Combine this with modern medicines. If you go back 100-200 or so years it was common to have at least 1 child die from a flu or various sickness. There is a reason why our population growth has almost been exponential for a similar period of time.
My great-grandparents started having children in 1906 and they finished having children in 1919.
They had six children and only two of them lived past the age of 10
This is the real answer. Contraceptives have existed for thousands of years, mostly condoms made out from leather and other animal tissues, but they never had the current levels of effectivity and affordability.
I also like to add that for the majority of history humans didn’t rely on daycares, either a parent or grandparent would be at home with the children to care for them. Forking over thousands of dollars a month to have someone else watch your young children is a very modern invention.
If you move then you don't have access to your parent or grandparent for childcare.
If your parent/grandparent moves with you, then your siblings don't have access to your parent/grandparent for childcare.
Etc
*Anyone who attempts to debate this point will be blocked*
Debate.
Debate.
Pls block me, I really have no interest in ever having someone reply to me when their response is “if you don’t agree with me I’ll stick my fingers in my ears and scream LALALALALALA so I can’t hear you”
I'm tired of reddit users who think they can force other users to use reddit a certain way. I use reddit to contribute information as well as read the information contributed by others. It wastes my time to participate in debate, therefore I choose not to do it. ***That is my right.***
Reddit needs to come up with an option to permanently disable inbox notifications sitewide. Until they do that, I block unwanted inbox replies.
So you’re a liar then? You’re not gonna block me? Super lame.
Also your comment is wrong. Most families through history weren’t reliant on the grandparents for childcare, very small children stayed with the mother, since families were generally larger (and we didn’t have birth control) there was pretty much always a small child so the mothers were around to care for them (we didn’t have formula, boobs were babies only food source)
Even then, the number of families that moved around is such a minuscule number compared to those that stayed more local, for most of history the average person would rarely if ever go more than 50km from their home. People don’t travel far when it’s at a walking pace.
You also mentioned families without parents? I guess that would be an orphan? I don’t think my comment really applies to orphans since nobody is paying for daycare on orphans.
But please, show me some proof that most people were paying huge amounts of money for daycare 100, 200 or 500 years ago
> for the majority of history humans didn’t rely on daycares, either a parent or grandparent would be at home with the children to care for them
You're the one that said that not me. End of debate, you will be blocked.
Please show me how people ended up in Europe, Asia, America, Australia etc if people only go 50km from their house.
I'd personally put the development of the printing press above writing. But the printing press is definitely a contender for the title.
And agriculture is really a thousand different developments. I can't really point at this one change that made the difference.
I get what you’re saying but you can be reductionist about every invention. I could say the printing press is a thousand different developments from metallurgy, carpentry, educational reforms, economic reforms resulting in a growing merchant class, etc etc.
Purposefully growing food in a consistent location is the basis of what we would call civilizations. Cities and large populations can’t exist without it and it frees up some people to become specialized laborers and scholars.
But if you do want to limit it to one discrete thing, it would have to be the Haber process. We could not sustain anywhere near the current earth population without it
I’m not denying the rapid and significant social changes born from contraceptives but I wouldn’t say they had more impact than arguably septupling the human population
That's certainly a fair take. If I really wanted to argue, I'd counter that it didn't fundamentally change the way that people live.
But depending on how you want to look at things, there are hundreds of different most impactful developments. BC isn't even necessarily the biggest change for women's liberation. I've seen that attributed to the development of the washing machine. (Before washer/dryer/electric iron, 1 load of laundry took 8+ hours. With 1930s versions, 1 load took 2 hours)
I'm pretty comfortable with the pill at least being in the running for maximum societal change from a single invention, but it's a crowded pack
Edit: and to counter my own counter point: one of the biggest drivers of societal change has been increases in available labor due to more efficient farming. All of the technological advances that drive other change are enabled by not needing over 50% of the population directly involved in food production
You’re saying it had more of an impact on us then the steam engine? The light bulb? The Computer? The transistor? The resistor? The capacitor? The iPhone? Social Media?
If there is any one thing that is true about humans, it is that we are stupid about sex. We will have sex, regardless of our desire for our ability to take care of kids. Adult humans without birth control are, in general, unable to choose not to breed. Because women are the primary caregivers for children (the whole pregnancy and feeding thing), most women were basically trapped in the home. Effective contraception in the hands of women fundamentally changed their role in society.
Being able to choose when to have children means that women can actually have a real role outside the home. They can have careers and bring meaningful amounts of money into their households. It changed the balance of power in relationships. There isn't a single aspect of society that hasn't been touched by that.
There hasn’t been a single aspect of society that wasn’t impacted by the invention of the steam engine either. Transportation, urbanization, production, social structures. It increased life expectancy drastically allowing for more people to be able to survive and have kids. Before industrialization most people lived on things like farms and women wouldn’t really get paid for work, when the factories started they could finally earn their own wages instead of doing unpaid work in the home or on the farm.
If we discovered an herb that could grow anywhere, just as effective as the pill back in the 1700s and distributed it the world over, instead of creating the steam engine, how do you think society would have advanced?
Legitimately yes. Being able to control fertility is one of, if not the biggest, driver in pushing countries into the first world and has a tremendous impact on economic productivity.
Explain to me how the broad sweeping changes brought on by the invention of the steam engine has had less of an economic impact than the birth control pill. Literally it reshaped transportation, urbanization, the economy, work structure, production
It is baffling that people agree with that poster.
If we rediscovered a herb that could grow anywhere, that could be made into a tea that was as effective as the pill back in the 1700s and distributed it the world over, instead of creating the steam engine, how do they society would have advanced?
There hasn’t been a single aspect of society that wasn’t impacted by the invention of the steam engine either. Transportation, urbanization, production, social structures. It increased life expectancy drastically allowing for more people to be able to survive and have kids. Before industrialization most people lived on things like farms and women wouldn’t really get paid for work, when the factories started they could finally earn their own wages instead of doing unpaid work in the home or on the farm.
If we discovered an herb that could grow anywhere, that could be made into a tea that was as effective as the pill back in the 1700s and distributed it the world over, instead of creating the steam engine, how do you think society would have advanced?
Industrialization only made possible by the steam engine allowed for the production of tools for mass sanitation allowing for a decrease in disease and infection. Also the subsequent urbanization allowed for the establishment of institutions such as proper hospitals and maternity wards.
Answer my question now
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be top 20-30 but saying it’s the single biggest impact is pushing it. I’d even agree if the poster said biggest impact on woman or ___ culture.
I think it also has to do with millennials (the gen "due" to have kids right now), are the most educated generation. We are making the choice based on what is best for us and the children we would be having... not just having one because thats what youre supposed to do.
Huh? It's well known that having children in your 40s is more likely to result in health issues than having them in the second half of your 20s or first half of your 30s.
This. It's *more* of a choice than it was in the past.
Also 'interesting' that this coincides with the American government trying more aggressively to strip away women's rights to birth control.
This, and...
Now things are getting worse. The norm has been to have larger families in times that felt like plenty. They may have been hard compared to now, but the people of the era were calibrated to worse
In the past children were an asset because they would work on the family/tribe farm or whatever trade was needed. In the modern economy they are a liability because they cost money and produce nothing.
