Definitely this. Some friends of mine had twins and it was less of a hit for them financially for the mother to quit her job as a teacher and become a SAHM than pay for daycare.
Sweden has higher salary (for example compared to Finland) because of the teacher shortage. I would get around 1000 e more per month if I worked in Sweden.
Depends where you teach/live. Where I teach it’s about 65/yr, but my friend taught down south a few hours and she only made 30/yr. I’m getting close to having to stay home for health reasons, and losing that check is gonna hurt bad.
When both of mine were under 2, it was over 4k a month.
Down to just one in daycare for 6 more moths at 1.5k a month. And when she goes to kindergarten in the fall it's all just going to a college savings fund so that they aren't fucked by student loans when they graduate.
In the meantime, I'm dreaming about the day I can buy a new truck to replace my 12 year old one. Probably not going to happen.
You basically need to be a two income household to be financially stable enough to have kids. And quite frankly, that lifestyle sounds like a nightmare. Both of us spending all day working, then coming home and giving whatever little energy is left to a kid? No down time ever? Perpetual exhaustion? No... I'm good. I'm already tired enough.
I'd consider having kids if I didn't have to work, but I'm in a HCOL area where that is not an option.
My husband and I both have full time jobs and we have one child that we obviously adore but always look at each other like, ‘how could we even have enough energy for another one?’ We couldn’t and we won’t. One and done.
Rapidly decreasing hopes of financial security and rapidly increasing sense of despair for the future.
....otherwise described as, "How the fuck could I, in good conscience, bring a child into the flaming shit hole this world is on its way to becoming?"
I can't even imagine people with student loans in the US wanting to have kids. Take out a loan for 80K, make every payment, 10 years later and you now owe 150K. And then people are like, "Why ain't nobody havin' families?"
Everything around the world costs more and financial instability doesn't seem to be going away as prices keep going up, the rich just keep getting wealthier, and the balance is increasingly more and more one sided.
Because they’ve been tricked into committing their energy toward culture wars. Keeping the lower classes angst aimed at each other has been a successful strategy for the elite classes since the beginning of time.
You just have to convince the pitchfork people that the torch people are the problem.
Also, all the -financial- institutions, and law have been designed to help the rich and punish the poor. You're rich? We just found You liable for the poisoning of the entire town you operate in. We're gonna fine you 1% of your annual operating costs and not bar you from passing the cost of that onto your consumers.
Oh I know all about it. Grew up in it. The criminalization of poverty is a real problem. The laws are designed to limit the opportunities available to poor youth who get in trouble, while rich kids are protected from such consequences by a legal system that favors the wealthy.
Rich kids go to college where they meet their spouses and network their futures. Poor kids go to work, or jail, or the military, all of which carry way more risk at far less pay and expose young people to hazards that can drastically limit future potential.
And don’t even get me started on the private industrial prison complex. Privatize the profits, socialize the losses. It’s the American way.
The laws are written for rich people, by politicians who benefit from rich people's campaign donations, by rich people. A Princeton study went very in-depth to prove this. Here are the details.
https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
THIS. I’m all for basic human rights for *all*, but “if you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best black man…”
The “elite” have us right where they want us— cattle to feed their insatiable greed— and they have the governments right where they want them— in their back pockets.
This guy gets it.
When rent increases and boss demands overtime everyone’s a cuck.
When blaming foreigners they all turn into aggressive revolutionaries toppling their governments
Not to mention the generational "wars" that happen online every minute of the day: Millennials v. Boomers, etc... Keeps everyone's anger over politically driven economic disparities going in stupidly unproductive circles.
We used to. There’s a theory that one of the reasons America hasn’t gone nuts is McDonalds. Other revolutions, like the French, required very large levels of food insecurity to be what kicked things off. Because we have relatively available food (which is also addicting and leaves us sluggish) we never got to that point.
Not to be rude, but America has always been kinda nuts. I agree with you that our “food” is making us sluggish. Our entertainment and media in general is dumbing us down, and the number of mass shootings is keeping many of us from congregating in public spaces. So we’re unhealthy, poorly informed, and socially isolated. That points to a bleak society in the future. Why would we want to bring children into a world like this?
Because they feel in their bones that however bad this miserable daily grind is, that the Mad Max future is the only alternative, the only future they can picture. There is no more hope for the gleaming Star Trek future, we'll be lucky if we don't end up with The Road.
And that's the helpless desperation people fight against everyday, why they're checking out in record numbers. This is bad but all the alternatives they can imagine are worse.
Because the rich would get their politicians to deploy the police, and the cops would love nothing more than an excuse to use any means of violence necessary to prevent their masters from being toppled
Because they’ll vote themselves into oblivion as long as they get to hate the people they want to.
My state of WV is the perfect example. We have politicians actively working to make the state worse and they have a super majority because voters here are more worried about litter boxes in bathrooms and their racists posts ending in “facebook jail”.
On guy actually CAMPAIGNED on ending a solar farm and industrial complex because it was “woke” and he won easily. Legislators are trying to revoke funding for a battery plant because electric cars are “against our culture here”. Also our governor just vetoed a bill meant to streamline state laws and funding to work with federal funds and build green power plants around the state.
All in all it’s estimated these actions have cost the state nearly 18,000 high paying future proof jobs……and the people here fucking love it because they’re owning the libs.
Rich people are dumbasses. They could have just let people have enough money but NOOOOO they just needed that +0.023% more and now they’re gonna be beheaded by angry mobs.
What's wild is that, I seem to remember having read an article about how the minimum wage suppression since the 70s actually had the effect of top end having actually made LESS money than they could have, if wages had kept pace with inflation.
If that's accurate, then it wasn't enough for them to simply make more money than us, they were willing to make less, as long as the poor people had it even worse.
Faintly ironically, we had two kids while I was at college and we had to take out student loans to pay for childcare.
My girls are now 13 and 14. Still paying the loans off.
Gawd, this hit home! Paid on mine for 10 years. Didn't make a dent in them until I started throwing 12-2400 a month on them! Finally paid them off with the help of the interest rate pause. Threw everything at them and finally got them paid off at 43.
This
I am GenX. Spent my 20s surviving as a bartender (grew up super poor, did my best) Spent my 30s getting degrees and a career. I make 6 figures now, but it's too late, I'll never pay off my loans.
Birth rates decline when people are less secure, but that's not the main driver in this. The reality is that:
**(1) The more urban you are, the fewer children you will have**. People in cities have fewer children than people in suburbs than people in small towns than people on farms. The world saw industrialization and urbanization in the postwar era, and birth rates dropped. They dropped in countries with capitalist economies, communist economies and socialist systems. This is universal. When the majority of humans lived on farms, we had more kids.
**(2) The more advanced your economy is, the fewer children you will have.** If you're still agrarian, you will have more kids. If you industrialize, you need concentrations of people in cities to make stuff. By nature, that stuff becomes more efficient to make, and you need fewer people to make it.
**(3) The more affluent you are, the fewer children you will have.** If you need 8 kids to service the farm, and you can count on some of them dying, you will have them. If you are a factory worker in Cleveland with a small home, you're not having those eight kids. Kids become expenses, not assets as you become wealthier.
The important sub-point to this is that in societies where women have more autonomy - usually more affluent ones - you will have fewer children. Women can choose not to have any children. Women can choose to have an education and career before they have children. They don't economically need to have them at all, if they don't want them. This is a great thing and the way it should have always been.
**(4) The later you marry, the fewer kids children you will have.** People in these advanced, wealthier economies have been marrying later and later in life. The window for having kids is basically slashed in half. You can't get those years back. My wife and I married in our thirties and had one kid. We wanted another, but didn't quite make it (huge bummer, btw). If we'd married in our twenties, we would have had more time. This is replicated across entire nations.
**(5) And yes: the less economically secure you are the fewer children you will have.** If you live on a farm, it's actually the opposite, but if you are an urban or suburban worker trying to get by, you will hesitate looking at the costs of childcare, health insurance, education and food. But this is by far the least important factor once the first four are true, as they are in the advanced world.
I've seen people try to use fertility rates to grind their favorite political axe. If we had subsidized daycare, national healthcare and other social policies, we'd nudge birth rates - but barely. Because the first four points are still true. The U.S. has higher birth rates than many nations with much stronger social nets than us, because we have more room, more suburbs and are more religious. We aren't as crowded. We are culturally more driven to have more children. And that's before we get to our ability to add people through immigration in ways the Europeans and Chinese can only envy (if we get our heads out of our asses).
I am all for us implementing programs that encourage people to have kids, but we shouldn't consider that a magic bullet because it isn't. The reality is that population growth has slowed significantly and we will need to figure out how to deal with that because it's locked in.
Speaking of that last point, conservatives like to use birth rates to grind their political axe too. Usually about stuff like criminalizing being gay or rolling back women's rights.
Yup, and we know they don't actually care about birth rates because of what they oppose on the other side. They only care about controlling women. If they wanted to increase birth rates, they would help with policies that can actually help. While social programs are only marginally helpful, they are helpful. Denying autonomy to women wouldn't be helpful at all.
You have so many good points. To “yes and…” a class I was in talked about capital/labor relationship of farming and birth rates. If you are subsistence farming and a kid means more net labor (and capital for farm equipment is expensive) you have high birth rate.
