Writes Alice Thomson, in "No thanks, we women won’t breed for Britain/The MP Miriam Cates wants us to have more babies. It’s not so easy...." (London Times).
That made me remember I wanted to link to this, in the Washington Post, "Millennials aren’t having kids. Here are the reasons why. We found some answers when looking into a different mystery: what’s going on with only children?"
If people want kids, they want more than one. A consistent minority stops at one, be it for biological, philosophical or logistical reasons. But otherwise children seem to be a multiple-or-nothing proposition.... So why are people choosing none over one? The biggest determinants of childlessness seem to be youth, marriage (or lack thereof) and higher education. The shift toward zero kids came fastest among younger women, especially those in their 20s, though we now see it across the age spectrum.
Posts
79 comments:
Aren't enough children?
Ask the wives and concubines of the members of the Religion of Peace®
Miriam had better start learning Arabic and getting fitted for a stylish burka...
The future belongs to those who show up for it.
A day will come when a thumping majority of Americans are Mormon, traditional/sedevacantist Catholic, "Quiver-full" evangelical, Muslim, Amish, or Orthodox Jewish.
The Left knows that they are aborting and buggering and boss-girling themselves into demographic oblivion and cultural insignificance. This is the only reason they have flung open our borders so recklessly.
If Hispanics ever start voting majority Republican while Democrats still cling to power at the Federal level, the wall that would be erected on our southern border would look like the one separating Israel from the West Bank.
"breed for Britain"
In the modern age, the only possible justification for breeding can be self-fufillment. Kids are a cost and a bother. Oh, and part of the plague of humanity assaulting Gaia.
"The shift toward zero kids came fastest among younger women, especially those in their 20s, though we now see it across the age spectrum."
Umm. Duh? We saw women in their 20s shifting to zero kids? Now 10-20 years later it's also women in their 30s and 40s. Funny how people get older.
It's part of the zeitgeist. Self absorption, the idea that a child is a net negative to the environment. "How can I bring a child into this failing world?" IDK how that is reversed.
The cost of living is high and children are not cheap so I expect that's a big reason why younger generations are opting out. Also, social media glorifies wealth, travel, self-fulfillment, "being your best self", etc. and it's hard to not fall into that trap of thinking that way compared to the thankless sacrifice of changing diapers, cleaning up messy houses, sports practices, etc. Children are hard work but they're the best thing you'll ever do. A family gives you a glimpse of godhood and the love,sacrifice, and sometimes frustration that God himself feels for his children.
I have a high school classmate who was one of 12.
He tells a hilarious story about how his parents had the wrong birthday for one of his sisters; it wasn't even close.
Until she had to get a birth certificate for a passport, the kid had no idea.
Rightwingers never want to say the truth. England is overpopulated, immigrants are pouring in, and housing is too expensive. Women aren't going to have kids when they and their husband live in 1 bedroom apartments and have to work.
YOu want lower housing prices? Stop immigration. Supply and Demand. easy peacy.
But of course, UK conservatives are like USA Republicans. They LOVE cheap labor and LOVE Skyrocketing house prices. They LOVE Crowed cities. Money in their pocket baby. to hell with all those "Losers". Sideeffect? Not enough babies.
Not an unforseen consequence. A very forseen consequence. Look for UK Goverment to declare: "WE cant get the British to have enough kids" we'll have to raise immigration even HIGHER.
Of course, constantly bombarding UK women with "Its NOT OK to be white" propaganda doesn't help either.
Demography is destiny.
I think some of the anxiety disorders that currently afflict so many children and teens is likely attributable to their having fewer siblings to help socialize them.
There's widespread back pressure to reduce population counts / costs in all the wealthy countries. See the shrinkage of Japan and Korea and China and Italy. See the rise of dual-income households and commercial daycare.
