Reply to Growing share of childless adults in U.S. don’t expect to ever have children

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We live in a dystopian hellscape and nothing proves it more than this. [/quote]

Somewhat.

Middle class life in Netherlands is objectively very good but it isn’t like they have a lot of kids their either[/quote]
Across all societies, the trend is that as countries get wealthier and women get more freedom and education, fertility rates fall. Basically, when given a choice, women will typically choose to have fewer kids. [/quote]

Of course. Women have many more career options these days than they had even 20 years ago. Women are actively encouraged from girlhood on to take on rigorous careers—STEM! Medicine! Law!—and to practice other hobbies and interests like sports and the arts. Of course, many women have rich, complete lives focusing on those things alone! Having children is a well-documented interruption to a woman’s career. In some cases, not having children (or having fewer) is JUST about career trajectory and a woman wants to climb, earn, be promoted, etc. But in other cases, women are genuinely more satisfied by the intellectual or creative work they’re doing than by watching a baby learn to crawl.

Men just two generations ago were given license to stay interested in their careers/other pursuits and be parents basically in title alone. But this, too, is changing, and now men are being asked to bear the burden that women have long been carrying alone. Watching a toddler at the park, waking up in the middle of the night, staying home with a sick kid, driving kids to soccer games…all giving men less time to focus on their own intellectual, career, or creative pursuits. Some men will enjoy that experience. Others won’t. So now that housework is a little more evenly distributed, mens careers/hobbies/leisure pursuits AND womens careers/hobbies/leisure pursuits are disrupted….of course people are having less children.

Not to mention that having a child is LEAGUES more expensive than it was for Boomers. Consider college tuition alone. The low birth rate iissue reaches multiple areas of our culture that need attention: the environment, higher education, working conditions, daycare options, healthcare, etc. Until we have a solution to some of the problems that directly intersect with the decision to have children, it is a perfectly logical decision not to have children in today’s world.

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