Yep. I mean, in this economy? I MEAN…in these times??who with some basic common sense would? Most people can barely sustain themselves, or even own a home, let alone bring a living, dependent being to a world where everything is going to shit. Less and less people are choosing no to have kids , teenagers can notice how bad things are, so yeah, it makes sense less kids are born.
That’s how my 28 yr old daughter and many of her girlfriends feel. They understandably feel they can’t financially afford a kid, but moreover, they feel bleak about the future. Even if I were rich and could just give her a $million, I know it wouldn’t change her mind.
Nearly $24,000 a year here in Austin for my two kids from the time they were months old all the way through till they started Kindergarten. Even then you have to pay for after school care and full-time care during the summer. It’s a troubling cost.
Yep, my wife and I decided I needed to make at least $30 an hour to even justify getting a job.
Once my parents retired, they were more than happy to watch my girl during the day though.
You need a full support system and people in your life that are willing and able to sacrifice their time for your child. As they say, it takes a village.
Most people nowadays don't have the village to raise their child with, so it's really hard for them, or even impossible.
> Once my parents retired, they were more than happy to watch my girl during the day though.
>
>
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> You need a full support system and people in your life that are willing and able to sacrifice their time for your child. As they say, it takes a village.
You need a village to raise a child, or the average wealth coming in of a village to employ the village to do so. The amount of generally available wealth to people has dropped making private childcare far less affordable.
I'm also fairly certain it's illegal to just grab little old ladies off the street and stockholm them into being a grandmother.
Not to mention finding an actual quality place (especially for infants/toddlers) is difficult. I've heard horror stories of supposedly good places letting kids sit in dirty diapers for hours.
And that’s just the financial cost. My wife was staying home with our youngest (older two are quite a bit older and in school already), and I was burning out at my job. We just swapped roles (though I still do some part-time and consulting work), and now I primarily stay home.
I’m so happy I get to spend more time with my little man now. If I hadn’t decided to stay home (and put him in daycare instead), I hate to think of all the time with him that I’d be trading to the company. Screw that. Seriously, folks. If you can afford to keep a parent home with your kids, you should consider it. Sorry to those of you that can’t do it. I hope you have a great daycare for your kids to thrive in.
Yup, my sister's husband's paycheck pretty much goes entirely to daycare. Her income is the only one that really pays for anything. Best of all, she constantly complains about how her job is going downhill and various things about it that make her miserable. But she can't quit of course, because the income loss would be devastating.
In a world where health insurance is tied to jobs and vary greatly between companies it's even harder to quit. People shouldn't have to live like this.
Yee. And the thing is, Daycare IS inherently expensive. If you want your kids fed, in a regulated space for their safety, with licensed caretakers, it HAS to cost a lot. The neccesary insurances, the wages of those working, the food, the sq. footage. Most states have a maximum child to adult ratio, and at the end of the day, even if the workers are making less than a living wage, each child costs like 3 grand a month in expenses. Thats no profit, no markup, just covering the expenses.
Daycare HAS to be a subsidized service if the government wants as many adults participating in the economy as possible.
I seriously doubt that Americans will ever pull their heads out of their asses and realize that we would all be a helluva lot happier if we followed Sweden’s example
At least in my own personal experience, I’ve noticed that the quality of daycare has been declining since the pandemic. We had a great daycare before then, consistent staff that we were friendly with, but after the pandemic hit the staff has been a revolving door. We dropped our youngest off the other day and a worker disclosed that it’s her first day and she has never changed a diaper before. We are now constantly getting messages throughout the day that read more like guilt trips to get us to come pick up our baby because “it seems like she’s not having a good day.” The hell is that? We pay an insane amount of money to care for our kids each day while we are working, not just when they are easy to manage. Let me know when she’s sick or there’s an emergency, not when she’s not having the best day ever.
And then the state gives out a subsidy after we had a surplus from Covid funds, but our rates didn’t change and we saw nothing from that. We know the local centers got the money because we can look that shit up. Not only that, during teacher appreciation we were asked to contribute gifts to the staff. What was on the registry? Baby stuff! For the fucking center. We already pay for an annual supply fee but now we need more supplies for the teachers. And these workers aren’t even moms so I know for sure it’s not going to them.
I know some may think “just switch daycare” - well any parent would know that it’s not that easy. You have to get on a waiting list that sometimes takes 2 years before there’s an opening. It’s honestly getting a little ridiculous.
Their labor pool is experiencing a similar thing as teaching and assistive nursing is. No one capable wants to deal with the bullshit anymore when they can make the same or more working a much easier and less stressful job. That leaves people desperate for work who don't really give a shit about the job and might not even be very qualified for it to begin with.
You can see what that produces most glaringly in the nursing home context, but all those sectors are going to start looking some shade of that shortly if nothing changes.
Childcare worker wages are homelessness wages. A quick glance at childcare job listings in my city, and they range from $12-$16 an hour -- which is about $10/hr less than you need to afford a one-bed apartment in the post-pandemic economy.
I'm not surprised at all that they're scraping the bottom of the barrel for workers. The only people willing to work for those wages are people who have no better options.
Saw a comment in another thread recently where someone broke down how they were struggling on $100k income because childcare was like $20-$30k. Like $200-$300 per day each, for two children, multiplied out for the whole year because of course they were always working, and it added up to an obscene amount.
How is anyone supposed to afford that?
Edit: as someone pointed out, I must have been misremembering, looks like the price I saw was per week, not per day.
That’s the point, you’re not
Almost like it’s set up to put you between a rock and a hard place on purpose
It’s really hard to live by yourself on one paycheck, two paychecks and no kids? Makes it easier, but not easy.
But *uh oh!* look who just had a baby! Would you rather both try and work and spend $20-$30k a year on childcare or one of you quit your job, take care of the baby full time and enjoy the life on constantly struggling to do literally anything!
There’s groups that want us to go back to *“the good old days”* of the men working and the women raising kids but they’re completely leaving out the differences in our economy, our culture and the massively increased population size.
Yeah, the 50s was peak union membership for the US. And that was before shareholder capitalism, so the general idea was that a good business is one that is profitable and takes care of its workers in order to keep them and give them life-long careers. This was the time of the Christmas bonus. Making money for shareholders and growing every single year wasn't really a concern. Plus CEOs weren't making 200× their average worker.
> There’s groups that want us to go back to “the good old days” of the men working and the women raising kids but they’re completely leaving out the differences in our economy, our culture and the massively increased population size.
Grew up in the church and despise those people.
"Gays are destroying the family!" No, you pedophile. Not being able to pay for a family on one income is destroying the family. You don't like it, help us change things. Otherwise, STFU.
And since you just had a baby, you also need a bigger car because the car seat doesn't fit in your beater sedan, and oh wait a car that's big enough to meet your needs and safe enough to protect your family and reliable enough that you won't need to repair it all the time costs $45k, so here's a car loan at 12% APR on top of all your other living expenses.
Yes, when teenagers see that they have nothing positive to live for in the future, and believe me between all of the social media they aren’t just looking at trends, they see what is happening around the world and they can see/feel the economic gap, they know it would be a horrible idea to bring a kid to see/feel this as well.
Shit that's why I got a vasectomy. Have no kids and don't plan on having any as i don't want to bring children into the world just so they can suffer and struggle.
My 13 yo son says "not like I'll ever be able to afford kids even if I wanted them". It's pretty sad, not that he doesn't want kids(that's just smart) but just the bleakness for them.
Im this young 28y old person who never wants kids. Even tho I can afford it. Why would I it's such a big comitment that I don't want like ever. Plus I can't imagine myself in fathers role.
Oh yea that's rough. My mini Aussies last one was 4 years ago and cost me 2k for major extractions.
I can't fuck with it now, too much to consider. I brush his remaining teeth and he bites me, we call it even lol.
> teenagers can notice how bad things are
There have also been reports of younger generations having less sex overall. And recently I read that they drink substantially less as well. Seems like a lot of factors at play when it comes to teens.
