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This. This thread is killing me. This might be the only comment so far to even consider women as having agency. When you give women control over their own bodie

This. This thread is killing me. This might be the only comment so far to even consider women as having agency. When you give women control over their own bodies and equal enough rights to support autonomy — so, treat them like people, basically - it turns out they don’t want to have so many kids, because growing and birthing humans is incredibly taxing and traumatic. The trauma, in particular, is weirdly something that people don’t talk to young women about, and that often remains hidden from view. Reach a certain age (as a woman) and get alone in a room with other women of a certain age and the stories are absolutely harrowing. Of the women I’ve known personally who have given birth, all but one had PTSD from the experience. I am, frankly, dreading the replies to this comment, as the thread already tilts heavily towards the sort of dehumanizing abstraction of women’s rights that often precedes more explicitly misogynist arguments cloaked in utilitarianism, so I will just say that if you consider coercing women into traumatizing and often debilitating situations to be an acceptable “cost” of a hypothetical economically optimal birth rate, I do not consider you to be capable of engaging in good faith and will not respond. I would also suggest that concerns about “birth rate” or other abstracted metrics are often a screen for concerns — from men — about access to sex. I mean, in the context of intensifying climate change, a decreasing birth rate is not really our biggest problem as a species. It might actually be an asset.

adventured 8y ago
There were the famous studies from a few years ago in Israel and Germany that sparked a small cultural spat in the West about regretting motherhood and having a child being a source of immense unhappiness.[1][2] It's of course obvious why they generated so much outrage, centuries of propaganda about motherhood being bliss and the highest calling for women. To quote from the WaPo article below (some people may not be able to read it): "it turns out that having a child can have a pretty strong negative impact on a person's happiness, according to a new study published in the journal Demography. In fact, on average, the effect of a new baby on a person's life in the first year is devastatingly bad — worse than divorce, worse than unemployment and worse even than the death of a partner." "Researchers Rachel Margolis and Mikko Myrskylä followed 2,016 Germans who were childless at the time the study began until at least two years after the birth of their first child. Respondents were asked to rate their happiness from 0 (completely dissatisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied) in response to the question, "How satisfied are you with your life, all things considered?"" "On average, new parenthood led to a 1.4 unit drop in happiness. That's considered very severe. To put things in perspective, previous studies have quantified the impact of other major life events on the same happiness scale in this way: divorce, the equivalent of a 0.6 "happiness unit" drop; unemployment, a one-unit drop; and the death of a partner a one-unit drop." [1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-israeli-study-regretting-motherhood-debate-rages-in-germany/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-israeli-study-regretting... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/08/11/the-most-depressing-statistic-imaginable-about-being-a-new-parent/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/0...
- fastball 8y ago
  So is the solution for women to stop having children and for humanity to die off? Also, I think the study needs to be much more longitudinal than "2 years on". Arguably the pay off for having children comes much, much later. For some, the pay off doesn't really come until they have grandchildren. Yes, having children is often a monumental PITA. But humans are social animals, and nothing is really comparable to fill that hole than having a family of your own. The question as posed by the study is silly: yes, you might find less day-to-day happiness if your child is screaming all night long and you need to feed them and change their shitty diapers. But if the question had been 10 years on, and you asked those same mothers "do you regret having children", you would get a very different answer.
  - ForHackernews 8y ago
    > So is the solution for women to stop having children and for humanity to die off? What a ridiculous false dichotomy. Earth has a huge (and increasing) number of humans on it. We are in far greater danger from unsustainable depletion of natural resources than we are "dying off" from gradually declining birthrates.
    - davidiach 8y ago
      If we don't maintain the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman, the worlds population will eventually shrink exponentially. If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.
      - ForHackernews 8y ago
        Why is that scary? Human civilization might be much more sustainable with a billion people, rather than currently-predicted peak of 10 billion. I'm much more worried about climate change leading to war and famine than I am about women voluntarily choosing to have fewer children. As far as I can see, population decline is only a problem because our current economic system assumes endless growth.
liftbigweights 8y ago
But the argument is that women want to have more kids but can't because of career, maternity leave, benefits, etc. Also, survey after survey says that women want 2 or 3 kids ( average is about 2.5 ). But the fertility rate is far less than 2. So there is a disconnect between what women want and what women have. The question is why? Why aren't women able to achieve their goals? Of all the answers given, all of them are suspect. > The trauma, in particular, is weirdly something that people don’t talk to young women about, and that often remains hidden from view. Everybody talks about it. It's why society discourages girls from getting pregnant. > Of the women I’ve known personally who have given birth, all but one had PTSD from the experience. Well your experience is rather the anomaly. Most first time mothers choose to get pregnant again? 80% of first time mothers choose to do it again. Sure the birthing process isn't a walk in the park, but to say it is "trauma or PTSD" is absurd from a statistical and evolutionary point of view. > I would also suggest that concerns about “birth rate” or other abstracted metrics are often a screen for concerns — from men — about access to sex. I mean, in the context of intensifying climate change, a decreasing birth rate is not really our biggest problem as a species. It might actually be an asset. It's obvious your bias leans towards low birth rate but this is absurd and makes it hard to take you seriously. To say concerns about "birth rate" is about access to sex is nonsense. You do realize that pregnancy and higher birth rates gets in the way of sex right? It's one of the reasons why men invented condoms and birth control. Greater access to sex.
- kaitai 8y ago
  Dude, no one talks about degree 2 vs degree 3 peritoneal tears or peeing when you jumprope. That is not talked about. I don't think you have any idea of the actual trauma involved in birth: the membrane sweeps, the cervix check, the coercion into surgery under the threat of your kid dying, being essentially chained to a bed unable to leave because of an IV and the monitor when you know just being able to walk down the hall would make you feel better. The epidural gone in wrong, paralyzing one side of your body but leaving the other side in great pain, and then being unable to push because of the asymmetry. The nurse telling you you're not allowed to push until the ob-gyn comes, but the ob-gyn is out to lunch. Afterward, the mastitis, the bleeding nipples, the sharp stabbing pain in your pelvis when you try to do side plank. Yeah. Yeah, that's not why we tell girls not to get pregnant.
Aunche 8y ago
You're unnecessarily turning this into sexism issue, ironically ignoring how men also have a part in birth rate. All humans, men or women, have agency, but they're most likely going to act in their best interests. That's why we can generalize large scale behavior with some degree of accuracy. Obviously that's the not going to capture the nuances of every individual decision, but that's the best that we can do when discussing the effects of policy.
tomjen3 8y ago
Giving birth is painful, but plenty of women want to do so more than once, so I doubt that more than a few (if any) have PTSD. As for what women wants, since we can both agree that they have agency, we can ask them. Or better yet, look in to the surveys done on just that subject[0], and conclude that women do not get as many kids as they want to, or expect to. [0]: https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-many-kids-do-women-want https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-many-kids-do-women-want