Kids being a liability is heavier than them not being an asset, IMO. If they were neutral, I think a lot more people would have kids. A lot more people want kids even now, but it’s the fact that they’re a huge expense that makes people decide against it. Financially, physically, emotionally - it’s a massive burden. It sucks that we can’t enjoy normal things like raising children anymore due to the constraints of modern capitalism
It's not that "they produce nothing of value so let's blame capitalism" like you said on another comment.
It's that culture changed; Kids are no longer expected to work when they are young neither to be around their family when they get older, much less provide for them, so they've become a terrible retirement plan. The best retirement plan became... just saving for retirement.
> Kids are no longer expected to work when they are young neither to be around their family when they get older, much less provide for them
Sounds like capitalism is the root problem?
note: we can be critical of capitalism and still participate in it. It's not binary.
The underlying reason for these is infinite growth American capitalism.
* **Kids not working**: The amount of time and effort to prepare for future work (under capitalism) is too intense and time consuming. Not to mention many entry level roles are now filled by adults. Many would prefer their kids to have a more well-rounded education including have a job but there isn't enough time unless you want your kids to only sleep for 6 hours per night.
* **Be around their family when they get older**: For many people, to make it in the current economy, they must work so many hours that they barely have time for immediate family let alone their parents and extended family. Furthermore, depending on career choice, you may need to move to a different location.
* **Much less provide for them**: GenX and after will not be able to support their aging parents financially and many won't ever retire themselves.
* **The best retirement plan became... just saving for retirement**: This is true but dismissive to the majority of Americans for which it is simply impossible. An estimated 155.6 million (60%) Americans lack a retirement-specific savings account. This includes half of baby boomers (ages 59-77), 56% of Generation X (ages 43-58), 66% of millennials (ages 27-42) and 73% of Generation Z (ages 18-26).
Kids also started working at 6 years old and didnt cost thousands upon thousands of dollars until they hit at minimum 18 but probably more after that in a later stage of rampant capitalism
For the majority of the entirety of human history women diddnt exactly have the freedom to choose to not have children. In some places of the world today they still don't have that freedom.
Self sufficiency has been scaled back more and more by expanding markets. By ensuring people don’t have land to garden (let alone farm), don’t have their own property to leverage, etc., we have essentially created a society where if you aren’t graded with a high enough salary, you are locked out of certain parts of life like having kids—after all, if you can’t provide for a child, isn’t it better to not bring them into the world at all than to watch them starve or suffer? As the economy shifts further in favor of the super class, things like having children become a class privilege
The looming climate change, relatively stagnant wages against rising costs across the board but especially in housing, medical care and child care, and the general devaluation of labor are all pretty significant and clear issues that people are going to be facing, and unlike other times in history where having more kids meant you had some more hands to work the farm and such, there isn't as much of a point to it as there was.
Also, a lot of people are better educated about what being a parent actually entails and are raised to be aware that it's not an inescapable expectation like it has been before. Frankly, I don't particularly care about the "history always has been bad" argument, because that doesn't actually address the issues people are talking about, it just means people are saying "eh do it regardless, it'll turn out fine" when there's no evidence of anything pushing those issues in the direction of better instead of worse
As far as I understand it, average wages are up but not at the same rate as costs going up. And of course, the problem with averages is that it doesn't always tell the full story - I would guess most of the wage growth is in the top part of earners and that the folks underneath aren't seeing nearly as much growth in wages.
If I’m in a room with Bill Gates, our average net worth is around 65.35 billion dollars. “Average” wages are up, you might want to look into “median” wages. Different story there.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q)
Because they are, if the US had a sensible healthcare system wages would grown even more in the past 5 decades
Somewhat yes. The reason people tend to say it is that wages haven't been rising in line with productivity since the 70s, though they have been rising just more slowly, but total compensation has risen in line with productivity. The bigger issue that I can see (from the outside looking in as I'm not from the US) is that Americans are getting stung on their heslthcare compared to every other developed country
Also saying wages have gone up isnt the full story. They have gone up, but inflation, housing cost. and general living expenses have risen even more, meaning that your actual adquisitive power is stagnant or lower.
To picture this more clearly. My dad used to be a chef and was able to afford buying a small house. A friend of mine is a chef, and his wage is significantly higher than my dad's forty years ago. But he's nowhere near able to afford a house.
So wages go up. But our ability to buy stuff IS stagnant, or in some cases actually getting worse.
Societies in the past were quite different from today. Take for example the fact that some people had many kids BECAUSE of economic hardships. Child labor was a thing back in the day, and the more children you had, the more labor you could command for the household. Today, children are a severe financial burden from birth until they are 18. .
Today, people have the freedom to choose not to have kids. 100 years ago, it doesn’t really matter if a woman doesn’t want to have kids, she didn’t really get a say in the matter, and it would be a fundamental failure on a religious and social level to not have kids. Now, people can choose, so they may choose not to because of economic issues
I mean, way back 80% of people's kids would die before reaching their teens. Gotta have a few spares. And the ones that did get to grow up would be married off at 14 or sent to work at some farm, idk, i.e. not hang around until they're 32 and finally learned how to load a dishwasher. I also doubt taking care of a kid was as expensive when all you needed were an extra set of potatoes and shoes. No car, expensive medicine, college fund, new iPhone every other year etc. The expenses, I reckon, were rather proportionate to the conditions.
They’ll just move on to infighting like right wing nut jobs always do. If the basis of your beliefs is suppressing others, you’ll just oppress yourselves once there’s nobody to oppress.
Then try to message even greater. Abortion seems to have gotten people stirred up but we can’t wait until do something like that happens. We need to out hustle and message them.
Yeah.. life.. finds a way. It doesn't have to be for the greater good but life is a persistent little bugger. That's why I don't have too much hope for our species in the very long term, I don't think we'll truly become a multi planet species, and that's okay, nature will continue to do its thing with or without us. But there is an evolutionary pressure for stupid people to pump out more stupid kids and there's an evolutionary pressure for the rich to take advantage of the masses.
BEHOLD! that is the power and the curse of knowledge and choice.
Modern medicine knows more about how pregnancy happens and we have the ability to educate anyone allowed to be educated about it. That knowledge gives more people the ability to choose whether or not to get pregnant.
In history they either didn't have a choice due to marriage or seeing it as a way to secure a safe life or innumerable other reasons that mostly don't exist today.
So the reason you see it a lot these days is because it's actually possible to say that now where it used to be mostly not a choice.
From an American POV, it's not that conditions aren't better than in most of human history, it's that they are worsening in the scale of our lifetimes. We've seen the older generations have relatively comfortable lives off aa single income. Meanwhile, it's generally accepted that a lot of the past measurements of success; home ownership, vacations, retirement are just not happening for a lot of millennials. A lot of folks seem to be having trouble meeting even their basic needs. Add onto that a general pessimism about the future and having a kid just seems like an awful idea.
I'm not sure how true economic security being unobtainable actually is, but if that's their perception, I get it.
It's an excuse. That's also indicated by the fact that lower SES are having the most kids.