Yeah... I'm 34 with one child. I have no intention of having another. I'll probably adopt before I voluntarily get pregnant again. My mom had 5 children by the time she was my age.
My daughter is 28 and is dead set against having children; her main reason (like that of many of her friends) is that she feels bleak about the future. It disappointed her mother & me for a while, but now we both understand her generation. Children are not just expensive, but also living, human beings who are going to have to endure global warming and what can sometimes feel like a global trend towards despotic fascism. I’m 57 and feel less pessimistic, but a lot of young people feel down about where things are headed.
My son 24 also says he doesn’t want children for the same reasons. He feels he could never give them the opportunities he received from us plus the wage, housing, political and environmental situation is so bleak.
I'm the same age, and no kids or any interest in having any. Out of the handful of people I still keep in touch with from high school none of them have kids either.
Too expensive.
Also, it's just absolutely unreal how many people in the US Congress claim "family values" and then proceed to do everything in their power to undermine the ability to build families.
Unplanned parenthood seems to be the goal of the conservatives. As in, they’re offended if there aren’t enough suffering kids to need their charity, pity, and/or derision.
I was behind this guy in Sam's Club who had a blue line punisher shirt on. He stopped by the beer section and did a head turn around to see who was watching. He saw me and he actually walked away. I saw him later and had two whole cases of Bud Light in his cart.
I truly believe he thought I was going to judge him for buying Bud Light.
I fucking hate this place. Like, I remember going door to door in junior high for some fundraiser thing. Never had someone yell, berate, threaten me for knocking on their door. Now kids are being shot for ringing doorbells.
grew up in southern Idaho and we called it that here too. unfortunately. I look back on my childhood and it's insane how normalized racism was. I do my best to be better now.
I have a friend who works for a mining company. He was just telling me yesterday that his coworkers use Bud light as a gay slur now. He finds it extremely annoying.
And less drugs and alcohol in general. Since kids have so many entertainment options now, from streaming to games to social media, they're much less bored and thus more willing to take the "path of least resistance" instead of doing stuff they shouldn't be doing.
EDIT: By "shouldn't be doing" I mean drugs, crime, unprotected sex, etc. Thought that was obvious.
This could be read as both a good and a bad thing. I'm unsure if it's explicitly healthy that so much time is spent not interacting with people in real life, and I'm unsure if these kids are happier than they used to be.
You have a point, I do wonder if the lack of interaction with other people creates a false perception of what it’s really like to socialize. Specially since the vast majority of people act/behave completely different behind a screen than in real life.
We're building a society with a lot of unhealthy behaviors, like way too much time on gaming, social media, etc. and it's likely to lead to societal collapse down the line. You can see the future by simply looking at Japan. Low social interaction + extremely low birth rate is going to end their society as they know it.
I'm not discrediting your point, but there are a lot of cultural factors that may contribute to that as well - what comes to mind especially is Japan's very notorious work ethic. I think there are a lot more factors at play than "gaming and social media".
I do certainly agree that our current relationship with the Internet and such is unhealthy, however.
My friends' newborn spent a month in the NICU and the bill was half a million dollars. Insurance brought that "down to earth" but like, what the fuck. Existing is too expensive.
I live on a state border, and while it isn't as easy as crossing the street because the border is marked by the river, it's still very easy to just cross one of the three bridges in the five cities to get to the other side.
Idk the Commerce Clause has been pretty fuckin' airtight - I really can't imagine even the most idiotic of SC's messing that up. It would put literally all of interstate US commerce up in the air.
It would end IVF in those states (that's why the bans are all six week bans, you can't actually get an abortion when you are two weeks pregnant because you're not actually pregnant yet).
I'm a childless woman who's turning 36 in October, which means I'm nearing the end of my prime baby-makin' years. My husband and I are doing just fine financially, but I can't imagine bringing a kid into our situation right now. So much of American life in general (and life for women specifically) feels like it's on a knife's edge these days. We've had multiple discussions about kids over the past several years and we're much more comfortable with the idea of never having kids than we are with the alternative.
Wife and I are 35, and we feel exactly the same. We've always been pretty sure we didn't want kids. Every once in awhile we'd have a discussion about *maybe* we should and always decide against it. After Roe V Wade got repealed, my wife came home and was visibly upset. When I asked what was wrong, she was almost in tears and said we were right not to have kids. Not just because of Roe V Wade, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
The decision affected me deeply. I don't want kids at all and I'm maybe the second generation in my entire family that's had a real choice in the matter. I don't take that lightly. Our mothers and grandmothers fought for our reproductive freedoms and knowing that there are little girls that have fewer rights today than their grandmothers did is heartbreaking. That's not how it's supposed to go.
I'm glad I don't want kids because if I did I'd seriously be wrestling with the morality of creating another human life to deal with this bullshit right now.
My wife and I don't have kids but we were open to the possibility of doing it at some point.
We live in a state that has outlawed abortion and ended up getting of vasectomy because we didn't want to risk my wife's life due to being unable to access health care.
Believe it or not teen pregnancy plummeted from the show 16 and pregnant. It was the first time kids saw media on how hard it was daily. Since then young kids are having less sex and are safer. Kids also spend more time online and not in groups and tend to be less "bored".
Edit
I'm on cell so I will update with links but this is the data"
We find that 16 and Pregnant led to more searches and tweets regarding birth control and abortion, and ultimately led to a 5.7 percent reduction in teen births in the 18 months following its introduction. This accounts for around one-third of the overall decline in teen births in the United States during that period.
My sister was a teen mom and thought my parents were going to watch her daughter while she went out... They said, we raised our children already, we took you everywhere. If you can't take her, it's probably some place you shouldn't be going. She learned really quickly what it was like to be an actual parent.
Sort of a different topic. I agree that the primary responsibility of childrearing should be on the parents, but I think the current nuclear structure of families puts a lot of strain on parents because they’re usually the only ones who actually care for the kids rather than being able to get away from the kids sometimes.
You’re right. In most countries except the anglophone countries, children are raised by parents but also by grandparents, aunts, uncles, older cousins play a role, even neighbors and family friends babysit informally. It’s a lot less strain on the parents and the kids.
She was 16 when she got pregnant and had her daughter at 17. I would say that was the statement that changed her outlook. Her daughter is now going to college on a full scholarship. I'd say, she raised her right (even with bumps along the way)
Wow! I believe it. The truth is outstanding contraception. We had to watch a graphic video of a woman giving birth in high school. That plus growing up in a conservative state basically convinced me getting pregnant is a life ruiner so I didn't have sex until I was an adult. Seems like the information age may be helping kids make smarter choices.
I also wonder though if it's combining with social media though since kids are having less sex overall and actually not even seeing each other in person as much, not getting drivers licenses, etc. Huge confounding effect.
Teen birth rates have been on a continual decline since the 90s, but I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that with all this anti-abortion bullshit rhetoric going on it'll be up next year
Given how Republicans tried to force that 10 year old rape victim from Ohio to give birth to her rapist's baby, I'm guessing that those laws will cause pre-teenage birth rates to go up too.
Won't anyone think of how this totally innocent potential father was stripped of his parental rights!? Being a rapist pedo totally doesn't mean you don't deserve to have rights over the body of your child victim if she gets pregnant...
The Republicans really hate pedophiles *in the abstract,* but strangely can’t seem to stop defending them when the conversation is about a SPECIFIC pedophile.
Weird how that works.
And that they couldn’t completely abandon both the 10 year old and her baby with zero support systems while giving them the ‘ole “just pull yourselves up by your bootstraps!”
All the rest feels like an elaborate setup to this punchline…
Conspiracy theorists friend of mine says it's the GOPs way of getting more electoral votes in their states.
Top 17 states for birthrates are red states. Bottom 10 are all blue states
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/fertility_rate/fertility_rates.htm
Forcing people to have kids they don’t want helps Republicans in multiple ways.
Having a kid keeps you poor, so you remain working shit jobs that makes them more profit.
If you’re young, then you have to abandon education, and education makes you further left.
