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I doubt it. Having children is not first and foremost a consequence of having sex, it's an active choice that you make plans for. When you have to work long hou

I doubt it. Having children is not first and foremost a consequence of having sex, it's an active choice that you make plans for. When you have to work long hours, have no financial support for childcare, having aging parents to take care of, then there's just no room for having kids. I live in arguably one of the best countries for raising kids, with 18 months parental leave, free preschool, higher education, retirement homes for aging parents, health care, and just a child-friendly work environment overall (even dads are expected to be gone for at least a few months), and it's STILL super hard to raise a child. I can't imagine how hard it must be without all those perks, and I completely understand why many people choose not to. Also interesting: despite all these policies the birthrate is still as low as 1.7, meaning there must be other factors why people are not having kids globally.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
> Having children is not first and foremost a consequence of having sex, it's an active choice that you make plans for. Who is “you”? Is it a woman that has no financial independence in a society where she may have to fend for herself if she does not have unprotected sex without access to birth control? Because, until very recently, that probably describes most women’s circumstances when planning to have kids. I am betting it is not a coincidence that the timeline for women’s financial independence and access to cheap and convenient birth control lines up with declining birth rates.
- nsonha 5y ago
  way to insert an unrelated woke issue into the conversation > until very recently how about now? Fact of the matter is even in the developed countries where work isn't stressful and people do have sex, birth rate is still low. So simply encouraging people to have sex isn't the solution if you want more kids. I believe that's the point they are making.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I misread the comment I replied to as stating children were a choice throughout history. But my comment does not have anything to do with woke-ness. It is simply meant to show the extremely high cost of children made explicit now that women do not have to eat that cost.
  - brnt 5y ago
    That had nothing to do with wokeness, it's an obvious bias in the observation. Outside of careerists circles, which is a tiny group, things are quite different. The idea that life is plannable is again an indicator of a particular background and culture, that is representative of only a fraction of humans.
    - rowanG077 5y ago
      Getting children is 100% plannable. Even if you have no access to birth control you can still choose to not have sex. That has nothing do to with background.
      - nsonha 5y ago
        > you can still choose to not have sex this I cannot agree with since it doesn't align with reality
        rowanG077 5y ago
        Can you explain how it doesn't align with reality? It's not uncommon anymore that people who are 30 years old still never had sex. For whatever reason they were capable of not having sex for ~15 years. That quite clearly says to me it is possible, some people just are willing to take the risk of having a child.
        nsonha 5y ago
        > For whatever reason they were capable of not having sex for ~15 years "whatever" being not in a cohabitate relationship
    - nsonha 5y ago
      > The idea that life is plannable is again an indicator of a particular background and culture, that is representative of only a fraction of humans Again you bring up inequality while the discussion is around how to increase birth rate. You didn't even try to link inequality with birth rate. I guess it's cool to raise awareness by hijacking discussion of other issues?
- martindbp 5y ago
  > I am betting it is not a coincidence that the timeline for women’s financial independence and access to cheap and convenient birth control lines up with declining birth rates. So we're in agreement? Women are not having fewer kids because couples have less sex, it's because of things like financial independence and birth control that allows (and essentially requires) couples to plan for kids. And when you have to actively chose to have kids in this kind of environment you'll postpone it as long as you can, perhaps limiting yourself to one child, or none at all.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Sorry, I misread your comment as referring to throughout history, having kids was a choice and not a side effect (at least for women) from having sex.
BlargMcLarg 5y ago
Dating is also just a PitA for most people given the current payoff and the alternatives available, which doesn't help either. Few people enjoy a second job over their existing full-time job with a potentially much lower or even negative payoff.
GDC7 5y ago
> and it's STILL super hard to raise a child It's super hard because you want your child to have a better life than you, and from the get go. Parents nowadays want the trajectory of their child to be transposed upwards from the get go, and then be an up& to the right chart for their whole life. This was never the case in human history, people never really put much thought into reproduction, matter of fact people never really put much thought into anything. Very little time to wonder and price odds when you gotta go out and hunt to keep yourself alive. People aren't having children because they think too much about outcomes for themselves, for their potential children and so forth. Nature wanted reproduction to be impulsive, the whole planning for is humans shooting themselves in the foot.
- martindbp 5y ago
  I agree on the planning part, but I think the difficulty of raising a child is not only due to parents putting in more effort, although it's certainly a big part. Personally, we try to not put high expectations on our son, we don't have or plan on tons of extracurricular activities etc, but the first few years of their life is super hard anyway because of the constant sleep deprivation, the stress from having to perform at work despite this, and next to no free time for yourself or your relationship to your spouse. I think the reason it's harder now is mainly because both parents are expected to (and need to) work, and there's little support from the "village", because there is no village anymore. Grandparents live far away, kids don't just hang out in droves while one parent keeps an eye out through the kitchen window etc. There are so many factors that make parenting really time and energy consuming.
danielvf 5y ago
Where I live in the US southeast, non-professionals tend to get married at around 20-24 years old, then tend start having kids within a year or two of getting married. Income doesn't really factor at all. At least on the more conservative side, perhaps one reason this works economically is the culture of the wife staying home, and the husband working. Although the overall income is much lower, this makes the dollar cost of each additional child small - kids don't eat that much, and there are no child care costs. By having kids young, both your parents are still healthy and active.
- refurb 5y ago
  As someone with a kid whose spouse took extra time off work, it’s still a ton of work. I’d argue with a stay at home parent full-time until they are teens it’s still a massive undertaking. One well worth it (in my opinion), but if your life goal is money and career advancement kids don’t help in that regard.
  - martindbp 5y ago
    Yep, me and wife have an arrangement currently where I do all childcare outside of preschool (i.e. staying home when sick, drop off and pickup at 4, days the school is closed etc) which turns out to be quite often. I also take more of the household chores, maybe two thirds. In the time that's left I work on my own project. It's still a ton of work, but much more manageable than when we both worked full-time.
- cute_boi 5y ago
  Well the conservative side you are saying doesn't work these days because raising kids is not something that used to be in 90's. As a parents I think everybody want to see their children get high quality of life, luxurious things, good school etc. So both parents have to go to work to fulfill these demands. And we are taking about US which provides lot of incentives to parents tbh. And most of the time the costs starts to grow when children starts to go school.
refurb 5y ago
You’d be surprised the number of upper-middle class professionals I know who had a kid “by mistake” despite their being reliable ways to plan kids. It obviously clashes with the biological drive and risk taking. Most of them were ambivalent about having a kid (or more kids) so the unexpected pregnancy was taken in stride but I was surprised how many were unplanned.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

