The last one can be brutal. It's tough to maintain friendships with people who don't have kids, it's doubly tough to form friendships with new people who have kids. Although it's mildly easier to build acquaintances.
While unfortunate we were able to make friends with other people with kids so there's some sharing of responsibility (send receive kids at home when they need to be watched over) but this doesn't seem to be the norm here.
Feels like most people are raising their kids by themselves.
This is so true. It's socially isolating. We don't have the support structures we had even back when I was a kid, let alone 20 or 40 years before that, when society was really built around families having kids.
I can only wonder what it will be like in another 20 years, when my children are grown up.
it's always been more expensive. daycare traditionally was only for aristocrats. multigenerational families lived in smaller apartments and cabins than single people do today. Cities used to be filled with sewage, horses and smoke. I'll concede the point on communities and I think that's a bigger contributor than economics.
Couldn't care less about what people did or lived like 100 years ago. I live today and I'm either going to provide my kids a good live and have a good life myself or not have kids.
I don't need to have kids for them to be my labor, that's not how this works anymore.
you're right, people aren't having kids because they are not inspired. that is one of the main reasons. but that's not economics, it's philosophical and theological
Exactly. Even 50 years ago, you could not even go to the high school and afford a middle class lifestyle for your kids. Not the case anymore. There’s no point comparing today with history.
You don't have to go back to the 19th century to make your point things are different today. Just go back to the 20th century - what did the Boomers do?
- They had latchkey children - no daycare required!
- "Free range" children was a thing and nobody got arrested for it!
- There were such things as "Block Parents", people in the neighborhood who looked out for all the kids. Obviously this was before "stranger danger."
- Everybody looked after everybody else's kids, even in tenement buildings.
- People lived close to where the grew up and generally had relatives nearby to help out when all of the above failed.
Nowadays, most of this is gone. In short, in just a mere 40 to 50 years, the cost of having children has skyrocketed. Add in the cost-of-living expenses have skyrocketed for younger people and you get the result that fewer people are having children and those who are having children are having them much later.
Yeah it's easy for younger people to forget that those that grew up the 70s/80s/90s were largely unsupervised most of the day once they got to grade school. Almost all kids I knew had no child care by grade 2. I was in a after school program until grade 3 and was teased how I was still a baby.
I would be miles away from home doing whatever and nobody would know. Now parents freak out if their kids leave their sight for more than a few seconds.
One thing that is really interesting is that many of the "free range" children don't follow that same parenting technique even though things are as safe or safer than when I was a child. I think this is mostly from the media putting fear into them that their children are going to be abducted.
I really feel for kids now in the US. How they grow up I would not really consider a childhood. It's just preparation to sit in an office all day until they die of old age.
Nowadays the police will be bringing your children home and you'll be paid a visit by child protective services. It's insane what we're doing to children - and their parents.
Totally agree with this. I grew up in the 70s & 80s; myself, along with every other kid I knew, learned to exist without any supervision starting around 3rd grade. I think that might be difficult to believe for younger people today, but it's true. During the summer, all the kids in the neighborhood would get on our bikes in the morning and ride all day long, not returning home until dinner time. No parents. No cell phones. We had injuries all the time (one kid got shot in the leg by a hunter, another kid broke both his legs jumping into a shallow creek), but we all somehow survived. People weren't so protective of children back then. The attitude was basically, "They're kids. They're tough. They can take it."
My sister has kids, and she's a total helicopter parent. I've asked her why, considering how we were raised. She simply said, "That's just how it is now. That's how everyone parents." So yeah, there is certainly a cultural element to this. But I wonder if that cultural change has been created or amplified by cost. In other words, the dumb-ass kid that jumped off a bridge into a shallow creek (it was on a bet, naturally), would his parents have to file for bankruptcy these days because of the high medical costs?
I had this even in the 1990s. But now it really is different.
Last week, I let my 7 year old go by herself to a Dollar Tree store by herself while I was with her siblings at another store in the same shopping center. A bit later, I went in to the Dollar Tree after her, and got a real talking to from the cashier about how unsafe it was for me to let her go to the store by herself. She said the world isn't safe any more and I'm putting her at risk. The cashier was an elderly woman! I would think she was raised in a time where kids were allowed to leave the house on their own.
I try to teach my kiddos independence. I send them out on their in ways that I think are safe. But the amount of judgment I get is just crazy. And I fear that one day I'll have child protective services knocking on my door.
My Boomer mother is the same way. She sits around the house watching cable news and browsing the Neighborhood website - "This area is going to hell. Did you see someone had their bicycle stolen 2 weeks ago?! And someone's dog pooped on my lawn! I got them on my Ring cam!" The real kicker is the "sex offender" websites - "OMG! The kids can't go outside! There's 2 sex offenders in this area!"
* too expensive
* not enough daycare even if you do have money - again too expensive to hire a private nanny
* not enough space at home - too expensive to buy a bigger home
* cities that are not made for parents and small kids - too expensive to move to cities that are
Again, I think almost everything can be reduced to "it just is too expensive".
"Middle-class households with a preschooler more than quadrupled spending on child care alone between 1995 and 2023, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics and Department of Agriculture data by Scott Winship at think tank the American Enterprise Institute.
Yet only about half of the increase is due to rising prices for the same quality and quantity of care. (Child care prices are up 180% overall since the mid-90s, according to BLS data.)
The remaining half is coming from parents choosing more personalized or accredited care for a given 3- to 5-year-old, or paying for more hours, Winship says."
It's gotten more expensive. We're also parenting harder, though it's unclear to what degree there is a selection effect in play.
Could it be that in 2023, both parents were more likely to return to work than in 1995? (Probably because it was essential for the family's economic survival, but perhaps just because that was more the expected norm.)
> in 2023, both parents were more likely to return to work than in 1995
Dual-income households were less prevalent in 2017 (54.4%) than 1998 (56.5%) [1]. Looking at just families, it went up from 2022 to 2023, but I don't see data for 1995 [2].
The article discusses this heavily and it is a "kinda yes, but"
> The remaining half is coming from parents choosing more personalized or accredited care for a given 3- to 5-year-old, or paying for more hours, Winship says.
Basically parents are unwilling to have kids unless they can give them an ideal and heavily invested in life as well as in many cases buy their way out of many of the hassles.
I think the expense aspect doesn't dig deep enough. There are plenty of poor countries (and folks) having children. Additionally, being rich and having lots of kids don't usually go hand in hand (admittedly stereotypical)
Not wanting to be poor, or more likely, trading the yearly trip to $insertPlaceHere, eating out on the weekends, or the daily Starbucks, for a new kid, isn't a bad, but 'too expensive' doesn't really describe that situation accurately.
They, and anyone else, is welcome to have as much avocado toast as they'd like. Just don't say that XYZ is unaffordable because their money went to other financial choices.
I'm an older DINK and I tell people I think having a kid is like buying a boat. It's a luxury good that has variable returns on happiness.
If someone was trying to get me to buy a boat I'd tell them I can't afford it. It's a shortcut to, Why would I spend money on something for "the economy"
It would be more correct to say that people only want to have kids they can ideally fully provide for, such as with top notch daycare (an example from the article).
I won't have kids if I cannot pay for their post-secondary education. That is clearly not a requirement in poorer countries.
> There are plenty of poor countries (and folks) having children.
Does having children impact their earning potential? The US offers a relatively high earning potential, and having children really directly interferes with that. If you don't have high earning potential, having kids may not have an appreciable impact.
Childcare alone can easily cost over $1k/mo. Daily Starbucks and eating out is nothing compared to having kids.
> Does having children impact their earning potential?
it certainly did in my case. Holding a newborn and realizing an actual life depends on you is good motivation to do what it takes to get better as a whole, earn more, and climb the ladder. It wasn't easy but i'm in a much better financial position with kids than i would be without. I know myself pretty well and i'm sure i'd be in the same apartment doing the same thing day after day year after year like my childless friends. No knock on them but i've grown my income way more than they have and I credit family obligations for forcing my hand.
Blaming Starbucks and occasionally eating out for people not having children is a moral accusation: you're just too selfish to have children. The people making such claims are assholes and typically are completely ignorant of the financial realities of having children today.
> There are plenty of poor countries (and folks) having children.
Actually, worldwide population trends suggest that childbirth rates are dropping across the board. Poverty does have a direct correlation with how many kids you have because access to healthcare, education and financial stability all contribute to you having fewer kids. But as globally those things change for the better, child birth rates will continue to drop.
> Not wanting to be poor, or more likely, trading the yearly trip to $insertPlaceHere, eating out on the weekends, or the daily Starbucks, for a new kid,
If the cost of having and raising a kid was equal to one Starbucks drink a day we wouldn't have this problem. What we have right now in the US is record amounts of household debt (hint: it's not because people have been going on "yearly trip to $insertPlaceHere" and charging it to their VISA), record number of utility shutoffs due to non-pay, record numbers of people who can't afford rent, and skyrocketing child poverty rates.
'too expensive' seems to sum up the situation pretty damn well
Yes, too expensive. In fact I think your “Starbucks and annual vacation” analysis dramatically underestimates the cost of kids.
You need space for kids, meaning your 1 bed apartment isn’t gonna cut it. Look at the cost of housing these days.
You will need to pay for childcare. This could easily be $1000 per month for the first 5 years.
Transportation. You may need to get a larger vehicle. Plus food, clothing, healthcare.
Oh and then there’s tuition costs.
To summarize, this country has done approximately nothing to make childcare more accessible lately and is wondering why kids don’t magically appear.
> There are plenty of poor countries having children
You’ve hit the nail on the head. In an advanced economy, making a worker costs more. We have offloaded this cost onto parents, and wonder why parents aren’t doing it as much.