Plus, Hugh Hefner, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Gates, Jeffrey Epstein, Prince Andrew, and the sex party said "A woman's RIGHT to choose." The word right can be read as implying that abortions are the correct decision, not just an option. Also, easily-influenced and apparent eco-anti-Semite Greta Von Blue Octopus wants the world to have only 500,000 people. I'm guessing their plans are that the future human race will be the offspring of Greta, Klaus Schwab, Russell Brand, Elon Musk, and a fertile harem.
Close your eyes and think of England.
Too many people still think that kids are a "plague on humanity" as a commenter facetiously (I hope) mentioned. We are bombarded with this idea daily. I think this plays a bigger role than admitted in the population dearth.
In 1965 that Stanford butterfly expert wrote the population bomb predicting all sorts of direness due to too many people by the 1980s.
Yet since the book was published, we have gone from about 4 billion to over 8 billion today.
Would anyone seriously argue that the world and the people in it are not better off today than ever before? Not just in the first, developed, world or the 2nd. But in the 3rd and 4th worlds as well.
In general, of course. There are still pockets of misery but fewer and fewer each year.
We could probably double again to the overall benefit of humankind.
John Henry
Time to start taxing the leisure time of non-parents.
We tax the "excess" income of rich people, just apply this to leisure time.
Alternatively, we draft men to fight in wars, where they literally could die.
So, do a baby draft. Women only lose 18 years not their whole life.
fewer siblings to help socialize them.
This! And learning things. One brother taught me how to draw, the other showed me how to cook my own breakfast.
Could have used a sister for help with my hair.
It is a cultural death spiral. The dependency ratio is all that matters in western societies. You get into this death spiral the moment you start adding government benefits to the cost structure of working families. For the U.S. and most European countries, this started in the period from 1900-1946, and accelerated in the 1960s. You won't fix this until you find a way to politically reduce the taxation burden on young people to the point where they can actually start producing 2.1+ children per mate pair. You don't do that by increasing government benefits and government spending- you do it by cutting back the overall burden of entitlements and government spending.
Progressive prices, CAIR, psychiatric corruption, journolistic fatalism, DEI, human rites, and other toxic brews.
We can all tick off groups that are fecund, and claim that they will take over, but in every one of those groups there will be apostates, and children who don't buy in to the group myth.
Where did you think most atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, and faith-shunners come from anyway?
You know who are having children in Britain? Muslims.
You know who will be a sharia state in another generation or two? Yeah.
Plans are probably already underway to convert St. Paul's into Britain's largest mosque.
The Western world has been spreading doom and gloom for decades. Why would anyone want to bring a child into this world?
College graduates don't feel prepared to be fully functioning adults, how could they take care of children?
Young women have access to casual sex and the guys they meet are not relationship material. What woman wants to be a single mom?
British traditions and culture are in decline. The UK looks pretty good to immigrants, so they are having babies. They are going to win eventually, so why not let them have it?
There is a lot wrong in the US, but it looks more bleak in the UK.
History shows that population falls among socialists as a group despite individual exceptions. The argument can be made that the welfare state will fail wherever there is population falls, i.e. , there is no Social Security in the future of Gen Z because Social Security is just the children supporting the parents with the state doing the distribution to all. Few children, not enough to distribute. The individual answer for the socialistic young of today is: have children so that when state Social Security fails you have original social security. But socialists can't imagine socialism failing. It's like imagining Hamas would shoot, rape and burn alive Harvard supporters of Hamas. Harvard students can't imagine it happening even though there are pictures of Hamas shooting, raping and burning alive attendees at a peace rave, the type of music festival most likely to be attended by Harvard students. Ideals are real and endure even when there's an unfortunate and dangerous reality mismatch.
'Plans are probably already underway to convert St. Paul's into Britain's largest mosque.'
Great minds and all that.
I was talking to a friend just last night and told him that in 50 years (probably less), St. Paul's would be a mosque.
That's the only way it will go...