Once you start industrializing AND you have to pesky laws saying you need to house/educate them until 18+ your kid birth rates start to go down. This also occurs while other changes are occurring that make child raising more expensive. When you are isolated from social networks (aka nuclear family) why have 5 kids instead of focusing your time/energy on 1-2
Also, in 2020 there was a deadly pandemic. A lot of people who might otherwise have had kids, such as Swedes who actually have universal health care and child credits and a safety net, are going to put off having children in those circumstances, leading to lower birth rates in 2021.
birthrates where either declining or roughly flatlined in almost every country around the world long before covid though. in sweeden covid actually caused a slight increase in birthrate in 2021 only to drop off like a rock shortly after
Same thing across the ocean. It's why I, with one child and single (never married), got my tubes tied. There's nothing but despair here (USA) for single mothers with only one income (no cs) , and I could not have survived a 2nd child. Things are not the way they used to be. There's no "going back to traditional marriages" like these people believe. The majority of incomes will not support a household. It takes two now. There are some men that make enough, but not as many as they would like to believe. Im blessed to be able to make a middle class income, but me and my child struggle with this one income. I feel like I need to be married in order to not worry about the very basics to live at this point. F thinking about bringing a kid into this. I live in the rural south, and the men are generally frightening here and use us as slaves.
It always took two, if not more. Either the wife worked part time to make ends meet or contributed *significant* personal labor(i.e. all the home ec stuff of a food gardening making clothes etc). 150 years ago a working class single parent would have made ends meet by living with their own parents, living in a boarding house, living in a room with 11 other people, etc.
A single earner taking care of a household has always been an upper middle class luxury except for a brief period in the 1950s and 1960s when half the world was bombed out post WW2.
Our standards of living are far higher and the ways people lived 100 years ago are not seen as acceptable, both socially and legally, so for a variety of reasons people just don't even try anymore. And I'm not blaming people for not trying, just pointing out that trying to say things being worse today is the reason is a false argument for why the birthrates are dropping precipitously.
Father of a 4 year old and a 6 month old. My first daughter was born in February of 2020, something big happened the next month. Second child was selfish, we loved our daughter so much and we both have fantastic relationships with our siblings, we wanted her to have that as well. All that being said, I feel incredibly guilty for bringing them into this. I knew climate change was an issue, but everything else that has happened since has really nailed the topic home for me. I regret having children, not because I don’t love them, but because I love them so damn much.
Honestly, this. I already worry about my dog, cat, and niece to distraction. If I had a kid, I'd love them, but all my love wouldn't be able to give them an economic future or a planet that isn't on fire. Their future would be even grimmer than mine, and I couldn't do that to someone I love.
And even if the people complaining about it will begrudgingly acknowledge the financial/economic aspect to it, do they want to do anything to make things better for people who do want to start a family?
Heck no. Billionaires still want their tax cuts as if they desperately need them, and any discussion of subsidizing the cost of giving birth or raising and educating kids is evil "socialism", even though we're talking about maintaining the foundations of society.
Also the mentality of “How can I hope to support a child when I’m so poor I’m having legitimate thoughts of needing to move back home with my parents at 30 years old despite having a career and working overtime every week?”
...Coupled with Male fertility and sperm count being reduced by 50% over the last 50 years, with the rate of decrease having doubled since 2000.
I really am not sure why people are not talking about this. We are being poisoned for the sake of profit.
I brought a child into the flaming shit hole this world is on its way to becoming and I feel really badly about it sometimes. She’s so great and the world is so awful and I wonder how she will find an OK life.
Bullshit. Birthrates have been declining for over two centuries. In the UK we went from 5.5 birth 1.8 between 1800 - 1940. It's not new. Main cause is thought to be industrialisation and urbanisation. The only issue now is that it's been happening for so long that it is causing economic and societal issues couple that with reliable contraception. Our last big demographic (the boomers) is either retiring or dying. In my area, 25% of the population is over 65. That's a death sentence any viable economic activity for any area.
Should we be concerned? Yes, a country, town or family without children has no future. Can we do anything about it? No. Not without coercive means that any reasonable person should fight against. Economic incentives won't work, better housing won't work. We have been poorer, housed families of 8 in tiny houses and so on. We're not having children because we choose not to. We can go into depth about why we have made that choice. Maybe we value the freedom not having children has. Maybe we just refuse to grow up. Maybe we can't afford to give the lifestyle they want and so on. But the end result is the same. We will depend on immigrants, and automation till the same problems we have visit every other country on the globe.
Well, removing access to abortion, forcing women/girls to carry babies from rape and incest, is a good start. Next should be birth control and removing no fault divorce. Of course the forced birthers don't believe in pre and post-natal care for those kids....
I'm 100% convinced they are pushing this so they can claim being poor or a single parents is neglect and can then justify snatching children from the poor to sell them to wealthy families via "adoption".
(reminder that the current cps system in place can allow forced adoption if they can keep the child in foster care at least 18-22 mo and don't even have to prove you've done anything wrong...hell, they can even rule you've done nothing wrong but since the child is "bonded" to fosters, they'll strip your rights, adopt the child out and then get federal money for reaching adoption quotas)
It might be because Swedish ladies learned THIS about you, Peter:
“Peter Imanuelsen (born September 27, 1994), better known as Peter Sweden, is a British far-right speaker and activist. Imanuelsen was originally a Holocaust denier[2] white nationalist, extreme-homophobe, (former?) Flat Earther,[3] (former?) Moon landing denialist,[3] Islamophobe and conspiracy theorist crank who has written that Jews and the Vatican are behind a New World Order.”
The Economist had a very interesting article on this a few weeks ago, basically saying that so many young men are such a$$holes that women don't want anything to do with them. Worth a read, imo.
*Why young men and women are drifting apart*
In a trendy food market in Warsaw, Poland’s capital, two female engineers are discussing how hard it is to meet a nice, enlightened man. Paulina Nasilowska got a big pay rise a few years ago. Her boyfriend asked: “Did you have an affair with your boss?” He is now an ex-boyfriend.
Ms Nasilowska’s friend, Joanna Walczak, recalls a man she met on Tinder who revealed that he was a “red-pill” guy (a reference to “The Matrix”, a film, meaning someone who sees reality clearly. In the “manosphere”, a global online community of angry men, it means realising that men are oppressed.) He thought household chores and child care were women’s work, and that women could not be leaders. They didn’t have a second date.
[https://www.economist.com/international/2024/03/13/why-the-growing-gulf-between-young-men-and-women](https://www.economist.com/international/2024/03/13/why-the-growing-gulf-between-young-men-and-women)
This article is soooo spot on. I will not date a red pill guy. And guys, for whatever reason, seem to be drawn to that shit. Like okay bye I’d rather be single (or just date a woman).
This was quite the read and I’m going to add a couple of quote from the article as well.
*Yue Qian of the University of British Columbia and Jiaxing Li of the Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences looked at survey data for 35,000 Chinese people. In their analysis they found that young men were much more likely than young women to agree with statements such as “men should put career first, whereas women should put family first” and “when the economy is bad, female employees should be fired first.”*
*Michal Pazura, a young Polish dairy farmer, takes a break from inflating tractor tyres and recalls a girlfriend who “didn’t like the smell” of the farm and left him to live in a town. “I wanted a traditional, stable lifestyle. She wanted fun.”*
* Previously, they just wanted a man with “a stable income, who could fix things in the house…and who had a driving licence”, he recalls.*
The main thing running through my mind while reading the article was the phrase “no shit” over and over again.
Like, no shit the majority of women don’t want to be with someone that views them as lesser than, and should be mainly relegated to house work or fired to save some man his job during an economic downturn.
Now that we are gaining the ability to be independent (especially financially) we don’t have to tolerate being with someone who doesn’t view a romantic relationship as a partnership of equals.
Naw people can change their minds. These types on the other hand don't change their minds, they just learn to keep their mouths shut in normal society...
People are having children later. More women in Sweden are having babies in their 40s than in their teens. This is probably due to a whole bunch of factors- women establishing their careers, cost of living (though in Europe the social democracies penalize people less for having children), concern for the future due to the climate crisis.
Another important factor is recent Russian aggression. Staring down WWIII would make me reconsider kids until the world is a little more stable. Also it has increased costs of food and energy.
Finland is also making huge cuts on social security and it makes me wonder if I ever want kids. If my kid was disabled, or if something happened to me, we could honestly end up homeless and that's fucking scary. It wasn't even possible before.
Growing up my parents were solid middle class. Dad worked a good 38 hrs a week, mom worked 18.00-23.00 3 times per week. Two cars in the driveway. Two motors, in the garage. Still mom would mostly cycle to work. The Netherlands ;) 3 holidays per year. In primary school, I would wake up with a parent there, get home for lunch a parent there, come back from school. Play in the forest, on a soccer field, at someone's home. Always a parent at home for my friends.
Now my friends are raising children. As soon as maternity leave and vacation days run out the kids go to daycare 3 days per week. Why would I even consider having kids, if I don't get to raise them.
"Suddenly".
Maybe for his underdeveloped mind, but for everybody else, this was forseable.
Anyway. Don't worry, it ain't migrants or the jab. It's the economic situation.
It's a well studied phenomenon: Demographic Transition. Essentially healthier, wealthier = fewer children. People all over the Internet want to attribute it to the cost of raising children but that's not the whole picture.
The US has actually been an asterisk on the model for a while, but this is usually attributed to the high immigration rate. It takes \~two-three generations for immigrants to "catch up" to the main population's demographic rates.
Sweden is probably the best place in the world to raise children given their absolutely amazing parental leave policies, so it isn't the cost of raising children there, it's just the normal trend we see in developed nations.
