'Children of Men' is happening
edwest.substack.com
edwest.substack.com
Governments should help families by providing easier access to daycares and kindergartens. Helping young parents get some rest with their first child(ren) will encourage them having more children.
I'm a parent of two young children, a 3 years old and a 6 months old. This is the hardest period of my life since high school. I'm 34 and in our circles I'm the youngest dad. Most of other dads' are in their late 30s all the way to early 50s.
Yet I do feel I'm making a difference, especially considering that I'm Italian (high longevity + few children). I've been also inspired by my choices of parenthood by the movie IDIOCRACY:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBvIweCIgwk I was delighted when I red in the Elon Musk biography that he had also saw the movie and that was also one of the reasons for being a parent of multiple kids.
More shitty government programs or opportunities for bad and dishonest people to indoctrinate the young from earlier ages, particularly now that some bureaucrats would want to use their responsibilities as if they constitute the power to subvert parental involvement, are a huge no from me.
We spent too much already and these politicians only gave us inflation. Now you advocate for them to have more control and say over education by recommending more of their services? Nah, way more efficient, empowering, and aligned with freedom & democracy if parents in a household just get direct cash every month rather than government-run facilities. No thanks. Way too many problems with more gov. Give cash instead, solve the problem. And foster good working environment so wages go up and people can choose to work less and still have a family.
Not rocket science
That's the European approach that children belong to whole community not only their parents and the authority and the burden is shared. I don't get why are you so hell bent on having exclusive authority over your child?
Nah. That’s what people used to say abou WFH too. All this is purely due to capricious employers and institutions, not because of some natural law. If companies had their way, we’d be working 80h/week. That’s true for both low paying and high paying jobs.
I just don't buy this; it feels like a lack of imagination. Sure, today, very few firms that traditionally employ full-time, salaried employees would even consider the idea of hiring twice as many half-time workers, but there's no inherent reason why it couldn't work.
Certainly, there are hurdles: some per-employee costs are fixed regardless of how many hours they work. But this is just an argument to fix them (because they're stupid in general), not to avoid the situation. Most part-time and contract workers in the US don't get benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. But this is an argument to fix those broken programs, not throw our hands up and claim the status quo is the only option.
Corporate profits and executive pay growth is generally far outstripping the wages paid to mid- and low-level employees. There's no reason why most companies can't pay their employees more equitably, and stop with all the pay inequality garbage.
> That's the European approach that children belong to whole community not only their parents and the authority and the burden is shared. I don't get why are you so hell bent on having exclusive authority over your child?
I'm not a parent, but childhood education these days seems more about pushing government propaganda and training kids to be obedient little employees (not to mention providing much-needed free day-care for parents), than about nurturing creativity and curiosity, and giving kids the tools they need to be productive, yet critical-thinking, independent people. I look at stories of 12-year-old kids getting arrested at school for asinine reasons[0] and wonder what the hell is happening.
I don't think people need "exclusive authority" over their children in general, but I do think the current state of public (and even private, in many cases) education could easily drive parents to not want their kids to be a part of it.
[0] https://www.copblock.org/140900/stupid-reasons-police-arrest...
EDIT: apparently any kind of reduction is possible (even 2 hours per week) but the reduction needs to be sensible and the employer needs to agree. if they don't you can sue, and if the judges decide that your requested reduction is reasonable they must comply (i guess that means, you can ask for 2 hours a week and get it if the employer agrees, but if the employer doesn't agree you probably won't convince a judge either)
mothers wanting to send their children to kindergarten does not translate into needing to make it mandatory to do so. a better response would have been to make it a legal right (but not an obligation) combined with the necessary financial support or offer of government paid kindergarten spaces. the latter is lacking in germany for example.
Communities don't share the burden except to the extent that the parents need it and want it and share access to their household with members of their chosen communities and faiths. That is how it works in the entire massive United States and other Western Democracies, barring these irresponsible western European countries that seem to be possessed by increasingly idiotic ideas on how much control they want over our kids but how little responsibility they will show on serious urgent matters like nuclear reactor construction and adequate defense spending. The French should be absolutely ashamed and should repent.
When a state tries a state-sponsored approach to compulsively being responsible for teaching children with a monopoly on violence, especially contrary to what the parents may want to teach their child, that becomes a cause for jihad.
Hmmm... let me look around my neighborhood...