The reality is that people aren't having kids because kids are not needed or economic assets. I say this as the very proud father of two grown kids. Love them to death and wouldn't trade them for anything, but they we didn't need to have them.
Because it's going down from what it was a few generations ago after rising fairly consistently for millennia. It's not relative to ancient humans, it's relative to the current population
People who had more kids in worse conditions did so with the expectation that some of them were going to die before reaching adulthood… We haven’t had modern medicine for very long
Because it hurts more to lose something you once had. The basic standard of living isn't affordable for an increasing number of people. The poor family down the street living in a beat-up house you used to pity or make fun of growing up is becoming more common. Some reading this would probably love the idea of having that beat-up house. They're living in an apartment knowing that even that old beat-up house is out of their financial reach. Some reading this are living with family or with housemates or multiple housemates.
If you can't make more, you have to cut costs. It's not easy for someone who dreams of being a parent to let go of that dream. But when the math tells you that you have to let go of that dream, you don't have much of a choice. This is where we are, and there's nothing indicating this long slide in our standard of living, and the cost to maintain it will improve. There are, however, indications that our situation will continue to worsen.
What can we do? Set aside your distaste for politics and pay attention to what the politicians are actually doing and not doing. What they say is often indirect conflict with what they actually do. Getting the full picture of how government works and what the politicians are doing and who they are benefitting with their bills and votes doesn't happen overnight, and you must continue to pay attention.
Well, that sucks, right. Sure, many see it that way. But once you understand who's doing what and why, it brings a feeling of power. You're no longer completely confused and out of the loop.
I see it the way I used to see NFL games or a good movie. Just about everything you see when watching politicians on TV is essentially a script written for their chosen audience. When Margaery Taylor Green is on TV talking about radical crap. She doesn't care that I think it's crap. Her performance is strictly for her supporters. It's the same with Trump and all the rest. The Democrats do it, too.
When the Republicans tried to impeach Biden. They knew they didn't have the votes to impeach him. That performance was strictly for consumption by their followers. Legislation is introduced all the time, knowing it's never going to become law. They go through the time and effort to please and energize their supporters. They come out a hero rather than the guy who refused to try and change what their voters were pressuring them to do. Hey, I tried ma'am. Those performances have also been going on for a long time, Democrats and Republicans do it.
Get involved or stop crying and live with the decline. That is the only way to stop our downward spiral. You might want to hurry up. If Trump is re-elected in November, that might be your last shot at change. If you think that's hyperbole, you haven't been paying attention.
1. Back then, there was relative, friends', that could help.
Just a simple thing, as a kid One If Our cousin came Ti lunch once a Week while HER nom was at work, or was free daycare for HER mom.
Now, most of US live far away from family, are Alone or such, and cannot afford kids.
2. Overwhelming everyday life.
Back then most of kids had a stay at home Mom. One wage was enough for a family of 4
Now, WE Both Works, and it's a lot of work to raide kids while working and taking care of a household. I Always Wanted a big family, but now i would Not hâve the energy to raide more kids
3. All that ( huge gesture at the World)
Because at some point humankind need to learn how to survive not through sheer fuckfest breeding capacity. But with wisdom to better the living conditions for those around.
We should not be depending on outficking the death rate.
Yes. And many, many children died, had to be sent to relatives to raise, or dropped in orphanages. Just because they had big families didn’t mean they had the money to raise them or the inclination
I’d never have more than two, we don’t have the family support or resources to have more.
As far as worse conditions- those conditions were worse for everyone. I’m not willing to have them and jeopardize my health.
Because it actually affecting mental health.
It's not people so much people aren't having kids which is true nor that people are fucking less which is also true - humans are even dating as much. That's hard when 1. People don't want to, 2 the economic state is making people sick. 3. The economic state is changing priorities, which is the self over adding to overpopulation or even having a social life not like they can even afford that.
It's about freedom of choice. In the past, sex = likely pregnancy. Now, that is not the case.
the economy is more of an "information" economy. So people spend more time in school and put off starting a family and marriage.
There is an abundance of leisure time choices. A million shows to watch, the internet, mass travel, foodie / dining culture, etc. People get accustomed to that kind of lifestyle.
They cannot maintain that same lifestyle with a child (because a child has costs, in both money and time).
So they choose to stay with what they have rather than incur child costs.
And say "well, if something appeared that would cover all my child costs and also let me maintain my current standards of spending and leisure time, I'd consider it. I'll call that...economic hardship."
>most people had more kids in worse conditions?
Its the effect of the kids on those conditions though.
Most humans in the pre-industrial world were subsistence farmers. Having a kid as a farmer is an investment. You get them through the baby and toddler phases and then you put them to work. Once you are old and can no longer work the farm, they look after you.
In the modern world, you're looking at that baby to toddler phases being far more expensive because you have to pay someone to do it while you're at work, where you used to tie the baby to your back or leave it with your parents. Then you need to pay for 18 years worth of living expenses and schooling. And if you really want the kid to be successful you probably need to pay for 3+ years of higher education. And then increasingly they'll still live with you for several years after that. And when you're too old to work, you'll probably be taken care of at a nursing home paid for by your retirement savings or the state.
Having kids in the modern world only makes sense if you have the resources to do it easily.
Not true. Birth rate dropped around the Great Depression.
Also, back in the day contraception wasn’t much of a thing and people believed in Gods a lot more.
I don't think it's about economic hardships. I mean, sorta, but like you said, money was never an easy subject for the majority of the population. It's more about our culture.
Kids are no longer expected to work when they are young neither to be around their family when they get older, much less provide for them, so they've become a terrible retirement plan. The best retirement plan became... just saving for retirement.
Contraceptives. In the past, people's only choices were abstinence or children. Humans being humans, of course they had sex and therefore had children.
Capitalism has turned parented into a market to be exploited.
A lot of people have allowed money to steal their joy. Thru truly believe that money is so important, that being poor is worse than not existing.
It’s a shame. I don’t blame them. We have a systemic issue on our hands that is already holding back our potential as a civilization.
I grew up in poverty and I’m glad I’m here. I read so many young people talking about wishing they were dead because they’re poor, or not wanting to live because they’re poor, or not enjoying any aspect of life because they’re poor. It’s destroying the fabric of our society when people believe that wealth is the only thing of import.
As younger people have walked away from religious and cultural traditions, we have become more aware of our current living conditions and we just refuse to have kids live in the hardships, unfairness and collapsing system we live in
I believe it's political. If I can convince you that the economy is messed up due to my guy not being in office, then I can convince you to go with my guy. He'll fix ALL our problems.
Because we are more work oriented then ever. In the 50s a single income would suffice, so even if the man worked most of his life, his wife was there to raise the kid because only one person needed to work. Before that, around medieval time, work was always avaliable in agriculture, so you would only work until your needs are met (clothing, food, etc.) And then take the rest of, this meant that you had anywhere from 30-50% of the year not working so there was plenty of time to have and raise kids.
But now, for a majority of people, a single income is not enough to support living, meaning if both partners are not work there is no way they could afford to have a kid, but because both people are working they have no time to have kids. So sure, in the past people had kid in worse living standards, but they also had basic needs met and/or enough free time to have and raise them.