Let’s not forget, adding dependents on health insurance (even if paid by the employer), the uncountable doctor visits because children are sickness magnets, cost of moving to a more expensive neighborhood if you want better schools, or paying for private one, books, toys, going to Disneyland once in their lifetimes which costs $1000/day for a family of 4, paying for all the hobbies and clubs, and basically all the costs of paying for an extra human being that won’t earn any money for the next 20 years.
Like having kids and making sure they are able to survive adulthood come with two separate sticker prices. And if you’re not going to do the second, might as well not do the first.
> I think the expense aspect doesn't dig deep enough.
Agreed, a lot of Nordic countries provide more support to families with children yet they have very similar numbers to countries with worse support. The monetary aspect obviously plays a factor but it cannot explain everything. If you want to change the trend you will have to look at other additional factors as well. Not all factors have the same weight but they all feed into the same trend.
The different narratives around "why would you bring children into this horrible world?" also have an effect. It does not matter that they live better lives than people did in the 13th century. Their reality tunnel will latch onto anything negative to justify why they cannot have kids until things get better. And because they always focus on the negative they will never notice if things improved at all. Things will always look too bleak for them.
It sadly also remains a reality that if a woman gets kids her career will take a hit. This pushes women who care about their careers to delay having children sometimes too long.
The economical factor has easier answers I guess than the other more intangible aspects.
I am not sure that's a fair thing to say. Because people have no problem spending tons of money on other things, so what it really comes down to is people value material possessions more than having babies.
What is kind of baffling to me is a lot of people are still not having kids, but anthropomortising their pets, paying 10s of thousands a year in health insurance and bills for their pets, taking them to day care, and not traveling when they can't find sitters, etc.
>people value material possessions more than having babies
Eh, for people in my area at least, childcare for one new baby could is easily $20k-$45k/year, whereas I don't know of anyone personally who spends anywhere near that much a year on non-necessity material possessions. Plus all the other costs of a baby. Just another 1 room in an apartment could also be another $500-$1000 a month. Plus all the other baby-related costs. You could easily be talking about an order of magnitude difference in child-cost vs. typical spending on non-necessity material possessions per year.
you can easily do that in your house and vehicle. people way over spend on those, especially now.
people are over spending on a lot of things that quickly add up, since we aren't talking about a 'specific person' its hard to say what. For example, people buy phones every year (1,000$ a pop), eating out can cost many thousands, etc.
Its also not uncommon for people to buy 20,000$ watches or hand bags.
Pets are still cheaper than kids. And the longest you'll be on the hook for is 13-15 years if you're lucky.
> Because people have no problem spending tons of money on other things
It's like saying I'm spending my money on Starbucks, and that's why I can't afford kids. The reality is that childcare is astronomically expensive. Me and my wife both work in tech, and we've had the conversation where it made more financial sense if one of us quit our jobs to raise the kids. Unfortunately we can't do that because covering mortgage would become a problem. The solution: don't have more kids.
you answered your own question, you bought a house you couldn't afford and choose material items (a house) over children.
I work in tech too, and I'm probably about median TC in tech. With my income alone I could support children and a wife, so if you are both working and can't afford it: you bought way to much house.
> With my income alone I could support children and a wife
Let me guess, you bought a house before 2021 and are locked in on 3% or less mortgage.
> you bought a house you couldn't afford
I bought a 3 bed not so big house. Are you going to tell me that’s too big for a family with 2 kids? Or are you going to tell me I should’ve been born earlier to buy the same house for cheaper and lock in those rates?
> Let me guess, you bought a house before 2021 and are locked in on 3% or less mortgage.
yes, and I want to buy a new home but these prices are unreasonable, so I am not. unfortunately, I also rent because I had to move for work; however,
who said you need to buy? I am not saying you are wrong for doing so, that's what you wanted to do and good on you for that.
but you made a conscious choice to choose buying a home over having kids. you could have rented, or like me you could just wait.
my friend and her husband both work with a combined income of 250,000. They live in Brooklyn, NYC and have THREE kids, and still travel, etc. I'm guessing you and your wife is making more then that. if you can't support 3 kids at your combined income: You are over spending.
> Or are you going to tell me I should’ve been born earlier to buy the same house for cheaper and lock in those rates?
now you are just being rediculous / toxic, so will ignore that.
I have a pet and a child, and I'm not sure what's not to get. A cat or dog lives about 20 years, is magnitudes easier to raise than a child and comes with magnitudes less liability, responsibility and life changes. They are not interchangeable, no matter how much we anthropomorphize them.
That being said, our cat is still family and I would do anything in my power to ensure her well-being and would be absolutely devastated and grieving when she passes.
> Because people have no problem spending tons of money on other things
We have record numbers of Americans who can't afford their rent, record numbers of utility disconnections for non-pay, household debt is at all time highs and people are struggling with the rising costs of food.
In whatever bubble you live your life in, people might seem like people "have no problems spending tons of money" but looking at the state of things in general it's very clear that Americans are struggling.
we also have record amount spent on travel, online purchases, and all sorts of non essentials. People are buying homes that have gone up by over 2x in the last 4 years, where monthy costs of their mortgage are like 50% of their total compensation.
They didnt need to buy that house, rent is very cheap compared to the cost of homes right now.
That's heavily skewed by the wealthy. Most Americans can't afford to take a vacation at all. (https://www.newsweek.com/americans-ca-no-longer-afford-vacat...), online purchases are at record highs every year (since 2009) and the overall trend is that online purchases have increased since the early/mid 2000s and that's not expected to change any time soon.
> People are buying homes that have gone up by over 2x in the last 4 years
Very rich people and investors (including foreign investors) have been buying homes. Foreign investment is slowing down because of the high prices. Current transactions are at "recessionary lows" and "The average home is still unaffordable for most potential buyers" (https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/home-price-growth-slows-what...).
You're right about that. The wealthy have pretty much always had fewer kids than everyone else. If only the rich can afford to have kids, we're not going to be getting very many kids.
to all those above: The essentials of childcare have merely gone up with inflation since the 1800s. Thus, 'its too expensive' doesn't jive, as people were having lots of kids back then.
A prime example is housing. People seem to think if they have a kid, they NEED a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom house with a yard, or you simply can't have a kid at all, game over if you don't own that.
Meanwhile my 1920s home was more than enough for families back then, it was a 2 bedroom 1 bath.
As far as pet care, people are spending 40,000$ on operations on their pets, and thousands a month on pet health insurance. People are spending 20/hour for dog walkers, the average Seattle dog owner spends up to 9,000$ / year on their dog (source wagwalking.com).
No one says you have to pay nannys and private schooling. thats on you.
that's about on par with a child, and someone pointed out a dog only lives 20 years, that just means your 'investment' is less well spent and support my claim pets are expensive. Also noting: you dont owe your kid anything after 18, they should be grown adults capable of making their own money and decisions after that point.
Reminds me of England in the Middle Ages. Someone told me most people in England (and maybe W Europe) has a ancestor that was a King or Queen.
If true, seems we may be heading in this direction with our "Aristocracy". Seems only the very wealthy can afford more than 1 child.
I do remember Musk is trying to get rich people to have many Children. He had a WEB site about it but I cannot find it. The site has a picture of Blond Blue-eyed parents and their children. But a search did come up with this:
If a couple has 20k+ to spend a year on child care, that means they have enough free money that they can do a lot of other enjoyable things instead.
Airplane fares keep decreasing, destination vacations are becoming more and more affordable, and "everyday luxuries" keep being pushed down into becoming more affordable.
Or to put it another way, having a kid means a serious drop in QoL compared to being a DINK.
60 years ago this didn't matter, even the upper middle class wasn't jetting off around on a regular basis. Also it wasn't as socially acceptable, all your friends were having kids and if you didn't have kids you were missing out. Compared to now when there are basically two parallel societies, families with kids and families without kids, and one can choose which group to be a part of.
The economics theory is bogus when you realize that throughout history and around the world, the economics of raising kids have been far riskier, deadlier and more meager than they are now. People have always had kids even in life or death situations.
People have always been always making babies , even when the risk of starvation, death from the elements and murder were extreme.
Even the wealthier eras were challenging, with families having 3-5 kids in cramped 1-bedroom apartments containing multiple generations even.
I'm the first to admit that prosperity has declined over the past 50 years, but the circumstances for making babies are still among the best compared to history and to 95% of the current circumstances on earth.
The actual reasoning will make people uncomfortable, hence the economics cope.
They are motivated by well being. If the value of your work depreciates at a constant rate and housing becomes more unaffordable, then this creates a scenario of an uncertain future. Having kids adds a multiplier to that uncertainty. This wasn't always the case.
Since youre beating around the bush, allow me to start.
I personally think affordability plays a role, but I think the driving factor, that applies to all developed countries and why we don't see people's pet ideas being common threads (socialized medicine will solve it! except in every developed nation with socialized medicine) comes down to hedonism, decadence and consumerism. People are living for comfort, entertainment, short term enjoyment, they're chasing shiny new things and they don't want to give that up to do something selfless like create good people. They don't want sticky hands ruining their new leather couch.
Prices going up aren't the cause, they're interlocked intimately as a symptom in a feedback loop. People aren't having kids so they can eat Korean barbecue for lunch every Tuesday, and so they have all this money that they're not spending. Or were, because everybody figures they can squeeze a few extra bucks out of them, and that adds up. Prices are going up because people are childless and so are more flippant with their money. Prices and fertility rate are interlocked tightly and one does not simply cause the other.
