8 ms·

I feel like the col is just an excuse for people that don't really want them anyway. Throughout history people have had children with very little material posse

I feel like the col is just an excuse for people that don't really want them anyway. Throughout history people have had children with very little material possessions. Talk to someone who went through the great depression about how you don't have enough money etc. to have kids. I think we've just brainwashed ourselves into believing you need to be ultra wealthy to give kids a good childhood. If you literally cannot afford to put a roof over their heads or feed them that's one thing. If you can't get the latest iphone or go buy a new Tesla and maybe have to sacrifice your yearly vacation to The Hamptons... well then you're just making up excuses. Kids can be very very happy with very little and sometimes it's even good for them to not be raised in a household where they believe everything just comes free and easy because that results in a lot of entitlement.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
zpeti 3y ago
I think this is a surface level explanation but there must be deeper reasons why people aren’t having children. Maybe our lives are so comfortable we just don’t want the inconvenience of children. Maybe we’re so obsessed with momentary hedonism that doing something extremely hard for 18 years doesn’t seem worth it. Maybe there are so many generational traumas built up over thousands of years that now that we have some awareness of mental health issues it’s really putting people off children before they are resolved. I don’t know what it is. But I definitely feel like we don’t know the answer as a society deep down. Edit: and the topic is so controversial I don’t know how we can find out. This whole issue might be about women in the workforce, or contraception, but touching these topics is insanely risky. Which is really bad, because we really need to understand in the next few decades.
- orangepurple 3y ago
  I suspect many more are blisfully unaware of what will happen to them when they inevitably end up in a nursing home. I'm not sure what you mean by generational traumas but if you mean what I think you mean they can be overcome. My grandparents vehemently hated certain specific ethnicities till the end because their brothers and sisters and parents were executed ("disappeared") by their soldiers and secret police. My parents are a product of being raised in their post-war hellhole. I was able to see past all that and grew up normally with friends local to my country. I suppose if my parents spoon fed me hate and persecution stories constantly I would develop some sort of PTSD.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - teg4n_ 3y ago
    I don’t think having children is protection against ending up in a nursing home.
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      There is a friend of our family who had his father die of Alzheimer's disease. For a long time lived with his wife: she was of sound mind, he was of sound body, and together they did very well. She died recently and he got a lot of help from him adult children. He was fortunate in that he had worked as an English professor for a lifetime and had a lot of retirement funds and had bought long-term care insurance. He moved into a long-term care facility once his wife died and had all sorts of misadventures in the COVID-19 period (went to the hospital, the care home wouldn't take him back, he moved back in with his son who was driven nuts by his father getting up in the night to pee, getting lost and urinating in the waste basket, eventually ended up at another care home, ...) His son was able to get him a lot of extra help, hire a bunch of aides like my wife who would come around and make sure he still got some socialization. It really helped that he was not anxious at all and never got belligerent despite being confused all the time. So far as getting support this is about the best case you can image: having the financial resources to pay for care, and having family members that supplement it and make the most of it. He spent his last few months in a real nursing home and in a place like that the staff is always making mistakes (sometimes serious, often not so serious) and if you have family members watching out for you you will get much better care than someone who isn't.
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      In some jurisdictions, the adult children of elderly people are absolutely on the hook for their care. At least this is from a financial standpoint. They could put them in a facility, or care for them at home, but they cannot abandon the parents or leave them to their own devices. I believe that this sort of regulation lay dormant for a long time, but is now being more actively enforced, because of abuses and problems that arise when children don't care at all.
seneca 3y ago
I think you're largely right, but there is also the fact the expectations for childrearing have significantly increased. Several generations ago children had jobs. One or two generations ago children were allowed to roam the streets until dark. Now parents have the police called on them for letting a child walk to the park alone, and are expected to curate a list of extracurricular activities they then chauffeur their child to. I'm very much not in the "it's too expensive/hard to have kids camp", but I do think we've raised the costs in many ways, at least in the US.