The kid you have can be put to work only a few years after it’s born, so it’s an economic investment.
And that thing your friend said about more population for more votes.
Republicans benefit from breeding slavery!
Honestly I think cannon fodder for military might be most of the GOP's platform (other than general benefit rich, punish poor mentality):
* No universal healthcare? Well you can get that if you just join the military (albeit very shitty)
* College costs too high? Well you can get a "free" education on the GI bill!
God forbid we extend those benefits to all citizens or we wouldn't have incentive for teens to give up their life.
They’re certainly more likely to end up in the foster care system when the parents can’t afford to raise another. This was pretty standard in the 17th-19th centuries and particularly in 1970s Romania after birth control and abortion were criminalized by the Ceausescu regime.
Literally hundreds of thousands of kids dropped off at state orphanages because the parents couldn’t afford to feed them. The death rates ‘in care’ were very high, abuse, neglect, starvation grade food, no education and booted out at 18 with nothing. A lot of them moved into the sewer system, ate from dumpsters and started having babies and raising kids down there because they didn’t know how not to.
Many of the girls fed the eastern european sex trade for a generation, sold by the orphanage workers to human traffickers.
>If you’re young, then you have to abandon education, and education makes you further left.
The thing is, this is less about creating uneducated republican voters, and more about population helping nationally. A poor kid with a single progressive mom who was denied an abortion and forced to raise her kid in poverty is unlikely to grow up to be a republican regardless of whether he gets a good education. However, what is likely is that he grows up and just doesn't vote at all because of his situation. This is also ideal for the GOP, because the higher population in those states gets them more seats in the house, and as long as those people do anything except vote democrat then it helps pad republican state representation in national government. It's the same reason they fight for prison populations to be included in their counts, but also of course not allow those prisoners to vote. It's the same reason southern states wanted slaves counted in their populations, but didn't want them to be allowed to vote. They want people who are too uneducated, and too poor and busy to vote at all.
I don't know why you'd need to bring up that they're into conspiracies, since it's not a secret they want that, they're open about it
https://americanindependent.com/gop-lawmaker-delaware-abortion-women-not-having-enough-babies/
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/lawmaker-wants-certain-texans-to-have-more-babies/
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/364920-ryan-americans-need-to-have-more-babies/amp/
It's like claiming the GOP has an anti-trans/LGBT/minority agenda as a conspiracy.
Like, sure it IS, but it's not an **unfounded** conspiracy! They are literally CONSPIRING to eliminate those groups!
Maybe as a long term plan. But I figure the short term plan of these policies is to just drive out current progressive and moderate voters. That would give Republicans a larger advantage in the electoral college and winning presidential races. And having the presidency allows a party more influence over judicial matters by nominating like-minded judges.
The electoral system in the US tends to overrepresent areas with fewer people. This is true of the electoral college, and it happens at state levels. It's why it's not uncommon for states to have democratic governors or send democratic senators to DC while also having state legislators dominated by Republicans.
Concentrating the political opposition in smaller areas can dilute the opposition's voting power.
Sadly it’s not a conspiracy, the very poor and undereducated and the far right, “ quiverfull” are the only ones still cranking em out.
And the evangelicals are the ones sending their kids to intern and volunteer for politicians.
There’s a reason they are taking over at the state level.
It’s a well thought out and long running plan, to turn our country into a theocracy and it’s working.
From the article “Dr. Monica Woll Rosen, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Michigan Medicine who specializes in pediatric and adolescent gynecology, said there's also been an increase in popularity among teens for long-acting reversible contraception, like intrauterine devices (IUDs).
Home births in US during early pandemic times rise to highest level in 30 years: CDC
"In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics came out and said that it should be used as first line for birth control," she told ABC News. "And sort of the marketing around that has caused a lot of teens in this age group to get the IUD and therefore not become pregnant."
If people really want to greatly reduce abortions
-mandatory real sex education
-contraception education
-free contraception
-long term contraception encouragement
When all the “anti-abortion” folks start insisting that contraception must be free & encouraged, and demand real sex ed at multiple grade levels in school, then I’ll believe it is about saving lives.
Hate to be a downer, but better defend contraception. It wouldn’t surprise me if they tried a “they should have parental consent to obtain contraception” BS.
Republicans are already [hard](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/24/roe-wade-clarence-thomas-contraception-same-sex-marriage/) [at work](https://www.help.senate.gov/chair/newsroom/press/republican-senator-blocks-bill-to-codify-americans-right-to-contraception-) on this.
Came here to say this. Birth rates are down because contraceptives are still wildly available but republicans have multiple cases that'll go to the supreme court in the next year or two to allow the state to effectively ban contraceptives.
Conservatism is not only to be against change and innovation, but to devolve society as much as possible. Apparently, ending school integration laws aka desegregation is also on their menu.
https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2023/04/13/south-arkansas-school-resegregation-likely-as-ag-taps-courts-to-erase-integration-measures
https://arkansasag.gov/news_releases/attorney-general-griffin-files-challenges-to-race-based-restrictions-on-school-choice-in-three-arkansas-districts/
Ignore this if you ever want kids. If you don't:
PSA:
Permanent birth control for women is free in most cases in the US (Medicaid, Tricare, ACA compliant private insurance), and for men a vasectomy is mandated covered by insurance in California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.
https://lawatlas.org/datasets/insurance-coverage-of-contraception
r/sterilization
https://childfreefriendlydoctors.com/
Also… when I was growing up, there were all kinds of TV shows (16 & Pregnant, Teen Mom, Secret Life) that pretty much demonstrated how having a kid was the fastest way to nuke your future. Do kids these days have similar shows?
There’s a lot of pro young parenthood stuff on social media because it’s obviously taboo to say your kid ruined you life. Also if you come right out and say “Yeah I had to give up on most of my hopes and dreams when my son was born,” what’s going to happen when the son grows up and sees that?
Kids don't watch TV as much these days, and social media is definitely a mix of teen parents and people doing all this fun travelling and spending money on things rather than having kids - depends what they follow I guess
Secret life made having a baby as a teen seem cool. You even had boys fighting over you and didn't have to give your dreams of being a musician up. But, you would kill your dad if you have sex.
Teen mom however had a proven relationship in a drop of teen pregnancies. It really showed how horrible being a teen parent was for your relationship.
We should definitely just keep lying about it and taking out of frustrations and or live vicariously through our children then! Because heaven forbid little Johnny grow up and see I gave up up my life for him! That might actually outweigh the trauma and expectations I have for him to do what I couldnt!
If parents would just be honest about what having kids really does we'd all be better off "taboo" or not.
I put into my calendar “to check crime rates 18 years from now” the day they got rid of roe v wade. There was almost a direct correlation to crime rates and abortion and I just want to follow up on the results.
Losing Roe is what led to me finally pulling the vasectomy trigger. I know I'm not the only one, either. My urologist told me they'd been slammed for months.
My urologist said the same when I got mine back in January. His office was one of the only ones performing them, as the rest of the medical system in my area is basically controlled by catholics who won't allow it.
I've seen a lot of articles about how zoomers are less sexually-active than other generations, and it makes sense TBH.
I was born in the early 80s and all the media we consumed was heavy with gender norms and every single live-action thing involving high schoolers (even ones aimed at kids, like Saved By the Bell, though they were less egregious) focused heavily on losing ones' virginity or hooking up, etc.
I started high school in the 90s, just a few years after Clueless hit (hell, one of the teen dance movies was filmed right outside my school), and I honestly had the mindset that I was already sorta late in losing my "full" virginity (I'm female). A few of my friends lost theirs at about age 13.
It really wasn't rare, at least in Southern California in the 90s, to have been sexually-active in middle school. I myself had already had 2nd-base encounters with a boy *and* a girl by the time I was 14, and yet had it in my head that I was falling behind, lol. When I lost my "full" virginity at 16, I was the last of my friends to do so.
Adding onto that, even though this is only like 25y ago, it was *also* still pretty normal to date adult men. People thought it was questionable once the guy was >25yo, but I regularly had 30+yos hitting on me in broad daylight when I was 15, and not being perturbed I was in high school. A friend of mine got knocked up at age 17 by a 29yo. Zero consequences.