School teacher - easy; Lawyer - doable; Doctor - already done; Auto mechanic - no problem; Bank teller - easy; Construction worker...
Ok. I can't come up with any. I'm sure there must be some, but they don't come to mind. Most people work the number of hours it takes to earn the standard of living they accept. Work is never done. There's always more to do. That is never the question.
I suspect you're trolling, but in case you're not:
As a European, I do have a lot of community centric philosophy - but given the government (local and country) incompetence in virtually all matters of education and the universally awful opinion all teachers I know hold of the government and their interference and policies regarding education and child care - I do not think that wanting the best for your kids that you love and wanting to be able to raise them yourself with individual attention and perspective is really that strange.
If there are good schools, I have no problem with my kids going to them, as long as it doesn't interfere with their growth and education.
(My kids go to local state schools, fwiw).
This really looks like trolling.
How does replacing one form of authoritarianism with another, perhaps preferable to some, form of authoritarianism make things better?
> More shitty government programs or opportunities for bad and dishonest people to indoctrinate the young from earlier ages, particularly now that some bureaucrats would want to use their responsibilities as if they constitute the power to subvert parental involvement, are a huge no from me.
As opposed to shitty private sector programs run by profiteers?
> We spent too much already and these politicians only gave us inflation.
What does this have to do with anything?
Also you complain about inflation but also want more direct cash infusions?
Direct cash infusions to households would not affect inflation. Giant bailouts for huge corporations and for huge corrupt political super pacs definitely does though. Read the book Utopia For Realists for the chapter on direct cash to households and the compiled evidence done over decades in the United States and even Canada.
If you want people generally to work less and earn more, how are you going to reduce the amount of work there is for them to do? Also how are you going to provide the additional goods and services these people will be able to afford (inflation? What dat?) if less work is being done to provide them? Sounds fascinating.
We could start manufacturing those more expensive but better quality goods, which most of people could not afford. There is no problem with manufacturing enough goods. There is problem that many people only have money for the cheapest shit which breaks easily and needs to be replaced soon which costs even more money and destroys environment.
Or increase taxes on capital and redistribute the gains, rather than relying on wages.
Preschool in my district is 4 days a week, 2.5hrs / day.
That's a JOKE. Meant only for people who don't work.
But they also got another levy on taxes for "technology" and "new buildings".
They don't need more money, they just need to better spend the money they have.
Private daycare costs around $2000/month. That's more than tuition on the university ($1000/month or so).
So I just wish that once kids are in preschool age the preschool offered something reasonable
Also, have i mentioned that public preschool is not free? On top of taxes, we pay $400/month or so for 4 days a week, 2.5hrs/day preschool. It's nuts.
Oh, and they insert a random "teacher development days" where preschool is closed. Can't they do development in summer, when the school is closed anyway?
Being a parent sux.
I don’t even see that much early retirement, instead of getting our mountains of things.
Or is this advice only for the proletariat, who for some reason will behave differently?
Plus, proper retirement saving is hard. Saving 10% in a method that negates inflation only nets you 4.5 years of income at retirement age. You’ll need to drop your living costs by over 3x to live to a median age, unless you don’t retire in the traditional sense.
Ok. How?
Getting "direct cash" that a young family could use for daycare doesn't make any difference if there's nowhere for them to spend it.
Direct cash to households with kids during almost two years of pandemi has lifted many children out of poverty and given parents more freedom and flexibility. Plenty of evidence of this.
When you’re getting direct cash and wages are good and bureaucrats aren’t inflating their way to Power, you can even afford to work less so one of the parents is always around if they want. That’s how it should be and can be and will be.
There’s a bit more to the story than you may think here... you also aren’t allowed to be homeschooled. It’s illegal. They ban religious practices for minors (wearing hijabs, for instance).
Some people are took that as directed at Muslim community — https://m.timesofindia.com/world/europe/france-passes-anti-r...
Also giving you children to the state to be taught is somewhat disturbing.
EDIT: By deferring to others to teach your children, they won’t learn your culture, traditions and will (statistically) be worse off than if you teach them yourself.
My wife and I settled on making less money (still more than enough), but raising our kids ourselves. It’s hard, but easily the most rewarding thing. Plus our kids are WAY ahead in most areas. Imagine, your children are learning from other children all day at school... is that better than learning from adults all day? No.
