We have been hearing for some time about declining birthrates in the world's wealthier countries.  The United States continues to attract hundreds of thousands of immigrants from around the world each year but our native citizens are having fewer kids.  Obviously without modern contraceptives and the legalization of abortion in 1973 typical family sizes would be much larger and there would be more adoptions and parentless kids running wild, as was quite common 100 years ago. 

 

Personally I see a vast trend of people not wanting to grow up and get out of the college partying phase.  A pressure to get married has been replaced for many by a pressure to "do everything", blah, blah, blah, while they're young.  In fact there's a guilt lumped on a lot of people who get married young (and by that I mean age 25 or so) and predictions that they don't know what they're missing out on.  Look at people's Myspace profiles -- fun is the new status, not even so much material possessions or jobs.   

 

 

This is an excerpt from "The New Girl Order" by Kay Hymowitz in New York City-Journal:

 

 

But as with any momentous social change, the New Girl Order comes with costs—in this case, profound ones. The globalized SYF upends centuries of cultural traditions. However limiting, those traditions shaped how families formed and the next generation grew up. So it makes sense that the SYF is partly to blame for a worldwide drop in fertility rates. To keep a population stable, or at its “replacement level,” women must have an average of at least 2.1 children. Under the New Girl Order, though, women delay marriage and childbearing, which itself tends to reduce the number of kids, and sometimes—because the opportunity costs of children are much higher for educated women—they forgo them altogether. Save Albania, no European country stood at or above replacement levels in 2000. Three-quarters of Europeans now live in countries with fertility rates below 1.5, and even that number is inflated by a disproportionately high fertility rate among Muslim immigrants. Oddly, the most Catholic European countries—Italy, Spain, and Poland—have the lowest fertility rates, under 1.3. Much of Asia looks similar. In Japan, fertility rates are about 1.3. Hong Kong, according to the CIA’s World Factbook, at 0.98 has broken the barrier of one child per woman.

 

For many, fertility decline seems to be one more reason to celebrate the New Girl Order. Fewer people means fewer carbon footprints, after all, and thus potential environmental relief. But while we’re waiting for the temperature to drop a bit, economies will plunge in ways that will be extremely difficult to manage—and that, ironically, will likely spell the SYF lifestyle’s demise. As Philip Longman explains in his important book The Empty Cradle, dramatic declines in fertility rates equal aging and eventually shriveling populations. Japan now has one of the oldest populations in the world—one-third of its population, demographers predict, will be over 60 within a decade. True, fertility decline often spurs a temporary economic boost, as more women enter the workforce and increase income and spending, as was the case in 1980s Japan. In time, though, those women—and their male peers—will get old and need pensions and more health care.

 

And who will pay for that? With fewer children, the labor force shrinks, and so do tax receipts. Europe today has 35 pensioners for every 100 workers, Longman points out. By 2050, those 100 will be responsible for 75 pensioners; in Spain and Italy, the ratio of workers to pensioners will be a disastrous one-to-one. Adding to the economic threat, seniors with few or no children are more likely to look to the state for support than are elderly people with more children. The final irony is that the ambitious, hardworking SYF will have created a world where her children, should she have them, will need to work even harder in order to support her in her golden years.

 

[...]

 

But in countries newly entering the New Girl Order, what SYFs complain about isn’t so much a gap between work and family life as a chasm between their own aspirations and those of the men who’d be their husbands (remember those Japanese women skeptical of a future cooking miso soup). Adding to the SYF’s alienation from domesticity is another glaring fact usually ignored by demographers: the New Girl Order is fun. Why get married when you can party on?

 

 

I think Myspace is a result of the phenomenon but not the source. Birth rates are declining because people's priorities are different. People maintain their modern lifestyles with two incomes, and middle-upper middle class people who are single, know that kids = time and money. Woman have almost equal rights by now and they don't stay at home like they used to. They aren't as reliant on men financially (look at divorce rates). I read a book based on Jungian psychology called Addicted to Perfection about women being robbed of their femininity. Kinda out there and hard to read but it was interesting how she talked about women being much more goal oriented than before (a masculine trait). All first world countries are declining in population unless they have a big influx of immigration but I'm a firm believer in self sustained global warming and I pray to God China and India's growing middle class will follow the same trend and decline for the sake of the polar ice caps.

