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My anecdotal experience, which illustrates how changing societal norms may be contributing. Around 1960, my grandmother scandalously fell pregnant with my moth

My anecdotal experience, which illustrates how changing societal norms may be contributing. Around 1960, my grandmother scandalously fell pregnant with my mother in her late teens. The child was adopted out - well, not out - in. To her own grandmother, to be raised as a "younger sister" to her own mother. Around 1980, my mother scandalously fell pregnant with me, in her late teens. Despite family disapproval, the child was had, because it was the done thing. It wasn't a time of simple, easy access to birth control and other procedures. In the late 90's, my late-teens girlfriend scandalously fell pregnant. Her parents + the medical system swung straight into full control, a termination was a foregone conclusion, and we were simply dragged along by the expectations of society at that time. I'm heading towards 50 now, and have no children. I guess that "scandalous mistake" is the only real chance some people ever get in life, though they don't know it at the time. And for us, modern society's ways effectively eliminated it.

Qem 1y ago
I'm sorry for your loss.
- lisbbb 1y ago
  What loss? It was not her but her "girlfriend" which I don't even know how to correctly interpret these days. Is she saying it was her love interest or just a friend who is female? Heaven knows! Kids aren't even dating anymore hardly. My son (15) is having a horrible time navigating social interactions. The girls at his school are all horrible people, it seems (not true, I'm sure, but I constantly have to hear about how he is treated like crap by the girls all the time).
  - tayo42 1y ago
    Idk if that's anything new. There was a movie about this 20 years ago
    - ta8645 1y ago
      Mad Max?
  - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
    It goes both ways. Add to this that boys today have been raised on a steady diet of pornography on their smartphones from a young age and never taught to master their impulses and learn genuinely masculine virtue. What do you think this does to their perception and treatment of women? And women are taught to view sex as an instrument of power and control (look at the number of young women with OnlyFans accounts), and raised on a steady diet of viewing men as sleazes by nature, not by condition. They are not taught feminine virtue. What do you think will do to female behavior? The cycle continues. The cycle must be broken by admitting that boys can be raised to be self-sacrificing gentlemen who have no interest in bad women, and girls can be raised to be loving ladies who can discern between exploitative jerks and noble men.
    - csomar 1y ago
      Pretty sure my interactions with 60+ old man and the younger generation refutes this. Of course this is anecdotal but you also offer no evidence whatsoever.
    - sapphicsnail 1y ago
      It's not like younger men are great but older men say the grossest things and tend to he way more patronizing.
refurb 1y ago
Underrated comment right here. When the baseline belief in society goes from “make it work” to “better to end the pregnancy” it shouldn’t be surprising that overall the number of birth goes way down.
- more_corn 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - epolanski 1y ago
    He hasn't said that, but he's pointing out, correctly, that if you want to go to past numbers, you need to increase teenage and very young women having children. Or, by extension, promote older women having babies at rates they never had.
- groby_b 1y ago
  The US sees about 20K teen pregnancy abortions. That's probably not why the number of births is way down. Number of births in the US are ~3.6M right now. We also have 1M abortions per year. That's - if abortions were the sole problem - 4.6M births / 330M people. Except... It was 4.3M births / 177M people in 1960. Double the current rate. It dropped off sharply right after the 1960s. Not coincidentally right when the pill was introduced. It never was about "better end the pregnancy". It was always about women having a say, instead of being default-delegated to brood mare. We landed in a ~stable equilibrium with that, with a TFR of 2.1 in 1990. And then live births dropped again, like a stone. And, oddly, so did abortions. Which implies that the likely problem is a drop in pregnancies in the 1990s. Teen abortions are a tiny irrelevant side show compared to this. So maybe let's not speculate on "baseline beliefs of society" based on what's noise in the statistics.
  - d0gsg0w00f 1y ago
    No telling what contraceptives have contributed. We didn't really use contraceptives and we had three "oopses". Those three oopses are pretty awesome. Nothing like a kid to help you get your head out of your ass. Probably why people report feeling happier, because you can't think about the stupid stuff you used to worry about.
jeffbee 1y ago
I'm not sure this scans really because teenage births as well as teenage pregnancies enjoyed a local peak around 1990. There certainly was not a general pan-American societal instinct against teenage births at that time. The rate has fallen by more than 75% since. Even the mother-under-15 birth rate in 1990 was ridiculous (about 10x more than today, in most states).
- wahern 1y ago
  Teenage births peaked in the late 1950s, by a significant margin. See https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/02/why-is-the-teen-birth-rate-falling/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/02/why-is-th... It's difficult to find teenage pregnancy rates before 1972, let alone multiple sources, but if you look at Guttmacher's numbers both teenage pregnancy and abortion rates ramped up significantly between the late 1970s and early 1990s. See https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/USTPtrends10.pdf#page=11 https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/UST... Teenage abortions rates are even more difficult to find before 1972, but abortion certainly existed in the 1950s, and given the birth rate it's possible teenage pregnancy rates were also higher in the 1950s and 60s. Also, notwithstanding that the data does coincide with the given narrative, one must also consider socio-economic and cultural factors--pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates aren't homogenous across groups. For example, the OP (or their girlfriend) could have been from a segment of society at the trailing edge of a trend.
  - jeffbee 1y ago