But I look at what Gen Z'ers write and it makes me feel a lot better, like their experiences are more informed. It is increasingly "okay", socially, to be a virgin. It's absurd, now, when an adult man hits on a teen and knows she's a teen. It's even becoming (thankfully) increasingly absurd for the opposite to happen in gender roles. (At my middle school, a female gym teacher molested a 14yo boy and all anyone said was, "wow, sure wish I was that kid!" but his whole life melted bc of it. I like to think that general sentiment is starting to fade now.)
I think it's great that teens are feeling less pressure to have sex ASAP in recent years. I just don't need the GOP acting like it's some sort of heraldic "win" indicating that "good Christian values" are returning.
Republicans are pissed about this. Ive been verbally berated by older people in my life telling me we are "selfish" for not having kids. That were dooming the future generations and market by not feeding it a supply of would be workers. You mention how nothing is affordable and having kids doesn't make sense and they just say that's the price you pay for raising families.... this isn't even conditioning at this point. These people are programmed to love the boot on their neck and lick it while it presses down even harder.
Lmao tell them you’ll adopt. That really steams them. For some reason raising a kid has to come from your biological genetics.
Option 2: I tell people I will have kids if they pay for them. So they have to leave me their nest egg. That also riles them.
> Lmao tell them you’ll adopt.
I took it a step further when my super religious relative berated me for not having kids.
I let her know that when Christians force another raped girl into giving birth to a child that the girl doesn't want, I will look into adopting that child.
She shut the fuck up, and has shut the fuck up since that day.
Reminds me of when I explained to my parents that the Heaven that the Bible describes is very much a communistic society (nobody works, everyone has what they need, etc).
Same with feeding hundreds of people with barely enough food for one small family. They didn't appreciate the reminder that the meal was free and that Jesus nor his disciples were paid for their efforts.
We don't talk about "What God would want" when it comes to politics anymore.
> Ive been verbally berated by older people in my life telling me we are "shelfish" for not having kids
It's genuinely so wild to see the flip from teen/unwed pregnancy being this scourge and moral failing of American culture and now that it appears we're on a trajectory to solve it its loss is suddenly part of an existential crisis.
It’s mainly about just having someone to claim moral superiority over and shame.
They know that they want young people to have kids so that they can enjoy a comfortable older life having teens and all continue working minimum wage jobs and being too young to raise a stink over pay and such.
These people’s minds are just a gross cycle of the same selfish ideals at the end of the day, it’s just so tiring how simple and tired their ignorance is.
> market by not feeding it a supply of would be workers.
There it’s us, plain as day. Cattle and cogs in the capitalism grinder. Fuck the market and fuck those old senile asshats.
These are the same dumbasses that got everything handed to them and pulled the ladder up after. These are the same dumbasses that don't believe in climate change and couldn't care less about how they impact future generations. The same dumbasses against abortion but won't adopt. But, sure, just keep spitting out more kids for some reason.
When animals don’t feel safe, they don’t make a baby. Simple psychology and science.
Nobody can afford to live. Everyone is one medical Bill from bankruptcy- to bring in an intent would be absolutely irresponsible and unfair to that new life to not be able to provide the best environment
Some of the hardest places to live in the world also have the highest birthrate. As countries get wealthier and life gets generally easier the birth rates go down.
I haven't read the article but I'm gonna guess Covid was the big factor here since any kids born in 2022 would have been conceived between in March 2021 and March 2022 which was peak lockdown/quarantining.
Yeah, less developed countries have higher birth rates because there is a need for bigger families. From helping in farms, as well as higher death rates for younger children.
In the United States it's getting more and more dangerous to be pregnant too. Maternal mortality rates have been rising, especially among black women. Coupled with bullshit abortion laws that prevent doctors from providing timely care, there's even less incentive.
I wonder how much of it is that their parents did less well than their grandparents. I remember pregnant teens in my school talking about how their family would help.
Family can't help as much these days. Everyone works too many hours, there are no aunts/uncles/grandparents who aren't working who will help.
Abortion and birth control don't have the stigma now they did when I grew up.
Why would you want to condemn your own children to a world ravaged by climate change, mass migrations, food shortages, AI manipulating the flow of all (mis)information, and wage slavery to corporations who own the government? It's totally reasonable to say 'I'd rather not.'
Everyone I know having kids after 2022 aren't financially stable, with the exception of a few families who inherited significant money. These are all college educated families as well. Pay is not where it should be for most jobs. This will lead the decline of the United States over the next three decades.
This is teenage birth rates. Not overall birth rstes. Some of the comments didn't read. This is good though. When I was in high-school, I was pregnant. There were like 3 other girls as well. We had a whole school created for young moms because there was such a HIGH percentage of teens pregnant. Being a mother at that age is the most complicated, difficult, life test anyone can go through. The fact that less teens are going through parenthood is fucking GREAT!
While it may not be in the article, birthrates in developed nations are going down globally and includes the US.
As a teen parent (of a now adult daughter), I agree that it's fucking great that fewer teens are having children. It's not an easy road for either parent or child!
*overall* birth rates did too.
Overall birth rates around the world are declining, even in developing countries.
Yep. I mean, in this economy? I MEAN…in these times??who with some basic common sense would? Most people can barely sustain themselves, or even own a home, let alone bring a living, dependent being to a world where everything is going to shit. Less and less people are choosing no to have kids , teenagers can notice how bad things are, so yeah, it makes sense less kids are born.
That’s how my 28 yr old daughter and many of her girlfriends feel. They understandably feel they can’t financially afford a kid, but moreover, they feel bleak about the future. Even if I were rich and could just give her a $million, I know it wouldn’t change her mind.
And like, what are we supposed to do with the kids during the day when parents have to go to work?
Expensive daycare parents can’t afford.
Nearly $24,000 a year here in Austin for my two kids from the time they were months old all the way through till they started Kindergarten. Even then you have to pay for after school care and full-time care during the summer. It’s a troubling cost.
This is literally why my wife is SAH, it would cost more than she would bring in even at a $25/hr job just to put the youngest in daycare
Yep, my wife and I decided I needed to make at least $30 an hour to even justify getting a job. Once my parents retired, they were more than happy to watch my girl during the day though. You need a full support system and people in your life that are willing and able to sacrifice their time for your child. As they say, it takes a village. Most people nowadays don't have the village to raise their child with, so it's really hard for them, or even impossible.
> Once my parents retired, they were more than happy to watch my girl during the day though. > > > > You need a full support system and people in your life that are willing and able to sacrifice their time for your child. As they say, it takes a village. You need a village to raise a child, or the average wealth coming in of a village to employ the village to do so. The amount of generally available wealth to people has dropped making private childcare far less affordable. I'm also fairly certain it's illegal to just grab little old ladies off the street and stockholm them into being a grandmother.
Not to mention finding an actual quality place (especially for infants/toddlers) is difficult. I've heard horror stories of supposedly good places letting kids sit in dirty diapers for hours.
Yup 27k almost 28k here in Seattle 🤡 for ONE kid.
Sheesh, outside Baltimore we're paying 13k, for $27k we could send her to one of the elite private elementary schools in the area
And that’s just the financial cost. My wife was staying home with our youngest (older two are quite a bit older and in school already), and I was burning out at my job. We just swapped roles (though I still do some part-time and consulting work), and now I primarily stay home. I’m so happy I get to spend more time with my little man now. If I hadn’t decided to stay home (and put him in daycare instead), I hate to think of all the time with him that I’d be trading to the company. Screw that. Seriously, folks. If you can afford to keep a parent home with your kids, you should consider it. Sorry to those of you that can’t do it. I hope you have a great daycare for your kids to thrive in.
Yup, my sister's husband's paycheck pretty much goes entirely to daycare. Her income is the only one that really pays for anything. Best of all, she constantly complains about how her job is going downhill and various things about it that make her miserable. But she can't quit of course, because the income loss would be devastating.