 

We'll no doubt see a decline in qualify of life here soon but I think it could be manageable. We'll have less spending power but no one wants their grandparents out on the street.

Edit: "almost equal rights" wasn't a good choice of words. Almost equal opportunity is what I meant. Women will never be equal because they still give birth and many still tend to want to raise kids, at least before they're off to school, and there's nothing wrong with that. Gender inherently makes us unequal.

 

^----  "In fact there's a guilt lumped on a lot of people who get married young (and by that I mean age 25 or so)"

 

    Ha! In 1950, the average age for first marriages was 19 for women and 21 for men. In 1970, 23 and 25. In 2000, 26 and 27.

 

    Right now the fastest growing demographic group as far as birth rates are concerned are new mothers over 35, in part thanks to fertility treatment.

 

    Did you know that more children were born in the United States in 1955 than in any other year?

I got married at 21. ;)

 

^----  "In fact there's a guilt lumped on a lot of people who get married young (and by that I mean age 25 or so)"

 

    Ha! In 1950, the average age for first marriages was 19 for women and 21 for men. In 1970, 23 and 25. In 2000, 26 and 27.

 

    Right now the fastest growing demographic group as far as birth rates are concerned are new mothers over 35, in part thanks to fertility treatment.

 

    Did you know that more children were born in the United States in 1955 than in any other year?

 

post korea baby boom?

Part of the problem is that being a mother can be pretty miserable if you get no help at home from your spouse, which is still common, especially here and in the Catholic countries of Europe.  Women end up losing their career for 5-10 years, perhaps longer to raise a few kids. 

Dads not helping out:

http://www.citykin.com/2007/09/dads-happier-than-moms.html

The Dutch system:

http://www.citykin.com/2007/07/most-urban-country-has-happiest.html

The article talks about the single young female (SYF). I think part of (besides career and other goals) the rebellion that SYFs feel against marriage and kids is that starting in the '90s, men all of a sudden were told by TV and movies to be the ones who should try to domesticate the women instead of the other way around. "Oh, I really need a girlfriend wahh wahh" "I can't believe I'm 30 and single". That is the complete opposite of the way things were done for a very long time; possibly forever. I'm sure many of you remember the '80s, '70s and before, where most men were running from women who were always trying to get them to settle down.

Part of the problem is that being a mother can be pretty miserable if you get no help at home from your spouse, which is still common, especially here and in the Catholic countries of Europe.  Women end up losing their career for 5-10 years, perhaps longer to raise a few kids. 

Dads not helping out:

http://www.citykin.com/2007/09/dads-happier-than-moms.html

The Dutch system:

http://www.citykin.com/2007/07/most-urban-country-has-happiest.html

 

I have totally disagree with that.  As a husband and a father, I am the monetary provider and my wife takes care of the kids.  However, out of a group of five couples we are friends with, I am the only husband that works.  I know that is probably an anomoly, but the mothers had better paying jobs when the kids were born, so it was a no-brainer for the Dad's to stay at home.  That is becoming very normal in todays society. 

Personally I see a vast trend of people not wanting to grow up and get out of the college partying phase.

 

I don't know how an individual can personally see a vast trend, but I work with many, many young people in their early-to-not-so-early 20s who are quite serious about their jobs, marriages and more. I think the party-on attitude might be seen in a loud and funloving percentage of the population your personal social sphere brings you into contact with. All I know is that I'm considered "old" by the majority of my co-workers. 37 isn't old, is it? IS IT??!!

 

But really, I had plenty of slacker friends when I was 20 and holding down a lousy corporate job, and that was almost 20 years ago. HOLY sh!t! I AM FREAKING ANCIENT!