logicchains 3y ago
>Throughout history people have had children with very little material possessions. Talk to someone who went through the great depression about how you don't have enough money etc. to have kids. Historically (and in very undeveloped countries today) kids were assets; they could work in the parents' farm or shop, clean the house, tend to the animals, etc. In modern culture parents get essentially nothing from kids in a financial sense, so there's much less monetary incentive to have children.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  Also it was pretty easy to lose them. Specially young, but even later. Wars, disease, accidents. So you also wanted a backups. Going even back to beginning of previous century, having 5-7 kids and losing 2-4 of them was common.
Blikkentrekker 3y ago
Why would people make up excuses? They simply don't want them. My “excuse” for not having children is the same “excuse” I have for that I'm not a firefighter: I have no interest in it.
- bzzzt 3y ago
  Even when it's your own house that is on fire?
  - Blikkentrekker 3y ago
    I would absolutely not as an untrained person try to firefight my own house rather than rely on trained professionals for that, no.
- xyzzy4747 3y ago
  Curious: have you ever considered going to a therapist about this? It's not psychologically normal to never want children. I wouldn't be surprised if it was also co-morbid with other psychological issues.
  - nickthegreek 3y ago
    Have you ever considered going to a therapist? Telling strangers that they need to procreate is not psychologically normal. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was also co-morbid with other psychological issues.
    - xyzzy4747 3y ago
      They don't need to procreate, but not wanting to at all is a sign something is off.
  - Blikkentrekker 3y ago
    https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2023/childfree-study-confirmed-April2023 https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2023/childfree-study-confirmed... Apparently it's very normal. On top of that “abnormal” does not mean “unhealthy”, but then again, that's something psychologists very often don't understand either. Having an I.Q. above 145 is certainly not “normal”, but not a cause for concern either.
orangepurple 3y ago
Agree that col is an excuse. Exhibit A: Husband works for less than a dollar per day to buy food for wife and four kids: https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=1476 https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=1476 Exhibit B: Abdala has two wives and two children and makes less about a dollar per day as a boat captain. https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=541 https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=541 Exhibit C: Huge families abound the community despite extreme poverty. https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=1736 https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=1736 Exhibit D: Mother with two kids survives despite losing everything in a hurricane. Total net worth probably under $10. https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=2080 https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=2080 Exhibit E: Me. I am poor and I have three kids.
PaulHoule 3y ago
It was different in premodern cultures. Back then a child could be contributing positively to the farm in a few years and don't need a lot of training because they want to do the same things people around them are doing. Power tools require a certain level of maturity and judgement, my son was able to pick up a hoe when he was a toddler but our tractor has a weight switch in the seat and we had to make him wear a backpack with weights in it to drive it for the first time. (We even had a small adult woman living at the farm who was too light to trigger the switch.) (My son didn't make a positive contribution, however, to the family business, a riding academy, until his mid teens. Until then he was always a little resentful of the horses since they were the reason his mom was often not around. Then there was that day he was roughhousing in the barn, a behavior the horses can find a little offputting, and he realized that one horse was taking an interest in his activity and that got him to recognize the social intelligence of horses... Before then we were worried about who would cut the hay when the farmer who does it retired, now we are not.) Contrast that to the current day where children are an economic cost up to high school graduation if not college, grad school, etc. and whether or not kids go to college they often seem to have an adolescence that extends into the mid 20's. Back in the day a huge family was your retirement, now we have social security and stocks and bonds (which are still dependent on demographics.) I've known a few people who have had huge families (10+ kids) in the modern day and they have a very different mindset. It's not as much work and cost once you reach a certain point as the older kids help take care of the younger kids and that gets around the "parents are not gods" problem that are talked about in https://www.amazon.com/Parent-Effectiveness-Training-Responsible-Children/dp/0609806939 https://www.amazon.com/Parent-Effectiveness-Training-Respons... also there are a lot of hand-me-downs and other synergies. (Although my dad was quite bitter about getting hand-me-downs and sharing the bed with his brothers...) A lot of the increased "standard of living" is not the things we think are optional (and "consumption") like the iPhone and the vacations, but rather the things that we think are necessary (and even "an investment") such as health care, a house in an expensive neighborhood with a good school district, etc. Remember this Liz Warren classic https://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Parents-Still-dp-0465097707/dp/0465097707/ref=dp_ob_title_bk https://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Parents-...