When they get older we will probably consider a “pod” or one teacher for 6-8 kids with a family we know. You can pay the teacher far more and the parents can be more involved (we can effectively dictate the curriculum). I’m also planning on having my kids help me with work by 8-10. They can learn to participate and be productive far earlier.
I believe this isn't correct. Homeschooling is legal in France, although restricted. You need to be able to prove your kids are receiving a proper education.
https://www.parentconcept.com/french-home-education-law
> They ban religious practices for minors (wearing hijabs, for instance).
I also think this is incorrect. Religious signs are forbidden in public school for students and teachers alike (as France is a secular country), but there's no law preventing minors practicing religion.
If you call a religiously important piece of clothing a "religious sign" then technically that's true, but not really
secular mean No religion in politics that doesn't mean forcing your views how to wear your clothes on everyone.
This has not been determined. Homeschooling is correlated with better outcomes, but I'm quite certain causality has not been established here.
I also suspect the more a teacher cares the better the scores.
As mentioned, from the evidence, there’s already a solid correlation.
I think with the additional details the causation is likely also there (less students per teacher, highly motivated and engaged teacher). Anyone debating that point IMO is intentionally misleading. There is a clear causation between homeschooling and better outcomes. The only “question” I’ve seen in articles (none in reality) has to do with socioeconomic status. However, if you control for that, you’ll still see better outcomes (aka homeschooled kids in socioeconomic category Y will still out perform public school kids in socioeconomic category Y)
Many Romanians who moved to places like Norway were shocked to see how children are treated there. In Sweden they have banks of the blood of all the babies since 1975 in storage forever ( https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/PKU-registret ). Scary stuff.
I completely agree that families should get more support. I’m just not so sure it’s necessarily that straightforward.
Not to sound snide, but I also don't think it's as straightforward as linking two correlative effects. High grades in school is also often predictive of economic background, race, gender etc... that themselves are correlated to birth rates. I don't see here much reason to believe that providing early childhood care would decrease birth rates.
As a new parent of a 14 month year old boy - kindergartens have very low impact on our decision to have more children. We're lucky enough that we can afford to rent an apartment for my in-laws and that they are retired so they can take care of our son. Putting him in to kindergarten at this age would be traumatic to him and to us (parents) - he's only starting to figure things out and abandoning him to a stranger who have to split their time/attention between 10 other children at this stage seems cruel. Not to mention kindergartens are disease incubators and we would probably spend first few months getting him adjusted and treating him at home while he's sick (+ catching stuff from him).
The thing that would actually impact our decision to have more children (early-mid 30s) :
- fully paid maternity leave - right now it's 100% for first 6 months and after that it's capped at national average - which is >70% pay cut for both of us
- despite both of us earning significantly above average - there's 0 decent opportunities to buy a family home right now - everything that's worth something is long gone off the market, and if something comes up people with cash to buy upfront show up faster than you can dial the ad
The rest is outside of governments control, biggest thing being wife has to give up career for a non-trivial ammount of time (even if I took out some maternity leave realistically she has to take at least 6 months off).
I suspect that retirement age plays a non-trivial part in this as well - having retired parents to fall back on as support when having multiple children while having active careers is very valuable.
So you agree that having someone extra to watch over your kids is something that's needed? For most people, that is kindergarten.
>he's only starting to figure things out and abandoning him to a stranger who have to split their time/attention between 10 other children at this stage seems cruel.
Almost every kid does this. I have, so have all other kids. It's really not that bad, your kid needs to learn to socialize eventually. It's a bit insulting to call it 'cruel' to bring your kid to kindergarten.
>Not to mention kindergartens are disease incubators and we would probably spend first few months getting him adjusted and treating him at home while he's sick (+ catching stuff from him).
Yes, that's how the human immune system is supposed to work.
If you decide to have children, care for them.
I hate this "the society as a whole has to care for the children" attitude and putting them in someone else's care as soon as possible.
Note that I do not hate children, nor parents and I don't mind spending money on education and care for children.
I just think the solution should be to work less and be able to live a meaningful life.
Later in life, children should care for their elderly parents.
This system is far superior to the "go die in a house full of old people" approach.
Mind again: I am not talking about taking care of someone with special needs like Alzheimer's etc.
How is compulsory use easier access?
If the government mandates kindergarten attendance, well, now it's much more important to put funding for kindergartens in your next bill.
If every parent of a three-year-old has to think about finding a kindergarten, that's a lot more political clout behind getting better kindergartens.