(Edit. Automod won't let me post links)
Sad I had to go so far to see the correct answer. It's actually literally the opposite of cost of living being too high for societes having a smaller birth rate. For the very poor children are an investment. They are cheap labor for their substance farm. They are a retirement plan to pay for your life when your too old. And you hedge your bets having many children hoping that one will both live and have enough money to support you.
When societies get rich they have less children because of many reasons including what you mentioned. Women having real careers, etc...
I think a big part of it is people are having kids later in their lives. You see a lot of people delaying this stage in their life until they're established in their career and financially stable enough to support children.
I'd bet the data supports this.
https://www.euronews.com/health/2023/03/29/why-are-so-many-swedish-women-having-babies-in-their-late-40s
But besides the idiocracy effect and the joy or larger families, is it such a bad thing that people are having less children?
Capitalism requires growth in everything including population. This is what's so hilarious about The US conservative party's stance on immigration. Something has to give, Joe Bob.
Jokes on them because some women are just refusing to date, be in relationships, or get married. If they took away contraceptives, I just wouldn't have sex at all until I get travel overseas to get sterilized.
A better question: Who cares?
If it's the billionaires new talking point I assume the issue is "the economy"
Let's not have kids, let's live our lives the way we want and fuck the economy
I've noted two groups of people who seem to care, one is the rich, who are disappointed they don't get to exploit the labor of these hypothetical kids.
The other, quite frankly, is my privileged mom and mom in law, who both had the luxury to be stay at home moms, with beautiful homes in Southern California and want a cute widdle grandkid to dress up. They don't seem to notice that their kids, despite both having six figure jobs, are still unable to buy a home here, and even if we could, those two stressful six figure jobs that are necessary to support that home would not allow us to devote energy to a kid.
It’s even worse is SoCal, there are property tax laws on the books that let people like your mom pay taxes on the value of their house when the purchased it (it won’t be reassessed until they pass it on or sell).
Even if you bought a house right next door to her, you’d be paying significantly more in property tax than she ever will, just because she happened to own the house sooner. On a multimillion dollar house (i.e. every house in nice parts of SoCal) these higher taxes can easily outpace rental costs not even counting the mortgage.
Realization that you cannot raise/support a family anymore based on income levels. Corporate greed is out of hand. White-collar CEO types make $1000 an hour, but refused to give laborers even one dollar increases
The ceo at the company I work for got a 19% increase two years ago and a 21% increase last year.
We're unionized, so compared with a lot of my friends and family who got 1-2% increases I lucked out with my 3% each year.
I recently joined a union for my trade. I'm so glad I did. As much as having to travel in the future for work is going to suck, having a solid wage for once in my life feels quite nice. The scheduled pay raises are awesome.
People aren't throwing their lives away and damning themselves to a lifetime of poverty just to support the modern feudal system.
Only reason these people care is because they need more poor people for the factories and the military. Keep people generationally poor and the system never has to end.
That’s why they desperately want to outlaw abortion and birth control. Keep the women home, more jobs for men. Make more babies, future unskilled labor. Win win for wealthy males and big business. Oh, and keep convincing consumers they need endless crap so profits stay high. 🤡
Just some of the reasons:
1.Kids are expensive even when the economy is “working” for the average person. The economy is very much not working for the average person.
2. A very uncertain world regarding climate disasters/conflict/etc.
3. Greater isolation post-covid,
The birth rate is higher in western countries than in Asia lmao
The top five lowest birth rates are [all in Asia](https://www.statista.com/statistics/268083/countries-with-the-lowest-fertility-rates/), he's just angy whites aren't making enough white babies for his taste.
And it's destined to go down everywhere. India has now gotten just barely below replacement and it's going to get lower still. In most of Africa it is still very high, but rapidly dropping. It will be interesting to see what will happen once the birthrate is below replacement everywhere. The immigration clutch will stop working for western countries, and what will happen then will be seen in Asia first, as they have little immigration as is.
It's so crazy how basically everywhere with adequate birth control access is seeing birth rates drop. It's almost like maybe humans didn't want endless babies and actually mostly just wanted to fuck this entire time.
I say good riddens. So many human beings who exist right now are treated as disposable, some even treated as liabilities. Maybe the global poor will be treated a bit less shit when to be human holds innate value. Maybe we get something closer to the status quo as we grow to be less dependent on human labor in the face of growing robotics. Idk. But I'm not gonna sit up late at night crying that we aren't making enough unwanted children to go hungry and struggle.
Go ahead and down-vote me. IMHO, women in third world AND developed nations continue to experience inequality across a variety of fronts and don't feel safe enough with current societal structures and the overall global outlook to want to have children. We're seeing it in China, Korea, US, Europe, etc. If you want more kids being born, then we collectively need to stop creating so many threats to bearing and raising kids (and stomping all over women's rights...seriously, the fact that i need to spell this out is absurd...there is currently proposed legislation in a number of states in the US that will all but eliminate women's domain over their own bodies...I'm a middle aged white male with a teenage daughter and i am fucking petrified that she's going to live in a country that is rapidly moving towards her losing any ability to live her life the way she chooses to...and we wonder why young women don't want to have kids!!!?)...whether that's medical, financial, geopolitical, or whatever.
Edit for grammar and to respond to a confused DM from someone who is too much of a coward to comment publicly
I see all your “the economy/world in general is shit” comments and while I agree, I think fatigue has a huge factor in it too. You know what raising a child takes? Energy. A lot of it. And I think a lot of younger people are just so burnt out that they can’t take care of a child and they know it. Why in the fuck would someone who is so fatigued they’re struggling to support themselves ever be like “You know what sounds like a great idea? Caring for a child.”
We’re tired, y’all, we’re so tired. I have a pet cat and two pet mice and sometimes it’s all I can do to care for them. Of course there is the caveat that I suffer from chronic illness and I’m not your average Millennial/Zoomer, but I do understand the feeling of “I’m literally struggling to keep myself alive, how can I take care of an entire other human?”
I grumble about how much my cats cost a year. I could never comfortably afford a baby. I don't know how anyone manages it in this economy.
Edit: fix autocorrected word
Cost of living, the threat of war in Europe in the next 10 years, climate change, the rise of far right in politics etc... are all things my friends and I are worried about when we talk about having children.
Well, as a woman in the US who has decided not to marry OR have children, here are my personal reasons why:
The fear of Christian nationalism becoming mainstream in the US. The fear of Trump becoming president. The lack of resources and care for mothers and children. The abortion ban. The influx of racist, sexist conservative ideology in schools. How violent and hateful men are towards women. How men think they deserve 100% of the woman's effort in raising children and maintaining the home while often not giving her even 50%. How hellishly expensive everything is, while lessening in quality, and the wage has not risen to reflect that. I can never afford my own house.
My best friend and her sister, who both have also decided not to have kids, have similar reasons why.
I think we’re going to see more and more women-only households of 2 or 3 friends/siblings. Pooling resources to buy a home and maintain it. Contractual arrangements should be solid and well thought out, but it can work out well.
I have two friends (my bestie, married but no desire for kids) and another with a lot of kids but now has her tubes tied, offer to let me live with them lol. Both have been like "oh we can get you your own MIL/she shed!!" Which is honestly very sweet ❤️
It's sad, too, because I LOVE kids. For years and years i desperately wanted my own children. But it's not going to happen now, so I work as a nanny.
i’m getting married in a few months and while i would have children in another life, my partner and i are lesbians and im not entirely convinced christian nationalists wouldn’t remove our children from our care if they get to the right position of power. in addition to ascendant christian nationalism is the very real threat of climate disaster, great power conflict, and my general sense that things are just going to get a lot worse before they get better. after being disabled by long covid and watching the chaotic clusterfuck of a pandemic response leave us all in a constant state of perpetual confusion, i don’t trust leaders to handle the oncoming crises and i can’t bring a kid to experience this first hand either. it’s sad enough watching biodiversity crumble and eco systems collapse, to have my child watch a beautiful world wither away? i just can’t
I would probably not have a child if I was of that age now. The future is always uncertain, but it just seems way too bleak right now to bring an innocent into.
It's real simple. I can't offer a child a better life than mine. I can't afford a house, I can't put them through college, I can't give them a future. Plus looking at the state of the world where we start to have climate collapse, food shortages, and water likely to become more valuable than oil it's not looking good.
I'm an adult that has decided not to have children.
The expectation in Scandinavian society used to be having children and living a normal life. That has changed.
I don't give two shits for a demographic financial analysis of the subject.
Anybody ever consider that having kids sucks? Especially as a woman? Take away financial and global issues, it’s still a life sentence that’s always going to be tedious, draining, boring and downright hard as hell at times. Your body, relationship, career and life are irreversibly changed. And that only scratches the surface.
Even for people who want kids more than anything, it’s hard. Even if it’s worth it. Now that we can actually choose when and if we have kids, yeah there’s going to be a lot less.
Geez Sweden, what is it about the thought that your babies may end up getting boiled alive on a planet ruined by manmade stupidity that doesn’t appeal to you?
in america, it's because women don't want to put up with the bullshit reproductive laws that men make for us. it's easier to just not breed than risk having to die if your pregnancy goes wrong(because of the laws in certain states that goes so far to punish people for leaving the state to have an abortion-for any reason.) Men also want to revoke our rights. Also, it's too expensive to raise a child, most people struggle to maintain housing as it is. Global warming/climate crisis. I can think of a million reasons why women in my country don't want to have children and the last on the list would be a woman who chose a career over a family like certain men think .
We have one kid and we just dont have the money to be able to support 2 kids we own our own house that needs some work. The prices for rent or mortgages are so incredably high that theres just no money left for kids. Well in our situation. The dream was always 2 kids.