thunderbird120 3y ago
Raising kids is difficult and time consuming. As people gain more opportunities to do other things than raise kids they chose to do those other things instead. It's an opportunity cost issue, not a literal cost issue. That's why the birth rates goes down rather than up as you climb income percentiles. People with more money have more opportunities. The only real force to counteract that is cultural/social pressure to raise kids which has also fallen off pretty hard. It might be less obvious to younger people or people with younger parents but having kids was much less of a "decision" for couples not that many decades ago and was much more just an assumed fact. If you didn't, people assumed there was something wrong with you.
- taylodl 3y ago
  > having kids was much less of a "decision" for couples not that many decades ago and was much more just an assumed fact To your point, oftentimes the marriage wasn't considered valid if there were no children, after all, what evidence was there that the marriage had been consummated? In fact, that we used to talk about a marriage being "consummated" shows how our views on marriage and family have changed in a very brief timeframe.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    > To your point, oftentimes the marriage wasn't considered valid if there were no children, after all, what evidence was there that the marriage had been consummated? No, I don't know what culture or religion you're referring to, but this is absolutely backwards to what the Catholic Churches (and, by extension, other Christians) believe and teach. First of all, every marriage that is going to be valid, is valid without consummation. Remember, Joseph married Mary and they never consummated: she retained her perpetual virginity, so that is our gold standard. Now, traditionally for the Catholic Church, if the bride and groom were alone together after the wedding, consummation is presumed. It might be difficult to disprove a consummation, children or no children, because a married man and woman will naturally wish to do what is natural to their state in life, and will indeed be encouraged to have as much sex as they wish. Interestingly, if the man or woman is fully impotent and unable to complete the marital embrace, then the marriage is invalid from the start. The ability to consummate is vital to validity, but not the fact of consummation itself. Christian marriages (and natural marriages) are valid from the moment the spouses exchange consent. The consent makes the marriage. Full stop. Of course, consent must be given by qualified persons, in an approved ceremony, before the proper witnesses, too. Now, a consummated Christian marriage (between a baptized man and baptized woman) has a special property: it is absolutely indissoluble. There is nothing in Heaven or Earth that can separate the marriage bond in this case, except the death of a spouse. Now it follows that if a consummated, sacramental marriage is indissoluble, then an unconsummated marriage may, in certain cases, be dissolved, and this is correct. If the couple finds trouble and procures a divorce, then the Catholic Church may grant a dissolution of the bond. This is different from a declaration of nullity ("annulment"). A dissolved marriage recognizes the validity of what came before, but for some reason it was broken up. I hope that helps; Christian marriage law, and Catholic canon law, is rather confusing and surprising to most laypeople.
ZoomerCretin 3y ago
It's about time poverty, not material poverty. The Japanese work too many hours to care for children, and the cultural expectations for mothers are very traditional and unpopular.
bittercynic 3y ago
Some of it may be cautious attitudes re: the next few decades on Earth. Climate change may make it even more competitive to survive in areas where the weather is pleasant. People are already being displaced by climate change. Horrible for the displaced people, and may contribute to crowding somewhere else. Increasing numbers of people and increasing expectations for material wealth may lead to more frequent and widespread conflicts over resources. It's possible I'll get to live a full life before things get too bad, but I'd only be adding to the troubles by bringing more humans onto the planet. If we can get fertility rates low enough, and find ways to adapt economic systems to cope gracefully with declining populations, maybe our troubles can be mitigated.
francisofascii 3y ago
> I think we've just brainwashed ourselves into believing you need to be ultra wealthy to give kids a good childhood At the heart of this people want to give their kids the same or a better life than what they received. People have trouble accepting a lower standard of living even if it leads to better non monetary outcomes. Just like some people choose to stay in a high paying job they dislike, rather than take a pay cut for a more satisfying job. It is unfair bar we place on ourselves.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