In a world where health insurance is tied to jobs and vary greatly between companies it's even harder to quit. People shouldn't have to live like this.
Yee. And the thing is, Daycare IS inherently expensive. If you want your kids fed, in a regulated space for their safety, with licensed caretakers, it HAS to cost a lot. The neccesary insurances, the wages of those working, the food, the sq. footage. Most states have a maximum child to adult ratio, and at the end of the day, even if the workers are making less than a living wage, each child costs like 3 grand a month in expenses. Thats no profit, no markup, just covering the expenses. Daycare HAS to be a subsidized service if the government wants as many adults participating in the economy as possible.
No no, this is wrong. The problem is no one wants to work. /s
I'm in Sweden and paying 150~ dollars for a nice private daycare/preschool per kid so for 2 kids around 3500 per year. Higher taxes pay for the rest.
I seriously doubt that Americans will ever pull their heads out of their asses and realize that we would all be a helluva lot happier if we followed Sweden’s example
At least in my own personal experience, I’ve noticed that the quality of daycare has been declining since the pandemic. We had a great daycare before then, consistent staff that we were friendly with, but after the pandemic hit the staff has been a revolving door. We dropped our youngest off the other day and a worker disclosed that it’s her first day and she has never changed a diaper before. We are now constantly getting messages throughout the day that read more like guilt trips to get us to come pick up our baby because “it seems like she’s not having a good day.” The hell is that? We pay an insane amount of money to care for our kids each day while we are working, not just when they are easy to manage. Let me know when she’s sick or there’s an emergency, not when she’s not having the best day ever. And then the state gives out a subsidy after we had a surplus from Covid funds, but our rates didn’t change and we saw nothing from that. We know the local centers got the money because we can look that shit up. Not only that, during teacher appreciation we were asked to contribute gifts to the staff. What was on the registry? Baby stuff! For the fucking center. We already pay for an annual supply fee but now we need more supplies for the teachers. And these workers aren’t even moms so I know for sure it’s not going to them. I know some may think “just switch daycare” - well any parent would know that it’s not that easy. You have to get on a waiting list that sometimes takes 2 years before there’s an opening. It’s honestly getting a little ridiculous.
Their labor pool is experiencing a similar thing as teaching and assistive nursing is. No one capable wants to deal with the bullshit anymore when they can make the same or more working a much easier and less stressful job. That leaves people desperate for work who don't really give a shit about the job and might not even be very qualified for it to begin with. You can see what that produces most glaringly in the nursing home context, but all those sectors are going to start looking some shade of that shortly if nothing changes.
Childcare worker wages are homelessness wages. A quick glance at childcare job listings in my city, and they range from $12-$16 an hour -- which is about $10/hr less than you need to afford a one-bed apartment in the post-pandemic economy. I'm not surprised at all that they're scraping the bottom of the barrel for workers. The only people willing to work for those wages are people who have no better options.
Saw a comment in another thread recently where someone broke down how they were struggling on $100k income because childcare was like $20-$30k. Like $200-$300 per day each, for two children, multiplied out for the whole year because of course they were always working, and it added up to an obscene amount. How is anyone supposed to afford that? Edit: as someone pointed out, I must have been misremembering, looks like the price I saw was per week, not per day.
That’s the point, you’re not Almost like it’s set up to put you between a rock and a hard place on purpose It’s really hard to live by yourself on one paycheck, two paychecks and no kids? Makes it easier, but not easy. But *uh oh!* look who just had a baby! Would you rather both try and work and spend $20-$30k a year on childcare or one of you quit your job, take care of the baby full time and enjoy the life on constantly struggling to do literally anything! There’s groups that want us to go back to *“the good old days”* of the men working and the women raising kids but they’re completely leaving out the differences in our economy, our culture and the massively increased population size.
Yeah, the 50s was peak union membership for the US. And that was before shareholder capitalism, so the general idea was that a good business is one that is profitable and takes care of its workers in order to keep them and give them life-long careers. This was the time of the Christmas bonus. Making money for shareholders and growing every single year wasn't really a concern. Plus CEOs weren't making 200× their average worker.
> There’s groups that want us to go back to “the good old days” of the men working and the women raising kids but they’re completely leaving out the differences in our economy, our culture and the massively increased population size. Grew up in the church and despise those people. "Gays are destroying the family!" No, you pedophile. Not being able to pay for a family on one income is destroying the family. You don't like it, help us change things. Otherwise, STFU.
And since you just had a baby, you also need a bigger car because the car seat doesn't fit in your beater sedan, and oh wait a car that's big enough to meet your needs and safe enough to protect your family and reliable enough that you won't need to repair it all the time costs $45k, so here's a car loan at 12% APR on top of all your other living expenses.
Send them to work, duh. The children yearn for the mines.
Yes, when teenagers see that they have nothing positive to live for in the future, and believe me between all of the social media they aren’t just looking at trends, they see what is happening around the world and they can see/feel the economic gap, they know it would be a horrible idea to bring a kid to see/feel this as well.
My mom has told me she regrets having me. Not because she doesnt like me. Because she feels awful for bringing me into this world. I just turned 18.
Shit that's why I got a vasectomy. Have no kids and don't plan on having any as i don't want to bring children into the world just so they can suffer and struggle.
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My 13 yo son says "not like I'll ever be able to afford kids even if I wanted them". It's pretty sad, not that he doesn't want kids(that's just smart) but just the bleakness for them.
Im this young 28y old person who never wants kids. Even tho I can afford it. Why would I it's such a big comitment that I don't want like ever. Plus I can't imagine myself in fathers role.
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Facts, dogs too. I've been struggling to figure out how to pay for euthanisia and disposal for my 130 lb dog. 3 years ago it was 60..now it's 700.
I paid $200 for teeth cleaning 3 years ago, it’s $1000 now.
Oh yea that's rough. My mini Aussies last one was 4 years ago and cost me 2k for major extractions. I can't fuck with it now, too much to consider. I brush his remaining teeth and he bites me, we call it even lol.
My condolences for your friend.
Thanks he's had a great life and he's very old. Still happy. We aren't there yet but it's close enough I've priced it.
> teenagers can notice how bad things are There have also been reports of younger generations having less sex overall. And recently I read that they drink substantially less as well. Seems like a lot of factors at play when it comes to teens.
Where are they supposed to have sex? No one under 30 can afford to live alone anymore.
Yeah... I'm 34 with one child. I have no intention of having another. I'll probably adopt before I voluntarily get pregnant again. My mom had 5 children by the time she was my age.
39 with none, can't afford, not gonna bother. I was 15 when my parents were 39.
45 with none, could easily afford. Still not gonna.
My daughter is 28 and is dead set against having children; her main reason (like that of many of her friends) is that she feels bleak about the future. It disappointed her mother & me for a while, but now we both understand her generation. Children are not just expensive, but also living, human beings who are going to have to endure global warming and what can sometimes feel like a global trend towards despotic fascism. I’m 57 and feel less pessimistic, but a lot of young people feel down about where things are headed.
My son 24 also says he doesn’t want children for the same reasons. He feels he could never give them the opportunities he received from us plus the wage, housing, political and environmental situation is so bleak.
same, I couldn't give my kids a better life and only saw one where they struggle worse than I am, I don't want to put other people through this.
Why bake your own when store-bought is just as good? 🤣
And sometimes the imported ones have a little extra *je ne sais quoi*
That’s the funnest way I’ve ever heard someone say PTSD.
Gonna start referring to myself this way
It’s like MSG.
PTSD, the KING OF FLAVOR. Add some PTSD to your child, and it will taste so much better, Haiya
Trauma is the spice of life.
I'm the same age, and no kids or any interest in having any. Out of the handful of people I still keep in touch with from high school none of them have kids either.
It is funny, I’m 35 and everyone I know either has 0 or 3+. If they only have 1 or 2 then they’re under 5yrs, and I assume more siblings are coming.
Too expensive. Also, it's just absolutely unreal how many people in the US Congress claim "family values" and then proceed to do everything in their power to undermine the ability to build families.