    I don't doubt their personal narrative, I just am not sure the generalized conclusion they drew from it was proper.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  The local peak around 1990 was a very small bump from the flat run through the 1980s, and was probably a brief rebound effect of the extreme negative social pressure related to unprotected casual sex stemming from the AIDS crisis fading a bit as that became perceived as less acute of a threat, and there numbers dropped rapidly after that peak, quickly going through the floor they had settled in during the long flat period preceding the brief rise and peak. So it is not at all inconsistent with a strong social force against teenage births existing and being acted on in the late 1990s, in fact, had that not existed the rise up to the 1990 peak would probably not have been so brief and followed by a rapid drop that went straight through the preceding floor.
XorNot 1y ago
[flagged]
- scottyah 1y ago
  I think the point of the post is that society has changed its stance on having kids. People who aren't purposefully branching out on their own and are just "going with the flow" of their external influences are more likely to not have kids. Everyone still has the choice, but the default has changed for most of us.
- zdragnar 1y ago
  [flagged]
bachmeier 1y ago
[flagged]
- andrewmcwatters 1y ago
  I read a lot of stupid, vapid, ridiculous things frequently posted on Hacker News, and this is not one of them. It's just a human experience.
- mapotofu 1y ago
  I honestly don’t know how you can say this. When my son was born, we were asked enough times about circumcision that it seemed like a battle to get to “no”. (USA) The system has a system and a narrative. If you’re working against the narrative you have to be very prepared.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    The system indeed has a narrative and plan and if you don’t actively work against it, you get it. And it switches relatively quickly (all the propaganda is anti-dikksnip at our birth center now).
  - wl 1y ago
    It's less that hospitals are pushing circumcision and more that there's a discharge checklist everyone is working from and the circumcision question is on it. The repetition is some combination of verifying your answer and/or people not reading the notes other people have written when they document your answer. If your answer were "yes, we want a circumcision," they'd be asking you repeatedly just the same until they actually did it.
    - Mawr 1y ago
      It shouldn't even be legal, much less on a checklist. Doctors will swear up and down on their oaths or whatever other high horse when it comes to euthanasia, but mutilating children without their consent is all good!
  - Aurornis 1y ago
UncleMeat 1y ago
Abortions are not the primary reason why teen pregnancy is way down. There's actual data, you know. Fewer teen pregnancies is a reason why birth rates in the US are declining. But it isn't driven by abortion. And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place.
- senectus1 1y ago
  While I agree, his experience is also salient. Ease of access to birth control and ease and safety of abortion will be having a very detectable impact on the birthrate. Not saying they need to be restricted, just that they're very relevant data points.
  - teitoklien 1y ago
    it is heavily politicized, atleast for the forseable future, until society reaches a conclusion, people will lie with statistics, smear their opponents in discussion as bigots, sexists, whatever. But sooner or later it needs to be asked and acted upon. Should society structure itself to penalise abortions, and reward births of children. Did our old religious and conservative societies where parents and grandparents helped together to give a great childhood to 2 or more children be something we need to bring back (for folks who'll say back then kids didnt have a great childhood, aborted children have NO childhood a death for themselves that they didnt choose). Should premarital intercourse be banned again or shunned ? Religions have brought tons of miseries causing constant conflicts between communities, wars, allowing politicians and rulers to manipulate masses. However, they also carried laws and doctrines refined over centuries, on philosophy, morality, and most importantly societal structure. Monogamy itself and the construct of marriage was refined and finalized in all major religions Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc across several centuries (and in some cases greater than 1000 yrs). One must consider, why did our ancestors come to certain conclusions globally regardless of faith around societal structure? What conditions did they want to create across society, to bring about prosperity or growth. Why were certain conservative and unpopular opinions regardless were imposed on men and women alike. We should remove all the horrible stuff, things we can leave behind that our ancestors used to do sure. but throwing everything away is also not going to lead to anything good for us in the future. Should abortion be readily accessible simply for the sake of liberty and freedom ? Should contraceptives be widely made available and promoted ? , should families force kids to be responsible for their actions again, and first try their best to give their newly born child a better life before allowed to just throw everything apart with divorces, single parent childhood, etc. Should premarital intercourse be banned , to encourage youth to form meaningful relationship instead of coasting between new girlfriends and boyfriends every new year ? Im not saying we should do X, but these questions will need to be asked sooner or later, if western society or even asian societies want to survive (both have ultra low birthrates, china, japan, korea, russia, even india is now going the below tfr rate and will join them far sooner than was estimated within 20 yrs). I really love european, american and asian societies and cultures, and i dont want them to die off, or perish away. Even my own culture's TFR is 0.98 for multiple decades and its perishing away quite fast too. Hard questions will need to be asked in the future. It's not just a matter of what feels right to our emotional minds at a moment, but rather, whats best for society and cultures itself long term. Not to mention, housing prices need to go way down, it needs to be removed from being a speculative asset or a way to whitewash black money, its wreaking havoc on whatever remaining part of society that does want kids, but cant afford to own a home by age of 30 even with double income household. We have enough land to house the entire world in each of the major countries, yet just out of sheer regulation, greed and laziness from politicians, policymakers, and banks who are afraid of the housing market crashing and causing problems for them, they are keeping this charade up. There are many problems that need to be solved in coming decades, I hope each of our societies solve it.
swat535 1y ago
