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This is worded in a way that is a little confusing to me. "Not planning" to have children because "having a child was just assumed", and just letting it happen

This is worded in a way that is a little confusing to me. "Not planning" to have children because "having a child was just assumed", and just letting it happen whenever it happens, is still an explicit plan to have children, regardless of whether it falls under the umbrella of "family planning" as a formal term. Now, people are explicitly deciding not to have children. This would be true regardless of how actively or inactively people used to approach child-having.

AndrewKemendo 2y ago
Yes well that’s the point Until the 1970s there was no reliable way to decide to not have children while still being sexually active. That’s a well researched and documented change in biology that continues to be ignored for how massively impactful it has been on society. We take it for granted that you can have regular sex and not have a kid as a result. That’s extraordinarily new and powerful in human history. Said another way: The base rate of likelihood of having a child as a result of having sex has dropped to ~1% given the prevalence of oral contraception (99% with perfect use + Plan-B) and abortion (for gaps in perfect contraceptive use) from ~20% which was the failure rate of the most successful method of interruption + synchronization with menstrual cycle, prior to oc. A 20x drop in desired children is non-trivial and reflects a 20x base rate change.