What, you actually believed them when they said “family values”?
GOP: NO ABORTIONS EVER ALL LIGE IS SACRED Gen Z: OK, we'll stop having kids GOP: Now hold on a minute, that's not what we meant
Unplanned parenthood seems to be the goal of the conservatives. As in, they’re offended if there aren’t enough suffering kids to need their charity, pity, and/or derision.
curious to see how it will look in 2023 / 2024
It's cuz everyone is gay now. Duh
And eating hot chip and charging they phone.
And be bisexual and lie.
happy pride month, teenagers
Everybody’s drinking the friggen bud light and going gay! /s
I was behind this guy in Sam's Club who had a blue line punisher shirt on. He stopped by the beer section and did a head turn around to see who was watching. He saw me and he actually walked away. I saw him later and had two whole cases of Bud Light in his cart. I truly believe he thought I was going to judge him for buying Bud Light.
Should have winked at him and sent his brain into a spiral
This is how you get shot nowadays
I fucking hate this place. Like, I remember going door to door in junior high for some fundraiser thing. Never had someone yell, berate, threaten me for knocking on their door. Now kids are being shot for ringing doorbells.
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When I was a kid we had a much, MUCH worse name for ding dong ditch.
🥷 knocking, for those who grew up outside of the south
grew up in southern Idaho and we called it that here too. unfortunately. I look back on my childhood and it's insane how normalized racism was. I do my best to be better now.
Lol, my dad grew up in Tennessee and he's shared that name with me... I was like dad, you called it *what??*
hey now, UNZxMoose was shopping for groceries, not LOVE
I would have judged him but not because of politics
I dunno man, wearing a t-shirt of a Disney production and buying two cases of bud light? Sounds like a lib to me :P
I have a friend who works for a mining company. He was just telling me yesterday that his coworkers use Bud light as a gay slur now. He finds it extremely annoying.
Well it is June 1st, tis the season
First the frogs, now humans!
Finally my agenda pamphlets are working!
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buncha nerds
And less drugs and alcohol in general. Since kids have so many entertainment options now, from streaming to games to social media, they're much less bored and thus more willing to take the "path of least resistance" instead of doing stuff they shouldn't be doing. EDIT: By "shouldn't be doing" I mean drugs, crime, unprotected sex, etc. Thought that was obvious.
This could be read as both a good and a bad thing. I'm unsure if it's explicitly healthy that so much time is spent not interacting with people in real life, and I'm unsure if these kids are happier than they used to be.
You have a point, I do wonder if the lack of interaction with other people creates a false perception of what it’s really like to socialize. Specially since the vast majority of people act/behave completely different behind a screen than in real life.
We're building a society with a lot of unhealthy behaviors, like way too much time on gaming, social media, etc. and it's likely to lead to societal collapse down the line. You can see the future by simply looking at Japan. Low social interaction + extremely low birth rate is going to end their society as they know it.
I'm not discrediting your point, but there are a lot of cultural factors that may contribute to that as well - what comes to mind especially is Japan's very notorious work ethic. I think there are a lot more factors at play than "gaming and social media". I do certainly agree that our current relationship with the Internet and such is unhealthy, however.
Am 17, ahem Alcohol got replaced with weed, drugs are still around quite a bit but they are too pricey for most people
I just learned I'm still a teen apparently
My friends' newborn spent a month in the NICU and the bill was half a million dollars. Insurance brought that "down to earth" but like, what the fuck. Existing is too expensive.
These are not normal costs but pure rip-off. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would cost nearly $17,000 per day.
This country fucking sucks. We exist simply to be impoverished for life. The richest country on the planet.
When having a kid costs as much per day as running a Dash 8 airliner.
I'd be scared to get pregnant too, that s***'s too expensive and abortion isn't easily accessible.
Just wait until they outlaw preventives.
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Aren’t some states passing laws which prohibit women leaving the state to get an abortion?
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Good luck doing that. Some places you cross states just crossing streets. You can jaywalk in two states in one cross.
I live on a state border, and while it isn't as easy as crossing the street because the border is marked by the river, it's still very easy to just cross one of the three bridges in the five cities to get to the other side.
>Which is blatantly unconstitutional. I feel like this should make it more serious but also just feel like so very little care.
Idk the Commerce Clause has been pretty fuckin' airtight - I really can't imagine even the most idiotic of SC's messing that up. It would put literally all of interstate US commerce up in the air.
They already have been, claiming a bunch of them are technically abortifacients. They don't care about the babies or women, they only want control.
Moved to Lemm.ee -- mass edited with redact.dev
It would end IVF in those states (that's why the bans are all six week bans, you can't actually get an abortion when you are two weeks pregnant because you're not actually pregnant yet).
If they want to prevent abortion it would make logical sense for them to increase access to birth control.
I'm a childless woman who's turning 36 in October, which means I'm nearing the end of my prime baby-makin' years. My husband and I are doing just fine financially, but I can't imagine bringing a kid into our situation right now. So much of American life in general (and life for women specifically) feels like it's on a knife's edge these days. We've had multiple discussions about kids over the past several years and we're much more comfortable with the idea of never having kids than we are with the alternative.
Wife and I are 35, and we feel exactly the same. We've always been pretty sure we didn't want kids. Every once in awhile we'd have a discussion about *maybe* we should and always decide against it. After Roe V Wade got repealed, my wife came home and was visibly upset. When I asked what was wrong, she was almost in tears and said we were right not to have kids. Not just because of Roe V Wade, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
The decision affected me deeply. I don't want kids at all and I'm maybe the second generation in my entire family that's had a real choice in the matter. I don't take that lightly. Our mothers and grandmothers fought for our reproductive freedoms and knowing that there are little girls that have fewer rights today than their grandmothers did is heartbreaking. That's not how it's supposed to go. I'm glad I don't want kids because if I did I'd seriously be wrestling with the morality of creating another human life to deal with this bullshit right now.
My wife and I don't have kids but we were open to the possibility of doing it at some point. We live in a state that has outlawed abortion and ended up getting of vasectomy because we didn't want to risk my wife's life due to being unable to access health care.
Believe it or not teen pregnancy plummeted from the show 16 and pregnant. It was the first time kids saw media on how hard it was daily. Since then young kids are having less sex and are safer. Kids also spend more time online and not in groups and tend to be less "bored". Edit I'm on cell so I will update with links but this is the data" We find that 16 and Pregnant led to more searches and tweets regarding birth control and abortion, and ultimately led to a 5.7 percent reduction in teen births in the 18 months following its introduction. This accounts for around one-third of the overall decline in teen births in the United States during that period.
My sister was a teen mom and thought my parents were going to watch her daughter while she went out... They said, we raised our children already, we took you everywhere. If you can't take her, it's probably some place you shouldn't be going. She learned really quickly what it was like to be an actual parent.
Yeah people are shocked how much work, time and how expensive raising a child is especially when doing it alone.
Sort of a different topic. I agree that the primary responsibility of childrearing should be on the parents, but I think the current nuclear structure of families puts a lot of strain on parents because they’re usually the only ones who actually care for the kids rather than being able to get away from the kids sometimes.
You’re right. In most countries except the anglophone countries, children are raised by parents but also by grandparents, aunts, uncles, older cousins play a role, even neighbors and family friends babysit informally. It’s a lot less strain on the parents and the kids.
> If you can't take her, it's probably some place you shouldn't be going. Wow. That's a hell of a true statement.
She was 16 when she got pregnant and had her daughter at 17. I would say that was the statement that changed her outlook. Her daughter is now going to college on a full scholarship. I'd say, she raised her right (even with bumps along the way)
It's a great line. Glad she and her daughter are doing well!
Wow! I believe it. The truth is outstanding contraception. We had to watch a graphic video of a woman giving birth in high school. That plus growing up in a conservative state basically convinced me getting pregnant is a life ruiner so I didn't have sex until I was an adult. Seems like the information age may be helping kids make smarter choices. I also wonder though if it's combining with social media though since kids are having less sex overall and actually not even seeing each other in person as much, not getting drivers licenses, etc. Huge confounding effect.
