Baby Boom Did Not Happen?

After learning about the population control plans that the nazis had and how the plan involved the use of flouride in water supplies, I started to wonder about the dramatic drop in birthrates in the western world following the so-called "baby-boom."

It seems to me that if you look through local history books, you will find that throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, families were quite large. 8 children in a family was not uncommon and was quite normal, even larger families were common.

Our history books tell us that following World War II, there was a baby boom.

But is that the case?

Or, was the so-called "baby-boom generation" simply the last normal generation before population control was implemented?

Was our birth-rate following World War II our normal birth rate, and not a baby boom at all?

Did the flouridated water and other population control methods implemented in the 50s and 60s work so well that the government made up the lie that there was a baby boom following the war so that we wouldn't become suspicious of the alarming drop in birth-rate?

Was the government lying to us when they told us that our low birth rate was in fact our normal birth rate?


Mod Edit: Cap title

[edit on 18-4-2006 by kinglizard]

That is a very interesting theory... I do believe some type of population limitation is implimented, but I dont know how this would be done in non-communist countries w/o use of war and disease. China does it through rule of law, unlike anything we would see in the west. If you wanted to have 8 babies, do it, nobodys stopping you. Overpopulation just becomes worst every year, as it has since the beginning of intelligent beings. This is not to say the baby boom did not happen . Of course our soldiers came home and had a bunch of babies. WW2 was so me serious #!.

Yes, soldiers came home and had lots of babies, but the point I am trying to make is that our ancestors were making lots of babies before the war also. So, it really shouldn't be called a 'boom' but rather, business as usual.

We had a high birth rate from the beginning of the colonizing of North America right up to the 1950s. For some reason, it all of a sudden dropped dramatically.

There has to be a reason. Cause and effect. What caused our birthrate to suddenly drop?

Was it the flouride that slowly killed off part of our brains? Was it the flouride that made women infertile? Was it the easy access to abortions?

I never thought of that before, but you bring up a good point. It makes no sense to call it the "baby boom" when families with 10 kids was the norm.

As for flouride, I'm not so sure. People who grew up on flouride-water can still have babies. The reason kids aren't as common now (at least in the US) is because no one can afford them. Both parents have to work and can still only afford 2 kids.

Well you can look up the numbers yourself.

Here's the data on birth from the CDC:

www.cdc.gov...

Children per woman:

Total Fertility Rate

Year**********White **********Black

1800**********7.04**********nd

1810**********6.92**********nd

1820**********6.73**********nd

1830**********6.55**********nd

1840**********6.14**********nd

1850**********5.42**********7.90

1860**********5.21**********7.58

1870**********4.55**********7.69

1880**********4.24**********7.26

1890**********3.87**********6.56

1900**********3.56**********5.61

1910**********3.42**********4.61

1920**********3.17**********3.64

1930**********2.45**********2.98

1940**********2.22**********2.87

1950**********2.98**********3.93

1960**********3.53**********4.52

1970**********2.38**********3.07

1980**********1.75**********2.32

So, you can see that there was a rise in the falling birth rate. Maybe BOOM is an exageration. But also, people hadn't had 5-8 kids for a century by then.

We "pre-gen-X'ers", aka "old folks", aka "boomers" may have been "conditioned" to hold as "truth" some potential "beliefs" much has been described. As example, I cite the notion that "back-in-the-day" folks had big families because many children died and that a large family had a better chance of cross-generational legacy. This "seems" true to me, but I am of open mind.
The generation that started having kids in the '60's and '70's had a different set of priorities, parameters, bench-marks and choices unavailable to the previous generation. Here I cite the notion that folks didn't "have-to-marry" anymore and that reproductive options were available. That this is really true? I have no doubt; "lived-it" and "still have most of the T-Shirts."
It makes sense to me that during the the last "War-to-end-all-Wars" there were not as many humans makin' babies till the boys and girls came home.
The cited "boom" is just what boys and girls find as natural behaviour if one reduces survival-stressors to the point where "a family seems securely doable". Global conflict and all the stresses wrapped up in that would lead to a reduced birth rate from the stress alone - ask a mid-wife. After the war think - rabbits.
We've been polluting our environs just about as long as there have been humans so sooner or later this toxic behaviour will show up in genetic manifestations and increased errors of reproduction - a lower birthrate and a higher baseline infant mortality rate. Me and my Grade One school-mates played with and sculpted asbestos fibre in "Art". This went on in Ontario Canada until at least 1966 - we also had our teeth "Treated" and many of my contemporaries who choose to have kids now have children with "mottled" teeth. I won't even get into the vaccines we were "pumped-up" with... I saw some kids get really, really ill. Some never came back to school.
These days I find a great many folks choosing to NOT have life-partners or children. I don't think a citation will help here - 'go outside and look around.
Why? At least for some this world is too dangerous and difficult to raise kids in a way that they'd be comfortable with. People with choices "put-off" having kids all the time quite "voluntarily" - conditioned or not.
I think you may be right. The "baby-boom" may be interpreted as you say and it also might be missnamed or mis-contextualized. I'm even willing to accept that in truth "there may be something wrong here" - but I'd need more data to get behind a "co-ordinated multi-front assault on human reproduction" at this point.
A very good thread Thanx.