The only way out of course is that people accept a lower comfort level and buy only long lasting things that they actually need. But that's not going to happen, and that has a systemic cause too. I'd love it if you replied with your thoughts on what I've said, your 6+ factors, no matter how hard to swallow. I know for a fact most people reading this aren't going to like my premise that they are not having kids because they'd rather encase themselves in a constantly 73°F expensive memory foam ball, complete with genital stimulation and endless scrolling goggles. Scare some people off with me?
I don't generally tell people why I never wanted children, but when I see the "people are just more hedonistic now than ever in history" type explanation, I do feel that I can at least add my two cents, so-to-speak.
When I was seven years old, I realized that there was no god, and that when I died, I'd simply be gone forever; my consciousness extinguished as though it had never existed, and that nothing mattered. I'd learn much later that this could be called experiencing the death of god and becoming a nihilist; pretty rough stuff for a kid in grade school. And it meant life was just a long slog of work, and if you're lucky maybe a bit of vacation once in awhile. But that was basically the plan they wanted for you - grow up, work, have kids to repeat the cycle, and die. I never could get much enthusiasm for any of it, and I could never imagine having to explain this existence to a child; I don't have any of the happy stories regarding loving gods and an afterlife that seem to get most people through.
You'll find that religion correlates fairly highly with fertility, though I don't think there's any easy, slam-dunk causal factor that explains why people don't want to have children. Still, it makes sense to me that they have declined together.
Mostly agree- Economic reasons are do not _fully_ explain falling birthrates.
I think two of the more uncomfortable reasons that don't get discussed might be:
1. The allure/requirements of the modern lifestyle (both people working then limited leisure time) reduce the 'space' for childrearing
2. Depression, a negative outlook about the future, and awareness of the environmental impacts of more people mean adults consciously abstain from having children.
I agree with both points, and put more weight on #2, with a social variation.
People are depressed on a social scale. Few people have a real passion for life and reason to live. Even our "leaders" are milquetoast technocratic caretakers -- not very inspiring.
People generally follow the crowd, and the crowd is busy with hedonistic pursuits.
3. Religion and Culture - atheism has grown rapidly among western cultures over the past few decades. It is possible that western atheists have made a personal choice in service of their individual lives here on this earth, while someone who is guided more by religion or ideology is making a decision for what they view as a higher calling or purpose. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that first generation immigrants to the west tend to have higher birthdates vs those who were born in the west, as well by how common it is see modern religious and social conservatives in the west push for "tradlife."
2) holds sway here mainly to the extent that it applies to young women. Last time I looked hard at the literature the only conclusion that replicated was that more women in the workforce and higher education => lower TFR. Countries like Russia, Hungary, and some East Asian democracies have tried subsidizing childrearing, reducing the cost of housing, making healthcare free, etc. Those measures have an impact, but it is small. The only thing that works long-term is making it high status again to have children and raise a family.
Fertility is not a problem in many developing countries where salaries are far, far less than that. Men and women have reproduced above replacement level for literally millions of years. It's primarily a question of status and social approval.
People aren't obligated to justify their own family planning. Even raising the question in the first place is overreach
And no, people aren't obligated to make family planning decisions that contribute to a desirable macroeconomic climate 30 years down the line. Not our problem, it'll sort itself out
People are animals. When animals stop breeding, it is worthwhile to look into their environment to see why that is the case. "Want" doesn't really come into basic biological functions, it's an ex post facto rationalization.
Perhaps they never really did, and much of the claimed past desire to start families can be seen as an example of choice-supportive bias in an environment where birth control was harder to come by, with social norms discouraging use.
I'd disagree with this, but it's easier to just point out that the trendline is for higher and higher proportions of the population to become sexually inactive.
> The decreases “aren’t trivial,” as the authors wrote in the study, published on November 19 in Archives of Sexual Behavior. Between 2009 and 2018, the proportion of adolescents reporting no sexual activity, either alone or with partners, rose from 28.8 percent to 44.2 percent among young men and from 49.5 percent in 2009 to 74 percent among young women.
The underlying paper has more demographic breakdowns:
> Wellings et al. (2019)—using three waves of data from the UK’s National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) completed in 1991, 2001, and 2012—found that frequency of sex among 16–44 year olds had declined, more so among married participants and those in the 35–44 age group.
Absolutely the expression of our instincts is formed by our environment, including the social environment. Yes, our present social organization could be making the human animal sick.
I agree with you but I do think it is valid, from a scientific point of view, to test this hypothesis and to answer the "why" behind changing preferences. It is also possible that overall desire has remained constant but lack of access to contraception, or increased family pressure or other factors contributed to higher birthrates in the past.
I'm not sure what you mean by "even raising the question in the first place is overreach." On an individual and personal level, it may be inappropriate or rude to ask the question. On a government level it is more complicated as I think that while government has no place in interfering with an individual's personal choice, I think there may be utility in understanding changing social trends over time, as a government that is "by the people, for the people" can better represent its constituents and form policies that its constituents want when it understands them, demographically.
But most important to me is that, on a scientific level, it is just data and knowledge. And in my opinion there is never such a thing as "too much knowledge."
I didn't specifically mention government when I was referring to overreach. But in some cases there is government overreach involved regarding family planning. At least in the USA, trust is very low regarding this atm
There's a difference between government disinterestedly researching social trends and having (particularly right wing) news media shoveling out these alarmist articles that do a lot of stereotyping
The tone of this article, coupled with recent political changes regarding family planning, reeks of overreach into people's private lives
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has owned the WSJ for more than a decade now .. the family will be tickled to hear you describe them as leftist.
Overall, we rate the Wall Street Journal Right-Center biased due to low-biased news reporting combined with a strong right-biased editorial stance. We also rate them Mostly Factual in reporting rather than High due to anti-climate, anti-science views, and occasional misleading editorials.
It would be easier to agree with you if the welfare state didn't exist. As it stands there are benefits being paid to old people that don't really have any justification for existing if there isn't a younger generation for that old generation to positively influence and assist as grand parents. There are also tax breaks for marriage/common law that have no logical reason for existing if they aren't supporting a family. We should be redeploying these expenses to more effectively encourage a higher average birthrate, ideally by encouraging the rich to have a lot of kids, as this will have a positive benefit of more effectively disbursing large fortunes vs taxation that always fails.
I just don't think I'd be all that happy as a father. I feel like I'm in a constant struggle to claim as much time as I can for things that aren't paid work and sleep that interest me, and a kid has never been on that list of interests so I don't want to have one and then resent it consuming more of my time.
I just like to think and make stuff while I listen to music, I don't want to be responsible for picking a child up or dropping it off or feeding it. And, I'm not particularly concerned with how long we perpetuate our human nonsense.
I don't hate life, but I don't know that I'd have picked it for myself and I don't feel strongly about forcing it on anybody else.
Given describing a child as “it” and only the work involved and not the reward, if you want to dig deeper within yourself I would look at reading positive discussions about kids
There was an instagram comment feed (of all places) where the OP asked people to post what their reservation for kids were, and many parents responded to those positively
The next post asked parents to post what they were surprised most about being a parent. Some common themes were “I was afraid I wouldn’t like/feel attached to my child” and “I was afraid I would resent my child for the time commitment.” For the latter, dozens of responses say that something within them switched, and they wanted to bear the responsibility. It was fulfilling like a hobby may be, but deeper.
Personally I don’t like the rhetoric that describe (others, not you) kids as leeches that take time and money, i think thats toxic to our society.
If you know yourself and know you don’t want kids, then it’s best for everyone involved not to have them.
Dude just don't want to have children. Nothing wrong with that.
The world sucks at the best of times. The last thing someone should do is putting an unwanted child in the world.
I have a daughter, who I love and means the world to me. But I wanted her, so all the work and cost is meaningful and rewarding. I wouldn't feel the same if I didn't want a child.
My cousins in France each have 3-5 children, because they have free daycare, socialized health care, etc. I plan on having none, because I can't afford it.
Every wealthy nation sees a declining birthrate that falls below the replacement rate. The economy of every wealthy nation depends on immigration. This is a fact.
If the nationalist right want people to have more babies to combat depopulation, they should be proposing and funding social support programs, not reproductive rights like abortion, IVF, contraception, etc.
Rates vary wildly across the country. I have friends in the Bay that are paying about the same as us. I have friends in Oregon that are at ~$300/wk. I have friends in Nashville that are at ~$1000/wk. It's a super local thing.
Look, anytime you have a waiting list for something, capitalism has broken. You raise prices until you don't have a waiting list. That's 'Business for 5th Graders' level stuff. But you just cannot do that with daycare.
Our state does a good job with subsidies for the very poor (we have some at out daycare), but it is still really really expensive.
We cannot wait until they get to state subsidized preschool, holy cow man.
Also, Pro-tip: If you are even thinking of getting pregnant, go get on all the local daycare lists you can. Wait times can be >18 months for a lot of places.
> Look, anytime you have a waiting list for something, capitalism has broken.
Not entirely true.
A day care has variable costs that jump at the kid count modulo something. Often a government-mandated ratio of adults to kids at various age groups. And adults that have to be paid some government-mandated minimum wage plus some benefits.
Therefore, a day care may be profitable for N kids but not profitable for N+1 kids.
So, the rational choice for a day care may be to optimize for always, always having exactly N kids. Hence, wait lists so when 1 kid departs another kid can immediately replace them.
N might vary if the owner chooses to work as a caretaker. Has some sweet rent deal on a fixed amount of space. Etc.
Notice, this sketch of why wait lists may exist isn't due to capitalism. It's due to a rational response to governmental mandates atop capitalism.
> You raise prices until you don't have a waiting list.
Nah, the parent decides to hire a nanny. Or to host an au pair. Or to move closer to family foregoing some earnings potential. That's the way to buy your way out via substitute goods using just money.