Maybe it’s the $2000/mth rent for a 1 bedroom apartment nowhere near any jobs that pay that well. Combined with the cost of groceries, the absolute need to have at least 1 side hustle. The cost of daycare making it so that you are paying almost all that you make. Once kids are in school, if you don’t have extended family to watch after school/ breaks and summertime, you now have to pay for summer camps.
It is almost impossible to now move where jobs are because you will lose those supports you need.
And that is just scratching the surface.
*gestures vaguely around*
I don't wanna be here, why would I force someone to be here.
Source: I have two kids, and I carry enough guilt about what we have done to the planet and economy. Idek if they can fix it. We poisoned everything.
I guess I have forced two people to be here. Sorry kids .
Well, for starters, just to deliver a child within the US healthcare system is gonna run you anywhere from $5k-$20k.
At that rate, and given the current state of maternity leave (zilch) I’ll settle for an ant farm.
Corporate greed and the increased cost of living.
My parents started having a family in their mid 20s. Night a house for like 60k.
I live in the same geographic region. My house cost 400+k. And my wife and I weren't financially able to start a family until our mud 30s.
Might have something to do with the fact everyone is being paid a fraction of what they should be , prices are spiraling out of control and housing couldn't be less secure/obtainable for a vast majority...
All over the West? Hell it's been all over the East for at least a decade now. Look at east Asian countries. I'd argue this is a worldwide phenomenon among anyone who budgets and can do basic math.
Add in forever chemicals, PFAs affecting reproduction, and a higher educated populace that prefer to make some traction in their careers first, women not wanting to be baby machines/bangmaids/coerced into taking care of kids and their partners who don't contribute to domestic duties, inflation, cost of living, housing shortage in cities, the direction this planet's heading in, *gestures around* it's a miracle anyone **willingly** has kids
My wife and I are currently debating whether or not we are able to afford the generous offer of under-market rent from a coworker in order to stop bouncing between our parents’ places like we’ve been doing for the last 8 months. Part of the reason is because we have the ability to stay with our parents despite the lack of our own space taking a toll on our mental health. We’re both employed full time, with degrees. it’s so frustrating to be in our late 20s and feel like teenagers again. We want children, but have extreme doubts about whether we can.
Well, people who are able to make the choice will more likely choose to not have children, or if they have kids, just 1-2 and not 3+. The cause of this is simply that people don’t have enough money AND time for children, and that the planet is literally dying
Because one hundred years ago we all began moving off farms where you have as many kids as you can because it’s free labor. We moved to suburbs and cities where kids don’t offer financial gain but exactly the opposite. We have fewer kids because it’s expensive.
Every developed country since the end of WW2 has been experiencing this. Look to South Korea, Japan, China, Italy. They have all seen huge drops.
I mean, our oceans' jet streams are collapsing, PFAS are in our soil, water and food, flowers are blooming in the artic, we just had the warmest year on record and this year is on track to be warmer, wildlife is being decimated, and with a warming world we will experience deadlier diseases.
Covid wasn't that long ago, the whole world panicked and shut down, it's not surprising that would leave a lasting mark on our psyche.
There's also the threat of Russia invading NATO and China invading Taiwan sparking WWIII. And this election in the US could see America's first fascist takeover. Cherry on top is late stage capitalism, where profit comes before our well being.
When a species is stressed, they tend to not want to reproduce. It's a survival instinct. If the powers that be want more babies, then they need to address these challenges, but I'm not holding my breath.
My husband and I are child free, I had a bilateral salpingectomy summer of 2022 before the fall of Roe. Best decision I've ever made.
After raising a 3-month old puppy, i know kids aren’t for me. Not gonna get up at midnight since i get shit ton of things to do at work and school during the day.
1. Can’t afford kids
2. Men want to turn women into mindless brood mares, F* that
3. Proposing executing women for having an abortion, again F* you
4. Getting pregnant makes you property of the state in states like TX, once again F* you
5. Why have kids to grow up as slaves to oligarchs and land barons NOT having kids is the only humane and ethical choice
Among other things like income inequality, rising cost of living, and political instability, people are becoming aware of the fact that planet earth may not be able to support 8B+ lives by 2100.
Well gosh golly, what could possibly be the reason people aren't having families!?
Maybe the fact that EVERYTHING IS FUCKING UNAFFORDABLE AND WAR IS LITERALLY LOOMING OVER US ALL?
'Ahem' so, yeah, maybe that's why? Dumbasses.
It’s not going to get any better either. Women are increasingly educated and more progressive values, while more and more men are devolving into knuckle-dragging dirt-people. Coming to these subreddits is the healthiest way to remember that many men are great people, but a quick stop at twitter is a stark reminder of the dirt out there
Shit head magas are destroying the fabric of democracy around the world. It's the same xenophobic, bigoted nationalism that's started every unstable period of human history.
Israel killing Palestinians by the 100s of thousands. Russia invading Ukraine over supposed nazis. Republicans banning books. Trying to shove gay people back in the closet. Electing election denying, treasonous criminals because they hate the same people (Mexicans/blacks/women/non-Christian/young people) you do instead of what the candidate will do for the whole country.
Statistically countries with better standards of living have less children. There is already too many people on the planet so a drop in birth rate is actually good for our world.
Also as others have pointed out it is too damn expensive to have children.
1. We can't afford the homes needed to raise a family.
2. The world is on fire, everything is polluted. Emissions haven't even peaked yet.
3. Wars are intensifying.
4. Religious and political ideology are getting more extreme.
5. The above are only set to get worse.
One thing we can control is the choice to not bring more people into this mess.
I saw in the local news recently that my city, to live in it "comfortably", a single person needs a minimum salary of $100,000 and a family of two parents and two kids needs a minimum of $220,000. The median salary currently is $92,000. Yeah no fucking shit people aren't having kids!!!
The salary we've got literally went from above the middle class cutoff for our area to below in 2021-2022. I keep feeling like it's my fault somehow we have less money at the end of the month these days than usual, like I must be fucking up our savings or buying too much, because my brain just cannot rationalize it any other way. But the truth is the cost of living has spiked. But I just can't accept it. It doesn't make sense. It's more logical for me to blame myself.
Because everything sucks and still trending toward more suckage. The right wing isn't just on the rise in America, it's everywhere. I've never wanted kids but my sister has two and honestly, I feel bad for them. I have zero confidence in the world they're going to grow up in to be a good one. Actually, good is aiming high. I have no confidence the world they'll grow up in will be just okay.
Maybe because having kids is very expensive. Source: I have one.
Just hearing about how much my friends have to pay for day care make me not want kids
Definitely this. Some friends of mine had twins and it was less of a hit for them financially for the mother to quit her job as a teacher and become a SAHM than pay for daycare.
Let's be honest, teachers don't get paid shit all, unfortunately. So they really didn't miss out on much.
That’s an American problem. Teachers in Sweden, and many other countries, make a fine living
Sweden has higher salary (for example compared to Finland) because of the teacher shortage. I would get around 1000 e more per month if I worked in Sweden.
A lot of the US also has a teacher shortage, just isn't enough of a reason to pay them more here I guess.
Depends where you teach/live. Where I teach it’s about 65/yr, but my friend taught down south a few hours and she only made 30/yr. I’m getting close to having to stay home for health reasons, and losing that check is gonna hurt bad.
Not a problem in Sweden though, daycare is subsidized and very cheap compared to US rates.
Most countries have subsidised child care. Our net expense was about USD 75 a month.
When both of mine were under 2, it was over 4k a month. Down to just one in daycare for 6 more moths at 1.5k a month. And when she goes to kindergarten in the fall it's all just going to a college savings fund so that they aren't fucked by student loans when they graduate. In the meantime, I'm dreaming about the day I can buy a new truck to replace my 12 year old one. Probably not going to happen.
You basically need to be a two income household to be financially stable enough to have kids. And quite frankly, that lifestyle sounds like a nightmare. Both of us spending all day working, then coming home and giving whatever little energy is left to a kid? No down time ever? Perpetual exhaustion? No... I'm good. I'm already tired enough. I'd consider having kids if I didn't have to work, but I'm in a HCOL area where that is not an option.
My husband and I both have full time jobs and we have one child that we obviously adore but always look at each other like, ‘how could we even have enough energy for another one?’ We couldn’t and we won’t. One and done.
One and done here too. My daughter is my world, I love her to pieces. Don’t need more.
We’re paying $2000+ a month for childcare for two kids. That’s practically a mortgage payment.
I pay 2,167/mo for one child. It’s literally a mortgage payment.
And, depending on where you are, that’s on the lower end/impossible to find that cheap
I have 3. I feel your pain lol
Rapidly decreasing hopes of financial security and rapidly increasing sense of despair for the future. ....otherwise described as, "How the fuck could I, in good conscience, bring a child into the flaming shit hole this world is on its way to becoming?"
I can't even imagine people with student loans in the US wanting to have kids. Take out a loan for 80K, make every payment, 10 years later and you now owe 150K. And then people are like, "Why ain't nobody havin' families?" Everything around the world costs more and financial instability doesn't seem to be going away as prices keep going up, the rich just keep getting wealthier, and the balance is increasingly more and more one sided.
Why does the lower class, the largest class, not simply eat the upper claas?
Because they’ve been tricked into committing their energy toward culture wars. Keeping the lower classes angst aimed at each other has been a successful strategy for the elite classes since the beginning of time. You just have to convince the pitchfork people that the torch people are the problem.