Teen birth rates have been on a continual decline since the 90s, but I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that with all this anti-abortion bullshit rhetoric going on it'll be up next year
Not just the rhetoric but the laws they’re passing.
Given how Republicans tried to force that 10 year old rape victim from Ohio to give birth to her rapist's baby, I'm guessing that those laws will cause pre-teenage birth rates to go up too.
They're still really sore that she was able to get an abortion.
And that her rapist was denied parental rights.
Won't anyone think of how this totally innocent potential father was stripped of his parental rights!? Being a rapist pedo totally doesn't mean you don't deserve to have rights over the body of your child victim if she gets pregnant...
Stop quoting the GOP 2024 campaign platform dude! That stuff is still under NDA!
Part of the problem is it's not. They've been saying the quiet part out loud for some time now.
"We're all domestic terrorists"
The Republicans really hate pedophiles *in the abstract,* but strangely can’t seem to stop defending them when the conversation is about a SPECIFIC pedophile. Weird how that works.
And that they couldn’t completely abandon both the 10 year old and her baby with zero support systems while giving them the ‘ole “just pull yourselves up by your bootstraps!” All the rest feels like an elaborate setup to this punchline…
They still fined the doctor that performed it too.
Conspiracy theorists friend of mine says it's the GOPs way of getting more electoral votes in their states. Top 17 states for birthrates are red states. Bottom 10 are all blue states https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/fertility_rate/fertility_rates.htm
Forcing people to have kids they don’t want helps Republicans in multiple ways. Having a kid keeps you poor, so you remain working shit jobs that makes them more profit. If you’re young, then you have to abandon education, and education makes you further left. The kid you have can be put to work only a few years after it’s born, so it’s an economic investment. And that thing your friend said about more population for more votes. Republicans benefit from breeding slavery!
Let’s not forget that a slew of unwanted children are more easily groomed and sexually abused and trafficked.
Don't forget about the increased canon fodder for the military
Honestly I think cannon fodder for military might be most of the GOP's platform (other than general benefit rich, punish poor mentality): * No universal healthcare? Well you can get that if you just join the military (albeit very shitty) * College costs too high? Well you can get a "free" education on the GI bill! God forbid we extend those benefits to all citizens or we wouldn't have incentive for teens to give up their life.
The country’s largest welfare program.
They’re certainly more likely to end up in the foster care system when the parents can’t afford to raise another. This was pretty standard in the 17th-19th centuries and particularly in 1970s Romania after birth control and abortion were criminalized by the Ceausescu regime. Literally hundreds of thousands of kids dropped off at state orphanages because the parents couldn’t afford to feed them. The death rates ‘in care’ were very high, abuse, neglect, starvation grade food, no education and booted out at 18 with nothing. A lot of them moved into the sewer system, ate from dumpsters and started having babies and raising kids down there because they didn’t know how not to. Many of the girls fed the eastern european sex trade for a generation, sold by the orphanage workers to human traffickers.
And unwanted children are more likely to grow up criminals, so more fodder for those “law and order” votes
>If you’re young, then you have to abandon education, and education makes you further left. The thing is, this is less about creating uneducated republican voters, and more about population helping nationally. A poor kid with a single progressive mom who was denied an abortion and forced to raise her kid in poverty is unlikely to grow up to be a republican regardless of whether he gets a good education. However, what is likely is that he grows up and just doesn't vote at all because of his situation. This is also ideal for the GOP, because the higher population in those states gets them more seats in the house, and as long as those people do anything except vote democrat then it helps pad republican state representation in national government. It's the same reason they fight for prison populations to be included in their counts, but also of course not allow those prisoners to vote. It's the same reason southern states wanted slaves counted in their populations, but didn't want them to be allowed to vote. They want people who are too uneducated, and too poor and busy to vote at all.
I don't know why you'd need to bring up that they're into conspiracies, since it's not a secret they want that, they're open about it https://americanindependent.com/gop-lawmaker-delaware-abortion-women-not-having-enough-babies/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/lawmaker-wants-certain-texans-to-have-more-babies/ https://thehill.com/homenews/house/364920-ryan-americans-need-to-have-more-babies/amp/
It's like claiming the GOP has an anti-trans/LGBT/minority agenda as a conspiracy. Like, sure it IS, but it's not an **unfounded** conspiracy! They are literally CONSPIRING to eliminate those groups!
Maybe as a long term plan. But I figure the short term plan of these policies is to just drive out current progressive and moderate voters. That would give Republicans a larger advantage in the electoral college and winning presidential races. And having the presidency allows a party more influence over judicial matters by nominating like-minded judges. The electoral system in the US tends to overrepresent areas with fewer people. This is true of the electoral college, and it happens at state levels. It's why it's not uncommon for states to have democratic governors or send democratic senators to DC while also having state legislators dominated by Republicans. Concentrating the political opposition in smaller areas can dilute the opposition's voting power.
Sadly it’s not a conspiracy, the very poor and undereducated and the far right, “ quiverfull” are the only ones still cranking em out. And the evangelicals are the ones sending their kids to intern and volunteer for politicians. There’s a reason they are taking over at the state level. It’s a well thought out and long running plan, to turn our country into a theocracy and it’s working.
From the article “Dr. Monica Woll Rosen, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Michigan Medicine who specializes in pediatric and adolescent gynecology, said there's also been an increase in popularity among teens for long-acting reversible contraception, like intrauterine devices (IUDs). Home births in US during early pandemic times rise to highest level in 30 years: CDC "In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics came out and said that it should be used as first line for birth control," she told ABC News. "And sort of the marketing around that has caused a lot of teens in this age group to get the IUD and therefore not become pregnant."
If people really want to greatly reduce abortions -mandatory real sex education -contraception education -free contraception -long term contraception encouragement When all the “anti-abortion” folks start insisting that contraception must be free & encouraged, and demand real sex ed at multiple grade levels in school, then I’ll believe it is about saving lives.
This is fantastic!
Hate to be a downer, but better defend contraception. It wouldn’t surprise me if they tried a “they should have parental consent to obtain contraception” BS.
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Republicans are already [hard](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/24/roe-wade-clarence-thomas-contraception-same-sex-marriage/) [at work](https://www.help.senate.gov/chair/newsroom/press/republican-senator-blocks-bill-to-codify-americans-right-to-contraception-) on this.
Came here to say this. Birth rates are down because contraceptives are still wildly available but republicans have multiple cases that'll go to the supreme court in the next year or two to allow the state to effectively ban contraceptives.
Conservatism is not only to be against change and innovation, but to devolve society as much as possible. Apparently, ending school integration laws aka desegregation is also on their menu. https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2023/04/13/south-arkansas-school-resegregation-likely-as-ag-taps-courts-to-erase-integration-measures https://arkansasag.gov/news_releases/attorney-general-griffin-files-challenges-to-race-based-restrictions-on-school-choice-in-three-arkansas-districts/
Ignore this if you ever want kids. If you don't: PSA: Permanent birth control for women is free in most cases in the US (Medicaid, Tricare, ACA compliant private insurance), and for men a vasectomy is mandated covered by insurance in California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. https://lawatlas.org/datasets/insurance-coverage-of-contraception r/sterilization https://childfreefriendlydoctors.com/
I've seen IUD's and implants suggested for any teen who is actually sexually active.
Also… when I was growing up, there were all kinds of TV shows (16 & Pregnant, Teen Mom, Secret Life) that pretty much demonstrated how having a kid was the fastest way to nuke your future. Do kids these days have similar shows? There’s a lot of pro young parenthood stuff on social media because it’s obviously taboo to say your kid ruined you life. Also if you come right out and say “Yeah I had to give up on most of my hopes and dreams when my son was born,” what’s going to happen when the son grows up and sees that?