I think the uncomfortable truth that many are reluctant to admit is that religion and societal norms (as you highlighted above) played a major role in this. I'm not discounting other facts such as the housing crisis or cost of living but I fear that while those are important, they are secondary. Women were often forced to carry a child due to outside pressure and had no recourse. However since the introduction of safe abortions and readily accessible birth control methods, they have regained their bodily autonomy which allows them to skip unwanted pregnancies. I think that ultimately, liberating women is a _good_ thing because child bearing is difficult and no one women should be forced to go through it. With all that said, having children can be wonderful. Perhaps a better solution is to both celebrate and encourage families while keeping abortion and birth control accessible. It doesn't have to be a binary choice.
- sebmellen 1y ago
  The issue is not so much the access to the methods, but the negative feedback loop that they cause. For every woman freed from unwanted childbearing, how many are socially pressured into not having a child? Anecdotally, this is something that my wife and I experienced as relatively young parents (~24 at first child): people expect abortion to be the default. I can't tell you how many people asked us when we were going to “just get rid of the thing” because they expected that to be the default option. We have no idea how damaging this effect is to overall fertility. The saddest part is that many women will get to an age where they do want to have one or more children, but because they are closer to the end of their fertile window, they cannot. I’ve seen this happen to my extended friends and family far more than the “unwanted pregnancy” scenario, which I’ve only seen happen once. Fundamentally, there's perhaps a broader philosophical divide. Do you believe that children are burdensome, or the most valuable thing you can produce in life? If you think the former, it's nearly impossible to feel any motivation to tolerate the difficulty of pregnancy and childbearing.
  - jalapenos 1y ago
    Simpler than this: how long does an unwanted pregnancy remain unwanted? Basically 9 months tops. After than it's automatically into rearing mode and don't have time to mull such crap. Then as the shock peters off after a year or so, any original thoughts or utterings of "unwanted" get code-of-silence buried til the end of days, and don't ever come back.
rsync 1y ago
I thought your anecdote was interesting and thought provoking and I appreciate that you posted it. Thank you. I am disappointed at the hostile reaction it provoked in some others ... as if you, or your anecdote, reminded them of something that angered them and they lost track of the difference.
- crtified 1y ago
  Thank you! I have taken any off-tone responses in stride, on the understanding that child-bearing is a very contentious and emotional issue for many.
thrownearacc 1y ago
Oh, I’m sure some “anecdotal” stories will come up, painting a perfect picture of the “good old days” — without calling them that, of course. Here's one then: Take my great-grandfather, for example. 56, falls head over heels for a 14-year-old girl from church, and boom — 30 days later, they’re married. 8 months later, my grandfather’s born. They stayed married for 50 years. My grandmother was 16 when she married my 47-year-old grandfather after a chance meeting in the woods, and, guess what, smooth pregnancy again. My parents? Same song, different verse. Now, fast forward to today: I broke up with my girlfriend (late 30s, early 40s) because we wanted kids, but couldn’t conceive — and back then when were were younger and when we could, I couldn’t afford it. See, back then, the older man was not only virile but also financially set, while the young woman could pop out babies at the drop of pants. Yeah, those “good old days” sound amazing. Make World Pregnant Again.
- Exoristos 1y ago
  Extraordinary how poverty makes a family impossible but only in certain ZIP codes.
- squigz 1y ago
  Your 56 year old great grandfather married a 14 year old girl and was married for 50 years?
  - jalapenos 1y ago
    [flagged]
- jalapenos 1y ago
  I mean, at least you're not propagating that woods-rapist line?
- crtified 1y ago
  It's actually interesting what underlying prejudices readers project upon the anecdotes of others. In actual fact, I was merely offering a data point. I have no agenda, I am not in the slightest anti-abortion, I am not against 100% female bodily autonomy, I do not consider past generations to be "the good old days" - the events I described were traumatic for everybody involved - and I do not profess to be qualified to draw any conclusions, or to claim that what happened to me is why the world has changed. I can only see certain cause and effect chains relating to my own generational situation, and suggested that such changing norms may be one factor in the mix. May.
seanmcdirmid 1y ago
Having kids when you are young and financially not established is just irresponsible, but particularly female bodies don’t do well having kids older when you are established enough to do so responsibly. I’m having this problem right now with my spouse (we have a kid, but are thinking about another), it’s just super hard to get pregnant without medical help.
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  There are also huge probability multipliers in congenital and cognitive problems with late pregnancies.
- evilsetg 1y ago
  Maybe we as a society should decide that having children is fine when you don't have a stable career yet and finance it as such. The contradiction that our most fertile years are also the most unstable is something society could and should balance. EDIT: typo
  - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
    Definitely, but having children when you aren't stable yourself and society isn't going to help out much could wind up in disaster. "Let's play life on hard/hell mode" doesn't really sound appealing to me. There are things we could do as a society to make this easier: socialized child care (like we do with school) for one thing. Better welfare, making it easier to go to college when you have kids, etc... But we aren't really doing those, most definitely not doing those in the states, and even in other western countries with better social safety nets. If you want society to have more kids, maybe we have to socialize child rearing more than we do today?
- squigz 1y ago
  Don't the difficulties in pregnancy related to age tend to come up around 40 or older? I don't think the choices need to be "have children at 19 years old" or "have children at 40" - surely having kids at 30-35 is still physically fine and gives you some time to become more financially secure?
mensetmanusman 1y ago
My mother was also the product of a failed abortion. Crazy to think how different the world would be. Now I have 8 kids!
csomar 1y ago
Oh it’s sure birth control that’s doing it and not the backward societal norms that are still sticking. Thanks for pointing out that the baby boom happened by accidental births and confirming it with your own anecdotal evidence.