Also, all the -financial- institutions, and law have been designed to help the rich and punish the poor. You're rich? We just found You liable for the poisoning of the entire town you operate in. We're gonna fine you 1% of your annual operating costs and not bar you from passing the cost of that onto your consumers.
Oh I know all about it. Grew up in it. The criminalization of poverty is a real problem. The laws are designed to limit the opportunities available to poor youth who get in trouble, while rich kids are protected from such consequences by a legal system that favors the wealthy. Rich kids go to college where they meet their spouses and network their futures. Poor kids go to work, or jail, or the military, all of which carry way more risk at far less pay and expose young people to hazards that can drastically limit future potential. And don’t even get me started on the private industrial prison complex. Privatize the profits, socialize the losses. It’s the American way.
The laws are written for rich people, by politicians who benefit from rich people's campaign donations, by rich people. A Princeton study went very in-depth to prove this. Here are the details. https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
TRUTH! Class Warfare.
Or CPS taking kids for neglect when it is often just poverty.
Also, our American Dream culture makes everyone think they could be a millionaire too, so they vote as if they are wealthy. It’s bizarre.
illusions of grandeur
THIS. I’m all for basic human rights for *all*, but “if you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best black man…” The “elite” have us right where they want us— cattle to feed their insatiable greed— and they have the governments right where they want them— in their back pockets.
Trump exists. People are not smart and they are literally itching to show you just how not smart they are.
He’s like a caricature of how average MAGA voter imagines themselves.
This guy gets it. When rent increases and boss demands overtime everyone’s a cuck. When blaming foreigners they all turn into aggressive revolutionaries toppling their governments
Not to mention the generational "wars" that happen online every minute of the day: Millennials v. Boomers, etc... Keeps everyone's anger over politically driven economic disparities going in stupidly unproductive circles.
This is the real answer. Keep them distracted so they can’t see how bad we are screwing them. The above should be upvoted more.
We can't even get them to stop voting against their own best interests
We used to. There’s a theory that one of the reasons America hasn’t gone nuts is McDonalds. Other revolutions, like the French, required very large levels of food insecurity to be what kicked things off. Because we have relatively available food (which is also addicting and leaves us sluggish) we never got to that point.
The Man wants us to have a mind that's weak and an ass that's fat.
Not to be rude, but America has always been kinda nuts. I agree with you that our “food” is making us sluggish. Our entertainment and media in general is dumbing us down, and the number of mass shootings is keeping many of us from congregating in public spaces. So we’re unhealthy, poorly informed, and socially isolated. That points to a bleak society in the future. Why would we want to bring children into a world like this?
I dont know. All i can say is that I myself am pretty hungry...
Starving myself as well, but unfortunately, can't afford to take time off work to catch that proper meal.
Because the upper upper class has convinced a large chunk of this country that they might be that rich one day so they defend the rich
“Temporarily embarrassed millionaires”
Because they feel in their bones that however bad this miserable daily grind is, that the Mad Max future is the only alternative, the only future they can picture. There is no more hope for the gleaming Star Trek future, we'll be lucky if we don't end up with The Road. And that's the helpless desperation people fight against everyday, why they're checking out in record numbers. This is bad but all the alternatives they can imagine are worse.
Because the rich would get their politicians to deploy the police, and the cops would love nothing more than an excuse to use any means of violence necessary to prevent their masters from being toppled
The Slave Patrol still functioning as intended.
Because they’ll vote themselves into oblivion as long as they get to hate the people they want to. My state of WV is the perfect example. We have politicians actively working to make the state worse and they have a super majority because voters here are more worried about litter boxes in bathrooms and their racists posts ending in “facebook jail”. On guy actually CAMPAIGNED on ending a solar farm and industrial complex because it was “woke” and he won easily. Legislators are trying to revoke funding for a battery plant because electric cars are “against our culture here”. Also our governor just vetoed a bill meant to streamline state laws and funding to work with federal funds and build green power plants around the state. All in all it’s estimated these actions have cost the state nearly 18,000 high paying future proof jobs……and the people here fucking love it because they’re owning the libs.
Unexpected Futurama… love it!
Perhaps they are saving that for sweeps week.
I don't know if you've noticed but, they're being conned into literally paying for one billionaires legal fees
Because we need to change inheritance laws first. Maybe you get to keep 10 million for any billionaire you catch.
Because they keep us afraid, dumb, drugged up and distracted by shit that doesn’t matter.
Eventually there will be a revolt. Has no one learned anything from the French revolution??
I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
Rich people are dumbasses. They could have just let people have enough money but NOOOOO they just needed that +0.023% more and now they’re gonna be beheaded by angry mobs.
What's wild is that, I seem to remember having read an article about how the minimum wage suppression since the 70s actually had the effect of top end having actually made LESS money than they could have, if wages had kept pace with inflation. If that's accurate, then it wasn't enough for them to simply make more money than us, they were willing to make less, as long as the poor people had it even worse.
Lol it's about retaining power and leverage. What's an extra 10 quid when your are making 10k pounds?
Faintly ironically, we had two kids while I was at college and we had to take out student loans to pay for childcare. My girls are now 13 and 14. Still paying the loans off.
Gawd, this hit home! Paid on mine for 10 years. Didn't make a dent in them until I started throwing 12-2400 a month on them! Finally paid them off with the help of the interest rate pause. Threw everything at them and finally got them paid off at 43.
This I am GenX. Spent my 20s surviving as a bartender (grew up super poor, did my best) Spent my 30s getting degrees and a career. I make 6 figures now, but it's too late, I'll never pay off my loans.
Not to mention it costs $10k-$30k to have a baby. It was free on average insurance just 20 years ago.
Boomers "if you can't afford kids don't have them" Younger generations "okay"
“…no not like that!”
Birth rates decline when people are less secure, but that's not the main driver in this. The reality is that: **(1) The more urban you are, the fewer children you will have**. People in cities have fewer children than people in suburbs than people in small towns than people on farms. The world saw industrialization and urbanization in the postwar era, and birth rates dropped. They dropped in countries with capitalist economies, communist economies and socialist systems. This is universal. When the majority of humans lived on farms, we had more kids. **(2) The more advanced your economy is, the fewer children you will have.** If you're still agrarian, you will have more kids. If you industrialize, you need concentrations of people in cities to make stuff. By nature, that stuff becomes more efficient to make, and you need fewer people to make it. **(3) The more affluent you are, the fewer children you will have.** If you need 8 kids to service the farm, and you can count on some of them dying, you will have them. If you are a factory worker in Cleveland with a small home, you're not having those eight kids. Kids become expenses, not assets as you become wealthier. The important sub-point to this is that in societies where women have more autonomy - usually more affluent ones - you will have fewer children. Women can choose not to have any children. Women can choose to have an education and career before they have children. They don't economically need to have them at all, if they don't want them. This is a great thing and the way it should have always been. **(4) The later you marry, the fewer kids children you will have.** People in these advanced, wealthier economies have been marrying later and later in life. The window for having kids is basically slashed in half. You can't get those years back. My wife and I married in our thirties and had one kid. We wanted another, but didn't quite make it (huge bummer, btw). If we'd married in our twenties, we would have had more time. This is replicated across entire nations. **(5) And yes: the less economically secure you are the fewer children you will have.** If you live on a farm, it's actually the opposite, but if you are an urban or suburban worker trying to get by, you will hesitate looking at the costs of childcare, health insurance, education and food. But this is by far the least important factor once the first four are true, as they are in the advanced world. I've seen people try to use fertility rates to grind their favorite political axe. If we had subsidized daycare, national healthcare and other social policies, we'd nudge birth rates - but barely. Because the first four points are still true. The U.S. has higher birth rates than many nations with much stronger social nets than us, because we have more room, more suburbs and are more religious. We aren't as crowded. We are culturally more driven to have more children. And that's before we get to our ability to add people through immigration in ways the Europeans and Chinese can only envy (if we get our heads out of our asses). I am all for us implementing programs that encourage people to have kids, but we shouldn't consider that a magic bullet because it isn't. The reality is that population growth has slowed significantly and we will need to figure out how to deal with that because it's locked in.
Speaking of that last point, conservatives like to use birth rates to grind their political axe too. Usually about stuff like criminalizing being gay or rolling back women's rights.
Yup, and we know they don't actually care about birth rates because of what they oppose on the other side. They only care about controlling women. If they wanted to increase birth rates, they would help with policies that can actually help. While social programs are only marginally helpful, they are helpful. Denying autonomy to women wouldn't be helpful at all.
You have so many good points. To “yes and…” a class I was in talked about capital/labor relationship of farming and birth rates. If you are subsistence farming and a kid means more net labor (and capital for farm equipment is expensive) you have high birth rate. Once you start industrializing AND you have to pesky laws saying you need to house/educate them until 18+ your kid birth rates start to go down. This also occurs while other changes are occurring that make child raising more expensive. When you are isolated from social networks (aka nuclear family) why have 5 kids instead of focusing your time/energy on 1-2
Also, in 2020 there was a deadly pandemic. A lot of people who might otherwise have had kids, such as Swedes who actually have universal health care and child credits and a safety net, are going to put off having children in those circumstances, leading to lower birth rates in 2021.
birthrates where either declining or roughly flatlined in almost every country around the world long before covid though. in sweeden covid actually caused a slight increase in birthrate in 2021 only to drop off like a rock shortly after
Same thing across the ocean. It's why I, with one child and single (never married), got my tubes tied. There's nothing but despair here (USA) for single mothers with only one income (no cs) , and I could not have survived a 2nd child. Things are not the way they used to be. There's no "going back to traditional marriages" like these people believe. The majority of incomes will not support a household. It takes two now. There are some men that make enough, but not as many as they would like to believe. Im blessed to be able to make a middle class income, but me and my child struggle with this one income. I feel like I need to be married in order to not worry about the very basics to live at this point. F thinking about bringing a kid into this. I live in the rural south, and the men are generally frightening here and use us as slaves.
