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Poor. Can barely support myself, let alone a mini me on top of that.
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Gayish. I’m pan, but lean more toward men than women. Could adopt; but we come back to item 1.
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Oh boy what a loaded topic, but to sum it up in terms of ‘future’ reasons:
Climate Change Carbon footprint minimization/we do not want kids in an unstable environment especially when the world is already on fire and on track to spiral out of control
Economic Inequality
- Cost of living - more and more people are unable to make ends meet even when both parents go to work.
- Housing costs - desirable housing locations, often close to workplaces, costs have been driven up or hoarded by corporations and often the older generation. Working from home is the antithesis to another asset class - the office towers - why you’ll see desperate governments to mandate back-to-office legislation. To hell with carbon emissions from our commutes especially car-centric societies.
- Lack of opportunity - governments around the world have made barriers to entry to simply get up and move (think passports, work permits etc) OR require local recognized qualifications to a new job with large amounts of red tape or capital upfront alongside investment in time. In some places it’s healthcare.
- Cost of having a child is too high with all of these combined from a capital point of view
Looming threat of war - for some reason, the adults still haven’t managed to obtain world peace, usually because money/greed, eye-for-an-eye, and millions duped by religion, tribalism to support this. Meanwhile, the world has begun to rearm itself as US hegemony pulls back. Do you want your child to live in a war torn world?
As for the ‘current’ reasons:
If you’re a millennial, you’re probably bitter. Everything that you’ve been told, promised, or dreamed of has been systemically torn to shreds. You witnessed the rise of the information age, only to have it weaponized before your very eyes by big tech and influencers as it invades your privacy. The financial system have gone through not just one ‘once-in-a-lifetime crisis’ but several, but only to see it become rigged, so now it overwhelmingly only benefits a certain group of rich assholes. You’ve seen the climate change before your very eyes in the last 3-4 decades while the ‘adults’ still close their eyes and ears for the sake of short-term gains. Oh and add in a few potential and real pandemics - SARS, Ebola, Avian bird flu, mad cow disease, COVID-19, etc. If only we collectively pooled resources we could eliminate them - but big pharma and Wall St. needs their profits. You also learned from the pandemic that a good number of people around you are complete morons - anti-vax, anti-maskers. Then we look at the ecosystem of life - bugs are dying out, oceans are being over fished - we’re on track for an environmental collapse unless we dial back our own consumption. But the biggest one of all is probably your view on government - how it’s dysfunctional and corrupted by the rich and the corporations. All the problems we’ve had could have been ‘fixed’ if they were truly responsible adults. They could have been truly great people - but alas, you’ve seen human beings fill those seats only to discover that they’re weak willed, spineless, scheming, or straight up corrupt. They’ve practically mortgaged our futures and straddled our collective wealth with enormous debt. Geez, I wonder why people don’t want kids - you’d probably want to see the entire system collapse than to have kids.
If you’re younger than a millennial, you’re probably thinking we’re all fucked, so I got no fucks left to give.
The hollowing out of education and public services - there is a sinister global cabal of filthy rich assholes that have their own agenda of trying to play ‘world-emperor’. Governments are doing an extremely poor job right now in rectifying this.
Why government needs you to have kids:
- Our almost ponzi scheme like economic system and pension funds are going to be in the shitter if we don’t have more economic output 2 generations down the line.*
So yeah, not having kids, is straight up, a fuck you and fuck what they’ve done.
*This is why I believe there’s only one route out if they can’t fill the gap with more babies or with the band-aid fix of mass immigration - technological advances (like AI) in hopes to cover the loss of productivity from a shrinking population count.
Poor. Don’t have good genetics. Unfavorable environment. Education system is tanking. Robots are destroying job markets.
This is definitely not my experience. Pretty much everybody I talk to and everybody I know says don’t have kids.
The best decision anyone can make for their own carbon footprint is just not bringing more people into the world. Virtually no living person is carbon neutral or particularly close
You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood That runs in your veins
- Bob Dylan - Masters of War
Our total world population has increased BILLIONS in about 4 or 5 decades.
Aside from the issue of elder care/medical infrastructure: why are people concerned at a decline back to the levels in the 1970s/80s?
Because the shifting age pyramid has massive consequences for the whole society…? The most obvious and easy to understand issue is that tons of old people can not live off of a few young people.
So you think a good solution is to have more babies, who will grow old, so then you need even more babies to support them, who will grow old, so you have an ever increasing amount of babies on a finite planet.
Population continues to grow at an exponential rate forever? And that’s a good solution?
I mean, the callous answer is to just let them die. Like has been the case for all of human history. Families either directly cared for their elderly, or those elderly died.
There does not need to be a societal upheaval at all.
Ah yes. Baby is sick? Just let it die like our ancestors did. Perfectly reasonable. Someone looks different? Just stone them like our ancestors.