This is not a problem.  We have to significantly reduce the population of the Earth in every country.  We don't have enough resources and the ecological systems of the world cannot take the stress of 10 billion people.  The demographic anomolies are just details to deal with. 

 

It is going to mean that there won't be enough health care workers.  It is going to mean that the funds that your retirement depends on won't be as large and you will have to work longer and maybe never retire. 

 

Who's ready to party?

 

  For Kingfish:

 

  "Old Woman!"

  "Man!"

  "Man, sorry. What Knight lives in that castle over there?"

  "I'm 37."

  "What?"

  "I'm 37. I'm not old!"

  -  Monty Python

 

 

    Boreal - agreed.

 

 

^^...

 

"I did apologize about the "old woman," but from behind you looked, well..."

"What I object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior."

"Well, I am king."

"Oh, king, eh? And how'd you get that? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society."

 

   For Kingfish:

 

   "Old Woman!"

   "Man!"

   "Man, sorry. What Knight lives in that castle over there?"

   "I'm 37."

   "What?"

   "I'm 37. I'm not old!"

   -  Monty Python

  

 

The world would be a better place without british humor.

And it would be a much, much better place without American remakes of British comedies.

China's population officially in decline, meaning it has probably been drifting downwards for a few years:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/business/china-birth-rate.html?campaign_id=116&emc=edit_pk_20230117&instance_id=82937&nl=paul-krugman&regi_id=68081272&segment_id=122747&te=1&user_id=94837f015c190747c7702c538200a5f4

We're not that far behind.  China's TFR was estimated at 1.28 in 2020; ours was at 1.64.  It's ironic that China's one-child culture is now stronger than its one-child policy ever was.

 

At this point, it may be more appropriate to hope for major advancements in healthy life extension technology than a substantial turnaround in fertility to keep the population from being excessively gray.  (Of course, one could even more rightly hope and pray for both.)  It would be quite a cultural and lifestyle shift for children who grew up as only children to want 4+ children of their own.  I'd rejoice to see it, but I won't hold out a great deal of hope for it.

1 hour ago, Gramarye said:

We're not that far behind.  China's TFR was estimated at 1.28 in 2020; ours was at 1.64.  It's ironic that China's one-child culture is now stronger than its one-child policy ever was.

 

At this point, it may be more appropriate to hope for major advancements in healthy life extension technology than a substantial turnaround in fertility to keep the population from being excessively gray.  (Of course, one could even more rightly hope and pray for both.)  It would be quite a cultural and lifestyle shift for children who grew up as only children to want 4+ children of their own.  I'd rejoice to see it, but I won't hold out a great deal of hope for it.

You have to figure the birth rate will start to fall even more in the next 10 years because of Gen Z being such a small generation to begin with. Even if they average 2.5 kids it will still be hard to sustain the growth with the smaller number in that generation. When the millennials start having grandchildren then the population will naturally rise simply because they are such a large generation.  

1 hour ago, Gramarye said:

It would be quite a cultural and lifestyle shift for children who grew up as only children to want 4+ children of their own.  

 

I know a fair number of people who inherited apartment buildings, companies, and/or large sums of money, and none of them have more than three kids.  This leads me to suspect that the hubbub over the high cost of raising children doesn't fully explain why people are having fewer kids.  The wealthiest person I know, heiress to upwards of $100 million, only had one son.  The wealthiest person I've ever shook hands with, who is from a billionaire family, only has two kids.  

 

 

 

 

48 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

2 hours ago, Gramarye said:

It would be quite a cultural and lifestyle shift for children who grew up as only children to want 4+ children of their own.

I know a fair number of people who inherited apartment buildings, companies, and/or large sums of money, and none of them have more than three kids.  This leads me to suspect that the hubbub over the high cost of raising children doesn't fully explain why people are having fewer kids.  The wealthiest person I know, heiress to upwards of $100 million, only had one son.  The wealthiest person I've ever shook hands with, who is from a billionaire family, only has two kids.  

 

Even if you're a centimillionaire, having kids is a huge lifestyle shift, because even if you have all the money in the world, children are demanding on your time.  If you're the mother, they also take a toll on your body that no amount of Equinox or OrangeTheory can overcome, especially if you're having them later in life.