zpeti 3y ago

I think this is a surface level explanation but there must be deeper reasons why people aren’t having children. Maybe our lives are so comfortable we just don’t want the inconvenience of children. Maybe we’re so obsessed with momentary hedonism that doing something extremely hard for 18 years doesn’t seem worth it. Maybe there are so many generational traumas built up over thousands of years that now that we have some awareness of mental health issues it’s really putting people off children before they are resolved. I don’t know what it is. But I definitely feel like we don’t know the answer as a society deep down. Edit: and the topic is so controversial I don’t know how we can find out. This whole issue might be about women in the workforce, or contraception, but touching these topics is insanely risky. Which is really bad, because we really need to understand in the next few decades.

orangepurple 3y ago
I suspect many more are blisfully unaware of what will happen to them when they inevitably end up in a nursing home. I'm not sure what you mean by generational traumas but if you mean what I think you mean they can be overcome. My grandparents vehemently hated certain specific ethnicities till the end because their brothers and sisters and parents were executed ("disappeared") by their soldiers and secret police. My parents are a product of being raised in their post-war hellhole. I was able to see past all that and grew up normally with friends local to my country. I suppose if my parents spoon fed me hate and persecution stories constantly I would develop some sort of PTSD.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- teg4n_ 3y ago
  I don’t think having children is protection against ending up in a nursing home.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    There is a friend of our family who had his father die of Alzheimer's disease. For a long time lived with his wife: she was of sound mind, he was of sound body, and together they did very well. She died recently and he got a lot of help from him adult children. He was fortunate in that he had worked as an English professor for a lifetime and had a lot of retirement funds and had bought long-term care insurance. He moved into a long-term care facility once his wife died and had all sorts of misadventures in the COVID-19 period (went to the hospital, the care home wouldn't take him back, he moved back in with his son who was driven nuts by his father getting up in the night to pee, getting lost and urinating in the waste basket, eventually ended up at another care home, ...) His son was able to get him a lot of extra help, hire a bunch of aides like my wife who would come around and make sure he still got some socialization. It really helped that he was not anxious at all and never got belligerent despite being confused all the time. So far as getting support this is about the best case you can image: having the financial resources to pay for care, and having family members that supplement it and make the most of it. He spent his last few months in a real nursing home and in a place like that the staff is always making mistakes (sometimes serious, often not so serious) and if you have family members watching out for you you will get much better care than someone who isn't.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    In some jurisdictions, the adult children of elderly people are absolutely on the hook for their care. At least this is from a financial standpoint. They could put them in a facility, or care for them at home, but they cannot abandon the parents or leave them to their own devices. I believe that this sort of regulation lay dormant for a long time, but is now being more actively enforced, because of abuses and problems that arise when children don't care at all.

seneca 3y ago

I think you're largely right, but there is also the fact the expectations for childrearing have significantly increased. Several generations ago children had jobs. One or two generations ago children were allowed to roam the streets until dark. Now parents have the police called on them for letting a child walk to the park alone, and are expected to curate a list of extracurricular activities they then chauffeur their child to. I'm very much not in the "it's too expensive/hard to have kids camp", but I do think we've raised the costs in many ways, at least in the US.

logicchains 3y ago

>Throughout history people have had children with very little material possessions. Talk to someone who went through the great depression about how you don't have enough money etc. to have kids. Historically (and in very undeveloped countries today) kids were assets; they could work in the parents' farm or shop, clean the house, tend to the animals, etc. In modern culture parents get essentially nothing from kids in a financial sense, so there's much less monetary incentive to have children.