pyuser583 1y ago
No you are not heading towards 50 if you were born in 1980. You are nowhere near 50, and I refuse to believe otherwise!
KolibriFly 1y ago
It's a perspective that often gets lost in the macro-level fertility discussions: how many births never happen not because people don’t want kids, but because the only off-ramp they might've taken got paved over by modern expectations, norms and etc
- squigz 1y ago
  In the past, how many people had kids not because they wanted to but because of social expectations, norms, etc?
  - sebmellen 1y ago
    In the present, how many of your daily actions and decisions are made not because you want to but because of social expectations or norms? Is there any utility to having social expectations or norms that push you to do things that you may not “want” to? In the past, people had kids because that's just what happened between people. Pregnancy was a natural consequence of human life. Making childbearing a choice means that you need some social framework to encourage it, otherwise it becomes completely gauche and impractical. In the absence of this supportive social framework, fertility rates will drop, and in many cases precipitously. The long-term consequence of that drop in fertility is, at its most extreme, the collapse of modern civilization. Compare Israel with South Korea, for example. Both are mostly developed economies. In one of these societies, kids are a status symbol; in the other, they are generally considered a nuisance (e.g. kids will often be banned from restaurants or other social watering holes). Can you guess which one of these societies will survive longer?
Yeul 1y ago
Only until recently women were basically property who got no say in what they wanted. You either got married to a man who protected you or you got raped. That's it.
pjc50 1y ago
> scandalously Yes. Society hates teen pregnancy. Some societies will carve out an exception for married teens, which is a whole other can of worms. This is not a change in norms, it's the victory of the norms. People have been told not to have children until they are ready, and finally compliance with that is pretty high. There were even worse alternatives, like the mass grave at Tuam or the Victorian practice of "baby farming". https://www.bbc.com/news/extra/4ko2zsk2tb/Tuam https://www.bbc.com/news/extra/4ko2zsk2tb/Tuam The short way to get a baby boom is to make it OK to be a less than perfect parent.
- squigz 1y ago
  > The short way to get a baby boom is to make it OK to be a less than perfect parent. There are still lots and lots of shitty parents out there.
  - pseudocomposer 1y ago
    It’s almost like our social norms prevent “good” and “okay” people from becoming parents, waiting for a “perfection” they’ll never achieve… but those norms have no real effect on the people who will be “shitty” parents.
    - lelanthran 1y ago
      Watch the first 10m of idiocracy on youtube
    - doright 1y ago
      I guess it matters what "shitty" parent means. You can give all the financial/material support in the world to a child and still cause irreversible lifelong damage with the wrong parenting style. You don't need to be a "perfect" parent, but at the same time you do need to be a "good enough" parent, or the consequences are dire. Knowing what I've been through, I'd much, much rather those people spend an extra 5 or more years working through those problems instead of having children that will grow up to regret being born. And reality is, some people should never become parents, because they carry mental issues they will forever lack the self-perception to acknowledge and attempt to change. But they will become parents anyway, and the outcome is all but certain.
moralestapia 1y ago
I'm really sorry to hear this, and truly wish things have turned out differently. Kids are a phenomenal experience. I concur with you, social pressure is a defining element on having/not having them.
2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
My grandmother was scandalously had. If abortion had been legal her entire family tree wouldn't exist. Me, my dozen or so cousins, my father, aunts, all gone. That's why my father is against abortion.
- lazyasciiart 1y ago
  What terrible reasoning. Does that mean that if he were the child of rape he’d be pro-rape? Anything that would have prevented his existence is bad?
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
    Why don't you show some tact or compassion?
jalapenos 1y ago
Congratulations on not having been killed Shame you didn't ensure the same for your own kid
- crtified 1y ago
  I am not sure how you think a 17 year old kid with ZERO legal or social rights or family support or money was somehow meant to overpower the iron will of the girl's furious parents (who in turn intractably convinced the girl herself), whose roof she still lived under - being in the final years of high school - and the medical fraternity, and the laws of my country, and the will of society. What was I supposed to do? Lock her in a tower? But congratulations on shallowly judging people as murderers on a whim. Perhaps you might consider how that is a less than ideal characteristic, if caring about the lives of human beings is your actual goal here.
eli_gottlieb 1y ago
> In the late 90's, my late-teens girlfriend scandalously fell pregnant. And whose fault was that, eh?
- crtified 1y ago
  Partly her parents, for refusing to allow her to go on birth control as a preventative in advance. She did ask. Back then, in my country, parental approval was required by law for people under a certain age. That has since changed. Unfortunately it took a lot more than asking (i.e. it took "a pregnancy") before they took her seriously. But primarily, yes, my fault and her fault.
  - lurking_swe 1y ago
    Actually i think it’s mostly the parents fault. Sure you physically played a part but teens in general are dumb. That’s just how most teens act…no shame in that. Very little impulse control and lots of hormones. A parents job is to TEACH their child how to navigate the world safely, and that includes how to not have an unwanted pregnancy. One can encourage abstinence, but it’s also important to realize that kids are not property. They will do what they want, and only follow abstinence if they want to. If you child refuses to follow your advice, at least help them practice safe sex. Safe sex is better than unsafe sex.
ponector 1y ago
Better to have abortion than unwanted child. Usually it's quite miserable childhood for a kid.
MarkusWandel 1y ago
I like this. It has nothing to do with the "big picture" in birth rates, but it's a personal story. Mine is simpler. My dad had a societal expectation to be married - a position he was eyeing was only open to married men. My mom was the best bet at the time. Here I am. This, too is a scenario that is no longer applicable.