 

That said, financial concerns could very well be part of the reason that many people who are not centimillionaires are having fewer children than they'd like.  The findings from a recent study at Ohio State were equal parts encouraging and heartbreaking; this came out less than a week ago: https://news.osu.edu/falling-birth-rate-not-due-to-less-desire-to-have-children/.

12 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

having kids is a huge lifestyle shift, because even if you have all the money in the world, children are demanding on your time.  

 

Yeah, especially if you have bad luck an spawn a few brats.  

 

They figured it out a long time ago in England - nannies and boarding school.  

 

 

 

Quote

 

Hasahya's 102 children range in age from 10 to 50, while the youngest wife is aged about 35.

 

"The challenge is I can only remember the name of my first and the last born but some of the children I can't recall their names," he said as he rummaged through piles of old notebooks looking for details about their births.

 

"It's the mothers who help me to identify them."

 

But Hasahya can't even recall the names of some of his wives, and has to consult one of his sons, Shaban Magino, a 30-year-old primary school teacher who helps run the family's affairs and is one of the few to have received an education.

 

 

https://news.yahoo.com/102-children-ugandan-villager-says-065022062.html

Time poverty is just as bad if not worse than monetary poverty for people not having kids. Time poverty not only refers to a lack of free time but also the free time being at the wrong times.

The term "child-free" is all about old maids asserting not only that they can and do get laid, but that they're better people than moms:

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230208-the-adults-celebrating-child-free-lives?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

 

 

 

 

The term child-free is a push back against antiquated terms like old maid and spinster. Childless people should not feel shamed for living life on their own terms. People should choose how to live their lives without judgments. "Old maid" is a judgmental term. 

Few people give men crap for this already. Except their folks.

The reason childless people have to say "it's okay to not have children" out loud and make a "movement" out of it is because they are under attack from people like...

 

Quote

J.D. Vance, a U.S. Senate candidate from Ohio, called out the “childless left” whom he said have “no physical commitment to the future of this country” in a fiery speech given to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s conference on the Future of American Political Economy. [...]

 

“We should worry that in America, family formation, our birth rates, a ton of indicators of family health have collapsed,” the candidate said, highlighting the severity of America’s ongoing fertility crisis and calling it a “civilizational crisis.”

(source)

 

He even manages to squeeze in a gay joke here! Haha, what a totally cool and mature person:

 

Quote

At the end of July, Senate candidate J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) introduced the newest Republican talking point, accusing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg of being “childless cat ladies.”

 

(source)

 

And:

 

Quote

[Federalist Publisher Ben] Domenech continued, “There was really one thing that woke socialist progressives seem to hate more than anything else,” before answering: “That’s babies.” [...]

 

“Radical environmentalists regard children as enemies of the climate. Corporate elites see babies as expensive competitors for the time, attention, and creativity of professional women, which they apparently feel should belong exclusively to them. Critical race theory con men suggest that babies become racist as early as three months old,” Domenech said. “Radical feminists have built their entire brand around de-prioritizing family life and shaming happy moms as sellouts to the patriarchy.”

(source)

 

1 hour ago, freefourur said:

The term child-free is a push back against antiquated terms like old maid and spinster. Childless people should not feel shamed for living life on their own terms. People should choose how to live their lives without judgments. "Old maid" is a judgmental term. 

 

Is child-free somehow not a judgmental term?

 

Smoke-free generally implies that smoke is bad, and being smoke-free is good.  Same with gun-free, sugar-free, disease-free, etc.

 

That said, I don't blame people for using an inherently judgmental term; I don't know how you can avoid making at least some judgment on this issue.  No matter what kind of attempt at a positive-sounding term people use for this, I'm going to hear it in the same way as people throwing parties to celebrate the finalization of their divorces, or MGTOW, spinning something that is honestly tragic as a positive.

55 minutes ago, taestell said:

The reason childless people have to say "it's okay to not have children" out loud and make a "movement" out of it is because they are under attack from people like...