> Having children is not first and foremost a consequence of having sex, it's an active choice that you make plans for. Who is “you”? Is it a woman that has no financial independence in a society where she may have to fend for herself if she does not have unprotected sex without access to birth control? Because, until very recently, that probably describes most women’s circumstances when planning to have kids. I am betting it is not a coincidence that the timeline for women’s financial independence and access to cheap and convenient birth control lines up with declining birth rates.

nsonha 5y ago
way to insert an unrelated woke issue into the conversation > until very recently how about now? Fact of the matter is even in the developed countries where work isn't stressful and people do have sex, birth rate is still low. So simply encouraging people to have sex isn't the solution if you want more kids. I believe that's the point they are making.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I misread the comment I replied to as stating children were a choice throughout history. But my comment does not have anything to do with woke-ness. It is simply meant to show the extremely high cost of children made explicit now that women do not have to eat that cost.
- brnt 5y ago
  That had nothing to do with wokeness, it's an obvious bias in the observation. Outside of careerists circles, which is a tiny group, things are quite different. The idea that life is plannable is again an indicator of a particular background and culture, that is representative of only a fraction of humans.
  - rowanG077 5y ago
    Getting children is 100% plannable. Even if you have no access to birth control you can still choose to not have sex. That has nothing do to with background.
    - nsonha 5y ago
      > you can still choose to not have sex this I cannot agree with since it doesn't align with reality
      - rowanG077 5y ago
        Can you explain how it doesn't align with reality? It's not uncommon anymore that people who are 30 years old still never had sex. For whatever reason they were capable of not having sex for ~15 years. That quite clearly says to me it is possible, some people just are willing to take the risk of having a child.
      - nsonha 5y ago
        > For whatever reason they were capable of not having sex for ~15 years "whatever" being not in a cohabitate relationship
  - nsonha 5y ago
    > The idea that life is plannable is again an indicator of a particular background and culture, that is representative of only a fraction of humans Again you bring up inequality while the discussion is around how to increase birth rate. You didn't even try to link inequality with birth rate. I guess it's cool to raise awareness by hijacking discussion of other issues?
martindbp 5y ago
> I am betting it is not a coincidence that the timeline for women’s financial independence and access to cheap and convenient birth control lines up with declining birth rates. So we're in agreement? Women are not having fewer kids because couples have less sex, it's because of things like financial independence and birth control that allows (and essentially requires) couples to plan for kids. And when you have to actively chose to have kids in this kind of environment you'll postpone it as long as you can, perhaps limiting yourself to one child, or none at all.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Sorry, I misread your comment as referring to throughout history, having kids was a choice and not a side effect (at least for women) from having sex.