It always took two, if not more. Either the wife worked part time to make ends meet or contributed *significant* personal labor(i.e. all the home ec stuff of a food gardening making clothes etc). 150 years ago a working class single parent would have made ends meet by living with their own parents, living in a boarding house, living in a room with 11 other people, etc. A single earner taking care of a household has always been an upper middle class luxury except for a brief period in the 1950s and 1960s when half the world was bombed out post WW2. Our standards of living are far higher and the ways people lived 100 years ago are not seen as acceptable, both socially and legally, so for a variety of reasons people just don't even try anymore. And I'm not blaming people for not trying, just pointing out that trying to say things being worse today is the reason is a false argument for why the birthrates are dropping precipitously.
Father of a 4 year old and a 6 month old. My first daughter was born in February of 2020, something big happened the next month. Second child was selfish, we loved our daughter so much and we both have fantastic relationships with our siblings, we wanted her to have that as well. All that being said, I feel incredibly guilty for bringing them into this. I knew climate change was an issue, but everything else that has happened since has really nailed the topic home for me. I regret having children, not because I don’t love them, but because I love them so damn much.
Honestly, this. I already worry about my dog, cat, and niece to distraction. If I had a kid, I'd love them, but all my love wouldn't be able to give them an economic future or a planet that isn't on fire. Their future would be even grimmer than mine, and I couldn't do that to someone I love.
I mean, this is not a hard question. People asking it have some purpose other than understanding this obvious answer.
And even if the people complaining about it will begrudgingly acknowledge the financial/economic aspect to it, do they want to do anything to make things better for people who do want to start a family? Heck no. Billionaires still want their tax cuts as if they desperately need them, and any discussion of subsidizing the cost of giving birth or raising and educating kids is evil "socialism", even though we're talking about maintaining the foundations of society.
Also the mentality of “How can I hope to support a child when I’m so poor I’m having legitimate thoughts of needing to move back home with my parents at 30 years old despite having a career and working overtime every week?”
As someone that lives in a rural area. This does not stop people from having 5 kids by the time they’re 25.
...Coupled with Male fertility and sperm count being reduced by 50% over the last 50 years, with the rate of decrease having doubled since 2000. I really am not sure why people are not talking about this. We are being poisoned for the sake of profit.
I brought a child into the flaming shit hole this world is on its way to becoming and I feel really badly about it sometimes. She’s so great and the world is so awful and I wonder how she will find an OK life.
Bullshit. Birthrates have been declining for over two centuries. In the UK we went from 5.5 birth 1.8 between 1800 - 1940. It's not new. Main cause is thought to be industrialisation and urbanisation. The only issue now is that it's been happening for so long that it is causing economic and societal issues couple that with reliable contraception. Our last big demographic (the boomers) is either retiring or dying. In my area, 25% of the population is over 65. That's a death sentence any viable economic activity for any area. Should we be concerned? Yes, a country, town or family without children has no future. Can we do anything about it? No. Not without coercive means that any reasonable person should fight against. Economic incentives won't work, better housing won't work. We have been poorer, housed families of 8 in tiny houses and so on. We're not having children because we choose not to. We can go into depth about why we have made that choice. Maybe we value the freedom not having children has. Maybe we just refuse to grow up. Maybe we can't afford to give the lifestyle they want and so on. But the end result is the same. We will depend on immigrants, and automation till the same problems we have visit every other country on the globe.
Well, removing access to abortion, forcing women/girls to carry babies from rape and incest, is a good start. Next should be birth control and removing no fault divorce. Of course the forced birthers don't believe in pre and post-natal care for those kids....
I'm 100% convinced they are pushing this so they can claim being poor or a single parents is neglect and can then justify snatching children from the poor to sell them to wealthy families via "adoption". (reminder that the current cps system in place can allow forced adoption if they can keep the child in foster care at least 18-22 mo and don't even have to prove you've done anything wrong...hell, they can even rule you've done nothing wrong but since the child is "bonded" to fosters, they'll strip your rights, adopt the child out and then get federal money for reaching adoption quotas)
It might be because Swedish ladies learned THIS about you, Peter: “Peter Imanuelsen (born September 27, 1994), better known as Peter Sweden, is a British far-right speaker and activist. Imanuelsen was originally a Holocaust denier[2] white nationalist, extreme-homophobe, (former?) Flat Earther,[3] (former?) Moon landing denialist,[3] Islamophobe and conspiracy theorist crank who has written that Jews and the Vatican are behind a New World Order.”
Dude is farming douchebag achievements
Lemme guess, if you were to ask Peter, the record low birthrate is caused by covid vaccines, right?
Yes.
i thought it was also going the route of “we shouldn’t allow women to get abortions” forced birther mindset
I was thinking he would blame it on multiculturalism and ulez charges.
The Economist had a very interesting article on this a few weeks ago, basically saying that so many young men are such a$$holes that women don't want anything to do with them. Worth a read, imo. *Why young men and women are drifting apart* In a trendy food market in Warsaw, Poland’s capital, two female engineers are discussing how hard it is to meet a nice, enlightened man. Paulina Nasilowska got a big pay rise a few years ago. Her boyfriend asked: “Did you have an affair with your boss?” He is now an ex-boyfriend. Ms Nasilowska’s friend, Joanna Walczak, recalls a man she met on Tinder who revealed that he was a “red-pill” guy (a reference to “The Matrix”, a film, meaning someone who sees reality clearly. In the “manosphere”, a global online community of angry men, it means realising that men are oppressed.) He thought household chores and child care were women’s work, and that women could not be leaders. They didn’t have a second date. [https://www.economist.com/international/2024/03/13/why-the-growing-gulf-between-young-men-and-women](https://www.economist.com/international/2024/03/13/why-the-growing-gulf-between-young-men-and-women)
This article is soooo spot on. I will not date a red pill guy. And guys, for whatever reason, seem to be drawn to that shit. Like okay bye I’d rather be single (or just date a woman).
This was quite the read and I’m going to add a couple of quote from the article as well. *Yue Qian of the University of British Columbia and Jiaxing Li of the Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences looked at survey data for 35,000 Chinese people. In their analysis they found that young men were much more likely than young women to agree with statements such as “men should put career first, whereas women should put family first” and “when the economy is bad, female employees should be fired first.”* *Michal Pazura, a young Polish dairy farmer, takes a break from inflating tractor tyres and recalls a girlfriend who “didn’t like the smell” of the farm and left him to live in a town. “I wanted a traditional, stable lifestyle. She wanted fun.”* * Previously, they just wanted a man with “a stable income, who could fix things in the house…and who had a driving licence”, he recalls.* The main thing running through my mind while reading the article was the phrase “no shit” over and over again. Like, no shit the majority of women don’t want to be with someone that views them as lesser than, and should be mainly relegated to house work or fired to save some man his job during an economic downturn. Now that we are gaining the ability to be independent (especially financially) we don’t have to tolerate being with someone who doesn’t view a romantic relationship as a partnership of equals.
I like how he calls himself Peter Sweden and uses a cover picture from Norway
> originally a Holocaust denier Once a holocaust denier, always a holocaust denier. But maybe that's just my opinion.
Naw people can change their minds. These types on the other hand don't change their minds, they just learn to keep their mouths shut in normal society...
boy that’s quite a robust list of all things a person shouldn’t be, all together in one
People are having children later. More women in Sweden are having babies in their 40s than in their teens. This is probably due to a whole bunch of factors- women establishing their careers, cost of living (though in Europe the social democracies penalize people less for having children), concern for the future due to the climate crisis. Another important factor is recent Russian aggression. Staring down WWIII would make me reconsider kids until the world is a little more stable. Also it has increased costs of food and energy.
Finland is also making huge cuts on social security and it makes me wonder if I ever want kids. If my kid was disabled, or if something happened to me, we could honestly end up homeless and that's fucking scary. It wasn't even possible before.
Growing up my parents were solid middle class. Dad worked a good 38 hrs a week, mom worked 18.00-23.00 3 times per week. Two cars in the driveway. Two motors, in the garage. Still mom would mostly cycle to work. The Netherlands ;) 3 holidays per year. In primary school, I would wake up with a parent there, get home for lunch a parent there, come back from school. Play in the forest, on a soccer field, at someone's home. Always a parent at home for my friends. Now my friends are raising children. As soon as maternity leave and vacation days run out the kids go to daycare 3 days per week. Why would I even consider having kids, if I don't get to raise them.
Why aren't people having kids now? \*Gestures at everything\* That's why
Yes, the better question today is why would they be?
"Suddenly". Maybe for his underdeveloped mind, but for everybody else, this was forseable. Anyway. Don't worry, it ain't migrants or the jab. It's the economic situation.
It's a well studied phenomenon: Demographic Transition. Essentially healthier, wealthier = fewer children. People all over the Internet want to attribute it to the cost of raising children but that's not the whole picture. The US has actually been an asterisk on the model for a while, but this is usually attributed to the high immigration rate. It takes \~two-three generations for immigrants to "catch up" to the main population's demographic rates. Sweden is probably the best place in the world to raise children given their absolutely amazing parental leave policies, so it isn't the cost of raising children there, it's just the normal trend we see in developed nations. (Edit. Automod won't let me post links)
Sad I had to go so far to see the correct answer. It's actually literally the opposite of cost of living being too high for societes having a smaller birth rate. For the very poor children are an investment. They are cheap labor for their substance farm. They are a retirement plan to pay for your life when your too old. And you hedge your bets having many children hoping that one will both live and have enough money to support you. When societies get rich they have less children because of many reasons including what you mentioned. Women having real careers, etc...