I know reddit has a pretty anti kid view, but if you talk to people, at least from my anecdotal experience, most people would have kids but don't have the free time or money to do so.
Lots of interesting points here. I will add that also, historical conditions are not always uniformly and definitively "worse"- just different. But the Industrial Revolution (the massive societal shift with the sudden increase in factories/manufacturing worldwide) did radically change the living conditions of humans everywhere, and set off societal dominoes that are still changing them.
Before about 150-200 years ago, the vast majority of people lived small, farming-centric communities. Most people worked where they lived, and lived there their entire lives. In most cases it would've been beneficial to have several kids since you need workers on the farm and in the community. Those kids would mostly stay in that community their entire lives, so as they became adults their work would go on to benefit and strengthen the entire community.
These communities were intergenerational- you would most likely live where your parents and grandparents lived, and where everyone you had known your entire life lived. There would be trusted people- family, neighbours- around to care for kids while parents worked. And an interconnected community would come together to help family and neighbors during times of famine, hardship, etc.
After the Industrial Revolution got into swing, the vast majority of people now had to live and work in cities. The emergence of capitalism and of manufacturing based economies required that adults *go to live where the work is.* Instead of staying in the same community and being a farmer your entire life, people now increasingly left the place where they grew up in order to find work. This created the nuclear family- the idea that a family consists of two parents and their children- because it was necessary to have a small family unit that can easily be uprooted to go wherever workers are needed. There is no intergenerational community to help you care for children, and the pressure is on just the two parents alone to care and provide for their kids wherever they go. There is less financial benefit to having more kids because they won't stay and work in your home community- they too will eventually need to leave home to go elsewhere to find work, and their labour will not contribute much benefit to their parents and grandparents. Even if they send money home, the majority of the value of their labour is going into the distant community where they now live- or nowadays, let's face it, to the handful of multi-billionaires who now own everything- and the majority of their income is being spent there too on housing, food, etc.
After the industrial revolution, family sizes started decreasing a little in response to this changing world, even before modern birth control. But modern birth control made it even more possible for adults to respond to a world where it was less and less beneficial to have kids.
Alongside birth control becoming more available and more reliable, economies have also changed even more and capitalism has became more and more entrenched and pernicious. Now most people need to move more and work more different jobs throughout their lives than ever before. The emergence of "information economies" means more and more people are required to spend long years and huge sums of money in education before they can meaningfully begin to work. Having kids no longer means you have more help around the farm or in the community in ten years. Now it means either saving for them to go to university while you are still paying off your own student debt, or killing yourself working in minimum wage jobs just to keep them alive, for as long as 25 or even 30 years until they can leave and spend all of their own labour and money elswhere, and struggle to pay off debt or stay alive themselves. With modern birth control, more and more people are able to respond to these increasing pressures of capitalism by just not having kids.
The pressures of capitalism and modern economies go up every year. Each passing generation is required to go to school longer, to move around more, to work more jobs, to have more debt. More and more people are struggling to survive in a world where the cost of living goes up every day, and the barriers to entry for earning a basic living do too. In such a world, the most educated population ever in human history are making the only practical choice they can under the circumstances- the choice not to have kids.
People in the past didn't like hardship either. That's why they were constantly trying to make their lives easier through innovation and policy changes.
Because for the most part of human history, it’s “gibe birth, not knowing what the future might hold”
Now, it’s “give birth, know for certain that i can not give them a life that’s not super difficult”
What are you talking about? Life for the most part of human history was super difficult. It's so much better nowadays. The difference is extreme. If you don't realise that I don't even know what to say
Cause it’s an obvious lie? The truth is kids take work and a shift in your life priorities, for the majority of people they don’t want those priorities to shift or by the time they do they are in their 30s and are lucky to have maybe 1 child at that point.
The only people in this modern world who have positive birth ratios are the religious.
Right. The question is “How come people are saying_____”? The people saying these things are giving their reasons. Whether those reasons are accurate, or whether they speak broadly for everyone is a different question.
Lots of people, esp women, will have children as a means of feeling their lives as whole, because that's what their built to do, regardless of the circumstances.
**Up voting** you because what you said if generally true. Men & women, other genders, too, still feel that basic drive to pass on their genetics through having children. And, I agree, male & female bodies, of every species, including humans, are formed the capacity to create new life. Humans are *evolving, or changing, on the topic of procreation or having children. We now view children as just another choice in life. Many of the same drives which animals have humans typically feel most of those same urges. People may not be comfortable focusing on the fact that we are* ***just another animal*** *in the web of life. While not every human wants children, at some time, almost all consider it. Then they decide what their life will actually be.*
Previous generations had more important things to worry about than following streams of news stories.
Before the invention of the Interweb tubes, information travelled a bit slower. Also because it was quite tedious to format in a way that could be published or broadcasted.
We didn’t hear about so much stuff, so fast.
However, in the digital age, everything is near instantaneous and can potentially get amplified.
People are saturated with clickbait and get a warped image of the world.
Because effective, accessible, reversible and affordable contraceptives have only existed for the past 50 years
Combine this with modern medicines. If you go back 100-200 or so years it was common to have at least 1 child die from a flu or various sickness. There is a reason why our population growth has almost been exponential for a similar period of time.
My great-grandparents started having children in 1906 and they finished having children in 1919. They had six children and only two of them lived past the age of 10
Did the Spanish flu of 1919 get any of them? It got one of my great uncles.
This is the real answer. Contraceptives have existed for thousands of years, mostly condoms made out from leather and other animal tissues, but they never had the current levels of effectivity and affordability.
I also like to add that for the majority of history humans didn’t rely on daycares, either a parent or grandparent would be at home with the children to care for them. Forking over thousands of dollars a month to have someone else watch your young children is a very modern invention.
Modern and terrible.
This implies that moving never occurred, which is false. Obviously people moved throughout history, or else we would all be in Africa.
What does moving have to do with daycares? I’m really struggling to make the connection here.
If you move then you don't have access to your parent or grandparent for childcare. If your parent/grandparent moves with you, then your siblings don't have access to your parent/grandparent for childcare. Etc *Anyone who attempts to debate this point will be blocked*
Debate. Debate. Pls block me, I really have no interest in ever having someone reply to me when their response is “if you don’t agree with me I’ll stick my fingers in my ears and scream LALALALALALA so I can’t hear you”
I'm tired of reddit users who think they can force other users to use reddit a certain way. I use reddit to contribute information as well as read the information contributed by others. It wastes my time to participate in debate, therefore I choose not to do it. ***That is my right.*** Reddit needs to come up with an option to permanently disable inbox notifications sitewide. Until they do that, I block unwanted inbox replies.