adventured 8y ago

There were the famous studies from a few years ago in Israel and Germany that sparked a small cultural spat in the West about regretting motherhood and having a child being a source of immense unhappiness.[1][2] It's of course obvious why they generated so much outrage, centuries of propaganda about motherhood being bliss and the highest calling for women. To quote from the WaPo article below (some people may not be able to read it): "it turns out that having a child can have a pretty strong negative impact on a person's happiness, according to a new study published in the journal Demography. In fact, on average, the effect of a new baby on a person's life in the first year is devastatingly bad — worse than divorce, worse than unemployment and worse even than the death of a partner." "Researchers Rachel Margolis and Mikko Myrskylä followed 2,016 Germans who were childless at the time the study began until at least two years after the birth of their first child. Respondents were asked to rate their happiness from 0 (completely dissatisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied) in response to the question, "How satisfied are you with your life, all things considered?"" "On average, new parenthood led to a 1.4 unit drop in happiness. That's considered very severe. To put things in perspective, previous studies have quantified the impact of other major life events on the same happiness scale in this way: divorce, the equivalent of a 0.6 "happiness unit" drop; unemployment, a one-unit drop; and the death of a partner a one-unit drop." [1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-israeli-study-regretting-motherhood-debate-rages-in-germany/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-israeli-study-regretting... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/08/11/the-most-depressing-statistic-imaginable-about-being-a-new-parent/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/0...

