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I've been terrified of pregnancy my entire life and I'm a selfish adult who wants to do what I want.
So yes, nothing the governments do can ever make me want to have kids.
Not even you, Greg Abbott, you dickhole pathetic excuse for a "person". I fucking hate you!
Edit: One of my sentences was exceptionally dark.
I don't think it's selfish to not want kids. With how fucked the world is, maybe we should be thinking about if it's instead selfish to have kids.
I determined from about age 12 that I didn't want kids. 10 years later and I still don't want them, so I removed the possibility of accidentally having them. The government can't make me have kids - seeing as I yeeted my uterus.
Stop saying that. Not having kids is not selfish. Having kids is selfish. You create a human just because you want to own one.
Less people means less waste and less fossil fuel consumption. This is not a bad thing.
The real reason why people don't have kids is because they suck. Kids are stupid and annoying. More and more people are waking up to this fact and starting to resist the social pressure."I can actually live my life instead of dedicating all my time and resources to something I don't even need? I'll have two of that please!"
If government wants kids let them raise the kids. Pay women to give birth and then put the kid in public system. Problem solved.
I mean, kids only really suck in a world where both parents have to work 40+ hours a week. You really don't have to dedicate all your time to them, but in a world with less and less community to help raise them and more and more work to grind your energy down, you have to dedicate far too much of your limited free time to them. I would love to be able to raise a kid or two myself. I loved working with kids. We should not be throwing them into some nebulous "public system."
I would honestly need twice my salary and a free home to consider it with my girlfriend.
Not even on the table.
Terry Gou, a candidate in next year’s Taiwanese presidential election, has even proposed giving people a free pet if they have a child.
Okay, so your solution for people who don't want children is to give them "children lite"?
reducing work hours in japan lead to a spike in pregnancies. If you want to raise birth rates a 4day work week should be at the top of the list.
Two things:
Life sucks for a lot of people. Younger Gen X, Millenials, Gen Z all have had really hard times. Why would someone want to make their life harder?
The "declining" birth rates are actually returning to pre-Baby Boom levels. This is a fully natural thing.
I have a stable job and a good chunk of savings and I still feel wholly inadequate of raising a child. I know some of it is just me being selfish
Good. Lowering the birth rate at the global scale = more resources per person.
Well the earth is overpopulated, sounds like the human species as a whole is a lot smarter than politicians and anti social capitalists looking for $$ to numnum
They tried EVERYTHING, except...
I grew up lower middle class or more likely upper lower class, my parents both worked and owned a house but it was tough to make ends meet when they were getting older and my dad couldn't move as easily because of injuries.
I still grew up with parents that were home from work everyday, good food, lights, heat and internet were never cut off. I couldn't do what my parents did for me. I have a great job, my partner is much better educated has the opportunity to get much more important jobs and we earn more than 135k a year but it would be impossible to raise kids, even just one as well as my parents raised me and my sister.
Why would I want to raise a child in a worse environment than I grew up in? I can see why immigrants come in and have a family. Their next generation will likely have a far better life in Canada than in their home countries. I welcome others to have a better life here than back in their home countries and have kids here.
Mandate a 32 hour, 4 day work week? That's one more day per week to think about makin babies?
How much cash? Is it drastically less than the increase in the cost of living since birth rates started to drop? I'll bet that it's as little as possible while still technically not being zero, and I'll bet it's taxed as earned income.
Ensuring families have access to Child Healthcare, parents have time to parent their kids, kids have capable and loving parents and communities have programs to ensure the wellbeing of the children is SOCIALISM!
-Pro Life Republicans trying to Save The Children
Pay me. If you want me to raise your future workers. Pay me enough to live and raise them. It used to be possible to support a family of 7 on one income with a house and two cars in the driveway. People can barely keep their heads above water nowadays on two incomes. Since it requires two incomes, there is no time for child raising. The government doesn’t provide guarantees of time off to have them, doesn’t provide daycare so you can keep your job, and doesn’t provide healthcare. No, instead we write blank checks to the Pentagon and give the rich tax cuts.
gestures broadly
I can't imagine signing anyone else up for this. Not until the trajectory turns in a positive direction
I'd be happy to have kids if you paid me! In fact, not having enough money is literally the whole fucking reason behind many of us not having kids! Businesses have lost the ideal that if you make your workers prosperous, they will make your company prosper. People can't even afford rent, let alone children now!
I have 4 friends in their mid to late 30s who have had to move back in with their parents this year because they can no longer afford to live on their own. Meanwhile, I've got relatives asking all the time, so when are you and the Mrs going to have a kid? I'm having to decide between my own medical bills, food, utilities and you want me to add a child to that? Go ahead and start paying me. Cause right now, in this economic climate, that's the only way it's gonna work!
I agree with most the points others in this thread make about the economy having gotten worse such that it discourages more kids.. I have a decent job and if I had a second child I think I would never have a chance at retirement.
I am also curious about rising infertility.... My wife and I had go through ivf to even have one child.. This after 7 years of trying..
Several of our peers and friends have struggled with this as well.. It could just be a coincidence but we only know around 20 other couples outside of work and at least 6 of them have not been able to produce children naturally.
At least in the USA and I presume other places, having a child is not only an increasingly insurmountable financial burden, but also society and school are actively anti-discipline to the point you can't even stop a kid from running wild and dominating the household. I am constantly amazed at parents who seem completely unable to keep their children from running amok and bothering people or destroying things in public, skipping school, eschewing homework, and disrupting class, yelling, punching, and kicking their own parents, etc.
Why anyone should want to subject themselves to a lifetime of hassle and heartache is the question. I have one kid and he is pretty awesome, but he was raised before the Internet and smartphones became the world's nannies. If I were of childbearing age, I would get my tubes tied if I could get somebody to do it.
Not to mention climate change is probably going to doom any child born now to life in a physical and political hellscape.
but also society and school are actively anti-discipline to the point you can't even stop a kid from running wild and dominating the household
This is my only grievance with what you said. Wtf are you smoking. Yes, the method of discipline has changed but the only kids running wild and dominating the household are the ones where the parents aren't doing their damn job.
Source - am parent of 3 kids under 13 and none of them run wild or dominate my household because a household isn't a goddamn democracy it's a dictatorship.
Here's the core problem: people can't afford to have kids. Until economies are restructured so that a family can reasonably and rationally survive on a single income, you aren't going to see birthrates rise.
Alternatively, you could ban any and all forms of birth control, and institute a state-religion that tied into your economic system, so that people had huge economic incentives to appear outwardly devout. Handmaid's Tale, et al.
i think to maintain the population, a couple needs to have to have 2.4 kids or something. there's no way im doing that it sounds like it sucks. fuck the future of humanity I don't give a shit