US fertility rate is below level needed to replace population, study says

originally posted by: toms54

originally posted by: narrator
Having kids is crazy expensive, and wages haven't kept up enough to allow young adults to be able to afford a studio apartment, let alone a kid or 2 and enough room to house them.

Wage increase (or cost of living decrease) = more kids.

Simple explanation.

Kids are expensive. So is college and young people do that. I can't say the system of financing college is perfect either but at least society does try to facilitate it.

Our brave new world order is a failure. It is literally dying on the vine due to lack of replenishment. The goal here is to encourage women to have children while they are still young. We must isolate the reasons that make it a disability and work to remove them.

If our goal was to bust up the family and remove the so called system of slavery, I would say we've mostly accomplished that. We need to start putting it back together in a way that works for both sexes.

To my mind, the tough nut to crack here is childcare. Affordable childcare. Modern families don't work because someone needs to watch the children so both parents can have an income. We need to pay women to watch each other's kids. Get these girls out of the fast food restaurants into the daycare industry. Before the last election, both parties had all kinds of plans for this. What happened? Haven't heard a single word about it in the two years since. This needs to be a major goal for the women's movement. Not Russia, Russia, Russia.

All I hear in that is "we need to make women do this", and that makes me want to disagree with everything you're saying. But I'll hold back, and present counter points.
1. College is very expensive, but it's a requirement nowadays for a lot of jobs. Kids aren't a requirement. In my mind, college is more justifiable than kids in terms of life prospects, unless the person wants to go into a trade. Which is fine too. But it's impossible to compare the two. The average cost of raising a child is somewhere around $235,000. The average Bachelor's degree is nowhere near that expensive. Mine would've been $80,000 total, had I not gotten scholarships, and I went to a private university.
2. Why is that the goal? To tell women what they need to do? That's a horribly sexist way of thinking. Women can do whatever they want. They want to have kids? Awesome. They don't? That's awesome too. It's entirely up to the individual family, not some mandate you're trying to force on them.
3. If we've accomplished the goal, why should we start working to undo all the work we've done? Backwards thinking.
4. Again, you can't tell women what to do and force women into jobs they don't want to have. Why not make men work in daycare? Yes, daycare is insanely expensive. But rather than provide a "solution of "just make women run daycares", why not figure out why it's so expensive, and work to make it more affordable?
The reason it's so expensive...it's freakin' expensive to live in America, and people that run daycares need to afford rent, food, all basic necessities, and on top of that afford insurance that's also crazy expensive because people are lawsuit-happy nowadays.

Make the country more affordable, and a lot of these issues go away. Although I will say that I don't see women choosing to not have kids as an issue in any way, shape, or form.

a reply to: narrator

Your personal situation may look that way but this goes beyond that. We need to figure this out because society. Even if it takes 5 or 10 years from now, we must figure out every reason it is bad for you and fix it for the next generation. Forget all this crap about overpopulation, that is not our problem.

You say the problem is money. How can your situation be improved? That's the approach. Health costs, housing, etc. All of that must be optimized for families.

originally posted by: Nickn3
I have 3 things to add. Not to be taken to seriously. Just food for thought.

1. Would a reduction in population be a bad thing. It may be that a natural process resides in humans that if overcrowding becomes a problem that a natural process kicks in to help us reduce the population.

2. In the episode of Star Gate SG-1 the Aschen, our hero’s found a civilization that through a stealth process sterilized 80% of the Human race. Just something to think about. Many people think we have been visited.

3. If any of you ladies would like to try to, well, try to conceive. Perhaps I can help? Just being neighborly you see, as I am very healthy for my age and I am well versed in multiple technical skills.

1. I agree 100%, it isn't necessarily a bad thing at all.

2. That's an interesting concept. Maybe it's happening...dun dun dun!

3. Not a lady, can't help ya out there!

a reply to: narrator

Men can work in daycare. I'm not trying to force women to do anything. What I'm saying is if they wish to have children and maybe a family, we should try to make that possible. Currently, it is not possible for many such as yourself.

originally posted by: toms54
a reply to: narrator

Your personal situation may look that way but this goes beyond that. We need to figure this out because society. Even if it takes 5 or 10 years from now, we must figure out every reason it is bad for you and fix it for the next generation. Forget all this crap about overpopulation, that is not our problem.

You say the problem is money. How can your situation be improved? That's the approach. Health costs, housing, etc. All of that must be optimized for families.

1. Which society are you talking about? We have over 300,000,000 people in America alone. Our society isn't going anywhere. Overpopulation most definitely is our problem. We shouldn't pawn off potentially giant issues onto future generations just because we won't be around to experience them.

2. The situation can be improved by mitigating greed worldwide. It shouldn't cost what it does to survive in America nowadays. Universal health care would be a start. Cheaper housing. All good things.

But, why must all things be optimized for families? Not everyone has, needs, or wants a family.

I should clarify, it isn't my personal situation that needs improving. I'm blessed with a great job, a great wife, and the peace of mind of knowing that neither of us want a biological child (praise be to science for hysterectomies and vasectomies!). Adoption may be in our future, but biological kids are definitely not. And we like it that way. Not everyone has to be focused on having kids. There are plenty of people in the world already.

originally posted by: toms54
a reply to: narrator

Men can work in daycare. I'm not trying to force women to do anything. What I'm saying is if they wish to have children and maybe a family, we should try to make that possible. Currently, it is not possible for many such as yourself.

It definitely is possible for me, my wife and I just aren't interested.