Qem 1y ago

I'm sorry for your loss.

lisbbb 1y ago
What loss? It was not her but her "girlfriend" which I don't even know how to correctly interpret these days. Is she saying it was her love interest or just a friend who is female? Heaven knows! Kids aren't even dating anymore hardly. My son (15) is having a horrible time navigating social interactions. The girls at his school are all horrible people, it seems (not true, I'm sure, but I constantly have to hear about how he is treated like crap by the girls all the time).
- tayo42 1y ago
  Idk if that's anything new. There was a movie about this 20 years ago
  - ta8645 1y ago
    Mad Max?
- lo_zamoyski 1y ago
  It goes both ways. Add to this that boys today have been raised on a steady diet of pornography on their smartphones from a young age and never taught to master their impulses and learn genuinely masculine virtue. What do you think this does to their perception and treatment of women? And women are taught to view sex as an instrument of power and control (look at the number of young women with OnlyFans accounts), and raised on a steady diet of viewing men as sleazes by nature, not by condition. They are not taught feminine virtue. What do you think will do to female behavior? The cycle continues. The cycle must be broken by admitting that boys can be raised to be self-sacrificing gentlemen who have no interest in bad women, and girls can be raised to be loving ladies who can discern between exploitative jerks and noble men.
  - csomar 1y ago
    Pretty sure my interactions with 60+ old man and the younger generation refutes this. Of course this is anecdotal but you also offer no evidence whatsoever.
  - sapphicsnail 1y ago
    It's not like younger men are great but older men say the grossest things and tend to he way more patronizing.

refurb 1y ago

Underrated comment right here. When the baseline belief in society goes from “make it work” to “better to end the pregnancy” it shouldn’t be surprising that overall the number of birth goes way down.

more_corn 1y ago
[flagged]
- epolanski 1y ago
  He hasn't said that, but he's pointing out, correctly, that if you want to go to past numbers, you need to increase teenage and very young women having children. Or, by extension, promote older women having babies at rates they never had.
groby_b 1y ago
The US sees about 20K teen pregnancy abortions. That's probably not why the number of births is way down. Number of births in the US are ~3.6M right now. We also have 1M abortions per year. That's - if abortions were the sole problem - 4.6M births / 330M people. Except... It was 4.3M births / 177M people in 1960. Double the current rate. It dropped off sharply right after the 1960s. Not coincidentally right when the pill was introduced. It never was about "better end the pregnancy". It was always about women having a say, instead of being default-delegated to brood mare. We landed in a ~stable equilibrium with that, with a TFR of 2.1 in 1990. And then live births dropped again, like a stone. And, oddly, so did abortions. Which implies that the likely problem is a drop in pregnancies in the 1990s. Teen abortions are a tiny irrelevant side show compared to this. So maybe let's not speculate on "baseline beliefs of society" based on what's noise in the statistics.
- d0gsg0w00f 1y ago
  No telling what contraceptives have contributed. We didn't really use contraceptives and we had three "oopses". Those three oopses are pretty awesome. Nothing like a kid to help you get your head out of your ass. Probably why people report feeling happier, because you can't think about the stupid stuff you used to worry about.

jeffbee 1y ago

I'm not sure this scans really because teenage births as well as teenage pregnancies enjoyed a local peak around 1990. There certainly was not a general pan-American societal instinct against teenage births at that time. The rate has fallen by more than 75% since. Even the mother-under-15 birth rate in 1990 was ridiculous (about 10x more than today, in most states).

wahern 1y ago
Teenage births peaked in the late 1950s, by a significant margin. See https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/02/why-is-the-teen-birth-rate-falling/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/02/why-is-th... It's difficult to find teenage pregnancy rates before 1972, let alone multiple sources, but if you look at Guttmacher's numbers both teenage pregnancy and abortion rates ramped up significantly between the late 1970s and early 1990s. See https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/USTPtrends10.pdf#page=11 https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/UST... Teenage abortions rates are even more difficult to find before 1972, but abortion certainly existed in the 1950s, and given the birth rate it's possible teenage pregnancy rates were also higher in the 1950s and 60s. Also, notwithstanding that the data does coincide with the given narrative, one must also consider socio-economic and cultural factors--pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates aren't homogenous across groups. For example, the OP (or their girlfriend) could have been from a segment of society at the trailing edge of a trend.
- jeffbee 1y ago
  I don't doubt their personal narrative, I just am not sure the generalized conclusion they drew from it was proper.
dragonwriter 1y ago
The local peak around 1990 was a very small bump from the flat run through the 1980s, and was probably a brief rebound effect of the extreme negative social pressure related to unprotected casual sex stemming from the AIDS crisis fading a bit as that became perceived as less acute of a threat, and there numbers dropped rapidly after that peak, quickly going through the floor they had settled in during the long flat period preceding the brief rise and peak. So it is not at all inconsistent with a strong social force against teenage births existing and being acted on in the late 1990s, in fact, had that not existed the rise up to the 1990 peak would probably not have been so brief and followed by a rapid drop that went straight through the preceding floor.