Well that’s a massive incorrect comparison lmao.
Adults have complete agency over themselves and their lives. Babies do not.
The idea of an adult retiring and no longer contributing to the workforce has only existed for the last 150 or so years of humanity in general.
And even then, that adult has a literal lifetime to prepare for their own retirement.
That’s absolutely NOTHING like a baby, which has no agency, no control over their life or actions, and is completely dependent on their parents. To even make the comparison is ignorant at best.
If I make it to old age and can’t feed or wipe myself, and nobody else wants to do that, that’s a me problem. I have probably been a shitty enough person that my children and grandchildren don’t want to take care of me, and/or I’ve been financially stupid enough to not plan for that outcome. Either way, that’s my own life actions coming back to me.
A baby doesn’t get that. They exist solely because some other people brought them into the world.
So we should have kids for the benefit of old people? Those old people are who fucked up society to where it is now.
Fortunately, soon we can just have AI look after old people. They will reap what they sowed.
Low birth rates are the result of BETTER living conditions and more equality for women, across the world.
Also, heavy ageism.
I think the problem is that our growth over the last 4-5 decades isn’t sustainable, and now we need to adjust policy to handle the aging population. We shouldn’t grow beyond our means to support ourselves. We’re in a bad place now but making more humans to handle our older population will create the program of needing to make MORE humans to handle those, with our current system, until we run into a resource constraint that will be an even worse situation.
Yes, the explosion with the boomers, hence the name, is the issue. So lots of people suddenly, then far less suddenly, that is the issue. Steady is no problem and slight decrease or increase all do not create such a catastrophic situation.
Is there literature on how catastrophic this is looking? I hear that it’s going to be rough for the elderly looking for care, and could tax our medical system, but I don’t think I really grasp it.
Because they’re racists, and what they are really referring to is white birth rates
That’s a valid reason and all but I’d also add that life is just very expensive, both parents need to work to make ends meet and lack of time available for child care. If you add housework imbalance you get South Korea level fertility.
There is a pent up demand for kids when looking at “How many do you want?” vs “How many do you have?” but having them is irrational for most people. It takes a long while for parents to become financially secure, usually comes at 30+ years and then you ask one of the parents to take a massive career hit and add 3h of work per day to the schedule.
If the gov really wants babies we really need to reduce work hours to 30/week for both parents.
Also, increasing minimum wage by a lot wouldn’t hurt.
“I love my unborn children far too much to subject them to the dumpsterfire of a planet we’ve built for them.”
I can’t help but feel guilty every time a friend or coworker or someone makes the announcement that they’re having a kid. We owe that kid better, but shit’s gonna be WAY worse by the time they’re old enough to despise us for it.
Much love to any parents reading this. You’ve got a hard job.
And hey more food for the rest of us once the crops die out.
At this rate, my money’s on the ocean being the last nail in our coffin. It’s the source of a huge portion of both our food and oxygen, and it’s running a pretty high fever at the moment.
Where’s the part about impending fascism, 72+hours work weeks, and the housing crisis?
Panel 4
Don’t forget endless war. Housing and food costs. Day care costs. Medical costs. Basically just go outside and it makes sense.
Because I don’t like them and they would ruin my lifestyle
But what if I tell you to have them now because you’ll want them tomorrow? Don’t you want today what you don’t yet want and cannot accurately be predicted to want tomorrow???
If that logic doesn’t work, maybe I can tell you about how miserable my children made me, and then cap my dumbest statement ever with an even dumber “you gotta cuz I had to.”
the cost of living (especially housing fuck), the systematic erosion of education, and the lack of any hope for their future are the big things stopping me. i barely have any hope for my own future and ive got over 30 years of a head start over any potential kids. the worst part is i really want kids and to give them a good life i just dont think i can in this world.
While they were growing up, summer often meant “too hot for clothes, but the water’s cool!” … now its too hot for fuckin, the water’s often warm like piss, and that’s not just in summer.
Getting snowed-in without heat so you gotta huddle-up(naked? NAKED!) for warmth is out too, and sadly not because the bills are paid or the grid’s more reliable. Good job Dad!!
People in general always tend to have fewer kids during hard times, whatever they perceive as hard times. But some people clearly keep having them, because the human race still exists even though we’ve always had plagues, wars, famines, etc. They kept having kids through the Ice Age FFS. There’s no point saying people now “aren’t having kids” - of course they are, just not as much as before.
Many nations being below replacement level is certainly new.
Generally humanity has stayed around replacement level or grown exponentially (especially post agriculture)
It’s a shift that’s only disastrous because of how we organize our society. It should be good to have less people to provide for, but it just doesn’t work with this idea of exponential growth
Yes I think adjusting to the new pattern seems more sensible than trying to maintain exponential growth because it’s what we’re used to.