 

 

He even manages to squeeze in a gay joke here! Haha, what a totally cool and mature person:

 

 

And:

 

 

 

If these people want to whine they can create an economy where people aren't stuck working in warehouses and pouring coffee during that critical late 20s period which makes or breaks people's careers. That's why they only got kids out of military families. The military isn't going to just drop people and make them hit rock bottom at that critical age like the private sector does.

4 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

If these people want to whine they can create an economy where people aren't stuck working in warehouses and pouring coffee during that critical late 20s period which makes or breaks people's careers.

 

Among those who see low TFR as a political problem (which is separate from but related to those who culturally aren't about to accept child-free as a salutary lifestyle choice ... a world in which 100% of people had exactly 1 child would be 0% child-free but also quickly on a path to extinction), you'd get a lot more agreement on this than you might expect.

24 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

Is child-free somehow not a judgmental term?

 

Smoke-free generally implies that smoke is bad, and being smoke-free is good.  Same with gun-free, sugar-free, disease-free, etc.

 

That said, I don't blame people for using an inherently judgmental term; I don't know how you can avoid making at least some judgment on this issue.  No matter what kind of attempt at a positive-sounding term people use for this, I'm going to hear it in the same way as people throwing parties to celebrate the finalization of their divorces, or MGTOW, spinning something that is honestly tragic as a positive.

Smoke free does not imply that smoke is bad. Smoke is just bad. 

 

Child free does not carry the same connotation because children are not bad. 

19 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

Is child-free somehow not a judgmental term?

 

Smoke-free generally implies that smoke is bad, and being smoke-free is good.  Same with gun-free, sugar-free, disease-free, etc.

 

You're stretching here. Snack food companies might produce "sugar-free" or "fat-free" products and market them as such, but they still continue to product sugary and fatty snacks, too. That way there are a wide variety of options for people with different wants and needs.

 

The vast majority of "child-free" people that I know still have nieces or nephews, or have friends with small children, and have fantastic relationships with them. These people do no have any belief that "having children is bad" and in fact, quite the opposite. It's just not something that they want to do personally.

27 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

Among those who see low TFR as a political problem (which is separate from but related to those who culturally aren't about to accept child-free as a salutary lifestyle choice ... a world in which 100% of people had exactly 1 child would be 0% child-free but also quickly on a path to extinction), you'd get a lot more agreement on this than you might expect.

 

The child-free people aren't going to be able to pass on their child-free teachings to their kids. 

 

 

 

38 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

 

If these people want to whine they can create an economy where people aren't stuck working in warehouses and pouring coffee during that critical late 20s period which makes or breaks people's careers. That's why they only got kids out of military families. The military isn't going to just drop people and make them hit rock bottom at that critical age like the private sector does.

 

Trust funders aren't having lots of kids, either.  It's not about the money.

 

 

 

^ god forbid anyone adopt or have close family with neices and nephews.

 

straight shooting doc sabine will update you all about the population issues here -- 

it's a very interesting and time well spent 20min video --

 

 

 

17 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

The child-free people aren't going to be able to pass on their child-free teachings to their kids. 

 

 

 

 

Trust funders aren't having lots of kids, either.  It's not about the money.

 

 

 

 

I'd argue trust funders weren't the kind to have a bunch of kids anyway -- not since 1980 or so at least. It was the people that made today's 60-150K that did. You take those people out, pay them 25-30K and make them work nights and weekends and there go the kids. And blue-collar cops, nurses, tradies and military are still having them since they won't bottom out.

First of all, from an achievable policy perspective, arguing over fertility rates in a representative democracy is the definition of tilting at windmills.  Absent draconian federal policy that would make George Orwell blush or come straight out of an autocrat's playbook, governments have very few levers to pull to functionally stop / change this direction.  Dropping fertility rates is a hallmark of any country as their economy modernizes and is seen regardless of preexisting cultural norms.  Just look at India's fertility rate over the 50 years. 