(Notice those substitutes operate in different regulatory regimes. Notice also the day care has to compete against those substitute goods! There's a limit to what parents will pay.)
I agree with the math, but the reality on the ground is much more complex.
Sure, a waitlist of a few months is fine here. But waitlists of > 1 year are the norm (at least for all the parents I've talked with). I can't see how any mod() math is going to square up with those long of waits.
Look, the US is the only country that has this issue. And it's a huge issue. Talk to any parent of young kids, they will all complain about the daycare system we have. It needs fixing and raw capitalism isn't the method to fix it with.
> But waitlists of > 1 year are the norm (at least for all the parents I've talked with).
It takes 1 year for a batch of similarly aged kids to age into the next classroom. >1 year sounds like math to me, especially under the selection bias of adults only talking about this hassle when commiserating.
> Look, the US is the only country that has this issue.
The US stinks at domestically developing young talent vs its relative ability to attract skilled adults from across the world, raised to adulthood on the dime of other other countries' infrastructure. The US demographics pyramid relies on and will increasingly rely on immigration. Right or wrong, it's a feature not a bug.
I didn't realize how hostile some locales were to children until I left NYC (which stinks for kids in many ways) to NJ (which excels for them, a complement to NYC, attracting families in the process). Ever seen an entire city glow at your dog but glower at your kids?
The really interesting question is why such diverse nations as Portuguese, Scots, Poles, Greeks, Iranians, Mexicans, Singaporeans, Japanese, Thais, Koreans and Chileans experienced similar drops in fertility.
Even frankly unexpected places like Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh are dropping towards 2.0 or less.
Most of what children need, healthcare, food, shelter, supervision. Is directly tied to employment of the adults.
If an adult loses employment you lose all pillars to support your child.
The social safety net in the US is not sufficient for people to feel safe in having children.
Further, the argument of why people should have children so the economy is supported is very shallow.
I am not raising children so the economy can have more consumers.
As a society we should have larger goals then the next quarter results of publicly traded companies.
as a westerner most you, if you lose your job, will have no way to feed yourself. how many of you have the skills, infrastructure, and available bodies on hand to set up a subsistence farm? where is the land to be able to do that?
the guys in Niger are a lot closer to the land, to traditional food-ways like herding animals, and don't have much by way of creature comforts, which means they don't have much to lose, may have things to gain, by having kids.
in many ways it keeps them poor, but poor with a lot of kids is a society that continues, while rich but depress and to anxious to go outside and meet people and breed is a society that doesn't have a future.
Just ask yourself: what level of effort was required from your parents, especially your dad, to raise you? What about the effort required from your grandparents to raise your parents?
We all know it takes a much greater amount of effort to raise a kid today because our standards are so much higher, which is particularly true of fathers. You could be a "good dad" in the 80s if you only beat your children in response to them doing something bad versus randomly beating them when you got black out drunk. I would definitely say that dogs today receive a higher standards of care (nutrition, toys, doctor visits, training) than children did in the 50s.
The west wants women to be ambitious, which I fully support. BUT we aren't building any infra around this. Example: we need in-office nurseries/light-weight daycares.
Without this, both parents cannot work AND reproduce. Daycares are a scam. I would rather not work than offload my kids to randos.
I'd rather have every worker paid enough that they can support themselves and a modest family on one income. That way a parent can choose to stay home and be with their children during the most formative and remarkable years of their children's lives instead of being forced to abandon their children with strangers for 40+ hours a week.
It doesn't work because then couples with no kids get paid enough for 2 families, invest in housing, raise the prices for everyone else, then maybe have their own kids a decade later than the norm, forcing everyone else to be 2 worker families who can never catch up. And that's where we're at now.
> It doesn't work because then couples with no kids get paid enough for 2 families
That's fine too. Couples without children will always have much more money than couples who do. It's not a problem when couples who do have children can still afford to live a good life.
It won't destroy the housing market either. Not every person without kids is interested in becoming a real estate mogul.
What's made housing unaffordable today wasn't that families used to be able to support themselves on a single income, it's corporations and foreign buyers who purchase homes without any intention to occupy them. They'd rather hold onto them as an investment leaving them empty or rent them out at higher and higher rates. Stopping this practice, and ensuring that anyone buying a residential property is a resident of the city/state/nation, and that the buyer must occupy the property at least some of the time would do a lot more good for the housing problem in the US than suppressing wages so that no parent can afford to stay home to raise their own children.
> we need in-office nurseries/light-weight daycares
Absolutely no.
If your job lays you off or you get fired, then you just lost your childcare and all that community for your kid. I don't see a lot of parents taking that huge of a risk.
I mean, daycare is really local. Some have huge subsidies, some are run by a church, some are very small. It's quite variable.
Generally though, if you lose your job, you can go get another job and still stay at the same daycare. I think we've all survived through credit cards for a while in between work. But that doesn't work if the daycare is through the job.
but having daycare far from workplace just means mothers are at a disadvantage. Either they take time off during formative days or balance 2 jobs at the same time (and commute between them)
I think the economic principle of 'revealed preferences' shows up here.
If co-location of daycare and work was something that people valued highly, then you'd see it happening already. The daycare nightmare has been going on for quite some time.
Housing is too expensive, childcare is too expensive.
I do not desire to feed the capitalistic beast with more wage slaves: if I have children - it must be because I can give them a better life than I've had. That will not be the case for the foreseeable future...
That logic is a non-sequitur. A reason to live has nothing to do with making babies... A reason to make babies is a reason to make babies, a reason to live is a reason to live... maybe some overlap, sure... but the Venn Diagram is far from a circle.
There is no ethical consumption (period). If I am to raise consumption in society by bringing another human into it... that cost must be offset. An economically lush environment makes that feasible, the lack of funds makes that less feasible (to the point of impossibility).
Cry some more about how 'the poor' aren't filling the factories with their children anymore (since they've wised up) ... /s
Let me be clear. Pay me to have children enough for them to live comfortably: I will have children. The reason is purely monetary. More money - more children.
Ethics, philosophy, you can argue along those vectors all you want. It will be useless and moot.
The answer isn't 'let me change my mind about my opinions about sending a child into wage slavery' the answer is to 'convince me (with money) my child won't have to be a wage slave and having one won't make my family homeless due to financial strains; convince me that my child will have a good life'.
You want more children - pay up: 3C7tm5a1UMgsnwGF5GtYQazLxnG9y23v2B - btc address.
The answer really is as simple as: more money is needed.
Is being childless immoral in your eyes? If so, why do you thank those that would bear (what you consider to be) an immoral agent into this world... I am seriously confused by this confusing remark.
My grandparents had money to raise a family. I don't. Is them having more resources what makes them have better morals?
Really: can you spell out explicitly what you are trying to say? The message is confusing, and unclear.
As a '80s kid I've heard "overpopulation" everywhere, it was one of the biggest threats. So naturally I decided not to populate. It was conscious decision. If you want to reverse the trend stop using that term (in school, in media) and in 20~50 years people will start having 2 babies again.
Overpopulation is still a problem today. People look around and see that there is still plenty of place to cram bodies into and assume that it's fine, but any given environment can only sustainably support so many people and most of the places we like to live in are way over biocapacity.
- Women in the workforce and higher eduction, almost universally leads to lower birthrate.
- Modern helicopter and "attachment" parenting styles are significantly more resource and time-intensive than in other generations.
- Abundance of birth control.
- I would also argue that the breakdown of communities plays a much larger, and likely subconscious psychological role. Whether valid or not, people don't feel like they have a support network, and don't feel like it is safe to have children.
Please bear in mind, I'm not arguing that any of these points are either good or bad, but just suggesting that they contribute to declining birthrates.
The breakdown of the extended family, which I guess is a part of the community idea, certainly has to contribute. Generations past that grandparents aunts or uncles they could depend on the babysit from time to time. That's not all that available when you don't live near your grandparents and the parents may have one sibling...
I think people simply do not want to have kids as much as they used to.
Usually these topics emerge with the same three major factors for why people aren't having children:
1. Can't afford to raise a child
2. Concerns about the future state of the world, e.g. climate change
3. A huge loss of freedom
Anecdotally, I personally feel like #3 is by far the biggest reason why people aren't having children. Every time someone in my peer group (mid 30s) announces that they are having a child, there's widespread acknowledgement that we are going to see MUCH less of them from now on.
This is a tradeoff, and those who really want children will still choose to have children. But for those who are deeply engaged in something else -- hobbies, social life, career -- or simply enjoy a low-stress life, having children would upend that. Modern living gives a lot of opportunities to go really deep into a few different facets of life, but most people have to limit that depth once they have children. It doesn't help that modern child raising seems to be endlessly shuffling children from one structured activity to another, with little help from a broader social circle.
Plus, there's less social pressure than ever to have children. If many of your peers aren't having kids, you're not the odd one out anymore.
So I think many people of childbearing age today see a much higher cost in childraising than what people saw in the past. If they aren't especially enthusiastic about raising children in particular, is it a surprise that many are choosing not to?
#3 is because of #1. money buys the freedom. "broader social circles" are just a low-cost substitute; aka Grandma does the daycare.
You'd be surprised how easy it is to have a kid when you can afford daycare, lots of toys to keep Junior busy, and day-to-day life conveniences that make the rest easy to manage.
i.e. freedom isn't an issue because I can send kiddo to summer camp, after school programs, and dance classes. and it's easy to snag a pizza or tacos on the way home from grabbing them from said events. the wee one sleeps really well with white noise generators and temperature controls for the room, and has lots of books to play with (plus a yard + the dogs) when she's not sleeping.
