These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.
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If history is any guide, none of this will work: No matter what governments do to convince them to procreate, people around the world are having fewer and fewer kids.
In the US, the birth rate has been falling since the Great Recession, dropping almost 23 percent between 2007 and 2022. Today, the average American woman has about 1.6 children, down from three in 1950, and significantly below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children needed to sustain a stable population. In Italy, 12 people now die for every seven babies born. In South Korea, the birth rate is down to 0.81 children per woman. In China, after decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, the population is shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. In Taiwan, the birth rate stands at 0.87.
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I mean, kids only really suck in a world where both parents have to work 40+ hours a week. You really don’t have to dedicate all your time to them, but in a world with less and less community to help raise them and more and more work to grind your energy down, you have to dedicate far too much of your limited free time to them. I would love to be able to raise a kid or two myself. I loved working with kids. We should not be throwing them into some nebulous “public system.”
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The information you get might be biased, because people love to vent about bad stuff, but do not mention the rewarding stuff, that makes it worth it.
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Well since we are at anecdotal evidence. I am in the academics bubble, where quite a few of my friends also got children and they love it. You don’t like kids, so you see all the problems that come with having children. You are looking for confirmation bias. There are more than enough people that do not hate children. I mean, we are kinda biologically programmed to procreate.
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My friend lost his apartment to a fire so I took him in with my wife and kids while he got back on his feet. He was working class, his parents were neglectful and died young, his other family hated him, and he was left to fight for scraps and fend for himself.
He saw me give love to my kids, he saw the freedom we gave them to explore the world around them and their feelings, to exist without fear. One day my friend got home from work and the two kids ran over screaming “UNCLE!” and hugged him. He teared up a little and hugged them back, then he asked me to chat outside for a bit.
He laid it all out and said he wants kids. He never thought he could subject them to the life he lived but after seeing mine he realized he didn’t have to. He said watching them grow up and being a part of it has been very rewarding. He has since started a business, almost entirely stopped drinking and smoking, invested his money in multiple places, and is now dating.
Kids are a lot of work, but they’re also fantastic at showing you what actually matters in life. So much of the bullshit we think matters is just fluff.
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You were a kid, though. Adults aren’t just spawned, they grow from kids. Everyone seems to be talking about them (and old people, for that matter) as though they are a separate species of being. Kids are just immature people. Of course they suck. You did too, so did I.
But they are also awesome, and grow up to be adults. I had fun having kids. Taking them places, watching them grow and change, the funny things they say and the flashes of insight. Now most of them are adult people. I don’t care if they have kids, they should do whatever they want. But I did enjoy the parenting. Sure, it’s not convenient, it’s life.
People with your argument are stupid and annoying. Kids are great. They deserve better than our society.
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Lol!
As a woman of almost 40 fucking thank you. I’m educated enough to know I don’t have to fall for that bs.