And so on and so forth.
I have no numbers but as a French, I know literally nobody who have not been to school/kindergarten at 3.
Starting school at 3, while not mandatory before the law, was just the norm for barely everyone.
I’d even go as far as parental leave should be completely covered until there is government provided daycare, so as the decision to have kids doesn’t carry too much of an economic burden.
It is interesting to watch parents burn out and get divorced so their children can have a better life than the one social pressures dictate.
If you want more of something, subsidize it, either explicitly or by reducing its relative costs. Here's an off the cuff list of suggestions which would reduce the cost of children:
* Accessible free or low cost daycare/childcare
* Accessible low cost health care
* Cheaper housing near job centers
I'm sure there are more.
But how are we going to pay for all that? Consider it an investment allowing a country to continue to have a growing tax base.
It may have the opposite effect and then we'll come up with a different verbal logic to justify why it decreased the birth rate.
Verbal logic was given to justify the war against poverty in the sixties and sixty years and trillions of dollars later USA has a higher poverty rate than then. I'm not saying it was a bad idea, just that forecasters were wrong en masse.
So this may work or not, but honestly nobody knows, and those giving verbal logic for why it will succeed are purely speculating.
I agree education of a child is very important. Not necessarily public education, although that can be quite good in some respects.
But if a government wants to make it easier to have children wouldn't it make more sense to come up with policies that allow a couple to afford to raise children on a single income? That way, one parent is always able to spend time with the children when needed.
Life itself is pretty hard for most people, most just don't accept truth and make up a reason to cope. Copium. It's heartbreaking seeing children fleeing their home, losing everyone they know like in Syrian and now Ukraine just in last decade.
Then there is climate change, which will be devastating in near future. Even IPCC report is manipulated by lobbying.
https://twitter.com/MrMatthewTodd/status/1490987272044703752
You turned my quote in "I'm having kids because of Idiocracy"
You are using Reductio Ad Absurdum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
He and the brave employees of Space X will guide life to the stars.
This is an .. amazingly shortsighted take, especially when taking into consideration the resource (over-)utilization and flat-out exploitative extraction which was required just to get us this far. 1/13 of all people that have ever lived are alive right now. Maybe--just maybe--it's a good thing that the world's population will shrink over the coming decades, and quite possibly we need to disconnect our economies from unbounded growth while we're at it.
The alternative is going to be a huge amount of caretaking career opportunities.
Paraphrasing a quote from memory: modern society took an integrated solution, then divided it to create two problems.
The original context was something about factory farms. In the past farms were diversified, with animals being raised next to crops, and their waste being easily used as fertilizer. Now it's all specialized and separate: animals being raised at such density that their waste is so concentrated that it can't practically be used for anything; and crops being raised away from animals so they need chemical fertilizers that have to be produced separately.
In multi-generational house, raising young kids is easier because the grandparents can do day care, and being old is easier because the younger generations can help you once you're infirm. Separate that out and you have to pay mega $$$ for all those needs.
EDIT: I can name two - less war and a damper on climate change, especially if pausing to figure out solutions with a lower global population will lead to a larger, permanent, global “carrying capacity” later.
In order to keep everyone fed and happy, and sustainable, we need fewer everyones.
But it's also the case that a lot of people are happy living in Manhattan and taking the subway. Billions more people could have this life if we allowed it.
I think people whose preferences are incompatible with the vast majority of their fellow humans being alive, need to take one for the team here.
If population goes down wealth goes down, life gets harder, people get less happy. Pretty simple. Consider that in a low population world it's probably not worth being a computer programmer, because the demand for your physical labor would be higher.
No-one is suggesting that we actively kill people.
The article is talking about attrition (rates of reproduction are declining - fewer people are being born and the people who are here naturally age & die)
From TFA: "The next stage of the demographic transition, after a drop in mortality, is a subsequent drop in fertility (although the relationship isn’t straightforward). Family sizes fall from 5 to 6 down towards replacement level. But then they drop further — and never come back. Indeed across most of the world, outside of sub-Saharan Africa, family sizes are still shrinking, and populations ageing."
Ending tax exemptions for religious organizations (who historically oppose the above and encourage having more children so as to grow their follower count) could be another easy place to start.
(1) Debatably. Plenty of room for disagreement. Point is, we don't have to remove anyone if we just don't replace them.