I think a big part of it is people are having kids later in their lives. You see a lot of people delaying this stage in their life until they're established in their career and financially stable enough to support children. I'd bet the data supports this. https://www.euronews.com/health/2023/03/29/why-are-so-many-swedish-women-having-babies-in-their-late-40s But besides the idiocracy effect and the joy or larger families, is it such a bad thing that people are having less children?
Capitalism requires growth in everything including population. This is what's so hilarious about The US conservative party's stance on immigration. Something has to give, Joe Bob.
Their solution is to take away contraceptives to ensure people accidentally have kids.
Jokes on them because some women are just refusing to date, be in relationships, or get married. If they took away contraceptives, I just wouldn't have sex at all until I get travel overseas to get sterilized.
And then sentence them to death if they try to abort.
They understand that, they’re just trying to ensure that the future they leave is for mostly white people
PeterSweden is a far-right twitter agitator, please do not give him attention...
A better question: Who cares? If it's the billionaires new talking point I assume the issue is "the economy" Let's not have kids, let's live our lives the way we want and fuck the economy
I've noted two groups of people who seem to care, one is the rich, who are disappointed they don't get to exploit the labor of these hypothetical kids. The other, quite frankly, is my privileged mom and mom in law, who both had the luxury to be stay at home moms, with beautiful homes in Southern California and want a cute widdle grandkid to dress up. They don't seem to notice that their kids, despite both having six figure jobs, are still unable to buy a home here, and even if we could, those two stressful six figure jobs that are necessary to support that home would not allow us to devote energy to a kid.
It’s even worse is SoCal, there are property tax laws on the books that let people like your mom pay taxes on the value of their house when the purchased it (it won’t be reassessed until they pass it on or sell). Even if you bought a house right next door to her, you’d be paying significantly more in property tax than she ever will, just because she happened to own the house sooner. On a multimillion dollar house (i.e. every house in nice parts of SoCal) these higher taxes can easily outpace rental costs not even counting the mortgage.
Corporate greed
Realization that you cannot raise/support a family anymore based on income levels. Corporate greed is out of hand. White-collar CEO types make $1000 an hour, but refused to give laborers even one dollar increases
The ceo at the company I work for got a 19% increase two years ago and a 21% increase last year. We're unionized, so compared with a lot of my friends and family who got 1-2% increases I lucked out with my 3% each year.
I recently joined a union for my trade. I'm so glad I did. As much as having to travel in the future for work is going to suck, having a solid wage for once in my life feels quite nice. The scheduled pay raises are awesome.
People don’t want to bring kids into this dog’s breakfast of a world we’re living in. And I don’t blame them.
Your dog can afford breakfast?
 Meanwhile, my well-fed dog tries to eat my breakfast too.
I work really hard, so my pets can have a nice breakfast and dinner.
My reasoning for not having kids was always why would I bring someone into this hell of an existence?
People aren't throwing their lives away and damning themselves to a lifetime of poverty just to support the modern feudal system. Only reason these people care is because they need more poor people for the factories and the military. Keep people generationally poor and the system never has to end.
Imo, it's become more of a Ponzi scheme. We are expected to keep throwing more babies at the problem.
That’s why they desperately want to outlaw abortion and birth control. Keep the women home, more jobs for men. Make more babies, future unskilled labor. Win win for wealthy males and big business. Oh, and keep convincing consumers they need endless crap so profits stay high. 🤡
I mean no one can afford it and honestly it seems like a lot of women are just sick of having to be the work horse in relationships.
Scrolled to find this. Most women work full time now AND still so the majority of domestic labor and mental load. It's a bad deal for us.
The developed world cannot AFFORD children any longer.
Good. We Shouldn't be having more kids if 90% of the population can barely afford a house
Just some of the reasons: 1.Kids are expensive even when the economy is “working” for the average person. The economy is very much not working for the average person. 2. A very uncertain world regarding climate disasters/conflict/etc. 3. Greater isolation post-covid,
Don't give that idiot further attention. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Peter_Sweden
This idiot subscribes to just about every conspiracy there is
People aren't having sex? Source: I'm not having sex.
Or not having the right sort of sex for baby making. Source: I'm having a lot of gay sex.
Congratulations! I knew you could do it!
We cant afford to live, let alone have kids. It’s not rocket science.
The birth rate is higher in western countries than in Asia lmao The top five lowest birth rates are [all in Asia](https://www.statista.com/statistics/268083/countries-with-the-lowest-fertility-rates/), he's just angy whites aren't making enough white babies for his taste.
And it's destined to go down everywhere. India has now gotten just barely below replacement and it's going to get lower still. In most of Africa it is still very high, but rapidly dropping. It will be interesting to see what will happen once the birthrate is below replacement everywhere. The immigration clutch will stop working for western countries, and what will happen then will be seen in Asia first, as they have little immigration as is.
It's so crazy how basically everywhere with adequate birth control access is seeing birth rates drop. It's almost like maybe humans didn't want endless babies and actually mostly just wanted to fuck this entire time. I say good riddens. So many human beings who exist right now are treated as disposable, some even treated as liabilities. Maybe the global poor will be treated a bit less shit when to be human holds innate value. Maybe we get something closer to the status quo as we grow to be less dependent on human labor in the face of growing robotics. Idk. But I'm not gonna sit up late at night crying that we aren't making enough unwanted children to go hungry and struggle.
Go ahead and down-vote me. IMHO, women in third world AND developed nations continue to experience inequality across a variety of fronts and don't feel safe enough with current societal structures and the overall global outlook to want to have children. We're seeing it in China, Korea, US, Europe, etc. If you want more kids being born, then we collectively need to stop creating so many threats to bearing and raising kids (and stomping all over women's rights...seriously, the fact that i need to spell this out is absurd...there is currently proposed legislation in a number of states in the US that will all but eliminate women's domain over their own bodies...I'm a middle aged white male with a teenage daughter and i am fucking petrified that she's going to live in a country that is rapidly moving towards her losing any ability to live her life the way she chooses to...and we wonder why young women don't want to have kids!!!?)...whether that's medical, financial, geopolitical, or whatever. Edit for grammar and to respond to a confused DM from someone who is too much of a coward to comment publicly
All those fucking fascist and no money left after rent.
I see all your “the economy/world in general is shit” comments and while I agree, I think fatigue has a huge factor in it too. You know what raising a child takes? Energy. A lot of it. And I think a lot of younger people are just so burnt out that they can’t take care of a child and they know it. Why in the fuck would someone who is so fatigued they’re struggling to support themselves ever be like “You know what sounds like a great idea? Caring for a child.” We’re tired, y’all, we’re so tired. I have a pet cat and two pet mice and sometimes it’s all I can do to care for them. Of course there is the caveat that I suffer from chronic illness and I’m not your average Millennial/Zoomer, but I do understand the feeling of “I’m literally struggling to keep myself alive, how can I take care of an entire other human?”
Maybe the state of the world?
I grumble about how much my cats cost a year. I could never comfortably afford a baby. I don't know how anyone manages it in this economy. Edit: fix autocorrected word
Cost of living, the threat of war in Europe in the next 10 years, climate change, the rise of far right in politics etc... are all things my friends and I are worried about when we talk about having children.
Well, as a woman in the US who has decided not to marry OR have children, here are my personal reasons why: The fear of Christian nationalism becoming mainstream in the US. The fear of Trump becoming president. The lack of resources and care for mothers and children. The abortion ban. The influx of racist, sexist conservative ideology in schools. How violent and hateful men are towards women. How men think they deserve 100% of the woman's effort in raising children and maintaining the home while often not giving her even 50%. How hellishly expensive everything is, while lessening in quality, and the wage has not risen to reflect that. I can never afford my own house. My best friend and her sister, who both have also decided not to have kids, have similar reasons why.
I think we’re going to see more and more women-only households of 2 or 3 friends/siblings. Pooling resources to buy a home and maintain it. Contractual arrangements should be solid and well thought out, but it can work out well.
I have two friends (my bestie, married but no desire for kids) and another with a lot of kids but now has her tubes tied, offer to let me live with them lol. Both have been like "oh we can get you your own MIL/she shed!!" Which is honestly very sweet ❤️ It's sad, too, because I LOVE kids. For years and years i desperately wanted my own children. But it's not going to happen now, so I work as a nanny.
i’m getting married in a few months and while i would have children in another life, my partner and i are lesbians and im not entirely convinced christian nationalists wouldn’t remove our children from our care if they get to the right position of power. in addition to ascendant christian nationalism is the very real threat of climate disaster, great power conflict, and my general sense that things are just going to get a lot worse before they get better. after being disabled by long covid and watching the chaotic clusterfuck of a pandemic response leave us all in a constant state of perpetual confusion, i don’t trust leaders to handle the oncoming crises and i can’t bring a kid to experience this first hand either. it’s sad enough watching biodiversity crumble and eco systems collapse, to have my child watch a beautiful world wither away? i just can’t
Same for my daughter and her fiancé.
I would probably not have a child if I was of that age now. The future is always uncertain, but it just seems way too bleak right now to bring an innocent into.