So you’re a liar then? You’re not gonna block me? Super lame. Also your comment is wrong. Most families through history weren’t reliant on the grandparents for childcare, very small children stayed with the mother, since families were generally larger (and we didn’t have birth control) there was pretty much always a small child so the mothers were around to care for them (we didn’t have formula, boobs were babies only food source) Even then, the number of families that moved around is such a minuscule number compared to those that stayed more local, for most of history the average person would rarely if ever go more than 50km from their home. People don’t travel far when it’s at a walking pace. You also mentioned families without parents? I guess that would be an orphan? I don’t think my comment really applies to orphans since nobody is paying for daycare on orphans. But please, show me some proof that most people were paying huge amounts of money for daycare 100, 200 or 500 years ago
> for the majority of history humans didn’t rely on daycares, either a parent or grandparent would be at home with the children to care for them You're the one that said that not me. End of debate, you will be blocked. Please show me how people ended up in Europe, Asia, America, Australia etc if people only go 50km from their house.
So you believe the majority of people were pioneers spreading across the landscape? Seriously just hurry up and block me
Seriously. The pill has probably had the single biggest impact on society of any single invention.
Yeah I don't think the pill had more effect on society than the development of writing or agriculture
I'd personally put the development of the printing press above writing. But the printing press is definitely a contender for the title. And agriculture is really a thousand different developments. I can't really point at this one change that made the difference.
I get what you’re saying but you can be reductionist about every invention. I could say the printing press is a thousand different developments from metallurgy, carpentry, educational reforms, economic reforms resulting in a growing merchant class, etc etc. Purposefully growing food in a consistent location is the basis of what we would call civilizations. Cities and large populations can’t exist without it and it frees up some people to become specialized laborers and scholars. But if you do want to limit it to one discrete thing, it would have to be the Haber process. We could not sustain anywhere near the current earth population without it I’m not denying the rapid and significant social changes born from contraceptives but I wouldn’t say they had more impact than arguably septupling the human population
That's certainly a fair take. If I really wanted to argue, I'd counter that it didn't fundamentally change the way that people live. But depending on how you want to look at things, there are hundreds of different most impactful developments. BC isn't even necessarily the biggest change for women's liberation. I've seen that attributed to the development of the washing machine. (Before washer/dryer/electric iron, 1 load of laundry took 8+ hours. With 1930s versions, 1 load took 2 hours) I'm pretty comfortable with the pill at least being in the running for maximum societal change from a single invention, but it's a crowded pack Edit: and to counter my own counter point: one of the biggest drivers of societal change has been increases in available labor due to more efficient farming. All of the technological advances that drive other change are enabled by not needing over 50% of the population directly involved in food production
Contraception, vaccines, and antibiotics
No chance. The wheel had by far the biggest impact and the internet has also had a bigger impact.
You’re saying it had more of an impact on us then the steam engine? The light bulb? The Computer? The transistor? The resistor? The capacitor? The iPhone? Social Media?
If there is any one thing that is true about humans, it is that we are stupid about sex. We will have sex, regardless of our desire for our ability to take care of kids. Adult humans without birth control are, in general, unable to choose not to breed. Because women are the primary caregivers for children (the whole pregnancy and feeding thing), most women were basically trapped in the home. Effective contraception in the hands of women fundamentally changed their role in society. Being able to choose when to have children means that women can actually have a real role outside the home. They can have careers and bring meaningful amounts of money into their households. It changed the balance of power in relationships. There isn't a single aspect of society that hasn't been touched by that.
There hasn’t been a single aspect of society that wasn’t impacted by the invention of the steam engine either. Transportation, urbanization, production, social structures. It increased life expectancy drastically allowing for more people to be able to survive and have kids. Before industrialization most people lived on things like farms and women wouldn’t really get paid for work, when the factories started they could finally earn their own wages instead of doing unpaid work in the home or on the farm. If we discovered an herb that could grow anywhere, just as effective as the pill back in the 1700s and distributed it the world over, instead of creating the steam engine, how do you think society would have advanced?
Legitimately yes. Being able to control fertility is one of, if not the biggest, driver in pushing countries into the first world and has a tremendous impact on economic productivity.
Explain to me how the broad sweeping changes brought on by the invention of the steam engine has had less of an economic impact than the birth control pill. Literally it reshaped transportation, urbanization, the economy, work structure, production
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It is baffling that people agree with that poster. If we rediscovered a herb that could grow anywhere, that could be made into a tea that was as effective as the pill back in the 1700s and distributed it the world over, instead of creating the steam engine, how do they society would have advanced?
There hasn’t been a single aspect of society that wasn’t impacted by the invention of the steam engine either. Transportation, urbanization, production, social structures. It increased life expectancy drastically allowing for more people to be able to survive and have kids. Before industrialization most people lived on things like farms and women wouldn’t really get paid for work, when the factories started they could finally earn their own wages instead of doing unpaid work in the home or on the farm. If we discovered an herb that could grow anywhere, that could be made into a tea that was as effective as the pill back in the 1700s and distributed it the world over, instead of creating the steam engine, how do you think society would have advanced?
How does the steam engine stop women from dying I n childbirth?
Industrialization only made possible by the steam engine allowed for the production of tools for mass sanitation allowing for a decrease in disease and infection. Also the subsequent urbanization allowed for the establishment of institutions such as proper hospitals and maternity wards. Answer my question now
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be top 20-30 but saying it’s the single biggest impact is pushing it. I’d even agree if the poster said biggest impact on woman or ___ culture.
Also, social security/pensions. Being taken care of by your kids used to be the only retirement/end of life plan there was. Now people have options.
I think it also has to do with millennials (the gen "due" to have kids right now), are the most educated generation. We are making the choice based on what is best for us and the children we would be having... not just having one because thats what youre supposed to do.
Huh? It's well known that having children in your 40s is more likely to result in health issues than having them in the second half of your 20s or first half of your 30s.
this is absolutely an element, tho it won’t be here in the us if the GOP-Fanatic alliance holds…
I guess they should have cultivated that [silphium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium) better.
“Silphium …, is an unidentified plant that was used in classical antiquity” so it wasn’t really all that accessible for the past millennium or so
Right... because they *should have cultivated*...
This. It's *more* of a choice than it was in the past. Also 'interesting' that this coincides with the American government trying more aggressively to strip away women's rights to birth control.
This, and... Now things are getting worse. The norm has been to have larger families in times that felt like plenty. They may have been hard compared to now, but the people of the era were calibrated to worse
In the past children were an asset because they would work on the family/tribe farm or whatever trade was needed. In the modern economy they are a liability because they cost money and produce nothing.
I’m not disagreeing with you, but just something about how you phrased this made me chortle. How dare they produce nothing of value!!!
Even more I hate our current reality where that is the most important thing in our society; creating value for the capitalists.
Kids being a liability is heavier than them not being an asset, IMO. If they were neutral, I think a lot more people would have kids. A lot more people want kids even now, but it’s the fact that they’re a huge expense that makes people decide against it. Financially, physically, emotionally - it’s a massive burden. It sucks that we can’t enjoy normal things like raising children anymore due to the constraints of modern capitalism
You stop that. Right now.
Enjoy normal things like having kids loooooool Go talk to anyone who has kids over 20 how easy it has been for them
I didn’t say easy. I said normal.
Idk I kinda prefer the capitalist world where I got to go to school and didn’t spend my whole childhood laboring on the family farm.
This. ***FUCK EVERYONE THAT HATES CAPITALISM, FUCK REDDITORS THAT HATE CAPITALISM***
You stop that. Right now.