The relevant dynamics change between an average American woman versus a top 10% American woman compared to any American versus an average woman in a poorer country.
Specifically, women's rights, financial independence, and general safety if choosing to forego having many children or even entering into a relationship.
The women in the poorest countries are having more kids due to not being able to have fewer kids.
Average American women have fewer kids than top 10% Americans due to wanting more resources per child.
> The women in the poorest countries are having more kids due to not being able to have fewer kids.
Citation needed for that claim. While I don't necessarily disagree with you, I have also seen other plausible hypothesis that kids are seen as safety nets in the poorer society, or a possible escape hatch out of poverty even if one of them gets lucky in life. So having more kids might be a rational choice for poor people.
I do not have data either way about motivations for women in poor societies to have kids.
My claim is based on my personal experience of seeing what women have to go through and risk to bring a child into this world, and total fertility rate dropping to less than slightly above 2 at best in every single country where women achieve education and civil rights, indicating they obtain the ability to say no to sex in situations where they can get pregnant, and/or they obtain the ability to prevent or abort pregnancies.
All the countries with high total fertility rates have environments where women would not expect quality healthcare or medical interventions should things go wrong. It stands to reason that women are not making a conscious decision to put their quality of life and life itself at risk over and over again to birth human resources.
Outside of outlier cult-ish groups, I see almost no women choosing to have more than 3 children. And the data seems to agree. Everyone I know that had a 3rd child, they had 2 boys or 2 girls first and only had a 3rd to try for the other gender.
So I am deducing that the painful experience of pregnancy/childbirth/breastfeeding/infant rearing is a significant limiting factor.
Sure, to an extent you can buy freedom with money, but I think you'd need a lot of money to really be free. Even in the scenario in your comment, you're presumably still the one driving them around between these activities. Unless you have money to pay someone else to do that for you, which would require quite a bit of money. I don't think that's what most people have in mind when they bring up money concerns -- they're likely much more concerned about affording housing, medical care, clothing, etc for a child.
I think the thing with 'freedom' is that they don't want to take on another big responsibility, at the expense of what they already have in their life.
Perhaps the worthwhile question is, why did people (Americans included) have babies in the first place. As many comments say, children now are expensive, expensive and expensive.
Back then they were less so, fine, but still expensive and not somehow magically more fun. So that can't be the whole story.
Was it the lack of contraception? Surely not just that, in 1970s or whatnot a typical family had maybe 1-4 children, but not like 10.
I suspect it was a combination of status, expectation and ease. Having children was simply a milestone on the roadmap of life that was hard to skip. Grandparents were younger then, and thus more able to help, and more likely to live nearby in the first place.
As the societal expectation to have children waned, people stopped.
You might expect pills accidentally being flushed down the toilet for example to start showing up in water supply, but it's not statistically significant because our drinking water has so much estrogen in it already.
Personally, I don't want to have children because the risks and downsides aren't even remotely close to the benefits.
Best case scenario: 10% chance you and your spouse are great parents, who stay healthy enough to be good parents, who have a physically and mentally healthy kid, who doesn't end up in a life-changing accident or addicted to substances or down an ideological rabbit hole, and you don't lose your income for 18 ~ 24 years while the kid grows into a self-sufficient adult.
More likely scenario: something (physical, mental, environmental) is way off and there's lots of despair and suffering in your family for years or possibly forever.
I don't like other people's kids, who are seemingly healthy, and I don't want to roll those dice for one of my own, who might not be.
> Personally, I don't want to have children because the risks and downsides aren't even remotely close to the benefits.
I'd say that the risks aren't worth the benefits to you. But my weighing of the benefits is different. To me, my kids give meaning and purpose. It's honestly hard to imagine not having them.
I think different people are just different. To some, having a purpose in life (to raise your kids) is really meaningful and more important than worries about the risks, all of which seem minor in comparison. But to others, it's a burden instead of a purpose, so it doesn't make any sense to have kids.
It's taken way too long to finally realize the "Atomic Family", just a couple who want kids, and their own house... was a colossal mistake. It's a pressure cooker designed to promote Post-Partum depression, and parents who are overwhelmed.
Without an extended family and support network, raising a child becomes an overwhelming burden, and the parents end up feeling they were lied to about the supposed joys of parenting.
I'm so glad we didn't move away from home and family.
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[ 6.2 ms ] story [ 225 ms ] thread* not enough daycare even if you do have money;
* not enough space at home;
* cities that are not made for parents and small kids;
* atomized communities with very little help;
Feels like most people are raising their kids by themselves.
I can only wonder what it will be like in another 20 years, when my children are grown up.
I don't need to have kids for them to be my labor, that's not how this works anymore.
- They had latchkey children - no daycare required!
- "Free range" children was a thing and nobody got arrested for it!
- There were such things as "Block Parents", people in the neighborhood who looked out for all the kids. Obviously this was before "stranger danger."
- Everybody looked after everybody else's kids, even in tenement buildings.
- People lived close to where the grew up and generally had relatives nearby to help out when all of the above failed.
Nowadays, most of this is gone. In short, in just a mere 40 to 50 years, the cost of having children has skyrocketed. Add in the cost-of-living expenses have skyrocketed for younger people and you get the result that fewer people are having children and those who are having children are having them much later.
The short answer is cultural fragmentation and soft paternalism.
I would be miles away from home doing whatever and nobody would know. Now parents freak out if their kids leave their sight for more than a few seconds.
One thing that is really interesting is that many of the "free range" children don't follow that same parenting technique even though things are as safe or safer than when I was a child. I think this is mostly from the media putting fear into them that their children are going to be abducted.
I really feel for kids now in the US. How they grow up I would not really consider a childhood. It's just preparation to sit in an office all day until they die of old age.
My sister has kids, and she's a total helicopter parent. I've asked her why, considering how we were raised. She simply said, "That's just how it is now. That's how everyone parents." So yeah, there is certainly a cultural element to this. But I wonder if that cultural change has been created or amplified by cost. In other words, the dumb-ass kid that jumped off a bridge into a shallow creek (it was on a bet, naturally), would his parents have to file for bankruptcy these days because of the high medical costs?
Last week, I let my 7 year old go by herself to a Dollar Tree store by herself while I was with her siblings at another store in the same shopping center. A bit later, I went in to the Dollar Tree after her, and got a real talking to from the cashier about how unsafe it was for me to let her go to the store by herself. She said the world isn't safe any more and I'm putting her at risk. The cashier was an elderly woman! I would think she was raised in a time where kids were allowed to leave the house on their own.
I try to teach my kiddos independence. I send them out on their in ways that I think are safe. But the amount of judgment I get is just crazy. And I fear that one day I'll have child protective services knocking on my door.
Again, I think almost everything can be reduced to "it just is too expensive".
* Don't care - children are not a priority (often "I am the priority")
* Get wealthy - children oppose money gaining
* Get famous - children correlate poorly with rapid fame rise
* Get sex - children correlate poorly with being a player
* Work less - children take work (if not already wealthy)
* America - https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-fe...
* Sinking ship - enshitification everywhere, murder stats on all news, why have kids in a latrine?
* Success correlation - wealth and success correlated with starting wealth. why have kids?
* Negative wage slave experiences - hey kids, here's your collar, just like mine.
* Abortion access - americans would fight to the death other over abortion access. wait, they already do. "a gift to Jesus on his birthday."
* Health care (not specifically kids) - 10x all other locations.
* Food - pointlessly expensive. so much land it's nonsense humans starve. they fight to squander it all.
Don't forget climate change! The latrine is also on fire.
Yet only about half of the increase is due to rising prices for the same quality and quantity of care. (Child care prices are up 180% overall since the mid-90s, according to BLS data.)
The remaining half is coming from parents choosing more personalized or accredited care for a given 3- to 5-year-old, or paying for more hours, Winship says."
It's gotten more expensive. We're also parenting harder, though it's unclear to what degree there is a selection effect in play.
Dual-income households were less prevalent in 2017 (54.4%) than 1998 (56.5%) [1]. Looking at just families, it went up from 2022 to 2023, but I don't see data for 1995 [2].
[1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characte...
[2] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/famee.pdf
> The remaining half is coming from parents choosing more personalized or accredited care for a given 3- to 5-year-old, or paying for more hours, Winship says.
Basically parents are unwilling to have kids unless they can give them an ideal and heavily invested in life as well as in many cases buy their way out of many of the hassles.
Not wanting to be poor, or more likely, trading the yearly trip to $insertPlaceHere, eating out on the weekends, or the daily Starbucks, for a new kid, isn't a bad, but 'too expensive' doesn't really describe that situation accurately.
If someone was trying to get me to buy a boat I'd tell them I can't afford it. It's a shortcut to, Why would I spend money on something for "the economy"
I won't have kids if I cannot pay for their post-secondary education. That is clearly not a requirement in poorer countries.
Does having children impact their earning potential? The US offers a relatively high earning potential, and having children really directly interferes with that. If you don't have high earning potential, having kids may not have an appreciable impact.
Childcare alone can easily cost over $1k/mo. Daily Starbucks and eating out is nothing compared to having kids.
it certainly did in my case. Holding a newborn and realizing an actual life depends on you is good motivation to do what it takes to get better as a whole, earn more, and climb the ladder. It wasn't easy but i'm in a much better financial position with kids than i would be without. I know myself pretty well and i'm sure i'd be in the same apartment doing the same thing day after day year after year like my childless friends. No knock on them but i've grown my income way more than they have and I credit family obligations for forcing my hand.
Actually, worldwide population trends suggest that childbirth rates are dropping across the board. Poverty does have a direct correlation with how many kids you have because access to healthcare, education and financial stability all contribute to you having fewer kids. But as globally those things change for the better, child birth rates will continue to drop.