Ekaros 3y ago
Also it was pretty easy to lose them. Specially young, but even later. Wars, disease, accidents. So you also wanted a backups. Going even back to beginning of previous century, having 5-7 kids and losing 2-4 of them was common.

Blikkentrekker 3y ago

Why would people make up excuses? They simply don't want them. My “excuse” for not having children is the same “excuse” I have for that I'm not a firefighter: I have no interest in it.

bzzzt 3y ago
Even when it's your own house that is on fire?
- Blikkentrekker 3y ago
  I would absolutely not as an untrained person try to firefight my own house rather than rely on trained professionals for that, no.
xyzzy4747 3y ago
Curious: have you ever considered going to a therapist about this? It's not psychologically normal to never want children. I wouldn't be surprised if it was also co-morbid with other psychological issues.
- nickthegreek 3y ago
  Have you ever considered going to a therapist? Telling strangers that they need to procreate is not psychologically normal. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was also co-morbid with other psychological issues.
  - xyzzy4747 3y ago
    They don't need to procreate, but not wanting to at all is a sign something is off.
- Blikkentrekker 3y ago
  https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2023/childfree-study-confirmed-April2023 https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2023/childfree-study-confirmed... Apparently it's very normal. On top of that “abnormal” does not mean “unhealthy”, but then again, that's something psychologists very often don't understand either. Having an I.Q. above 145 is certainly not “normal”, but not a cause for concern either.

orangepurple 3y ago

Agree that col is an excuse. Exhibit A: Husband works for less than a dollar per day to buy food for wife and four kids: https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=1476 https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=1476 Exhibit B: Abdala has two wives and two children and makes less about a dollar per day as a boat captain. https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=541 https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=541 Exhibit C: Huge families abound the community despite extreme poverty. https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=1736 https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=1736 Exhibit D: Mother with two kids survives despite losing everything in a hurricane. Total net worth probably under $10. https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=2080 https://youtu.be/_9Eopzpa6QY?t=2080 Exhibit E: Me. I am poor and I have three kids.

PaulHoule 3y ago

It was different in premodern cultures. Back then a child could be contributing positively to the farm in a few years and don't need a lot of training because they want to do the same things people around them are doing. Power tools require a certain level of maturity and judgement, my son was able to pick up a hoe when he was a toddler but our tractor has a weight switch in the seat and we had to make him wear a backpack with weights in it to drive it for the first time. (We even had a small adult woman living at the farm who was too light to trigger the switch.) (My son didn't make a positive contribution, however, to the family business, a riding academy, until his mid teens. Until then he was always a little resentful of the horses since they were the reason his mom was often not around. Then there was that day he was roughhousing in the barn, a behavior the horses can find a little offputting, and he realized that one horse was taking an interest in his activity and that got him to recognize the social intelligence of horses... Before then we were worried about who would cut the hay when the farmer who does it retired, now we are not.) Contrast that to the current day where children are an economic cost up to high school graduation if not college, grad school, etc. and whether or not kids go to college they often seem to have an adolescence that extends into the mid 20's. Back in the day a huge family was your retirement, now we have social security and stocks and bonds (which are still dependent on demographics.) I've known a few people who have had huge families (10+ kids) in the modern day and they have a very different mindset. It's not as much work and cost once you reach a certain point as the older kids help take care of the younger kids and that gets around the "parents are not gods" problem that are talked about in https://www.amazon.com/Parent-Effectiveness-Training-Responsible-Children/dp/0609806939 https://www.amazon.com/Parent-Effectiveness-Training-Respons... also there are a lot of hand-me-downs and other synergies. (Although my dad was quite bitter about getting hand-me-downs and sharing the bed with his brothers...) A lot of the increased "standard of living" is not the things we think are optional (and "consumption") like the iPhone and the vacations, but rather the things that we think are necessary (and even "an investment") such as health care, a house in an expensive neighborhood with a good school district, etc. Remember this Liz Warren classic https://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Parents-Still-dp-0465097707/dp/0465097707/ref=dp_ob_title_bk https://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Parents-...