I learned a new Britishism: "up the duff" (pregnant)
MP for Penistone...I'm not making it up!
Once upon a midnight dreary,
While net browsing, weak and weary
O'er many a quaint and curious profile
Of a tinder whore
While I read it, nearly swiping,
Suddenly I spied her typing
"Kids? I still want them!"
Starts the griping,
"even though I'm 44!"
"Tis impossible," I muttered,
"Your having kids at 44"
Her chance of offspring: Nevermore
- Anonymous
A woman who uses the term “sows” for women who bear children has no business either having children or talking about women who do.
>Hassayamper said...
The Left knows that they are aborting and buggering and boss-girling themselves into demographic oblivion and cultural insignificance.<
Incisive and funny. Thread winner.
It takes two: a girl and boy, a girl and sperm donor, a boy and rent-a-womb... woman to make a baby. That said, the wicked solution is neither a good nor exclusive choice. Choose wisely, ladies, and gentlemen. Don't fall prey to the Social Indoctrination Complex (SIC).
If they're not going to have babies, there's no reason for gentlemanly deference to women.
The whole point was men are expendable and women are not, but now women made themselves expendable.
Duff ought to be asshole if they had any appreciation of langauge.
The important thing about pregnant is it comes from pre-gnant, before birth. British obscure that with "preggers."
"Up the duff" sounds obscene.
"Hey Sally, where's your baby"
Well, it's up me duff, innit? You silly sod"
I think I've heard duff before but more commonly I've seen "up the spout".
On second though, "spout" seems a bit obscene in this context too.
John Henry
More than one child is a commitment to family. A single child is alone in the world in a way that an individual with siblings never is. Particularly after the parents pass.
Surveys consistently show that women want more children than they're actually having.
We can all tick off groups that are fecund, and claim that they will take over, but in every one of those groups there will be apostates, and children who don't buy in to the group myth.
But they will not be a majority. Not by a long shot. 90 percent of Mormon kids stay Mormon. 95 percent or more of Amish kids stay Amish. Surely it is at least 90 percent among the Muslims too.
Like the American Welfare system, the English 'dole' has meant that household needs can be more easily met outside of a family context. Reap what ye sow.
DDD
“ If the Tories want more babies they need adequate maternity facilities, as well as more comprehensive childcare provision for mothers and fathers…”
None of these were available in XVIII century, when British birth rates exceeded modern Saudi Arabia
In my mind, my leisure tax would actually not be paid in currency, but time.
So, on the week-end all the single people would have to put in their corvee labor at the homes of those with children. Doing laundry, mowing lawns, etc.
This is pleasing to the mind, but obviously would not work in reality. So you could have an alternate penalty payment, if you refuse to do corvee labor or do it poorly.
Also this would not apply to people in the military. Join the army and get 4 years of blissful week-ends. No more chores every saturday or sunday...or have two kids and get more free time.
AI is going to solve all this, right?
"Women, it's all your fault there aren't enough children any more."
Who else would be at fault? Some men, maybe, due to economic concerns, but probably a lower % of the demographic.
"But they [the non-religious] will not be a majority."
When have they ever? IIRC, worldwide, some 80% of people profess a religious faith, higher in the USA. Perhaps the fertile ultra-orthodox of all faiths will come to contest political power in a war, in which the need for cannon fodder is primary again.
The childless and parents of fewer than 2.1 children are the least of society's problems IMO.
The French were experiencing declines in the birthrate as early as the 18th C, well before Bonaparte supposedly broke the reproductive capacities of the French. (It seems that mesdames were catching on to the arts of prevention and contraception, in a blundering way.)
Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Maury was cancelled. What's the point of sex with women if you can't do a backflip when he announces, "You are NOT the father!"
I thought babies were leavened in ovens.
The drop in fertility is not entirely voluntary. Many women want to finish their education and get a foot onto the career ladder before having a baby, but by that time they are in their late 20s and have trouble conceiving. Men's sperm counts are apparently dropping at the same time for unknown reasons.