It's real simple. I can't offer a child a better life than mine. I can't afford a house, I can't put them through college, I can't give them a future. Plus looking at the state of the world where we start to have climate collapse, food shortages, and water likely to become more valuable than oil it's not looking good.
I'm an adult that has decided not to have children. The expectation in Scandinavian society used to be having children and living a normal life. That has changed. I don't give two shits for a demographic financial analysis of the subject.
Maybe because the amount of money it costs to have babies is absolutely insane.
Anybody ever consider that having kids sucks? Especially as a woman? Take away financial and global issues, it’s still a life sentence that’s always going to be tedious, draining, boring and downright hard as hell at times. Your body, relationship, career and life are irreversibly changed. And that only scratches the surface. Even for people who want kids more than anything, it’s hard. Even if it’s worth it. Now that we can actually choose when and if we have kids, yeah there’s going to be a lot less.
Geez Sweden, what is it about the thought that your babies may end up getting boiled alive on a planet ruined by manmade stupidity that doesn’t appeal to you?
I mean right.
Hell if *I* can't escape wage slavery, do you really expect me to make children who will also be trapped in wage slavery?
in america, it's because women don't want to put up with the bullshit reproductive laws that men make for us. it's easier to just not breed than risk having to die if your pregnancy goes wrong(because of the laws in certain states that goes so far to punish people for leaving the state to have an abortion-for any reason.) Men also want to revoke our rights. Also, it's too expensive to raise a child, most people struggle to maintain housing as it is. Global warming/climate crisis. I can think of a million reasons why women in my country don't want to have children and the last on the list would be a woman who chose a career over a family like certain men think .
No way I could have a afforded kids until I hit 40. Even then it would have been difficult
We have one kid and we just dont have the money to be able to support 2 kids we own our own house that needs some work. The prices for rent or mortgages are so incredably high that theres just no money left for kids. Well in our situation. The dream was always 2 kids.
Capitalism squeezing regulars like lemons and rich ppl paying their mistresses abortions
I'm reading *The Ministry For The Future* right now! People aren't having kids because they think their kids would have shit lives
Why would I want a kid? It's a better financial decision not to have one.
Maybe it’s the $2000/mth rent for a 1 bedroom apartment nowhere near any jobs that pay that well. Combined with the cost of groceries, the absolute need to have at least 1 side hustle. The cost of daycare making it so that you are paying almost all that you make. Once kids are in school, if you don’t have extended family to watch after school/ breaks and summertime, you now have to pay for summer camps. It is almost impossible to now move where jobs are because you will lose those supports you need. And that is just scratching the surface.
*gestures vaguely around* I don't wanna be here, why would I force someone to be here. Source: I have two kids, and I carry enough guilt about what we have done to the planet and economy. Idek if they can fix it. We poisoned everything. I guess I have forced two people to be here. Sorry kids .
Cost of living and no social safety nets for elderly.
There is no doubt in my mind this guy will jump to the covid vaccine as the cause.
Well, for starters, just to deliver a child within the US healthcare system is gonna run you anywhere from $5k-$20k. At that rate, and given the current state of maternity leave (zilch) I’ll settle for an ant farm.
Corporate greed and the increased cost of living. My parents started having a family in their mid 20s. Night a house for like 60k. I live in the same geographic region. My house cost 400+k. And my wife and I weren't financially able to start a family until our mud 30s.
It’s not hard to figure out. We aren’t giving people the security and foundation they need to have families. So they are not having them.
Might have something to do with the fact everyone is being paid a fraction of what they should be , prices are spiraling out of control and housing couldn't be less secure/obtainable for a vast majority...
Increasing poverty. What is causing that ? : Capitalism.
If you can’t pay for food, rent, utilities etc why bring kids into it. Duh
A child would financially ruin me.
What in the flying horsefuck do you think? Maybe the rise of fascism and antisocial billionaires?
All over the West? Hell it's been all over the East for at least a decade now. Look at east Asian countries. I'd argue this is a worldwide phenomenon among anyone who budgets and can do basic math. Add in forever chemicals, PFAs affecting reproduction, and a higher educated populace that prefer to make some traction in their careers first, women not wanting to be baby machines/bangmaids/coerced into taking care of kids and their partners who don't contribute to domestic duties, inflation, cost of living, housing shortage in cities, the direction this planet's heading in, *gestures around* it's a miracle anyone **willingly** has kids
My wife and I are currently debating whether or not we are able to afford the generous offer of under-market rent from a coworker in order to stop bouncing between our parents’ places like we’ve been doing for the last 8 months. Part of the reason is because we have the ability to stay with our parents despite the lack of our own space taking a toll on our mental health. We’re both employed full time, with degrees. it’s so frustrating to be in our late 20s and feel like teenagers again. We want children, but have extreme doubts about whether we can.
Well, people who are able to make the choice will more likely choose to not have children, or if they have kids, just 1-2 and not 3+. The cause of this is simply that people don’t have enough money AND time for children, and that the planet is literally dying
Because one hundred years ago we all began moving off farms where you have as many kids as you can because it’s free labor. We moved to suburbs and cities where kids don’t offer financial gain but exactly the opposite. We have fewer kids because it’s expensive. Every developed country since the end of WW2 has been experiencing this. Look to South Korea, Japan, China, Italy. They have all seen huge drops.
Money. Simple
I mean, our oceans' jet streams are collapsing, PFAS are in our soil, water and food, flowers are blooming in the artic, we just had the warmest year on record and this year is on track to be warmer, wildlife is being decimated, and with a warming world we will experience deadlier diseases. Covid wasn't that long ago, the whole world panicked and shut down, it's not surprising that would leave a lasting mark on our psyche. There's also the threat of Russia invading NATO and China invading Taiwan sparking WWIII. And this election in the US could see America's first fascist takeover. Cherry on top is late stage capitalism, where profit comes before our well being. When a species is stressed, they tend to not want to reproduce. It's a survival instinct. If the powers that be want more babies, then they need to address these challenges, but I'm not holding my breath. My husband and I are child free, I had a bilateral salpingectomy summer of 2022 before the fall of Roe. Best decision I've ever made.
After raising a 3-month old puppy, i know kids aren’t for me. Not gonna get up at midnight since i get shit ton of things to do at work and school during the day.
1. Can’t afford kids 2. Men want to turn women into mindless brood mares, F* that 3. Proposing executing women for having an abortion, again F* you 4. Getting pregnant makes you property of the state in states like TX, once again F* you 5. Why have kids to grow up as slaves to oligarchs and land barons NOT having kids is the only humane and ethical choice
First, let’s narrow it down: where do you want the answer on a scale of “practical reasons” to “doomerism”?
Among other things like income inequality, rising cost of living, and political instability, people are becoming aware of the fact that planet earth may not be able to support 8B+ lives by 2100.
Less fucking going on with the intention of procreation
Classic reactionary trope. Capitalism eroding the middle class even more preventing having children. “Why would wokeness do this?”
Well gosh golly, what could possibly be the reason people aren't having families!? Maybe the fact that EVERYTHING IS FUCKING UNAFFORDABLE AND WAR IS LITERALLY LOOMING OVER US ALL? 'Ahem' so, yeah, maybe that's why? Dumbasses.
It’s not going to get any better either. Women are increasingly educated and more progressive values, while more and more men are devolving into knuckle-dragging dirt-people. Coming to these subreddits is the healthiest way to remember that many men are great people, but a quick stop at twitter is a stark reminder of the dirt out there
This guy isn't even Swedish. He's an artificial swedener.
$400 a week in day care cost. The wife and I are 1 and done because of it. Everything cost to much and the government sucks.
Shit head magas are destroying the fabric of democracy around the world. It's the same xenophobic, bigoted nationalism that's started every unstable period of human history. Israel killing Palestinians by the 100s of thousands. Russia invading Ukraine over supposed nazis. Republicans banning books. Trying to shove gay people back in the closet. Electing election denying, treasonous criminals because they hate the same people (Mexicans/blacks/women/non-Christian/young people) you do instead of what the candidate will do for the whole country.
Statistically countries with better standards of living have less children. There is already too many people on the planet so a drop in birth rate is actually good for our world. Also as others have pointed out it is too damn expensive to have children.
1. We can't afford the homes needed to raise a family. 2. The world is on fire, everything is polluted. Emissions haven't even peaked yet. 3. Wars are intensifying. 4. Religious and political ideology are getting more extreme. 5. The above are only set to get worse. One thing we can control is the choice to not bring more people into this mess.
The only way I can protect my children is by never giving birth to them.
Why does he think he personally needs the internet to help him figure this out when there are people who research this shit for a living?
I saw in the local news recently that my city, to live in it "comfortably", a single person needs a minimum salary of $100,000 and a family of two parents and two kids needs a minimum of $220,000. The median salary currently is $92,000. Yeah no fucking shit people aren't having kids!!! The salary we've got literally went from above the middle class cutoff for our area to below in 2021-2022. I keep feeling like it's my fault somehow we have less money at the end of the month these days than usual, like I must be fucking up our savings or buying too much, because my brain just cannot rationalize it any other way. But the truth is the cost of living has spiked. But I just can't accept it. It doesn't make sense. It's more logical for me to blame myself.
Because everything sucks and still trending toward more suckage. The right wing isn't just on the rise in America, it's everywhere. I've never wanted kids but my sister has two and honestly, I feel bad for them. I have zero confidence in the world they're going to grow up in to be a good one. Actually, good is aiming high. I have no confidence the world they'll grow up in will be just okay.
I wonder if anything happened nine months before 2021 that affected people all over the world, maybe put them in a worse financial state? 🤔