XorNot 1y ago

[flagged]

scottyah 1y ago
I think the point of the post is that society has changed its stance on having kids. People who aren't purposefully branching out on their own and are just "going with the flow" of their external influences are more likely to not have kids. Everyone still has the choice, but the default has changed for most of us.
zdragnar 1y ago
[flagged]

bachmeier 1y ago

[flagged]

andrewmcwatters 1y ago
I read a lot of stupid, vapid, ridiculous things frequently posted on Hacker News, and this is not one of them. It's just a human experience.
mapotofu 1y ago
I honestly don’t know how you can say this. When my son was born, we were asked enough times about circumcision that it seemed like a battle to get to “no”. (USA) The system has a system and a narrative. If you’re working against the narrative you have to be very prepared.
- bombcar 1y ago
  The system indeed has a narrative and plan and if you don’t actively work against it, you get it. And it switches relatively quickly (all the propaganda is anti-dikksnip at our birth center now).
- wl 1y ago
  It's less that hospitals are pushing circumcision and more that there's a discharge checklist everyone is working from and the circumcision question is on it. The repetition is some combination of verifying your answer and/or people not reading the notes other people have written when they document your answer. If your answer were "yes, we want a circumcision," they'd be asking you repeatedly just the same until they actually did it.
  - Mawr 1y ago
    It shouldn't even be legal, much less on a checklist. Doctors will swear up and down on their oaths or whatever other high horse when it comes to euthanasia, but mutilating children without their consent is all good!
- Aurornis 1y ago

UncleMeat 1y ago

Abortions are not the primary reason why teen pregnancy is way down. There's actual data, you know. Fewer teen pregnancies is a reason why birth rates in the US are declining. But it isn't driven by abortion. And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place.

senectus1 1y ago
While I agree, his experience is also salient. Ease of access to birth control and ease and safety of abortion will be having a very detectable impact on the birthrate. Not saying they need to be restricted, just that they're very relevant data points.
- teitoklien 1y ago
  it is heavily politicized, atleast for the forseable future, until society reaches a conclusion, people will lie with statistics, smear their opponents in discussion as bigots, sexists, whatever. But sooner or later it needs to be asked and acted upon. Should society structure itself to penalise abortions, and reward births of children. Did our old religious and conservative societies where parents and grandparents helped together to give a great childhood to 2 or more children be something we need to bring back (for folks who'll say back then kids didnt have a great childhood, aborted children have NO childhood a death for themselves that they didnt choose). Should premarital intercourse be banned again or shunned ? Religions have brought tons of miseries causing constant conflicts between communities, wars, allowing politicians and rulers to manipulate masses. However, they also carried laws and doctrines refined over centuries, on philosophy, morality, and most importantly societal structure. Monogamy itself and the construct of marriage was refined and finalized in all major religions Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc across several centuries (and in some cases greater than 1000 yrs). One must consider, why did our ancestors come to certain conclusions globally regardless of faith around societal structure? What conditions did they want to create across society, to bring about prosperity or growth. Why were certain conservative and unpopular opinions regardless were imposed on men and women alike. We should remove all the horrible stuff, things we can leave behind that our ancestors used to do sure. but throwing everything away is also not going to lead to anything good for us in the future. Should abortion be readily accessible simply for the sake of liberty and freedom ? Should contraceptives be widely made available and promoted ? , should families force kids to be responsible for their actions again, and first try their best to give their newly born child a better life before allowed to just throw everything apart with divorces, single parent childhood, etc. Should premarital intercourse be banned , to encourage youth to form meaningful relationship instead of coasting between new girlfriends and boyfriends every new year ? Im not saying we should do X, but these questions will need to be asked sooner or later, if western society or even asian societies want to survive (both have ultra low birthrates, china, japan, korea, russia, even india is now going the below tfr rate and will join them far sooner than was estimated within 20 yrs). I really love european, american and asian societies and cultures, and i dont want them to die off, or perish away. Even my own culture's TFR is 0.98 for multiple decades and its perishing away quite fast too. Hard questions will need to be asked in the future. It's not just a matter of what feels right to our emotional minds at a moment, but rather, whats best for society and cultures itself long term. Not to mention, housing prices need to go way down, it needs to be removed from being a speculative asset or a way to whitewash black money, its wreaking havoc on whatever remaining part of society that does want kids, but cant afford to own a home by age of 30 even with double income household. We have enough land to house the entire world in each of the major countries, yet just out of sheer regulation, greed and laziness from politicians, policymakers, and banks who are afraid of the housing market crashing and causing problems for them, they are keeping this charade up. There are many problems that need to be solved in coming decades, I hope each of our societies solve it.

swat535 1y ago

I think the uncomfortable truth that many are reluctant to admit is that religion and societal norms (as you highlighted above) played a major role in this. I'm not discounting other facts such as the housing crisis or cost of living but I fear that while those are important, they are secondary. Women were often forced to carry a child due to outside pressure and had no recourse. However since the introduction of safe abortions and readily accessible birth control methods, they have regained their bodily autonomy which allows them to skip unwanted pregnancies. I think that ultimately, liberating women is a _good_ thing because child bearing is difficult and no one women should be forced to go through it. With all that said, having children can be wonderful. Perhaps a better solution is to both celebrate and encourage families while keeping abortion and birth control accessible. It doesn't have to be a binary choice.