thunderbird120 3y ago

Raising kids is difficult and time consuming. As people gain more opportunities to do other things than raise kids they chose to do those other things instead. It's an opportunity cost issue, not a literal cost issue. That's why the birth rates goes down rather than up as you climb income percentiles. People with more money have more opportunities. The only real force to counteract that is cultural/social pressure to raise kids which has also fallen off pretty hard. It might be less obvious to younger people or people with younger parents but having kids was much less of a "decision" for couples not that many decades ago and was much more just an assumed fact. If you didn't, people assumed there was something wrong with you.

taylodl 3y ago
> having kids was much less of a "decision" for couples not that many decades ago and was much more just an assumed fact To your point, oftentimes the marriage wasn't considered valid if there were no children, after all, what evidence was there that the marriage had been consummated? In fact, that we used to talk about a marriage being "consummated" shows how our views on marriage and family have changed in a very brief timeframe.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  > To your point, oftentimes the marriage wasn't considered valid if there were no children, after all, what evidence was there that the marriage had been consummated? No, I don't know what culture or religion you're referring to, but this is absolutely backwards to what the Catholic Churches (and, by extension, other Christians) believe and teach. First of all, every marriage that is going to be valid, is valid without consummation. Remember, Joseph married Mary and they never consummated: she retained her perpetual virginity, so that is our gold standard. Now, traditionally for the Catholic Church, if the bride and groom were alone together after the wedding, consummation is presumed. It might be difficult to disprove a consummation, children or no children, because a married man and woman will naturally wish to do what is natural to their state in life, and will indeed be encouraged to have as much sex as they wish. Interestingly, if the man or woman is fully impotent and unable to complete the marital embrace, then the marriage is invalid from the start. The ability to consummate is vital to validity, but not the fact of consummation itself. Christian marriages (and natural marriages) are valid from the moment the spouses exchange consent. The consent makes the marriage. Full stop. Of course, consent must be given by qualified persons, in an approved ceremony, before the proper witnesses, too. Now, a consummated Christian marriage (between a baptized man and baptized woman) has a special property: it is absolutely indissoluble. There is nothing in Heaven or Earth that can separate the marriage bond in this case, except the death of a spouse. Now it follows that if a consummated, sacramental marriage is indissoluble, then an unconsummated marriage may, in certain cases, be dissolved, and this is correct. If the couple finds trouble and procures a divorce, then the Catholic Church may grant a dissolution of the bond. This is different from a declaration of nullity ("annulment"). A dissolved marriage recognizes the validity of what came before, but for some reason it was broken up. I hope that helps; Christian marriage law, and Catholic canon law, is rather confusing and surprising to most laypeople.

ZoomerCretin 3y ago

It's about time poverty, not material poverty. The Japanese work too many hours to care for children, and the cultural expectations for mothers are very traditional and unpopular.

bittercynic 3y ago

Some of it may be cautious attitudes re: the next few decades on Earth. Climate change may make it even more competitive to survive in areas where the weather is pleasant. People are already being displaced by climate change. Horrible for the displaced people, and may contribute to crowding somewhere else. Increasing numbers of people and increasing expectations for material wealth may lead to more frequent and widespread conflicts over resources. It's possible I'll get to live a full life before things get too bad, but I'd only be adding to the troubles by bringing more humans onto the planet. If we can get fertility rates low enough, and find ways to adapt economic systems to cope gracefully with declining populations, maybe our troubles can be mitigated.

francisofascii 3y ago

> I think we've just brainwashed ourselves into believing you need to be ultra wealthy to give kids a good childhood At the heart of this people want to give their kids the same or a better life than what they received. People have trouble accepting a lower standard of living even if it leads to better non monetary outcomes. Just like some people choose to stay in a high paying job they dislike, rather than take a pay cut for a more satisfying job. It is unfair bar we place on ourselves.