They can barely take care of pets, if they have them.
I blame millennials! Ha. I'm 43 and the vast majority of my peers have 2 or 3 kids. But people younger than me? Most I know don't have children and don't look to be setting themselves up for kids.
"Women must have about 2.1 children on average to maintain a stable population."
What is a woman ? :)
A human being who can give birth and / or chest feed.
Or claim to.
I think?
Wait- have I downloaded the latest programming version?
Or do I check with the CDC and WHO for definitions?
Guess I can't answer that question.
Hey I know this guy, a friend who I keep at a distance, who has been screwing this guy and is complaining he can't get him Pregnant. Can the US Supreme Court help out with this dilemma?
They will only get a good for nothing little turd.
You're not a biologist.
Whoa- mister.
I IDENTIFY as a biologist.
Suppose you're now gonna mansplain to me how I'm wrong.
[Something something PATRIARCHY!]
but maybe he is science as the elf fraud Fauci is
Oh.
I stand corrected!
all in jest :)
😄
According to CDC, child bearers are "birthing people." Such respectful, humanistic terms.
Why have more than one or 2 children when you have been brainwashed that putting children in daycare and going back to contribute to the GDP are family goals? You simply can not have a large family if both people work. Raising a family the modern way is not enjoyable but it sure makes the processed food companies, daycare companies, Apple/Microsoft, and politicians who bank on that extra tax money incredibly happy and rich.
Nailed it. Impossible to afford a house (& taxes & insurance), two cars (& plate taxes & insurance), food and energy expenses, plus pay for daycare for more than two children. Try saving for college for more than two.... at anything less than 80th percentile for family income.
If people remained in communities with their extended family, then it would be easier. But today, job mobility is very common.
Also of note: there is the massive decline in health of our populations. This has to be a factor. From poor diets, to general vaccine damage/autoimmune diseases, low physical fitness..... it all adds up
Can’t believe I left out the cost of health and dental insurance! And with so many kids with significant health expenses these days (autoimmune diseases, autism, and others have significant out of pocket costs on top of premiums), it is no surprise people can’t afford more than 1 or 2 kids!
Is it the phones? A pilot friend quite active in the bedroom area told me last year that the playing around crews used to do on overnight flights has fallen off a cliff (yes, just like they show in movies and TV shows). He blames it on phones; he says everyone just wants to go back to their hotel rooms, alone, and scroll.
Simplistic answer, but I think those phones are ruining more than we realize.
The elder generations did nothing to facilitate mate selection and family formation. Imagine if people put in the same effort to those endeavors as careers for which you will be forgotten the minute you exit. Also, the lack of support for families that are formed from grandparent boomers and silents who have to go on that 4th vacation to Italy or wherever is staggering. But they won't hesitate to demand you drag your kids with you to that condo in Florida. Forget government incentives, start with cultural dynamics first.
God help us if we are expecting gen z to fix this. They can't figure out if they are male or female.
Unless of course even the infection itself has an effect. Interesting question that I am sure is being investigated with open hearts and open minds. Not asserting this, just a natural scientific question.
A likely explanation is the fear and nihilism propagated by the elites, and the destructive culture they propagate. Elites who have made no secret of their desire to depopulate the planet, at least of people other than they.
Seems like birth rates should have been thru the roof 9 months after 2020-2021 with everyone trapped at home. Then fall in the coming years when the next generation of snowflake singles refuse to get within 6 feet of someone because they might have Covid and/or other scary viruses.
I agree that the MRNA jabs cannot be solely blamed, as these trends were already in place. However, various OBGYNs have reported an alarming increase in miscarriages and stillbirths since the rollout of the vaccines. The lipid nanoparticles settle in the ovaries and testes, and it is not a stretch to think this is connected. However, to Alex's point, even before the jab, nations around the world have either A) decided that they just want stuff and pets, not children, or B) Something physiological or environmental is happening that reduces fertility. Or both!
Additionally, with the US aborting well over a million per year for a long time, there are millions fewer adults living now than there would have been. Each of those children would have likely become adults, and those adults would have potentially married (or not) and brought children into the world. For every absent child in the world (lost through abortion) you have a compound effect of the loss of children they might have had and so on, ad infinitum. And the US is hardly alone in the high number of children that are murdered in the womb.
I’m 83 and my sisters and I have 17 grandchildren and so far none are married or have any children! It really bothers me.
Wow!
Could be the HPV vaccine.
Covid vaccines definitely cause endocrine disruption and an increase in miscarriages. So they are a factor, it's unclear how much.
This is an issue with Japan I have followed since mid 90s. Back then it was a well known problem and little constructive has been done since to solve it. There have been programs and tons of money spent, yet the problem persists.
Back in the nineties, it was understood that a major factor was that Japan INC. did not allow their young male employees any free time during which they might engage in relationships that could lead to marriage. But not to fear, they came up with a solution that just could not fail; they recruited numbers of young women solely for they looks and mannerisms so that the long hours working together with the overworked young men would spawn relations that led to marriage and childbirth. The fact that the birth rate continues to fall and that this year Japan has the lowest number of young (18 year olds, if memory serves) is a testament to the wisdom of those at Japan’s helm at the time.