[edit on 18-4-2006 by V Kaminski]

When all those GI's first came home after WWII all they wanted to do was f***. And celebrate their accomplishment. The economy was good, people had money. The baby-boom generation didn't want to have to worry about the expense of child-rearing; more selfish and self-centered then their parents generation, many grew up and never really "grew up". Too many kids was bothersome. Have 2 kids and you could still pay the bills, have 2 cars, a nice house, a summer vacation, etc.

What you see more nowadays is people marrying and opting to have no kids at all.
Again, I think it's more about people becoming more self-centered, self-absorbed.
A good percentage of parents don't even pay attention to their kids. That's why I think kids have so many emotional problems today.

IMO our fellows came home from the war and had a grand ole time celebrating and then lots of births followed. No big cover up with the baby boom era.

I also think that women learning to speak up for themselves over the past couple of centuries and learning to speak and share with one another on topics that were previously taboo led to more reproductive control by those women - they were choosing to have less children.

Exactly women actually have rights these days. They aren't childbearing sex slaves anymore. Yay! Seriously I can't believe any woman would willingly have ten or more kids . Gross. Not too mention really hard on your body. I would way rather not even get married at all.

Intresting theory, but one thing i thought i would add. When you people are stating 10-people family was the norm pre-WW2, you should also remember our understanding of medicine was also very bad. One instance i will point out is the Peter the Great of Russia, 1672-1725 had a family of 8 daughters nad 5 brothers, while only 2 of the brothers survived until adulthood. And these people were the monarchy, how do you think the survival rates for peasents were in those days?
The problem with over-population is that we are now living normaly twice as long as we use to, and through modern medicine, we can make people who would of been terminaly ill people to people who can survive.
Also im not saying fluorine is not a conspiracy, but i doubt it is linked to population control.
The allies were infact considering similar policies of germany agaisnt disabled people, but when the war broke out they the ideological split disallowed the allies to follow a similar policy. But even in nazi germany the T-4 program was mainly based to save the government money, and to keep the Aryan race pure. And not acturly about de-population. Link


Anyway intresting theory, i hope through my criticism you can refine the theory even more.

Families were larger BUT death was also much greater. The babyboom isn't about there being a huge amount of growth so much as its about all the births being so closely spaced. All these Joes return from the war after being away for so long, shag the heck out of their wives and, BOOM, everyon's pregnant at the same time. This population then ages together, hitting milestones, like retirement, college, etc, at more or less the same time, being a problem for the system.

Did families really think: "I need to have ten children cos half will be dead before they are 5?"
Well it is well known that in third world countries without social security people have many children in the hope that they will be better of looked after by them in old age. So yeah I guess people did think like that at least SOME of the time.

But what's interesting in Jadett's figures is that in 1960 people were having over double the number of kids they were in 1980 (3.58 verses 1.75).
Even in 1970 it was a respectable 2.38

Was the poverty, or social security system so bad in 1960 and 70 that people were still having to have large numbers of kids just to provide some hope of security in old age?
I DON'T THINK SO

Contraception could be the cause of this unnatural balance (fits nicely between 1970 and 1980).
But who's to say fluoride or some other state programme isn't part of it as well? So yeah interesting post r7458. All we need now is some definitive way to work out the use and overall affect of contraception and you've turned conspiracy into conspiracy fact "i.e. what is the missing factor?"