If the cost of having and raising a kid was equal to one Starbucks drink a day we wouldn't have this problem. What we have right now in the US is record amounts of household debt (hint: it's not because people have been going on "yearly trip to $insertPlaceHere" and charging it to their VISA), record number of utility shutoffs due to non-pay, record numbers of people who can't afford rent, and skyrocketing child poverty rates.
'too expensive' seems to sum up the situation pretty damn well
You need space for kids, meaning your 1 bed apartment isn’t gonna cut it. Look at the cost of housing these days.
You will need to pay for childcare. This could easily be $1000 per month for the first 5 years.
Transportation. You may need to get a larger vehicle. Plus food, clothing, healthcare.
Oh and then there’s tuition costs.
To summarize, this country has done approximately nothing to make childcare more accessible lately and is wondering why kids don’t magically appear.
> There are plenty of poor countries having children
You’ve hit the nail on the head. In an advanced economy, making a worker costs more. We have offloaded this cost onto parents, and wonder why parents aren’t doing it as much.
Like having kids and making sure they are able to survive adulthood come with two separate sticker prices. And if you’re not going to do the second, might as well not do the first.
Agreed, a lot of Nordic countries provide more support to families with children yet they have very similar numbers to countries with worse support. The monetary aspect obviously plays a factor but it cannot explain everything. If you want to change the trend you will have to look at other additional factors as well. Not all factors have the same weight but they all feed into the same trend.
The different narratives around "why would you bring children into this horrible world?" also have an effect. It does not matter that they live better lives than people did in the 13th century. Their reality tunnel will latch onto anything negative to justify why they cannot have kids until things get better. And because they always focus on the negative they will never notice if things improved at all. Things will always look too bleak for them.
It sadly also remains a reality that if a woman gets kids her career will take a hit. This pushes women who care about their careers to delay having children sometimes too long.
The economical factor has easier answers I guess than the other more intangible aspects.
What is kind of baffling to me is a lot of people are still not having kids, but anthropomortising their pets, paying 10s of thousands a year in health insurance and bills for their pets, taking them to day care, and not traveling when they can't find sitters, etc.
Eh, for people in my area at least, childcare for one new baby could is easily $20k-$45k/year, whereas I don't know of anyone personally who spends anywhere near that much a year on non-necessity material possessions. Plus all the other costs of a baby. Just another 1 room in an apartment could also be another $500-$1000 a month. Plus all the other baby-related costs. You could easily be talking about an order of magnitude difference in child-cost vs. typical spending on non-necessity material possessions per year.
people are over spending on a lot of things that quickly add up, since we aren't talking about a 'specific person' its hard to say what. For example, people buy phones every year (1,000$ a pop), eating out can cost many thousands, etc.
Its also not uncommon for people to buy 20,000$ watches or hand bags.
> Because people have no problem spending tons of money on other things
It's like saying I'm spending my money on Starbucks, and that's why I can't afford kids. The reality is that childcare is astronomically expensive. Me and my wife both work in tech, and we've had the conversation where it made more financial sense if one of us quit our jobs to raise the kids. Unfortunately we can't do that because covering mortgage would become a problem. The solution: don't have more kids.
I work in tech too, and I'm probably about median TC in tech. With my income alone I could support children and a wife, so if you are both working and can't afford it: you bought way to much house.
Let me guess, you bought a house before 2021 and are locked in on 3% or less mortgage.
> you bought a house you couldn't afford
I bought a 3 bed not so big house. Are you going to tell me that’s too big for a family with 2 kids? Or are you going to tell me I should’ve been born earlier to buy the same house for cheaper and lock in those rates?
yes, and I want to buy a new home but these prices are unreasonable, so I am not. unfortunately, I also rent because I had to move for work; however,
who said you need to buy? I am not saying you are wrong for doing so, that's what you wanted to do and good on you for that.
but you made a conscious choice to choose buying a home over having kids. you could have rented, or like me you could just wait.
my friend and her husband both work with a combined income of 250,000. They live in Brooklyn, NYC and have THREE kids, and still travel, etc. I'm guessing you and your wife is making more then that. if you can't support 3 kids at your combined income: You are over spending.
> Or are you going to tell me I should’ve been born earlier to buy the same house for cheaper and lock in those rates?
now you are just being rediculous / toxic, so will ignore that.
That being said, our cat is still family and I would do anything in my power to ensure her well-being and would be absolutely devastated and grieving when she passes.
Your example was spending ~$10k/yr on vet bills. Press (X) to doubt, but if you really think babies cost less than this, you are wildly misinformed.
We have record numbers of Americans who can't afford their rent, record numbers of utility disconnections for non-pay, household debt is at all time highs and people are struggling with the rising costs of food.
In whatever bubble you live your life in, people might seem like people "have no problems spending tons of money" but looking at the state of things in general it's very clear that Americans are struggling.
They didnt need to buy that house, rent is very cheap compared to the cost of homes right now.
That's heavily skewed by the wealthy. Most Americans can't afford to take a vacation at all. (https://www.newsweek.com/americans-ca-no-longer-afford-vacat...), online purchases are at record highs every year (since 2009) and the overall trend is that online purchases have increased since the early/mid 2000s and that's not expected to change any time soon.
> People are buying homes that have gone up by over 2x in the last 4 years
Very rich people and investors (including foreign investors) have been buying homes. Foreign investment is slowing down because of the high prices. Current transactions are at "recessionary lows" and "The average home is still unaffordable for most potential buyers" (https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/home-price-growth-slows-what...).
Mostly people just aren't buying houses. In 2023 homes sales were at their lowest since the mid 90s (https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/home-sales-likely-fell-t... or here (no paywall issues) : https://www.housingwire.com/articles/just-4-09-million-exist...)
A prime example is housing. People seem to think if they have a kid, they NEED a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom house with a yard, or you simply can't have a kid at all, game over if you don't own that.
Meanwhile my 1920s home was more than enough for families back then, it was a 2 bedroom 1 bath.
As far as pet care, people are spending 40,000$ on operations on their pets, and thousands a month on pet health insurance. People are spending 20/hour for dog walkers, the average Seattle dog owner spends up to 9,000$ / year on their dog (source wagwalking.com).
No one says you have to pay nannys and private schooling. thats on you.
that's about on par with a child, and someone pointed out a dog only lives 20 years, that just means your 'investment' is less well spent and support my claim pets are expensive. Also noting: you dont owe your kid anything after 18, they should be grown adults capable of making their own money and decisions after that point.
Reminds me of England in the Middle Ages. Someone told me most people in England (and maybe W Europe) has a ancestor that was a King or Queen.
If true, seems we may be heading in this direction with our "Aristocracy". Seems only the very wealthy can afford more than 1 child.
I do remember Musk is trying to get rich people to have many Children. He had a WEB site about it but I cannot find it. The site has a picture of Blond Blue-eyed parents and their children. But a search did come up with this:
https://people.com/elon-musk-wants-smart-people-to-have-kids...
If a couple has 20k+ to spend a year on child care, that means they have enough free money that they can do a lot of other enjoyable things instead.
Airplane fares keep decreasing, destination vacations are becoming more and more affordable, and "everyday luxuries" keep being pushed down into becoming more affordable.
Or to put it another way, having a kid means a serious drop in QoL compared to being a DINK.
60 years ago this didn't matter, even the upper middle class wasn't jetting off around on a regular basis. Also it wasn't as socially acceptable, all your friends were having kids and if you didn't have kids you were missing out. Compared to now when there are basically two parallel societies, families with kids and families without kids, and one can choose which group to be a part of.
Gee I can't imagine why
People have always been always making babies , even when the risk of starvation, death from the elements and murder were extreme.
Even the wealthier eras were challenging, with families having 3-5 kids in cramped 1-bedroom apartments containing multiple generations even.
I'm the first to admit that prosperity has declined over the past 50 years, but the circumstances for making babies are still among the best compared to history and to 95% of the current circumstances on earth.
The actual reasoning will make people uncomfortable, hence the economics cope.
If you fall into a river, it's a huge expense to send a helicopter . The decision to save your life is not economical, it's ethical.
Or is it an ethical issue of what you do actually do, regardless of your wants?
You have every variant of wealth and poverty leading to both increasing and decreasing birthrates so another culprit must be the factor.
it just isn't true that people are primarily motivated by money.
I personally think affordability plays a role, but I think the driving factor, that applies to all developed countries and why we don't see people's pet ideas being common threads (socialized medicine will solve it! except in every developed nation with socialized medicine) comes down to hedonism, decadence and consumerism. People are living for comfort, entertainment, short term enjoyment, they're chasing shiny new things and they don't want to give that up to do something selfless like create good people. They don't want sticky hands ruining their new leather couch.
Prices going up aren't the cause, they're interlocked intimately as a symptom in a feedback loop. People aren't having kids so they can eat Korean barbecue for lunch every Tuesday, and so they have all this money that they're not spending. Or were, because everybody figures they can squeeze a few extra bucks out of them, and that adds up. Prices are going up because people are childless and so are more flippant with their money. Prices and fertility rate are interlocked tightly and one does not simply cause the other.
The only way out of course is that people accept a lower comfort level and buy only long lasting things that they actually need. But that's not going to happen, and that has a systemic cause too. I'd love it if you replied with your thoughts on what I've said, your 6+ factors, no matter how hard to swallow. I know for a fact most people reading this aren't going to like my premise that they are not having kids because they'd rather encase themselves in a constantly 73°F expensive memory foam ball, complete with genital stimulation and endless scrolling goggles. Scare some people off with me?