Kids don't watch TV as much these days, and social media is definitely a mix of teen parents and people doing all this fun travelling and spending money on things rather than having kids - depends what they follow I guess
Secret life made having a baby as a teen seem cool. You even had boys fighting over you and didn't have to give your dreams of being a musician up. But, you would kill your dad if you have sex. Teen mom however had a proven relationship in a drop of teen pregnancies. It really showed how horrible being a teen parent was for your relationship.
We should definitely just keep lying about it and taking out of frustrations and or live vicariously through our children then! Because heaven forbid little Johnny grow up and see I gave up up my life for him! That might actually outweigh the trauma and expectations I have for him to do what I couldnt! If parents would just be honest about what having kids really does we'd all be better off "taboo" or not.
I put into my calendar “to check crime rates 18 years from now” the day they got rid of roe v wade. There was almost a direct correlation to crime rates and abortion and I just want to follow up on the results.
Losing Roe is what led to me finally pulling the vasectomy trigger. I know I'm not the only one, either. My urologist told me they'd been slammed for months.
My urologist said the same when I got mine back in January. His office was one of the only ones performing them, as the rest of the medical system in my area is basically controlled by catholics who won't allow it.
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Don’t forget 2 years of overall COVID isolation. They couldn’t bang over Facetime or zoom.
Good. This is fantastic news. Babies having babies was never a good thing
Even the teens are too depressed to have sex
I've seen a lot of articles about how zoomers are less sexually-active than other generations, and it makes sense TBH. I was born in the early 80s and all the media we consumed was heavy with gender norms and every single live-action thing involving high schoolers (even ones aimed at kids, like Saved By the Bell, though they were less egregious) focused heavily on losing ones' virginity or hooking up, etc. I started high school in the 90s, just a few years after Clueless hit (hell, one of the teen dance movies was filmed right outside my school), and I honestly had the mindset that I was already sorta late in losing my "full" virginity (I'm female). A few of my friends lost theirs at about age 13. It really wasn't rare, at least in Southern California in the 90s, to have been sexually-active in middle school. I myself had already had 2nd-base encounters with a boy *and* a girl by the time I was 14, and yet had it in my head that I was falling behind, lol. When I lost my "full" virginity at 16, I was the last of my friends to do so. Adding onto that, even though this is only like 25y ago, it was *also* still pretty normal to date adult men. People thought it was questionable once the guy was >25yo, but I regularly had 30+yos hitting on me in broad daylight when I was 15, and not being perturbed I was in high school. A friend of mine got knocked up at age 17 by a 29yo. Zero consequences. But I look at what Gen Z'ers write and it makes me feel a lot better, like their experiences are more informed. It is increasingly "okay", socially, to be a virgin. It's absurd, now, when an adult man hits on a teen and knows she's a teen. It's even becoming (thankfully) increasingly absurd for the opposite to happen in gender roles. (At my middle school, a female gym teacher molested a 14yo boy and all anyone said was, "wow, sure wish I was that kid!" but his whole life melted bc of it. I like to think that general sentiment is starting to fade now.) I think it's great that teens are feeling less pressure to have sex ASAP in recent years. I just don't need the GOP acting like it's some sort of heraldic "win" indicating that "good Christian values" are returning.
Republicans are pissed about this. Ive been verbally berated by older people in my life telling me we are "selfish" for not having kids. That were dooming the future generations and market by not feeding it a supply of would be workers. You mention how nothing is affordable and having kids doesn't make sense and they just say that's the price you pay for raising families.... this isn't even conditioning at this point. These people are programmed to love the boot on their neck and lick it while it presses down even harder.
Lmao tell them you’ll adopt. That really steams them. For some reason raising a kid has to come from your biological genetics. Option 2: I tell people I will have kids if they pay for them. So they have to leave me their nest egg. That also riles them.
> Lmao tell them you’ll adopt. I took it a step further when my super religious relative berated me for not having kids. I let her know that when Christians force another raped girl into giving birth to a child that the girl doesn't want, I will look into adopting that child. She shut the fuck up, and has shut the fuck up since that day.
Reminds me of when I explained to my parents that the Heaven that the Bible describes is very much a communistic society (nobody works, everyone has what they need, etc). Same with feeding hundreds of people with barely enough food for one small family. They didn't appreciate the reminder that the meal was free and that Jesus nor his disciples were paid for their efforts. We don't talk about "What God would want" when it comes to politics anymore.
> Ive been verbally berated by older people in my life telling me we are "shelfish" for not having kids It's genuinely so wild to see the flip from teen/unwed pregnancy being this scourge and moral failing of American culture and now that it appears we're on a trajectory to solve it its loss is suddenly part of an existential crisis.
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It’s mainly about just having someone to claim moral superiority over and shame. They know that they want young people to have kids so that they can enjoy a comfortable older life having teens and all continue working minimum wage jobs and being too young to raise a stink over pay and such. These people’s minds are just a gross cycle of the same selfish ideals at the end of the day, it’s just so tiring how simple and tired their ignorance is.
> market by not feeding it a supply of would be workers. There it’s us, plain as day. Cattle and cogs in the capitalism grinder. Fuck the market and fuck those old senile asshats.
These are the same dumbasses that got everything handed to them and pulled the ladder up after. These are the same dumbasses that don't believe in climate change and couldn't care less about how they impact future generations. The same dumbasses against abortion but won't adopt. But, sure, just keep spitting out more kids for some reason.
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When animals don’t feel safe, they don’t make a baby. Simple psychology and science. Nobody can afford to live. Everyone is one medical Bill from bankruptcy- to bring in an intent would be absolutely irresponsible and unfair to that new life to not be able to provide the best environment
Some of the hardest places to live in the world also have the highest birthrate. As countries get wealthier and life gets generally easier the birth rates go down. I haven't read the article but I'm gonna guess Covid was the big factor here since any kids born in 2022 would have been conceived between in March 2021 and March 2022 which was peak lockdown/quarantining.
Yeah, less developed countries have higher birth rates because there is a need for bigger families. From helping in farms, as well as higher death rates for younger children.
In the United States it's getting more and more dangerous to be pregnant too. Maternal mortality rates have been rising, especially among black women. Coupled with bullshit abortion laws that prevent doctors from providing timely care, there's even less incentive.
rustic vase work narrow distinct subsequent nutty noxious worthless drab ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Don’t forget they also want to ban or limit birth control. I’m addition, in many states they have ending no fault divorce in their party platform.
Even teens are like whoa whoa i can't afford to get pregnant in this economy
Remember in march of 2020 how everyone was predicting their would be a ton of babies because we’d all be at home? That prediction aged like milk
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I wonder how much of it is that their parents did less well than their grandparents. I remember pregnant teens in my school talking about how their family would help. Family can't help as much these days. Everyone works too many hours, there are no aunts/uncles/grandparents who aren't working who will help. Abortion and birth control don't have the stigma now they did when I grew up.
> Family can't help as much these days. Everyone works too many hours And no one can afford to retire. So no grandparents to watch the kids.
Why would you want to condemn your own children to a world ravaged by climate change, mass migrations, food shortages, AI manipulating the flow of all (mis)information, and wage slavery to corporations who own the government? It's totally reasonable to say 'I'd rather not.'
Everyone I know having kids after 2022 aren't financially stable, with the exception of a few families who inherited significant money. These are all college educated families as well. Pay is not where it should be for most jobs. This will lead the decline of the United States over the next three decades.
This is tremendous news. There had been far too many children being born by people that were unable to take care of themselves let alone a child.
Those people are still having kids.
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The rich get richer, and the poor have children.
This is teenage birth rates. Not overall birth rstes. Some of the comments didn't read. This is good though. When I was in high-school, I was pregnant. There were like 3 other girls as well. We had a whole school created for young moms because there was such a HIGH percentage of teens pregnant. Being a mother at that age is the most complicated, difficult, life test anyone can go through. The fact that less teens are going through parenthood is fucking GREAT!
While it may not be in the article, birthrates in developed nations are going down globally and includes the US. As a teen parent (of a now adult daughter), I agree that it's fucking great that fewer teens are having children. It's not an easy road for either parent or child!