It also doesn’t help that you used to have free roaming children. They came back home when it was getting dark outside. There was a whole community around them that would take care of them too.
Now you have to monitor your kids 24/7, push them to goals and activities or you’re painted as a bad parent. There are heavy vehicles at high speed everywhere now so no more free roaming. Unaccompanied minors get reported to the police.
When the environment is actively hostile to children, it’s also no wonder people have less children.
This is key. So-called “families values conservatives” often lament low birth rates, but can also make it impossible for their neighbours to raise children with their culture war bullshit.
But, let’s be real, they don’t want everybody to have kids…they want certain people to have more kids. It’s cultural dog whistling.
The racists are foaming as they see their “ubermensch” white race refuse to have kids while so called sand people are “breeding like cockroaches” (which is a lie, just look at the statistics).
Families become smaller > less relatives to share the child care with > families become even smaller > even less relatives to share child care with > repeat.
I told the doctor that did my vaesctomy that I was doing it to fight white supremacy and they laughed during the operation 🥳 lol
I mean white people themselves are not the problem but capitalism and fascism. Take those away and in like 3 generations white supremacy disappears
Personally, I refuse to reproduce because we’re not even pretending to avoid 3+C
I won’t have children just to suffer
We’ve already more of less avoided 3+C https://climateactiontracker.org/
Of course, 2.6 is plenty catastrophic. It is unconscionable that we’re going above 1.5. But it’s not 3+C.
There’s ongoing efforts to reduce renewables and increase fossil fuel use…I wish I shared your confidence
Those efforts are facing an uphill battle, because renewables are so much cheaper. Any country that doesn’t go all in on renewables will lose all their energy intensive industries to other countries.
Since Trumps election the forecast have been revised down from 2.7 to 2.6 and I suspect that is because of the prices of renewables.
I want to believe you, can you break it down more?
Not really. I don’t remember my sources and half just put them together halfhazardly to reach this conclusion.
We know renewables are cheap, and we know expensive energy is terrible for an economy. Though maybe if renewables take off massively then fossil fuels will become much cheaper.
how did we let our elders be propagandized like this? and we are literally watching them in the middle of fomenting division between the current younger generation and the rest. always with gen-z this gen-z that, they do this shit every time now, to every generation.
i bet on the next one becoming the bane of our existence because of their risky and whiny attitude and disrespect for their elders once so called gen z starts approaching their 30s. and then a lot of us gobbling it right up and slowly becoming reactionary fucks.
Wouldn’t selfish people want to replicate themselves?
Having kids is the single most selfish thing you can do.
It depends. Some people just really want to have kids to be able to give someone else a great life. To give someone the life that you never had. But under capitalism I don’t know how possible that is unless you are rich
Yes, but they do it in order to fill up a hole in their lives, to have a “greater purpose”, give their lives meaning. Ultimately all we do is to satisfy our desires…and the push towards caring for kids is one of the biologically hardwired desires we evolved having, the reason we do it is not really a lack of ego. Having a family is something people want for themselves, for their own happiness.
I believe it’s literally impossible for a person to not be egoistic without going crazy and/or offing oneself. Even christians who preach about self sacrifice and generosity only do it pushed by the promise of a better afterlife and their own self-interest of wanting to avoid hell and/or being closer to their god.
Surely you can do that through adoption/fostering rather than prioritizing your own genes above all else.
Having kids will just drive down my wages (both directly through lost sleep, and indirectly through increased competition in the workforce).
People call those who don’t want kids selfish. Perhaps. But what do you call someone who thinks they should duplicate half of themselves? Mother Fucking Teresa?
Going half as far as Horatio
Hot take: if this is the case why do developing nations have significantly higher birth rates than developed ones?
It could be a combination of factors, one of them being religiosity and lack of access to birth control.
Education. When people know reproduction is not the only goal in life then people will actually start to weigh pros and cons before making the decision to have kids.
I’m not sure if it’s specifically knowing weather or not reproduction is the only goal in life but I do agree it’s an education issue. I’m arguing that It’s not about being poor it’s about education.
In undeveloped (overexploited) countries, children are a promise of a better future for poor families. Also in those countries the capitalist concept of nuclear family is not as entrenched, so you have the support of the whole community in rising children.
That is a good point.
I mean it is a no brainer that if people are given a significant break from work (not just maternity/paternity leave for a few months or even a couple of years), and have the ability for there parents to help look after there children people would be more inclined to have kids.
What about developing socialist nations? Since there isn’t the same level of exploitation are there birth rates lower?
Edit: it’s 2.08 in Venezuela, 1.45 in cuba, 1.91 in vietnam, 2.24 in laos. So can confirm socialist countries have a much more moderate birth rate when compared to the rest of the developing world, as well as a higher birth rate compared to most of the developed world.