When I was seven years old, I realized that there was no god, and that when I died, I'd simply be gone forever; my consciousness extinguished as though it had never existed, and that nothing mattered. I'd learn much later that this could be called experiencing the death of god and becoming a nihilist; pretty rough stuff for a kid in grade school. And it meant life was just a long slog of work, and if you're lucky maybe a bit of vacation once in awhile. But that was basically the plan they wanted for you - grow up, work, have kids to repeat the cycle, and die. I never could get much enthusiasm for any of it, and I could never imagine having to explain this existence to a child; I don't have any of the happy stories regarding loving gods and an afterlife that seem to get most people through.
You'll find that religion correlates fairly highly with fertility, though I don't think there's any easy, slam-dunk causal factor that explains why people don't want to have children. Still, it makes sense to me that they have declined together.
I think two of the more uncomfortable reasons that don't get discussed might be:
1. The allure/requirements of the modern lifestyle (both people working then limited leisure time) reduce the 'space' for childrearing
2. Depression, a negative outlook about the future, and awareness of the environmental impacts of more people mean adults consciously abstain from having children.
People are depressed on a social scale. Few people have a real passion for life and reason to live. Even our "leaders" are milquetoast technocratic caretakers -- not very inspiring.
People generally follow the crowd, and the crowd is busy with hedonistic pursuits.
3. Religion and Culture - atheism has grown rapidly among western cultures over the past few decades. It is possible that western atheists have made a personal choice in service of their individual lives here on this earth, while someone who is guided more by religion or ideology is making a decision for what they view as a higher calling or purpose. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that first generation immigrants to the west tend to have higher birthdates vs those who were born in the west, as well by how common it is see modern religious and social conservatives in the west push for "tradlife."
1) Peter Pan syndrome
2) Pressure to pursue career and higher education. See 3)
3) Cost of life
So is cost of living -- these two tend to be correlated.
People aren't obligated to justify their own family planning. Even raising the question in the first place is overreach
And no, people aren't obligated to make family planning decisions that contribute to a desirable macroeconomic climate 30 years down the line. Not our problem, it'll sort itself out
Animals stopping breeding means they stop having sex. That is not necessarily the case with humans.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-have-been-...
> The decreases “aren’t trivial,” as the authors wrote in the study, published on November 19 in Archives of Sexual Behavior. Between 2009 and 2018, the proportion of adolescents reporting no sexual activity, either alone or with partners, rose from 28.8 percent to 44.2 percent among young men and from 49.5 percent in 2009 to 74 percent among young women.
The underlying paper has more demographic breakdowns:
> Wellings et al. (2019)—using three waves of data from the UK’s National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) completed in 1991, 2001, and 2012—found that frequency of sex among 16–44 year olds had declined, more so among married participants and those in the 35–44 age group.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-021-02125-2
Similar article:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/all-about-sex/2021...
Our basic desires and how we deal with them is informed by our society and how it is organized, its culture, etc.
That outcome isn't "more natural" than a hypothetical where they aren't pressured and don't have children
There's no way of distinguishing instinct from social conditioning at scale, this argument is just using naturalness as a moral characterization
I'm not sure what you mean by "even raising the question in the first place is overreach." On an individual and personal level, it may be inappropriate or rude to ask the question. On a government level it is more complicated as I think that while government has no place in interfering with an individual's personal choice, I think there may be utility in understanding changing social trends over time, as a government that is "by the people, for the people" can better represent its constituents and form policies that its constituents want when it understands them, demographically.
But most important to me is that, on a scientific level, it is just data and knowledge. And in my opinion there is never such a thing as "too much knowledge."
There's a difference between government disinterestedly researching social trends and having (particularly right wing) news media shoveling out these alarmist articles that do a lot of stereotyping
The tone of this article, coupled with recent political changes regarding family planning, reeks of overreach into people's private lives
The very mention of "climate change" as being a factor for reducing offspring and second guessing kids is certainly not a right wing idea.
Secondly, anything from mainstream media outlets projects an alarmist tone. They operate on the basic impulse of fear.
While I'd rather not have the state involved in any sort of family planning, the topic is interesting to delve in.
Plenty of (US) right wing media sources accept climate change during the day and rubbish it after dark during peak red in the face angry host times.
I mean, they aren't saying that idea because they agree with it. They could be saying it to paint a negative caricature
I just like to think and make stuff while I listen to music, I don't want to be responsible for picking a child up or dropping it off or feeding it. And, I'm not particularly concerned with how long we perpetuate our human nonsense.
I don't hate life, but I don't know that I'd have picked it for myself and I don't feel strongly about forcing it on anybody else.
There was an instagram comment feed (of all places) where the OP asked people to post what their reservation for kids were, and many parents responded to those positively
The next post asked parents to post what they were surprised most about being a parent. Some common themes were “I was afraid I wouldn’t like/feel attached to my child” and “I was afraid I would resent my child for the time commitment.” For the latter, dozens of responses say that something within them switched, and they wanted to bear the responsibility. It was fulfilling like a hobby may be, but deeper.
Personally I don’t like the rhetoric that describe (others, not you) kids as leeches that take time and money, i think thats toxic to our society.
If you know yourself and know you don’t want kids, then it’s best for everyone involved not to have them.
The world sucks at the best of times. The last thing someone should do is putting an unwanted child in the world.
I have a daughter, who I love and means the world to me. But I wanted her, so all the work and cost is meaningful and rewarding. I wouldn't feel the same if I didn't want a child.
Every wealthy nation sees a declining birthrate that falls below the replacement rate. The economy of every wealthy nation depends on immigration. This is a fact.
If the nationalist right want people to have more babies to combat depopulation, they should be proposing and funding social support programs, not reproductive rights like abortion, IVF, contraception, etc.
France's fertility rate is basically the same as the US. (1.9 vs 1.84 according to https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/total-fertility...). Other countries with expansive welfare states like Finland and Sweden are even lower.
Japan has free healthcare for anyone under 18 as well as free daycare if your income is low, etc. Their population is also on decline.
the cost of an "ok" daycare can be higher than someone's entire paycheck.
$26,000 per year per kid.
Rates vary wildly across the country. I have friends in the Bay that are paying about the same as us. I have friends in Oregon that are at ~$300/wk. I have friends in Nashville that are at ~$1000/wk. It's a super local thing.
Look, anytime you have a waiting list for something, capitalism has broken. You raise prices until you don't have a waiting list. That's 'Business for 5th Graders' level stuff. But you just cannot do that with daycare.
Our state does a good job with subsidies for the very poor (we have some at out daycare), but it is still really really expensive.
We cannot wait until they get to state subsidized preschool, holy cow man.
Also, Pro-tip: If you are even thinking of getting pregnant, go get on all the local daycare lists you can. Wait times can be >18 months for a lot of places.
Would you consider it a "good" daycare or is it what was available?
There are issues, like all places, but it works for us.
Not entirely true.
A day care has variable costs that jump at the kid count modulo something. Often a government-mandated ratio of adults to kids at various age groups. And adults that have to be paid some government-mandated minimum wage plus some benefits.
Therefore, a day care may be profitable for N kids but not profitable for N+1 kids.
So, the rational choice for a day care may be to optimize for always, always having exactly N kids. Hence, wait lists so when 1 kid departs another kid can immediately replace them.
N might vary if the owner chooses to work as a caretaker. Has some sweet rent deal on a fixed amount of space. Etc.
Notice, this sketch of why wait lists may exist isn't due to capitalism. It's due to a rational response to governmental mandates atop capitalism.
> You raise prices until you don't have a waiting list.
Nah, the parent decides to hire a nanny. Or to host an au pair. Or to move closer to family foregoing some earnings potential. That's the way to buy your way out via substitute goods using just money.
(Notice those substitutes operate in different regulatory regimes. Notice also the day care has to compete against those substitute goods! There's a limit to what parents will pay.)
Sure, a waitlist of a few months is fine here. But waitlists of > 1 year are the norm (at least for all the parents I've talked with). I can't see how any mod() math is going to square up with those long of waits.
Look, the US is the only country that has this issue. And it's a huge issue. Talk to any parent of young kids, they will all complain about the daycare system we have. It needs fixing and raw capitalism isn't the method to fix it with.
It takes 1 year for a batch of similarly aged kids to age into the next classroom. >1 year sounds like math to me, especially under the selection bias of adults only talking about this hassle when commiserating.
> Look, the US is the only country that has this issue.
The US stinks at domestically developing young talent vs its relative ability to attract skilled adults from across the world, raised to adulthood on the dime of other other countries' infrastructure. The US demographics pyramid relies on and will increasingly rely on immigration. Right or wrong, it's a feature not a bug.
I didn't realize how hostile some locales were to children until I left NYC (which stinks for kids in many ways) to NJ (which excels for them, a complement to NYC, attracting families in the process). Ever seen an entire city glow at your dog but glower at your kids?
Even frankly unexpected places like Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh are dropping towards 2.0 or less.
Most of what children need, healthcare, food, shelter, supervision. Is directly tied to employment of the adults.
If an adult loses employment you lose all pillars to support your child.
The social safety net in the US is not sufficient for people to feel safe in having children.
Further, the argument of why people should have children so the economy is supported is very shallow. I am not raising children so the economy can have more consumers.
As a society we should have larger goals then the next quarter results of publicly traded companies.
Fertility is absolutely abysmal, though, and even worse among the natives (less so among recent arrivals from Afghanistan, Africa etc.)
Meanwhile the winner in the global birth rates is Niger, a country near the bottom of the world economic ladder.