Despite the sums of money spent, when our first child was born 10 years ago, there were far far far too few nursery schools available. A little background is due here. The lifetime employment system in Japan is largely a myth since the bubble burst. Even for those who are in more secure positions, the cost of living has risen to such an extent that most married couples must be dual income to maintain the standard of living they were programmed to seek. With that background, consider our experience.
Originally, we planned for my wife to take the full 18 months her company offered for maternity leave. Her boss advised against it, stating that he had not had any female subordinate or colleague successfully reintegrate into the company after more than 12 months of maternity leave. Thus, we decided to go with just a year. However, my wife miscalculated her pay during her time away and decided on just 6 months once she discovered her error. I was against this, thinking it was much too short but thank God she convinced me. Two other families we met at a nursing school informational meeting stuck with their plans of sending their kids to nursing school after their first birthdays. As all the kids involved were born in September, this meant they would be trying to find an open slot in the middle of the school year. We were advised against this. They were unable to do so. After what had to be a stressful wait, after 6 months one of the families was able to find a position for their child but in a school that was inconveniently located for them. The other family could not find a day care for their child for 3 years.
Having to wait three years for a day care for our child would have destroyed our family’s finances. I did not then earn enough (Thanks to the panicked anti Covid policies, I make next to nothing now.) then to support a family of three on my own. My wife did and does. If I stayed with our child, it would have ended my career and earning potential ten years earlier than the panic has. A student of mine had her first child days before mine was born. They live in Tokyo and had an even harder time finding a nursery school. Since then, my city has become the shinning light in regards to daycare, opening many new nursery schools and daycare centers; but Tokyo as a whole and surrounding areas have not.
Then there is “The Wall”. This takes a bit of an explanation, but is important to understand how this issue is both next to impossible to fix, yet the easiest to fix; a lesson that needs learning by those in other lands. Group think rules Japan. That is not earth shattering news to anyone who has any understanding of the country and its society. But it is deeper than all Japanese acting in concert or just following the crowd. Each group demands 100% of its members time and fidelity. Not only does your employer, including part time, demand that you are able to meet their demands for meetings on days you normally are not working (at that employer for part timers), so too do your kids’ schools. It does not matter that you have a job, you must pick your child up from school once they start the the first year of elementary school. They are not allowed to walk home on their own until the second grade. Further, school lets out at a different time each day; often as early as 11:30 am. The schools do not care that both parents are working. If you can not meet the school’s scheduling demands, you shouldn’t have children, is their attitude. Employers have the same attitude. Towards the male employees, if you could not land a wife who is happy to stay at home and take care of their kids, that’s your problem. Hire a nanny. Most companies in Japan expect their female employees to quit upon marriage and if not then, then surely shortly before the first child is due. The fact that this is no longer economically feasible for most does not enter into their minds. They could not care less. Single parents are really hit hard with these unyielding demands.
Then there is the financial help that is offered. It think it still is a one time payment of ¥30,000, roughly $500 US with the current exchange rate. That is/was what the national government offers. Full time employees may receive considerable aid from their employer, which helps immensely but does not offset the costs of having a young child entirely and this often ends after the child enters grade school or shortly afterwards. Part time and gig employees are S.O.L. here too.
When “regular employees” make only 1/4 (roughly) of the nation’s work force and they are they only ones who can hope for any aid from their employers, is there any surprise that the birth rate has been below replacement levels for a couple of generations?
The problem is priorities. As long as they try to solve the problem and maintain their culture of “you gotta devote all your time to the group” for each group one is required to belong to, it ain’t getting fixed. However, if the priority was to solve the problem of a low birth rate without concern for these petty demands, the problem would soon correct itself. Well, would have if they focused on fixing it earlier on. The adult population of cannot increase for at least 18 years. If every woman of child bearing age gave birth today, it would not change the number of adults until 18 years from today. Any solution will take a minimum of 19 years to show any effect upon the work force. Japan does not have enough working aged people to cover for the number of mothers on maternity leave required to build back the population without destroying its economy. From which labor pool will they draw upon to man the necessary medical positions required for the massive uptick in births Japan needs? Who is going to produce the food the population needs once the elderly farmers and fishermen die off? The young shun these trades and there are not enough of them to replace those doing them anyway.
Japan has delivered itself a death blow; it just hasn’t sunk beneath the waves yet.
I’d bet that every single society experiencing low birthrates has allowed malignant ideas to be woven into their social fabrics that they have no desire to remove. Many are too poor to raise children but we cannot reduce taxes as that would mean we would have to cut social programs that rely on the revenue. Not enough people are getting married and having kids but it is more important to neuter our children to support the LGBTQWTFO agenda. These are just a couple of examples.
Additionally, those who would normally be at least seeking the act that leads to birth have been terrified to leave their residences for much of the past 4 years. They are afraid of meeting people, especially strangers, from fear of Covid. Those brave enough to do so, depending on location and time, were denied places to socialize. Even in the U.S. it has been reported that many do not want to go out without a mask. Masks are not attractive. The masked are not likely to out compete the unmasked for a mate.
Is it really a wonder that birth rates are down?