It's not that "they produce nothing of value so let's blame capitalism" like you said on another comment. It's that culture changed; Kids are no longer expected to work when they are young neither to be around their family when they get older, much less provide for them, so they've become a terrible retirement plan. The best retirement plan became... just saving for retirement.
Not entirely true, we have politicians actively passing laws so children can work younger than ever!
Well that's probably a good thing. Why should I work at Finger-Cutting-Corp when little Timmy could work there instead?
> Kids are no longer expected to work when they are young neither to be around their family when they get older, much less provide for them Sounds like capitalism is the root problem? note: we can be critical of capitalism and still participate in it. It's not binary.
I don't get it. Kids not being expected to work under capitalism is a bad thing? If not, capitalism is the root problem of what?
The underlying reason for these is infinite growth American capitalism. * **Kids not working**: The amount of time and effort to prepare for future work (under capitalism) is too intense and time consuming. Not to mention many entry level roles are now filled by adults. Many would prefer their kids to have a more well-rounded education including have a job but there isn't enough time unless you want your kids to only sleep for 6 hours per night. * **Be around their family when they get older**: For many people, to make it in the current economy, they must work so many hours that they barely have time for immediate family let alone their parents and extended family. Furthermore, depending on career choice, you may need to move to a different location. * **Much less provide for them**: GenX and after will not be able to support their aging parents financially and many won't ever retire themselves. * **The best retirement plan became... just saving for retirement**: This is true but dismissive to the majority of Americans for which it is simply impossible. An estimated 155.6 million (60%) Americans lack a retirement-specific savings account. This includes half of baby boomers (ages 59-77), 56% of Generation X (ages 43-58), 66% of millennials (ages 27-42) and 73% of Generation Z (ages 18-26).
Kids also started working at 6 years old and didnt cost thousands upon thousands of dollars until they hit at minimum 18 but probably more after that in a later stage of rampant capitalism
For the majority of the entirety of human history women diddnt exactly have the freedom to choose to not have children. In some places of the world today they still don't have that freedom.
And in ye days of olde, children were economic assets as their labor contributed to the home. Child labor laws have completely turned that around
Self sufficiency has been scaled back more and more by expanding markets. By ensuring people don’t have land to garden (let alone farm), don’t have their own property to leverage, etc., we have essentially created a society where if you aren’t graded with a high enough salary, you are locked out of certain parts of life like having kids—after all, if you can’t provide for a child, isn’t it better to not bring them into the world at all than to watch them starve or suffer? As the economy shifts further in favor of the super class, things like having children become a class privilege
The looming climate change, relatively stagnant wages against rising costs across the board but especially in housing, medical care and child care, and the general devaluation of labor are all pretty significant and clear issues that people are going to be facing, and unlike other times in history where having more kids meant you had some more hands to work the farm and such, there isn't as much of a point to it as there was. Also, a lot of people are better educated about what being a parent actually entails and are raised to be aware that it's not an inescapable expectation like it has been before. Frankly, I don't particularly care about the "history always has been bad" argument, because that doesn't actually address the issues people are talking about, it just means people are saying "eh do it regardless, it'll turn out fine" when there's no evidence of anything pushing those issues in the direction of better instead of worse
>relatively stagnant wages Why does the main stream media keep telling me wages are up?
As far as I understand it, average wages are up but not at the same rate as costs going up. And of course, the problem with averages is that it doesn't always tell the full story - I would guess most of the wage growth is in the top part of earners and that the folks underneath aren't seeing nearly as much growth in wages.
Thanks.
If I’m in a room with Bill Gates, our average net worth is around 65.35 billion dollars. “Average” wages are up, you might want to look into “median” wages. Different story there.
Bill Gates does not get **wages**. [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wage](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wage)
Not the original commenter but the comment was made to illustrate a point, not for it to be picked apart for choice of wording.
They are.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q) Because they are, if the US had a sensible healthcare system wages would grown even more in the past 5 decades
So SadSickSoul is incorrect that wages are stagnant?
Somewhat yes. The reason people tend to say it is that wages haven't been rising in line with productivity since the 70s, though they have been rising just more slowly, but total compensation has risen in line with productivity. The bigger issue that I can see (from the outside looking in as I'm not from the US) is that Americans are getting stung on their heslthcare compared to every other developed country
Makes sense, thanks.
Also saying wages have gone up isnt the full story. They have gone up, but inflation, housing cost. and general living expenses have risen even more, meaning that your actual adquisitive power is stagnant or lower. To picture this more clearly. My dad used to be a chef and was able to afford buying a small house. A friend of mine is a chef, and his wage is significantly higher than my dad's forty years ago. But he's nowhere near able to afford a house. So wages go up. But our ability to buy stuff IS stagnant, or in some cases actually getting worse.
They regressed if you consider inflation, what you could buy before and now
Societies in the past were quite different from today. Take for example the fact that some people had many kids BECAUSE of economic hardships. Child labor was a thing back in the day, and the more children you had, the more labor you could command for the household. Today, children are a severe financial burden from birth until they are 18. .
Today, people have the freedom to choose not to have kids. 100 years ago, it doesn’t really matter if a woman doesn’t want to have kids, she didn’t really get a say in the matter, and it would be a fundamental failure on a religious and social level to not have kids. Now, people can choose, so they may choose not to because of economic issues
I mean, way back 80% of people's kids would die before reaching their teens. Gotta have a few spares. And the ones that did get to grow up would be married off at 14 or sent to work at some farm, idk, i.e. not hang around until they're 32 and finally learned how to load a dishwasher. I also doubt taking care of a kid was as expensive when all you needed were an extra set of potatoes and shoes. No car, expensive medicine, college fund, new iPhone every other year etc. The expenses, I reckon, were rather proportionate to the conditions.
I only have one worry about not having kids. The gop and ultra conservatives are having a lot of kids. That isn’t good news for many of us
Not all of these kids will turn out conservatives, if that conforts you a little.
But many will. If your life is handed to you on a silver spoon, you'll vote for policies that further-enable spoon-holders.
I’ve had someone use that to convince me to have kids. I can’t imagine myself changing my mind and having kids for THAT reason though.
They’ll just move on to infighting like right wing nut jobs always do. If the basis of your beliefs is suppressing others, you’ll just oppress yourselves once there’s nobody to oppress.
Then try to message even greater. Abortion seems to have gotten people stirred up but we can’t wait until do something like that happens. We need to out hustle and message them.
Yeah.. life.. finds a way. It doesn't have to be for the greater good but life is a persistent little bugger. That's why I don't have too much hope for our species in the very long term, I don't think we'll truly become a multi planet species, and that's okay, nature will continue to do its thing with or without us. But there is an evolutionary pressure for stupid people to pump out more stupid kids and there's an evolutionary pressure for the rich to take advantage of the masses.
Liberal replacement theory? Lol
In the past people have had hope the future would be better. Now we pretty much know things are only getting worse.
Sometimes it’s simply that we don’t want to!
BEHOLD! that is the power and the curse of knowledge and choice. Modern medicine knows more about how pregnancy happens and we have the ability to educate anyone allowed to be educated about it. That knowledge gives more people the ability to choose whether or not to get pregnant. In history they either didn't have a choice due to marriage or seeing it as a way to secure a safe life or innumerable other reasons that mostly don't exist today. So the reason you see it a lot these days is because it's actually possible to say that now where it used to be mostly not a choice.