fastball 8y ago
So is the solution for women to stop having children and for humanity to die off? Also, I think the study needs to be much more longitudinal than "2 years on". Arguably the pay off for having children comes much, much later. For some, the pay off doesn't really come until they have grandchildren. Yes, having children is often a monumental PITA. But humans are social animals, and nothing is really comparable to fill that hole than having a family of your own. The question as posed by the study is silly: yes, you might find less day-to-day happiness if your child is screaming all night long and you need to feed them and change their shitty diapers. But if the question had been 10 years on, and you asked those same mothers "do you regret having children", you would get a very different answer.
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  > So is the solution for women to stop having children and for humanity to die off? What a ridiculous false dichotomy. Earth has a huge (and increasing) number of humans on it. We are in far greater danger from unsustainable depletion of natural resources than we are "dying off" from gradually declining birthrates.
  - davidiach 8y ago
    If we don't maintain the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman, the worlds population will eventually shrink exponentially. If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.
    - ForHackernews 8y ago
      Why is that scary? Human civilization might be much more sustainable with a billion people, rather than currently-predicted peak of 10 billion. I'm much more worried about climate change leading to war and famine than I am about women voluntarily choosing to have fewer children. As far as I can see, population decline is only a problem because our current economic system assumes endless growth.

liftbigweights 8y ago

But the argument is that women want to have more kids but can't because of career, maternity leave, benefits, etc. Also, survey after survey says that women want 2 or 3 kids ( average is about 2.5 ). But the fertility rate is far less than 2. So there is a disconnect between what women want and what women have. The question is why? Why aren't women able to achieve their goals? Of all the answers given, all of them are suspect. > The trauma, in particular, is weirdly something that people don’t talk to young women about, and that often remains hidden from view. Everybody talks about it. It's why society discourages girls from getting pregnant. > Of the women I’ve known personally who have given birth, all but one had PTSD from the experience. Well your experience is rather the anomaly. Most first time mothers choose to get pregnant again? 80% of first time mothers choose to do it again. Sure the birthing process isn't a walk in the park, but to say it is "trauma or PTSD" is absurd from a statistical and evolutionary point of view. > I would also suggest that concerns about “birth rate” or other abstracted metrics are often a screen for concerns — from men — about access to sex. I mean, in the context of intensifying climate change, a decreasing birth rate is not really our biggest problem as a species. It might actually be an asset. It's obvious your bias leans towards low birth rate but this is absurd and makes it hard to take you seriously. To say concerns about "birth rate" is about access to sex is nonsense. You do realize that pregnancy and higher birth rates gets in the way of sex right? It's one of the reasons why men invented condoms and birth control. Greater access to sex.

kaitai 8y ago
Dude, no one talks about degree 2 vs degree 3 peritoneal tears or peeing when you jumprope. That is not talked about. I don't think you have any idea of the actual trauma involved in birth: the membrane sweeps, the cervix check, the coercion into surgery under the threat of your kid dying, being essentially chained to a bed unable to leave because of an IV and the monitor when you know just being able to walk down the hall would make you feel better. The epidural gone in wrong, paralyzing one side of your body but leaving the other side in great pain, and then being unable to push because of the asymmetry. The nurse telling you you're not allowed to push until the ob-gyn comes, but the ob-gyn is out to lunch. Afterward, the mastitis, the bleeding nipples, the sharp stabbing pain in your pelvis when you try to do side plank. Yeah. Yeah, that's not why we tell girls not to get pregnant.

Aunche 8y ago

You're unnecessarily turning this into sexism issue, ironically ignoring how men also have a part in birth rate. All humans, men or women, have agency, but they're most likely going to act in their best interests. That's why we can generalize large scale behavior with some degree of accuracy. Obviously that's the not going to capture the nuances of every individual decision, but that's the best that we can do when discussing the effects of policy.

tomjen3 8y ago

Giving birth is painful, but plenty of women want to do so more than once, so I doubt that more than a few (if any) have PTSD. As for what women wants, since we can both agree that they have agency, we can ask them. Or better yet, look in to the surveys done on just that subject[0], and conclude that women do not get as many kids as they want to, or expect to. [0]: https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-many-kids-do-women-want https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-many-kids-do-women-want