 

Further, I don't think the demographic cliff that many portend to be the end of all civilization and the economy is on the horizon.  This may be saved and reiterated for a freezing cold take in the future, but I don't see it as the economic issue it could be when male workforce participation is at its lowest rate in 50+ years (source) and economic gains and growth have been maintained despite America's fertility rate being the same today as it was in 1974.  Also, if we're truly worried about the demographic side of this equation, there's a simple and immediate answer to the demographic cliff in the United States, reduce barriers to immigration.  

 

The arguments here also end up being functionally reductive where we all sit around forming ad hominem arguments against people that have different cultural view points than our own.  The decision to have a child is a complex one that involves a multitude of factors including a person's culture, finances, religion, etc and the government already provides plenty of incentives to carrot people towards having families.  At the end of the day, the discussion inevitably devolves in to people self-affirming their own decisions and deriding people whose decisions differ from their own.  

 

Finally, I worry that concern over fertility is used in political circles as a way to use demographics to obfuscate discriminatory policy prescriptions.  For example, JD Vance isn't against gay marriage, he just worries about how our economy will continue to grow if people don't have more children and which leads us to demographic cliff, that's all!  

Edited February 17, 20232 yr by atothek
Edit: I know this post starts to sway towards politics / political economy, so my apologies if this is not germane to this part of the forum. Thanks!

2 hours ago, taestell said:

You're stretching here. Snack food companies might produce "sugar-free" or "fat-free" products and market them as such, but they still continue to product sugary and fatty snacks, too. That way there are a wide variety of options for people with different wants and needs.

 

The vast majority of "child-free" people that I know still have nieces or nephews, or have friends with small children, and have fantastic relationships with them. These people do no have any belief that "having children is bad" and in fact, quite the opposite. It's just not something that they want to do personally.

 

We'll have to disagree about what's a stretch and what's an obvious parallel in terminology.

 

As for "the vast majority of 'child-free' people" still having nieces and nephews: The way things are going, that will become less and less true even if it's true today.  Only children do not have nieces and nephews, and there are a lot more single-child families today in addition to a lot more zero-child ones.

 

1 hour ago, GCrites80s said:

1 hour ago, Lazarus said:

Trust funders aren't having lots of kids, either.  It's not about the money.

 

I'd argue trust funders weren't the kind to have a bunch of kids anyway -- not since 1980 or so at least. It was the people that made today's 60-150K that did. You take those people out, pay them 25-30K and make them work nights and weekends and there go the kids. And blue-collar cops, nurses, tradies and military are still having them since they won't bottom out.

 

I think there's room for both explanations here--in particular, as in other areas of life, culture and lifestyle reasons may set what people want but financial reasons often act as a ceiling on whether you can actually get it.  Those can be discussed either separately or together, and there are benefits to doing both.  There are enough dissimilarities there that it really is almost a different conversation entirely when asking why a trust funder with $400k annual passive income doesn't want a large family and why a young woman who really would be fine being a SAHM of a large family (which often means starting earlier) with a landscaper for a husband can't.

 

Switching over to something I mentioned years ago on a different thread, I think maybe the health care one: Sticker price for my second child's birth was $93,000: $33,000 for emergency C-section at Akron General, $5,000 for an ambulance ride from Akron General to Akron Children's (note: a distance of 2 city blocks), and $55,000 for two weeks in the NICU at Akron Children's.  I'm privileged to have good health insurance and so paid nowhere near that, and most people are insulated from those numbers because they don't look at their explanations of benefits other than the "patient responsibility" line (only strange people like distressed-debt lawyers do that ...).  But if you want to find where I sound most like Bernie Sanders, talk to me about health insurance companies sometime.  Of course the most absurd irony about it is that my reasons for it are the complete opposite of his--his are about maximizing individual autonomy and mine are about collective obligations to deal with the consequences of admitting one of the most consequential limits of personal autonomy.