Remember the beginning of the movie, Idiocracy? The yuppie couple does careful planning to have a child and totally fails to have any children. The redneck couple has many children (both inside and outside of marriage) and those children breed like rabbits, producing hundreds of subsequent offspring.
"Cates is convinced that young women are desperate to have large families but have been put off by the prohibitive cost of childcare and housing.... "
No, they've been lied to. Sixteen years I spent as a single parent and every time I read or heard about "how hard it is to be a single parent", I would laugh. It's not that hard and it's not that expensive UNLESS you want to maintain a happy-go-lucky young adult life. Then, of course, it's hard because you're blowing your money on unnecessary things.
Learn to live with and enjoy less and you have plenty to rear your kids and your kids will more than offset whatever you've decided you can economically forego.
looks like across the pond they believe it takes the Royal Realm to Raise children!
they need adequate maternity facilities, >> believe reference to UK NHS which is comparable in efficiency would be USA Veterans Administration Hospital Care
Duff ought to be asshole if they had any appreciation of langauge.
========
if they are doing it up the duff may explain lack of preggers
Oso Negro:
A woman who uses the term “sows” for women who bear children has no business either having children or talking about women who do.
Yeah, not the best of disparagements.
Do you know what they call female pigs that don't produce piglets?
Bacon.
rhhardin:
The whole point was men are expendable and women are not, but now women made themselves expendable.
Won't be acknowledged. There will be some other reason supplied to keep women out of the draft.
Had my (most likely due to age) this summer. I've had a lot of kids. I think my kids will end up having a lot of kids because we truly enjoy our family. Parents have to override the popular narrative.
Sorry, I had my last child... can't delete the earlier comment.
Too many parents treat kids as something to endure. No wonder young people feel like it's a burden. Parenting becomes a bit easier with more kids honestly. I couldn't helicopter parent if I tried.
Hassayamper wins today's internet!
Mark Steyn has been all over this for years:
The argument was straightforward. The western world is going out of business because it's given up having babies. The 20th century welfare state, with its hitherto unknown concepts such as spending a third of your adult lifetime in "retirement", is premised on the basis that there will be enough new citizens to support the old. But there won't be.
‘The Tories want more babies they need adequate maternity facilities, as well as more comprehensive childcare provision for mothers and fathers…’
“None of these were available in XVIII century, when British birth rates exceeded modern Saudi Arabia”
But there were prisons and workhouses.
The feminist fantasy of paid work-from-home mothering just isn’t feasible.
What does it even mean to say that "there aren't enough children any more"? The only answer is the one suggested by Yancey above: Governments have set in motion systems that are viable only under conditions of increasing population. Governments also don't want to do the work necessary to prepare for the failure of any of those systems, hence the resort to jawboning increased reproduction. If not for those circumstances, would governments have reason to care what decisions women (or couples) make about family size? And wouldn't it be better if governments had no reason to care?
Cut taxes so the women (or men) can stay home with their own children.
"Up the duff" sounds obscene.
How about "Up the Hilary"?
It's got a nice double entendre and sounds even more British.
Some of the best news I have seen in a while is in the Gallup data showing that larger families have been gaining in favor, over smaller families, among Americans for a while now.
This is the link to their findings and the graph, and it is easy to highlight it and have it open in a new window. I posted it a week or two back in a cafe thread. The key chart suggests that the Boomer selfishness in this regard -- if that is a fair assessment; maybe it had other roots as well -- is fading away.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/511238/americans-preference-larger-families-highest-1971.aspx
My wife and I chose to stop at one largely because we didn't want to press our luck. Our son was a great kid, and both of us had siblings (we each had three bros) who, let us say, were detriments to a happy family life. (Mine for longer and worse than hers, but still.)
"Boomer selfishness," eh?
