Why are white people all around the world not having kids?

[Anonymous]

It's not just a white people thing. Look at the birth rate in Japan and S. Korea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We all had a meeting and decided to give everyone else the chance to rule the world.

Love it!

[Anonymous]

Why does it surprise you OP? Women don't want to be controlled by men, the government, their kids. They want freedom to have a job, go on a trip on a whim, whatever else. Men get to have it all...if they have a kid it doesn't kill their career. Women can try it all but something has to give. Mick Jagger said it best in one of his songs...

"women are the ___ers of the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are all of you putting so much pressure on yourselves re: college? I mean, yes it's expensive, yes I'd love to be able to pay my kid's tuition, but it's not the end of the world to me if I can't. I sure as hell wouldn't let future college tuition limit family size. That's just nuts.

That's one of the two reasons we stopped at two kids. My parents paid for my college education and I wanted to do the same for my kids. Do you want your kids to have a lower standard of living that you did growing up???

My parents went to college on scholarship. Both DH and I went to school on scholarship. We'll help our children pay for school, but we can't afford to pay for their school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people should only have kids if they want them. Truly. But acting as if it's common/normal to not want kids is disingenuous. Like every other species, we are biologically programmed to want kids. It's the biological norm, and our genetic fitness is 0 if we don't reproduce. So, no, I'm not buying that "most" people of any group don't want ANY kids.

But there are at least two groups of people who don't have children.

1. People who don't want children and don't have them
2. People who do want children but don't have them

New poster here. Fact is:

80 percent of american women have at least one child at some point in life.

Despite what they or anyone proclaims on the internet.

The 20 percent includes the childless (infertile, couldn't find a partner in time, etc) and the childfree (never wanted kids), and historically included many lesbians, though that last one is changing fast.

Albeit, many women are having kids later these days. That is the big demographic change.

It is just that the childfree segment of the 20 percent has become very vocal, and there are a lot of 22 year olds who think that they are part of the 20 percent but when they get older they join the 80 percent.

I will grant that, with childbirth delayed more and more, that 80 pct may drop as women miss the window despite wanting kids.

+1! DH and I didn't want kids until our late 30s. Now we have 3, and we have many friends who wanted careers and waited until late 30s/early 40s to have them. It's the trend of the 21st Century!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make $200K and we have 4 children and $800 in student loans and a $2200 month mortgage and they go to private school/nanny share. It is absolutely doable and to say "I cant afford it" is absolutely ridiculous.

If you don't want them, fine. If you want them, but don't want to make any changes to your lifestyle, fine. But be honest with yourself and us if you are posting here.

How much money do you save every month for retirement and your 4 kids' college educations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not just a white people thing. Look at the birth rate in Japan and S. Korea.

Mexico too!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Again, the posters above with large HHI are are not too poor. Their priorities are not aligned with kids. Whatever. Do what you want. But stop with the "we can't afford it" crap - it just isn't true.

Daycare plus very basic child needs (diapers, formula) runs at least 25k a year. Do you really think most 30 year olds have an extra 25k laying around?

There are plenty of 30-year-olds in the DC area who have children. I haven't asked them all whether or not they have an extra $25,000 lying around, but the possibilities are 1. yes, they do, or 2. no, they don't, but are somehow managing anyway.

Now, you might not want to manage the way they're managing. And that would be perfectly ok!

But it is absurd to say, "I can't afford to have a child", when there are a lot of people who earn a lot less than you and have a child.

I am 30 and know maybe 3 people who had a child at age 30 in this area. One had incredible financial support from family (bought them a house) and the other had to move from the city to the burbs into a family-owned condo. The third couple got pregnant on accident and the child had severe needs. They had to move way out into MD and the wife had to quit her job. They are barely getting by.

Sadly this has been my experience too. Or they're living in a studio and the wife doesn't work. They were married, but baby was an oops baby.

Public preschool would be a boon.

And I know plenty of couples at 30-something who have houses in Arlington or Tysons or Burke who work, have happy babies at daycare or with family, are doing fine. Are those places BFE?