BlargMcLarg 5y ago

Dating is also just a PitA for most people given the current payoff and the alternatives available, which doesn't help either. Few people enjoy a second job over their existing full-time job with a potentially much lower or even negative payoff.

GDC7 5y ago

> and it's STILL super hard to raise a child It's super hard because you want your child to have a better life than you, and from the get go. Parents nowadays want the trajectory of their child to be transposed upwards from the get go, and then be an up& to the right chart for their whole life. This was never the case in human history, people never really put much thought into reproduction, matter of fact people never really put much thought into anything. Very little time to wonder and price odds when you gotta go out and hunt to keep yourself alive. People aren't having children because they think too much about outcomes for themselves, for their potential children and so forth. Nature wanted reproduction to be impulsive, the whole planning for is humans shooting themselves in the foot.

martindbp 5y ago
I agree on the planning part, but I think the difficulty of raising a child is not only due to parents putting in more effort, although it's certainly a big part. Personally, we try to not put high expectations on our son, we don't have or plan on tons of extracurricular activities etc, but the first few years of their life is super hard anyway because of the constant sleep deprivation, the stress from having to perform at work despite this, and next to no free time for yourself or your relationship to your spouse. I think the reason it's harder now is mainly because both parents are expected to (and need to) work, and there's little support from the "village", because there is no village anymore. Grandparents live far away, kids don't just hang out in droves while one parent keeps an eye out through the kitchen window etc. There are so many factors that make parenting really time and energy consuming.

danielvf 5y ago

Where I live in the US southeast, non-professionals tend to get married at around 20-24 years old, then tend start having kids within a year or two of getting married. Income doesn't really factor at all. At least on the more conservative side, perhaps one reason this works economically is the culture of the wife staying home, and the husband working. Although the overall income is much lower, this makes the dollar cost of each additional child small - kids don't eat that much, and there are no child care costs. By having kids young, both your parents are still healthy and active.

refurb 5y ago
As someone with a kid whose spouse took extra time off work, it’s still a ton of work. I’d argue with a stay at home parent full-time until they are teens it’s still a massive undertaking. One well worth it (in my opinion), but if your life goal is money and career advancement kids don’t help in that regard.
- martindbp 5y ago
  Yep, me and wife have an arrangement currently where I do all childcare outside of preschool (i.e. staying home when sick, drop off and pickup at 4, days the school is closed etc) which turns out to be quite often. I also take more of the household chores, maybe two thirds. In the time that's left I work on my own project. It's still a ton of work, but much more manageable than when we both worked full-time.
cute_boi 5y ago
Well the conservative side you are saying doesn't work these days because raising kids is not something that used to be in 90's. As a parents I think everybody want to see their children get high quality of life, luxurious things, good school etc. So both parents have to go to work to fulfill these demands. And we are taking about US which provides lot of incentives to parents tbh. And most of the time the costs starts to grow when children starts to go school.

refurb 5y ago

You’d be surprised the number of upper-middle class professionals I know who had a kid “by mistake” despite their being reliable ways to plan kids. It obviously clashes with the biological drive and risk taking. Most of them were ambivalent about having a kid (or more kids) so the unexpected pregnancy was taken in stride but I was surprised how many were unplanned.