It can't be primarily about social security.
as a westerner most you, if you lose your job, will have no way to feed yourself. how many of you have the skills, infrastructure, and available bodies on hand to set up a subsistence farm? where is the land to be able to do that?
the guys in Niger are a lot closer to the land, to traditional food-ways like herding animals, and don't have much by way of creature comforts, which means they don't have much to lose, may have things to gain, by having kids.
in many ways it keeps them poor, but poor with a lot of kids is a society that continues, while rich but depress and to anxious to go outside and meet people and breed is a society that doesn't have a future.
We all know it takes a much greater amount of effort to raise a kid today because our standards are so much higher, which is particularly true of fathers. You could be a "good dad" in the 80s if you only beat your children in response to them doing something bad versus randomly beating them when you got black out drunk. I would definitely say that dogs today receive a higher standards of care (nutrition, toys, doctor visits, training) than children did in the 50s.
Without this, both parents cannot work AND reproduce. Daycares are a scam. I would rather not work than offload my kids to randos.
heh it's very hard on parents. You can always spot the new parents at daycare because they're the ones crying in the parking lot after drop off.
Plus, as a parent, my #1 goal is to raise them with my full attention, teach them all the values, etc. Otherwise there is no point.
Parenting is full-time job. Daycare is lazy parenting.
That's fine too. Couples without children will always have much more money than couples who do. It's not a problem when couples who do have children can still afford to live a good life.
It won't destroy the housing market either. Not every person without kids is interested in becoming a real estate mogul. What's made housing unaffordable today wasn't that families used to be able to support themselves on a single income, it's corporations and foreign buyers who purchase homes without any intention to occupy them. They'd rather hold onto them as an investment leaving them empty or rent them out at higher and higher rates. Stopping this practice, and ensuring that anyone buying a residential property is a resident of the city/state/nation, and that the buyer must occupy the property at least some of the time would do a lot more good for the housing problem in the US than suppressing wages so that no parent can afford to stay home to raise their own children.
Absolutely no.
If your job lays you off or you get fired, then you just lost your childcare and all that community for your kid. I don't see a lot of parents taking that huge of a risk.
That happens regardless. Or is regular daycare free?
Generally though, if you lose your job, you can go get another job and still stay at the same daycare. I think we've all survived through credit cards for a while in between work. But that doesn't work if the daycare is through the job.
Co-location is, i think the key to solving this.
If co-location of daycare and work was something that people valued highly, then you'd see it happening already. The daycare nightmare has been going on for quite some time.
> I would rather not work than offload my kids to randos.
I am in agreement. Mama needs time off. Dad needs time off, too, and that helps avoid discrimination against the women.
I do not desire to feed the capitalistic beast with more wage slaves: if I have children - it must be because I can give them a better life than I've had. That will not be the case for the foreseeable future...
There is no ethical consumption (period). If I am to raise consumption in society by bringing another human into it... that cost must be offset. An economically lush environment makes that feasible, the lack of funds makes that less feasible (to the point of impossibility).
Cry some more about how 'the poor' aren't filling the factories with their children anymore (since they've wised up) ... /s
Ethics, philosophy, you can argue along those vectors all you want. It will be useless and moot.
The answer isn't 'let me change my mind about my opinions about sending a child into wage slavery' the answer is to 'convince me (with money) my child won't have to be a wage slave and having one won't make my family homeless due to financial strains; convince me that my child will have a good life'.
You want more children - pay up: 3C7tm5a1UMgsnwGF5GtYQazLxnG9y23v2B - btc address.
The answer really is as simple as: more money is needed.
Is being childless immoral in your eyes? If so, why do you thank those that would bear (what you consider to be) an immoral agent into this world... I am seriously confused by this confusing remark.
My grandparents had money to raise a family. I don't. Is them having more resources what makes them have better morals?
Really: can you spell out explicitly what you are trying to say? The message is confusing, and unclear.
Earth Overshoot Day is just weeks away this year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day)
Population decline is bad for our unsustainable economy, but it's a good thing for the environment and our increasingly diminishing resources.
- Modern helicopter and "attachment" parenting styles are significantly more resource and time-intensive than in other generations.
- Abundance of birth control.
- I would also argue that the breakdown of communities plays a much larger, and likely subconscious psychological role. Whether valid or not, people don't feel like they have a support network, and don't feel like it is safe to have children.
Please bear in mind, I'm not arguing that any of these points are either good or bad, but just suggesting that they contribute to declining birthrates.
Usually these topics emerge with the same three major factors for why people aren't having children:
1. Can't afford to raise a child
2. Concerns about the future state of the world, e.g. climate change
3. A huge loss of freedom
Anecdotally, I personally feel like #3 is by far the biggest reason why people aren't having children. Every time someone in my peer group (mid 30s) announces that they are having a child, there's widespread acknowledgement that we are going to see MUCH less of them from now on.
This is a tradeoff, and those who really want children will still choose to have children. But for those who are deeply engaged in something else -- hobbies, social life, career -- or simply enjoy a low-stress life, having children would upend that. Modern living gives a lot of opportunities to go really deep into a few different facets of life, but most people have to limit that depth once they have children. It doesn't help that modern child raising seems to be endlessly shuffling children from one structured activity to another, with little help from a broader social circle.
Plus, there's less social pressure than ever to have children. If many of your peers aren't having kids, you're not the odd one out anymore.
So I think many people of childbearing age today see a much higher cost in childraising than what people saw in the past. If they aren't especially enthusiastic about raising children in particular, is it a surprise that many are choosing not to?
You'd be surprised how easy it is to have a kid when you can afford daycare, lots of toys to keep Junior busy, and day-to-day life conveniences that make the rest easy to manage.
i.e. freedom isn't an issue because I can send kiddo to summer camp, after school programs, and dance classes. and it's easy to snag a pizza or tacos on the way home from grabbing them from said events. the wee one sleeps really well with white noise generators and temperature controls for the room, and has lots of books to play with (plus a yard + the dogs) when she's not sleeping.
it's the money.
Richest societies are having the fewest babies and poorest people are having the most. So this doesn't ring true.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenaebarnes/2022/07/10/elon-mus...
Countries with the highest TFR are also generally the poor ones.
Specifically, women's rights, financial independence, and general safety if choosing to forego having many children or even entering into a relationship.
The women in the poorest countries are having more kids due to not being able to have fewer kids.
Average American women have fewer kids than top 10% Americans due to wanting more resources per child.
Citation needed for that claim. While I don't necessarily disagree with you, I have also seen other plausible hypothesis that kids are seen as safety nets in the poorer society, or a possible escape hatch out of poverty even if one of them gets lucky in life. So having more kids might be a rational choice for poor people.
I do not have data either way about motivations for women in poor societies to have kids.
https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
All the countries with high total fertility rates have environments where women would not expect quality healthcare or medical interventions should things go wrong. It stands to reason that women are not making a conscious decision to put their quality of life and life itself at risk over and over again to birth human resources.
Outside of outlier cult-ish groups, I see almost no women choosing to have more than 3 children. And the data seems to agree. Everyone I know that had a 3rd child, they had 2 boys or 2 girls first and only had a 3rd to try for the other gender.
So I am deducing that the painful experience of pregnancy/childbirth/breastfeeding/infant rearing is a significant limiting factor.
I think the thing with 'freedom' is that they don't want to take on another big responsibility, at the expense of what they already have in their life.
Back then they were less so, fine, but still expensive and not somehow magically more fun. So that can't be the whole story.
Was it the lack of contraception? Surely not just that, in 1970s or whatnot a typical family had maybe 1-4 children, but not like 10.
I suspect it was a combination of status, expectation and ease. Having children was simply a milestone on the roadmap of life that was hard to skip. Grandparents were younger then, and thus more able to help, and more likely to live nearby in the first place.
As the societal expectation to have children waned, people stopped.
>Perhaps the worthwhile question is, why did people (Americans included) have babies in the first place.
Rural/farmer pov it's slave labour. Go feed the chickens!
Urban/city pov it's slave labour. Go put out the trash!
>and not somehow magically more fun.
Extreme high quality toys. You would have to be a king to have this much choice and quality. You get to play with the toys of your childhood.
So much more fun to be a parent today.
>Was it the lack of contraception? Surely not just that, in 1970s or whatnot a typical family had maybe 1-4 children, but not like 10.
People point to the 1950s as when it seemed to be easier. When yes, you had 10.
Planned parenthood developed the pill in the 1950s but only widespread use in the 1960s.
Contraceptives impacted the 1970s numbers.
1972: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenstadt_v._Baird
Abortions are about that time as well. This isn't even the whole story.
https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/most-estrogen-in-drinki...
You might expect pills accidentally being flushed down the toilet for example to start showing up in water supply, but it's not statistically significant because our drinking water has so much estrogen in it already.
Best case scenario: 10% chance you and your spouse are great parents, who stay healthy enough to be good parents, who have a physically and mentally healthy kid, who doesn't end up in a life-changing accident or addicted to substances or down an ideological rabbit hole, and you don't lose your income for 18 ~ 24 years while the kid grows into a self-sufficient adult.
More likely scenario: something (physical, mental, environmental) is way off and there's lots of despair and suffering in your family for years or possibly forever.
I don't like other people's kids, who are seemingly healthy, and I don't want to roll those dice for one of my own, who might not be.
I'd say that the risks aren't worth the benefits to you. But my weighing of the benefits is different. To me, my kids give meaning and purpose. It's honestly hard to imagine not having them.
I think different people are just different. To some, having a purpose in life (to raise your kids) is really meaningful and more important than worries about the risks, all of which seem minor in comparison. But to others, it's a burden instead of a purpose, so it doesn't make any sense to have kids.
Without an extended family and support network, raising a child becomes an overwhelming burden, and the parents end up feeling they were lied to about the supposed joys of parenting.
I'm so glad we didn't move away from home and family.