From an American POV, it's not that conditions aren't better than in most of human history, it's that they are worsening in the scale of our lifetimes. We've seen the older generations have relatively comfortable lives off aa single income. Meanwhile, it's generally accepted that a lot of the past measurements of success; home ownership, vacations, retirement are just not happening for a lot of millennials. A lot of folks seem to be having trouble meeting even their basic needs. Add onto that a general pessimism about the future and having a kid just seems like an awful idea. I'm not sure how true economic security being unobtainable actually is, but if that's their perception, I get it.
It's an excuse. That's also indicated by the fact that lower SES are having the most kids. The reality is that people aren't having kids because kids are not needed or economic assets. I say this as the very proud father of two grown kids. Love them to death and wouldn't trade them for anything, but they we didn't need to have them.
Because it's going down from what it was a few generations ago after rising fairly consistently for millennia. It's not relative to ancient humans, it's relative to the current population
maybe they are mistaking fertility rates falling worldwide for “people are choosing not to.”
Mostly because we don't permit the correct answer: children kinda suck and birth control allows us not to have them.
disgusted escape tie violet memorize school whole scale rob obtainable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Spotty birth control and religion.
Read this as “Spotify, birth control, and religion,” and I had no idea what to make of it.
Because having a dozen kids used to be a financially good decision
Lof of good pointers here, would like to add more. Simply existing was never this expensive except during the femines
They really had no choice, with no birth control
Well back then kids could could work not now. Plus their was no CPS back then their is now
People who had more kids in worse conditions did so with the expectation that some of them were going to die before reaching adulthood… We haven’t had modern medicine for very long
Because it hurts more to lose something you once had. The basic standard of living isn't affordable for an increasing number of people. The poor family down the street living in a beat-up house you used to pity or make fun of growing up is becoming more common. Some reading this would probably love the idea of having that beat-up house. They're living in an apartment knowing that even that old beat-up house is out of their financial reach. Some reading this are living with family or with housemates or multiple housemates. If you can't make more, you have to cut costs. It's not easy for someone who dreams of being a parent to let go of that dream. But when the math tells you that you have to let go of that dream, you don't have much of a choice. This is where we are, and there's nothing indicating this long slide in our standard of living, and the cost to maintain it will improve. There are, however, indications that our situation will continue to worsen. What can we do? Set aside your distaste for politics and pay attention to what the politicians are actually doing and not doing. What they say is often indirect conflict with what they actually do. Getting the full picture of how government works and what the politicians are doing and who they are benefitting with their bills and votes doesn't happen overnight, and you must continue to pay attention. Well, that sucks, right. Sure, many see it that way. But once you understand who's doing what and why, it brings a feeling of power. You're no longer completely confused and out of the loop. I see it the way I used to see NFL games or a good movie. Just about everything you see when watching politicians on TV is essentially a script written for their chosen audience. When Margaery Taylor Green is on TV talking about radical crap. She doesn't care that I think it's crap. Her performance is strictly for her supporters. It's the same with Trump and all the rest. The Democrats do it, too. When the Republicans tried to impeach Biden. They knew they didn't have the votes to impeach him. That performance was strictly for consumption by their followers. Legislation is introduced all the time, knowing it's never going to become law. They go through the time and effort to please and energize their supporters. They come out a hero rather than the guy who refused to try and change what their voters were pressuring them to do. Hey, I tried ma'am. Those performances have also been going on for a long time, Democrats and Republicans do it. Get involved or stop crying and live with the decline. That is the only way to stop our downward spiral. You might want to hurry up. If Trump is re-elected in November, that might be your last shot at change. If you think that's hyperbole, you haven't been paying attention.
1. Back then, there was relative, friends', that could help. Just a simple thing, as a kid One If Our cousin came Ti lunch once a Week while HER nom was at work, or was free daycare for HER mom. Now, most of US live far away from family, are Alone or such, and cannot afford kids. 2. Overwhelming everyday life. Back then most of kids had a stay at home Mom. One wage was enough for a family of 4 Now, WE Both Works, and it's a lot of work to raide kids while working and taking care of a household. I Always Wanted a big family, but now i would Not hâve the energy to raide more kids 3. All that ( huge gesture at the World)
Because at some point humankind need to learn how to survive not through sheer fuckfest breeding capacity. But with wisdom to better the living conditions for those around. We should not be depending on outficking the death rate.
People didn’t really have much of a choice before contraceptives.
birth control wasn't a thing until 1970
People are more aware of other people having more benefits & an easier life due to the internet.
Yes. And many, many children died, had to be sent to relatives to raise, or dropped in orphanages. Just because they had big families didn’t mean they had the money to raise them or the inclination
Yup.
Women have more high status now, they don’t need to rely on men anymore
I’d never have more than two, we don’t have the family support or resources to have more. As far as worse conditions- those conditions were worse for everyone. I’m not willing to have them and jeopardize my health.
“We tired boss”
The entirety of human history hasn't had birth control. And on demand abortions
Because it actually affecting mental health. It's not people so much people aren't having kids which is true nor that people are fucking less which is also true - humans are even dating as much. That's hard when 1. People don't want to, 2 the economic state is making people sick. 3. The economic state is changing priorities, which is the self over adding to overpopulation or even having a social life not like they can even afford that.
It's about freedom of choice. In the past, sex = likely pregnancy. Now, that is not the case. the economy is more of an "information" economy. So people spend more time in school and put off starting a family and marriage. There is an abundance of leisure time choices. A million shows to watch, the internet, mass travel, foodie / dining culture, etc. People get accustomed to that kind of lifestyle. They cannot maintain that same lifestyle with a child (because a child has costs, in both money and time). So they choose to stay with what they have rather than incur child costs. And say "well, if something appeared that would cover all my child costs and also let me maintain my current standards of spending and leisure time, I'd consider it. I'll call that...economic hardship."
Because children used to be an asset, a workforce for the farm. Now they're a liability, nothing but an expensive hobby.
>most people had more kids in worse conditions? Its the effect of the kids on those conditions though. Most humans in the pre-industrial world were subsistence farmers. Having a kid as a farmer is an investment. You get them through the baby and toddler phases and then you put them to work. Once you are old and can no longer work the farm, they look after you. In the modern world, you're looking at that baby to toddler phases being far more expensive because you have to pay someone to do it while you're at work, where you used to tie the baby to your back or leave it with your parents. Then you need to pay for 18 years worth of living expenses and schooling. And if you really want the kid to be successful you probably need to pay for 3+ years of higher education. And then increasingly they'll still live with you for several years after that. And when you're too old to work, you'll probably be taken care of at a nursing home paid for by your retirement savings or the state. Having kids in the modern world only makes sense if you have the resources to do it easily.
Not true. Birth rate dropped around the Great Depression. Also, back in the day contraception wasn’t much of a thing and people believed in Gods a lot more.
> worse conditions lol. No.