 

I know a young woman who just got married in October.  She goes to my church and was actually our family's nanny during the pandemic.  She now works at the church as a youth coordinator (which is not a physically demanding job but also very low-paid).  She's an observant Catholic and would love a large family.  I wish her the best because we need more large families in the world and more people like her in the world.  But she and her husband are waiting to get started, and how can I even privately dare think that they're making the wrong choice, even if it likely shrinks the total size of the family they'll ultimately have, given the numbers that I saw on my own EOBs and that her husband's health insurance (HDHP 🤮) is nowhere near as good as mine? @Lazarus: Much as I hate it, sometimes it really is about the money.

13 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

 @Lazarus: Much as I hate it, sometimes it really is about the money.

 

Yeah, the medical bills can be ridiculous, but usually it's the process of getting out of paying the bills, not the actual bills, that are the hassle. 

 

I know people who inherited millions - even tens of millions - in their early 20s, who have NO kids in their 30s, even after dating the same person for 10 years.  It's crazy.  What, exactly, are they waiting for?

 

 

Trust funders get to fill that childless hole with another vacation to Ibiza where they trip balls while listening to the song "People from Ibiza" 

 

 

Edited February 18, 20232 yr by GCrites80s

8 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

What, exactly, are they waiting for?

 

They don't want one.

1 minute ago, taestell said:

They don't want one.

 

7 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

 fill that childless CHILD-FREE hole with another vacation to Ibiza

 

 

FTFY.  Pretty soon the child-free will succeed in getting Apple to auto-correct that automatically. 

12 hours ago, freefourur said:

"Old maid" is a judgmental term. 

 

“Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.”

@ColDayManCan you move this topic into the boomers only area? 

Uh, keep my child-free @$$ out of this, thanks. 

On 2/17/2023 at 2:40 PM, Gramarye said:

She goes to my church and was actually our family's nanny during the pandemic.

 

 

I absolutely never heard of a nanny as a real, going concern, until recently. It was something from a bygone era, like a chimney sweep.  

 

 

 

When the top income tax rates were much higher people with money hired people to do everything for them in order to get their taxes down. My dad and grandma hired people to do so much for them around the farms in the '50s and '60s that when that phenomenon went away they didn't know how to do much themselves, didn't buy any equipment to do things themselves and therefore the farm got stuck in the '60s. I'm not talking about the farming itself -- rather taking care of the place. They got rid of the livestock, sold several farms, disabled all the plumbing and electrical in the barns and closed everything up. They got so used to labor incentives that they were still hiring a few people to do things that 95 percent of Americans handle themselves afterward. 

On 2/17/2023 at 2:40 PM, Gramarye said:

Switching over to something I mentioned years ago on a different thread, I think maybe the health care one: Sticker price for my second child's birth was $93,000: $33,000 for emergency C-section at Akron General, $5,000 for an ambulance ride from Akron General to Akron Children's (note: a distance of 2 city blocks), and $55,000 for two weeks in the NICU at Akron Children's.  I'm privileged to have good health insurance and so paid nowhere near that, and most people are insulated from those numbers because they don't look at their explanations of benefits other than the "patient responsibility" line (only strange people like distressed-debt lawyers do that ...).  But if you want to find where I sound most like Bernie Sanders, talk to me about health insurance companies sometime.  Of course the most absurd irony about it is that my reasons for it are the complete opposite of his--his are about maximizing individual autonomy and mine are about collective obligations to deal with the consequences of admitting one of the most consequential limits of personal autonomy.

Why are you such an outlier among American conservatives and libertarians and what would convince them to get rid of expensive for-profit insurance middlemen?

 

On 2/2/2023 at 5:13 PM, GCrites80s said:

Time poverty is just as bad if not worse than monetary poverty for people not having kids. Time poverty not only refers to a lack of free time but also the free time being at the wrong times.

 

Everyone who is concerned about barriers to people having kids should want to make it as easy as possible.  Free healthcare for kids (other countries do it)?  Paid maternity and paternity to cover the first two years (other countries do it)?  Free childcare and preschool?  Free after-school care?  Housing and food assistance for low-income families?

 

Some people do not make great parents, so we'll also need to adequately fund things like foster care programs and provide better parent education and support.