sebmellen 1y ago
The issue is not so much the access to the methods, but the negative feedback loop that they cause. For every woman freed from unwanted childbearing, how many are socially pressured into not having a child? Anecdotally, this is something that my wife and I experienced as relatively young parents (~24 at first child): people expect abortion to be the default. I can't tell you how many people asked us when we were going to “just get rid of the thing” because they expected that to be the default option. We have no idea how damaging this effect is to overall fertility. The saddest part is that many women will get to an age where they do want to have one or more children, but because they are closer to the end of their fertile window, they cannot. I’ve seen this happen to my extended friends and family far more than the “unwanted pregnancy” scenario, which I’ve only seen happen once. Fundamentally, there's perhaps a broader philosophical divide. Do you believe that children are burdensome, or the most valuable thing you can produce in life? If you think the former, it's nearly impossible to feel any motivation to tolerate the difficulty of pregnancy and childbearing.
- jalapenos 1y ago
  Simpler than this: how long does an unwanted pregnancy remain unwanted? Basically 9 months tops. After than it's automatically into rearing mode and don't have time to mull such crap. Then as the shock peters off after a year or so, any original thoughts or utterings of "unwanted" get code-of-silence buried til the end of days, and don't ever come back.

rsync 1y ago

I thought your anecdote was interesting and thought provoking and I appreciate that you posted it. Thank you. I am disappointed at the hostile reaction it provoked in some others ... as if you, or your anecdote, reminded them of something that angered them and they lost track of the difference.

crtified 1y ago
Thank you! I have taken any off-tone responses in stride, on the understanding that child-bearing is a very contentious and emotional issue for many.

thrownearacc 1y ago

Oh, I’m sure some “anecdotal” stories will come up, painting a perfect picture of the “good old days” — without calling them that, of course. Here's one then: Take my great-grandfather, for example. 56, falls head over heels for a 14-year-old girl from church, and boom — 30 days later, they’re married. 8 months later, my grandfather’s born. They stayed married for 50 years. My grandmother was 16 when she married my 47-year-old grandfather after a chance meeting in the woods, and, guess what, smooth pregnancy again. My parents? Same song, different verse. Now, fast forward to today: I broke up with my girlfriend (late 30s, early 40s) because we wanted kids, but couldn’t conceive — and back then when were were younger and when we could, I couldn’t afford it. See, back then, the older man was not only virile but also financially set, while the young woman could pop out babies at the drop of pants. Yeah, those “good old days” sound amazing. Make World Pregnant Again.

Exoristos 1y ago
Extraordinary how poverty makes a family impossible but only in certain ZIP codes.
squigz 1y ago
Your 56 year old great grandfather married a 14 year old girl and was married for 50 years?
- jalapenos 1y ago
  [flagged]
jalapenos 1y ago
I mean, at least you're not propagating that woods-rapist line?
crtified 1y ago
It's actually interesting what underlying prejudices readers project upon the anecdotes of others. In actual fact, I was merely offering a data point. I have no agenda, I am not in the slightest anti-abortion, I am not against 100% female bodily autonomy, I do not consider past generations to be "the good old days" - the events I described were traumatic for everybody involved - and I do not profess to be qualified to draw any conclusions, or to claim that what happened to me is why the world has changed. I can only see certain cause and effect chains relating to my own generational situation, and suggested that such changing norms may be one factor in the mix. May.

seanmcdirmid 1y ago

Having kids when you are young and financially not established is just irresponsible, but particularly female bodies don’t do well having kids older when you are established enough to do so responsibly. I’m having this problem right now with my spouse (we have a kid, but are thinking about another), it’s just super hard to get pregnant without medical help.

dyauspitr 1y ago
There are also huge probability multipliers in congenital and cognitive problems with late pregnancies.
evilsetg 1y ago
Maybe we as a society should decide that having children is fine when you don't have a stable career yet and finance it as such. The contradiction that our most fertile years are also the most unstable is something society could and should balance. EDIT: typo
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago
  Definitely, but having children when you aren't stable yourself and society isn't going to help out much could wind up in disaster. "Let's play life on hard/hell mode" doesn't really sound appealing to me. There are things we could do as a society to make this easier: socialized child care (like we do with school) for one thing. Better welfare, making it easier to go to college when you have kids, etc... But we aren't really doing those, most definitely not doing those in the states, and even in other western countries with better social safety nets. If you want society to have more kids, maybe we have to socialize child rearing more than we do today?
squigz 1y ago
Don't the difficulties in pregnancy related to age tend to come up around 40 or older? I don't think the choices need to be "have children at 19 years old" or "have children at 40" - surely having kids at 30-35 is still physically fine and gives you some time to become more financially secure?

mensetmanusman 1y ago

My mother was also the product of a failed abortion. Crazy to think how different the world would be. Now I have 8 kids!

csomar 1y ago

Oh it’s sure birth control that’s doing it and not the backward societal norms that are still sticking. Thanks for pointing out that the baby boom happened by accidental births and confirming it with your own anecdotal evidence.

pyuser583 1y ago

No you are not heading towards 50 if you were born in 1980. You are nowhere near 50, and I refuse to believe otherwise!