And I agree, we should definitely make that possible. My opinion is that the cost of living here is overly prohibitive, and that's the main reason young couples nowadays aren't having kids.

Fix the cost of living (whether through an increase in wages or some other way), and we fix that issue. We won't need affordable daycare if both parents don't HAVE to work. If they both want to work, awesome, but it shouldn't be a requirement.

it's because millennial's are lazy /end sarcasm

no really life is already to f**** busy I couldn't imagine adding a kid into the mix I'm not sure how I would keep it together

originally posted by: toysforadults
it's because millennial's are lazy /end sarcasm

no really life is already to f**** busy I couldn't imagine adding a kid into the mix I'm not sure how I would keep it together

If they'd just stop with their daily avocado toast maybe they'd have saved enough money to have kids by now! /sarc

Agreed, I can't imagine kids at this point. I'm just on the northern border of being a millennial (I'm almost too old, according to the "official" age range) and I think back to what my friends and I were like in our early 20s (well, anyone I knew for that matter) and I can only be thankful that we didn't have kids back then. Nowadays, my life is so full, we'd have to sacrifice quite a bit to fit a kid in there.

originally posted by: FilthyUSMonkey

I have 2 sons, 22 and 16. I prefer dogs and cats. Never bug me for a new cell phone, clothes, a car. Never came home in a police car. Always happy to see me.

I have 2 sons 19 and 15 and they are great kids, but if my wife wasn't a mom for the last 20 years life would be much different for me. This year I spent 30k on one sons first year in college, 12k on a car, and 5k on stuff needed for college. All above and beyond the normal 20k per year...lol


All that is about 10 vacations for me...lol

Birth rates would be fine if Western women would stop slaughtering babies.

If you dont want a baby keep your legs closed.

a reply to: narrator

Well, I must be confused. One day our fertility rate is dropping and we need to import half of Mexico and the next day we are overpopulated again.

I am sorry I misread you and thought you were speaking about your own situation.

a reply to: Edumakated



I know Tucker is taking flack for his views on this topic, but he's not the only one who noticed some things about this. It turns out that when she was working as an academic at Harvard, Elizabeth Warren wrote a book on the subject.

Modern double income life is bad for us.

Interesting comments by many of our members. I do think some of the comments are very myopic though. If you look at the birth records for many countries around the world the same problem exist. India and several countries in Africa are the only places projected to increase in population (to the tune of 2 more billion by 2200)..

Even in S.E. Asia the birth rates are low, and the new parents do not pay for child care as the young have the babies and continue to work while the grand parents or other relatives take care of the child. Traditionally the babies grow up and help support the old relatives or in many cases the mom and dad with monthly allowances from their hard earned pay checks. No government intervention ... Those who had no family you see on street corners begging in their old age... and for the most part they are real beggars who are starving or had some kind of physical deformation that never allowed for a family..

The cost of dumping your kids in day care every week in the states along with being a low wage earner.... the math does not add up unless you can live on fresh air and sunshine.

Just another thought .... With the higher rate of children being born with mental problems and or deformities plus the cost of anything medical could surely make many prospective parents think twice before making a commitment to having children IMO.

Maybe it is nothing more than natural selection at work..as... many think children are just not worth the hassle when they observe others trying to scrape by with the day care raised little monsters they call kids.?

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Edumakated

I know Tucker is taking flack for his views on this topic, but he's not the only one who noticed some things about this. It turns out that when she was working as an academic at Harvard, Elizabeth Warren wrote a book on the subject.

Modern double income life is bad for us.

Yes, Elizabeth was known for her books on the eroding middle class before she became a Senator.

In fact, I actually used to correspond with her every now and then over email as she used to write articles on finance at a blog I followed. She didn't really know what she was talking about (predatory lending, etc) and I'd email her some criticisms / corrections and she'd respond occasionally.

I truly believe that feminism has had the unintended consequence of creating two wage earner households by depressing wages of men and forcing parents to pay for daycare. The sad part is most of the women I know who focused on their careers tend to regret it in the long run.

Women's lib, #metoo and all the other BS has made it very hard for men to even want a family.

Example:

Man: Hi! what's your sign? I'm a Taurus.

Women: Rape!!!

....and done. Thank you.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
I can explain the problem with two words..

"Man bun"

I know you're trying to crack a joke, but no. It's feminism pushing working women, I went over this in another thread about how the longer women wait to have kids, the less eggs we have to do that with (we're born with all the eggs we'll ever have, and we don't make more like men make sperm) and the lesser quality they are because our genetic material isn't meant to sit on the backburner for decades like a man's can.

Why people cannot wrap their brains around this is beyond me. The denial is astounding.

The hidden birth control practices have been actually lowering our population for years now, but immigration and the kids the immigrants have make it look way more than it really is. This is part of the global population control, these new people from other countries are not counted as a number of our countries total. This population reduction program was started long ago and is still active, many countries have followed it including China. I am not sure India is in on it.

Perhaps the answer lies in the rapid development of the artificial womb?

No further need for abortion; the unwanted fetus can simply transferred to a synthetic womb, brought to term, and either put up for adoption or raised by the state.

Or, a couple may choose to have their offspring nurtured to term ina synth-uterus, while mom-to-be continues her career unhindered by the side-effects of pregnancy, and claim the “finished product” once the child comes to term.

“You’ll pick your son, pick your daughter too, from the bottom of a long glass tube...”

originally posted by: Carcharadon
Birth rates would be fine if Western women would stop slaughtering babies.

If you dont want a baby keep your legs closed.

What if they all used birth control...lol

It is too expensive too have kids