How many workers have you sired, Kai? If it's any number less than 2.1, I'll call you selfish.
chickelit:
The feminist fantasy of paid work-from-home mothering just isn’t feasible.
Never was because it never recognized the woman would then have to turn around and pay the man for everything he does.
The poorest nations are having all the children. They will soon enter thru our open southern border.
Jim Gust:
The drop in fertility is not entirely voluntary. Many women want to finish their education and get a foot onto the career ladder before having a baby, ...
Which is entirely voluntary. It's not like women don't know their fertility is finite.
I have been told that the reason that nobody has more than 2 kids is the difficulty of getting them all in the family SUV or minivan
Is that concept no longer operative?
There's a graph floating around that shows European population growth vs sub-saharan Africa. It's not even close. The future of Europe and the UK is black.
Any place welcoming "migrants"...this is what you're gonna get. You can't outbreed them.
Yancy @11:15 has the best analysis
we all respond to incentives. The govt provides all the wrong incentives.
Before the govt decided to rescue us (with our own money) We took care of ourselves. A persons retirement was directly linked the number and success of their children. But the govt lied and told the people they would be BETTER off if they gave 15% of every dollar the earned to the govt so the govt could keep the money and dole it out in their golden years. Then the govt took over schools. Succeeding in dumbing down 70% of the population. Welcome the 21st century.
Great Britain is very proud of their socialized society safety nets. But the ponzi scheme of the next generations paying for it all is collapsing
Until generations later the results of incentives are fully realized.
It wasn't a personal criticism, Narr. Is it such a stretch to wonder if the Me Generation preferred to sing and dance and love than to marry and raise children?
I'm speculating, but I don't think it's without basis. Why else would Baby Boomers defer and reduce their childbearing such that the preference for children (as Gallup measured the attitude) fell from 3.6 per family after WWII, to 1.8 per family by 1980? From 70% preferring 3 or more children in 1967, the preference fell sharply through the 1970s, all the way down to only 30% wanting 3 or more children in the '80s and well into the '90s.
It is hard to blame it on war, famine, pestilence or disease. The Viet Nam war occurred in the early stages of that trend but was long over for most of it. There was a loss of wealth from the peak of the '60s until the early '80s, as inflation ate up purchasing power -- but why did the preference stay low after the big bull market kicked off in 1982-83? Animal spirits should have been soaring through most of the '80s and '90s.
Is it a pure cost-benefit calculation? Child-rearing costs are high -- especially so if you include daycare, private schooling, cars and college tuition. And, of course, the poor demographics are common throughout the developed world, so it is not Woodstock Nation alone that made this choice. Is it the rise of the welfare state? If so, then why has the child preference been rising in the U.S. for the last 25 years?
There are many individual factors that must go into the decision, but it is striking that the drop in preferred-family size matches up so clearly on the timeline with Baby Boomer fertility.
> I have been told that the reason that nobody has more than 2 kids is the difficulty of getting them all in the family SUV or minivan
> Is that concept no longer operative?
People prefer SUVs to minivans, and those typically only comfortably hold 2 kids + parents, but a minivan is fine up to 4-5 kids depending on diet and how spaced out those kids are. Minivans also aren't all that expensive. If you can afford his and hers cars anyways, making one of them a minivan isn't a big deal.
Kai, I think that "the drop in preferred-family size match[ing] up so clearly on the timeline with Baby Boomer fertility" are the same thing, differently stated.
As far as "Me Generation," I don't recognize it as describing a real thing. Like the election of 198? was the "Election of the Angry White Male," it's a journalistic fudge that I never have found useful.
Maybe the primary cause of the preference for smaller families was Boomers' experiences in their large families.
The high divorce rate must have had an impact. Who wants to get stuck with four hungry children and a crop in the field? The crime rate began its climb in '65, the same year the number of births plummeted--and early Boomers were entering adulthood. I wonder if older adults then had any sense that things had come unstuck--more likely in '68.
Post a Comment