KolibriFly 1y ago

It's a perspective that often gets lost in the macro-level fertility discussions: how many births never happen not because people don’t want kids, but because the only off-ramp they might've taken got paved over by modern expectations, norms and etc

squigz 1y ago
In the past, how many people had kids not because they wanted to but because of social expectations, norms, etc?
- sebmellen 1y ago
  In the present, how many of your daily actions and decisions are made not because you want to but because of social expectations or norms? Is there any utility to having social expectations or norms that push you to do things that you may not “want” to? In the past, people had kids because that's just what happened between people. Pregnancy was a natural consequence of human life. Making childbearing a choice means that you need some social framework to encourage it, otherwise it becomes completely gauche and impractical. In the absence of this supportive social framework, fertility rates will drop, and in many cases precipitously. The long-term consequence of that drop in fertility is, at its most extreme, the collapse of modern civilization. Compare Israel with South Korea, for example. Both are mostly developed economies. In one of these societies, kids are a status symbol; in the other, they are generally considered a nuisance (e.g. kids will often be banned from restaurants or other social watering holes). Can you guess which one of these societies will survive longer?

Yeul 1y ago

Only until recently women were basically property who got no say in what they wanted. You either got married to a man who protected you or you got raped. That's it.

pjc50 1y ago

> scandalously Yes. Society hates teen pregnancy. Some societies will carve out an exception for married teens, which is a whole other can of worms. This is not a change in norms, it's the victory of the norms. People have been told not to have children until they are ready, and finally compliance with that is pretty high. There were even worse alternatives, like the mass grave at Tuam or the Victorian practice of "baby farming". https://www.bbc.com/news/extra/4ko2zsk2tb/Tuam https://www.bbc.com/news/extra/4ko2zsk2tb/Tuam The short way to get a baby boom is to make it OK to be a less than perfect parent.

squigz 1y ago
> The short way to get a baby boom is to make it OK to be a less than perfect parent. There are still lots and lots of shitty parents out there.
- pseudocomposer 1y ago
  It’s almost like our social norms prevent “good” and “okay” people from becoming parents, waiting for a “perfection” they’ll never achieve… but those norms have no real effect on the people who will be “shitty” parents.
  - lelanthran 1y ago
    Watch the first 10m of idiocracy on youtube
  - doright 1y ago
    I guess it matters what "shitty" parent means. You can give all the financial/material support in the world to a child and still cause irreversible lifelong damage with the wrong parenting style. You don't need to be a "perfect" parent, but at the same time you do need to be a "good enough" parent, or the consequences are dire. Knowing what I've been through, I'd much, much rather those people spend an extra 5 or more years working through those problems instead of having children that will grow up to regret being born. And reality is, some people should never become parents, because they carry mental issues they will forever lack the self-perception to acknowledge and attempt to change. But they will become parents anyway, and the outcome is all but certain.

moralestapia 1y ago

I'm really sorry to hear this, and truly wish things have turned out differently. Kids are a phenomenal experience. I concur with you, social pressure is a defining element on having/not having them.

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago

My grandmother was scandalously had. If abortion had been legal her entire family tree wouldn't exist. Me, my dozen or so cousins, my father, aunts, all gone. That's why my father is against abortion.

lazyasciiart 1y ago
What terrible reasoning. Does that mean that if he were the child of rape he’d be pro-rape? Anything that would have prevented his existence is bad?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
  Why don't you show some tact or compassion?

jalapenos 1y ago

Congratulations on not having been killed Shame you didn't ensure the same for your own kid

crtified 1y ago
I am not sure how you think a 17 year old kid with ZERO legal or social rights or family support or money was somehow meant to overpower the iron will of the girl's furious parents (who in turn intractably convinced the girl herself), whose roof she still lived under - being in the final years of high school - and the medical fraternity, and the laws of my country, and the will of society. What was I supposed to do? Lock her in a tower? But congratulations on shallowly judging people as murderers on a whim. Perhaps you might consider how that is a less than ideal characteristic, if caring about the lives of human beings is your actual goal here.

eli_gottlieb 1y ago

> In the late 90's, my late-teens girlfriend scandalously fell pregnant. And whose fault was that, eh?

crtified 1y ago
Partly her parents, for refusing to allow her to go on birth control as a preventative in advance. She did ask. Back then, in my country, parental approval was required by law for people under a certain age. That has since changed. Unfortunately it took a lot more than asking (i.e. it took "a pregnancy") before they took her seriously. But primarily, yes, my fault and her fault.
- lurking_swe 1y ago
  Actually i think it’s mostly the parents fault. Sure you physically played a part but teens in general are dumb. That’s just how most teens act…no shame in that. Very little impulse control and lots of hormones. A parents job is to TEACH their child how to navigate the world safely, and that includes how to not have an unwanted pregnancy. One can encourage abstinence, but it’s also important to realize that kids are not property. They will do what they want, and only follow abstinence if they want to. If you child refuses to follow your advice, at least help them practice safe sex. Safe sex is better than unsafe sex.

ponector 1y ago

Better to have abortion than unwanted child. Usually it's quite miserable childhood for a kid.

MarkusWandel 1y ago

I like this. It has nothing to do with the "big picture" in birth rates, but it's a personal story. Mine is simpler. My dad had a societal expectation to be married - a position he was eyeing was only open to married men. My mom was the best bet at the time. Here I am. This, too is a scenario that is no longer applicable.