30-something is much different than already having a child at 30. Many people can afford kids by mid-late 30s. That is nothing special. Especially if the kids stay with family for free. And yes, Tysons and Burke are both BFE.

LOL oh my! I'm glad both my job and my house are in Tysons = BFE. Keep your 14th Street corridor.

[Anonymous]

I think it is harder to raise children in an affluent society because there is less of a family community. My DH was raised in a developing country and his mother worked. An older relative of his mother's brother in law offered to stay with her kids, for free, so she could work. She was an older lady and she didn't mind. According to DH, it all went very smoothly. Would your brother in law's older aunt want to stay with your kids for free? It's just not something I can imagine happening in a wealthier society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you all are missing the point that American society is not kid friendly. Instead of encouraging people to have more kids, we either need to discourage the poor from having so many kids or make life easier on families. Or both.
-school day could match work days
-public preschool
-12 weeks of paid maternity leave, or at least 6 weeks.

The poor are not actually having "so many kids". In 2010, the average number of children per woman among women aged 40-44 with less than a high school education was about 2.7.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/02/lets-not-panic-over-women-with-more-education-having-fewer-kids/273070/

2.7 kids is hella higher than women with graduate degrees, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are all of you putting so much pressure on yourselves re: college? I mean, yes it's expensive, yes I'd love to be able to pay my kid's tuition, but it's not the end of the world to me if I can't. I sure as hell wouldn't let future college tuition limit family size. That's just nuts.

That's one of the two reasons we stopped at two kids. My parents paid for my college education and I wanted to do the same for my kids. Do you want your kids to have a lower standard of living that you did growing up???

My parents went to college on scholarship. Both DH and I went to school on scholarship. We'll help our children pay for school, but we can't afford to pay for their school.

So saying it's "nuts" to limit family size so you can pay for your kids' college tuition is a defense mechanism, because no matter how much you sacrificed and how hard you worked, you couldn't cover tuition in full for even one kid. Okay then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is harder to raise children in an affluent society because there is less of a family community. My DH was raised in a developing country and his mother worked. An older relative of his mother's brother in law offered to stay with her kids, for free, so she could work. She was an older lady and she didn't mind. According to DH, it all went very smoothly. Would your brother in law's older aunt want to stay with your kids for free? It's just not something I can imagine happening in a wealthier society.

Nope. DCUM thinks it's bad to even have grandma babysit.

We're all like monkeys in a barrel; clawing each other down and none of us can get ahead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is harder to raise children in an affluent society because there is less of a family community. My DH was raised in a developing country and his mother worked. An older relative of his mother's brother in law offered to stay with her kids, for free, so she could work. She was an older lady and she didn't mind. According to DH, it all went very smoothly. Would your brother in law's older aunt want to stay with your kids for free? It's just not something I can imagine happening in a wealthier society.

People do that at all income levels in the USA if they live near each other. Get off the MY COUNTRY stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you all are missing the point that American society is not kid friendly. Instead of encouraging people to have more kids, we either need to discourage the poor from having so many kids or make life easier on families. Or both.
-school day could match work days
-public preschool
-12 weeks of paid maternity leave, or at least 6 weeks.

The poor are not actually having "so many kids". In 2010, the average number of children per woman among women aged 40-44 with less than a high school education was about 2.7.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/02/lets-not-panic-over-women-with-more-education-having-fewer-kids/273070/

2.7 kids is hella higher than women with graduate degrees, though.

Not necessarily. The denominator is per 1,000 women aged 40-44 with a given level of education -- not per 1,000 women aged 40-44 with a given level of education who had children. I don't know the exact numbers, but the percent of women aged 40-44 who had children is higher for women with less than a high school education (probably close to 100%) than for women with graduate degrees (much less than 100%). The average number of children per 1,000 women among aged 40-44 with graduate degrees who have children would be higher than the number of children per 1,000 women aged 40-44 with graduate degrees.

[Anonymous]

Women for the most part no longer need a man to support them. This leads many women to forgo the historically typical life plan of marrying, having kids, and raising a family. And as much as men don't want to admit it, women are in complete control of having and raising children. So the biggest reason for white people not having kids is due to the changing lifestyles of women.