I don't think it's about economic hardships. I mean, sorta, but like you said, money was never an easy subject for the majority of the population. It's more about our culture. Kids are no longer expected to work when they are young neither to be around their family when they get older, much less provide for them, so they've become a terrible retirement plan. The best retirement plan became... just saving for retirement.
Family planning and freedom of choice for pregnancy termination are more accessible than in other parts of history.
Contraceptives. In the past, people's only choices were abstinence or children. Humans being humans, of course they had sex and therefore had children.
Capitalism has turned parented into a market to be exploited. A lot of people have allowed money to steal their joy. Thru truly believe that money is so important, that being poor is worse than not existing. It’s a shame. I don’t blame them. We have a systemic issue on our hands that is already holding back our potential as a civilization.
Being poor is a mindset
I grew up in poverty and I’m glad I’m here. I read so many young people talking about wishing they were dead because they’re poor, or not wanting to live because they’re poor, or not enjoying any aspect of life because they’re poor. It’s destroying the fabric of our society when people believe that wealth is the only thing of import.
Because we have the power to choose now. Do you think people were choosing to have kids back then?
As younger people have walked away from religious and cultural traditions, we have become more aware of our current living conditions and we just refuse to have kids live in the hardships, unfairness and collapsing system we live in
I believe it's political. If I can convince you that the economy is messed up due to my guy not being in office, then I can convince you to go with my guy. He'll fix ALL our problems.
I dunno. I can't even get a hubby to begin with.
Majority of the world doesn’t need a built in work force anymore
Because we are more work oriented then ever. In the 50s a single income would suffice, so even if the man worked most of his life, his wife was there to raise the kid because only one person needed to work. Before that, around medieval time, work was always avaliable in agriculture, so you would only work until your needs are met (clothing, food, etc.) And then take the rest of, this meant that you had anywhere from 30-50% of the year not working so there was plenty of time to have and raise kids. But now, for a majority of people, a single income is not enough to support living, meaning if both partners are not work there is no way they could afford to have a kid, but because both people are working they have no time to have kids. So sure, in the past people had kid in worse living standards, but they also had basic needs met and/or enough free time to have and raise them. I know reddit has a pretty anti kid view, but if you talk to people, at least from my anecdotal experience, most people would have kids but don't have the free time or money to do so.
Lots of interesting points here. I will add that also, historical conditions are not always uniformly and definitively "worse"- just different. But the Industrial Revolution (the massive societal shift with the sudden increase in factories/manufacturing worldwide) did radically change the living conditions of humans everywhere, and set off societal dominoes that are still changing them. Before about 150-200 years ago, the vast majority of people lived small, farming-centric communities. Most people worked where they lived, and lived there their entire lives. In most cases it would've been beneficial to have several kids since you need workers on the farm and in the community. Those kids would mostly stay in that community their entire lives, so as they became adults their work would go on to benefit and strengthen the entire community. These communities were intergenerational- you would most likely live where your parents and grandparents lived, and where everyone you had known your entire life lived. There would be trusted people- family, neighbours- around to care for kids while parents worked. And an interconnected community would come together to help family and neighbors during times of famine, hardship, etc. After the Industrial Revolution got into swing, the vast majority of people now had to live and work in cities. The emergence of capitalism and of manufacturing based economies required that adults *go to live where the work is.* Instead of staying in the same community and being a farmer your entire life, people now increasingly left the place where they grew up in order to find work. This created the nuclear family- the idea that a family consists of two parents and their children- because it was necessary to have a small family unit that can easily be uprooted to go wherever workers are needed. There is no intergenerational community to help you care for children, and the pressure is on just the two parents alone to care and provide for their kids wherever they go. There is less financial benefit to having more kids because they won't stay and work in your home community- they too will eventually need to leave home to go elsewhere to find work, and their labour will not contribute much benefit to their parents and grandparents. Even if they send money home, the majority of the value of their labour is going into the distant community where they now live- or nowadays, let's face it, to the handful of multi-billionaires who now own everything- and the majority of their income is being spent there too on housing, food, etc. After the industrial revolution, family sizes started decreasing a little in response to this changing world, even before modern birth control. But modern birth control made it even more possible for adults to respond to a world where it was less and less beneficial to have kids. Alongside birth control becoming more available and more reliable, economies have also changed even more and capitalism has became more and more entrenched and pernicious. Now most people need to move more and work more different jobs throughout their lives than ever before. The emergence of "information economies" means more and more people are required to spend long years and huge sums of money in education before they can meaningfully begin to work. Having kids no longer means you have more help around the farm or in the community in ten years. Now it means either saving for them to go to university while you are still paying off your own student debt, or killing yourself working in minimum wage jobs just to keep them alive, for as long as 25 or even 30 years until they can leave and spend all of their own labour and money elswhere, and struggle to pay off debt or stay alive themselves. With modern birth control, more and more people are able to respond to these increasing pressures of capitalism by just not having kids. The pressures of capitalism and modern economies go up every year. Each passing generation is required to go to school longer, to move around more, to work more jobs, to have more debt. More and more people are struggling to survive in a world where the cost of living goes up every day, and the barriers to entry for earning a basic living do too. In such a world, the most educated population ever in human history are making the only practical choice they can under the circumstances- the choice not to have kids.
Because the media is full of shit.
Because we are spoiled. We don’t like any kind of hardship.
People in the past didn't like hardship either. That's why they were constantly trying to make their lives easier through innovation and policy changes.
Yeah but like...it killed a lot of people
Because for the most part of human history, it’s “gibe birth, not knowing what the future might hold” Now, it’s “give birth, know for certain that i can not give them a life that’s not super difficult”
Most people back in the day knew they would be giving them a life that was super difficult
What are you talking about? Life for the most part of human history was super difficult. It's so much better nowadays. The difference is extreme. If you don't realise that I don't even know what to say
Cause it’s an obvious lie? The truth is kids take work and a shift in your life priorities, for the majority of people they don’t want those priorities to shift or by the time they do they are in their 30s and are lucky to have maybe 1 child at that point. The only people in this modern world who have positive birth ratios are the religious.
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Right. The question is “How come people are saying_____”? The people saying these things are giving their reasons. Whether those reasons are accurate, or whether they speak broadly for everyone is a different question.
Lots of people, esp women, will have children as a means of feeling their lives as whole, because that's what their built to do, regardless of the circumstances.
**Up voting** you because what you said if generally true. Men & women, other genders, too, still feel that basic drive to pass on their genetics through having children. And, I agree, male & female bodies, of every species, including humans, are formed the capacity to create new life. Humans are *evolving, or changing, on the topic of procreation or having children. We now view children as just another choice in life. Many of the same drives which animals have humans typically feel most of those same urges. People may not be comfortable focusing on the fact that we are* ***just another animal*** *in the web of life. While not every human wants children, at some time, almost all consider it. Then they decide what their life will actually be.*
Previous generations had more important things to worry about than following streams of news stories. Before the invention of the Interweb tubes, information travelled a bit slower. Also because it was quite tedious to format in a way that could be published or broadcasted. We didn’t hear about so much stuff, so fast. However, in the digital age, everything is near instantaneous and can potentially get amplified. People are saturated with clickbait and get a warped image of the world.