- the larger a society / civilization. The more specialty it can support
- reducing the size of a civilization can result in a reduction of specialty.
- this can result in a reduction of capacity and effectively inflation and a reduction in technology
There are definitely other factors as well, but GDP is almost directly correlated to population. A reduction in population is effective a civilizational contraction.
If we start seeing a general reduction in population above a certain threshold (idk what that is), you may even see cascading failures. Entire technology sectors are abandoned, etc. which could result in civilization collapse.
Arguably, this is similar to what happened in the Bronze Age when the interconnected trade networks failed. Similarly, during the dark ages.
Quite possibly we are seeing one now.
> it's a good thing that the world's population will shrink
They won't.
There's a whole world outside of USA.
They're opposed because to them, the United States is the people living there, not the landmass. From that point of view, adding a different people to the land worsens the crisis, not ameliorates it.
If, indeed, it is a crisis at all - nearly every country is currently at its most populous in history by far, and ecosystems are at their limits. We're nowhere near worrying about extinction from underpopulation - quite the opposite.
Of course anyone can "become an American" (or in other words, the definition of American can be broadened to include anyone). That doesn't mean adding large numbers of new "Americans" each year (~1 million/year, for more than a decade now, even during Trump) won't change the character of the country, or increase conflict as different groups pursue their ethnic self-interest.
This is true due to resource intensity of consumption.
But since we have ample time left to change our lifestyles and societies to be more eco-friendly, there's no harm in ignoring one half of the causes, right?
Edit: To clarify, the half that is being ignored is the number of people, in the people times consumption per capita equation.
The difference between America and the rest of the world is that America has more immigrants relative to its population and in absolute terms than any other country.
Out of curiosity, can you name a non Western country less racist than America?
Opposing immigration hardly has any support in the US, what has support is opposing certain kinds of immigration. From their point of view some immigrants can be a net negative to the country, regardless of how many children they bring with them or have, and prefer immigration to be restricted for them.
So I don't think you need to be flabbergasted because a tiny minority opposes immigration. For any idea there's a tiny minority that will believe in it.
Edit: A picture of Alaskan Spring wilderness I took in 2005
I've been doing genealogy research lately, and when my great-grandparents immigrated to the US (around 1910), the only requirement for "legal" immigration was that they entered the country at a designated port of entry and were identified and documented on entry. Around 10 years later they were US citizens (and that length of time was more due to them not feeling they needed it, than due to any bureaucratic nonsense).
I expect that if we were to re-adopt a similar system today, it would not be catastrophic in the ways the government (both the left and right) would like us to believe. So I think you are branded anti-immigrant at times because being "anti illegal-immigration" is just kinda missing the point, and shows a lack of compassion and empathy for people who immigrate in ways that don't tick the arbitrary boxes.
The rules are not arbitrary. At least, they are only as arbitrary as literally every law is. You probably enforce similar rules in your own domain. Or maybe you are as compassionate and empathetic as you claim, and just let uninvited people stay on your property.
> and shows a lack of compassion and empathy for people who immigrate in ways that don't tick the arbitrary boxes.
It appears you have a savior complex. I'll guess you imagine illegal border crossers are all poor brown women with children fleeing gang violence, just yearning for freedom. Otherwise I'm not sure how you can talk about empathy and compassion about a group of millions of people per year who all have different experiences and motivations for illegally entering the US.
Babies grow up to be adults. We don't need foreign workers, that's a myth for corporations to make more profits through suppressing wages.
Hire your own countrymen and women to work as employees for you. Check the male labor participation rate, there are plenty of workers available.
I don't see why - in other countries throughout the world, minorities live in harmony with majorities, especially when they're ethnically very distinct, so that they are still visibly a different group even after culturally assimilating.
It is only the US where this is a source of conflict.
I think the parent answers this question fairly well: many white people in the US don't want black people to be the majority, because they fear that black people will then have the power to retaliate for centuries of oppression.
And beyond that, they fear that a "new majority" will change culture and values (and as a result, law) in ways that make them uncomfortable.
This doesn't only apply to the white/black dynamic. And it's all bullshit, of course, but the people in power (who are mostly older white people) have been using effective fear-mongering tactics for decades.
>It is only the US where this is a source of conflict.
Not sure this is sarcasm or just naivety when other countries have literal wars and genocides over these RIGHT NOW
Maybe you want to bring in mostly educated non-criminals? Or mostly people who generally agree with the governing philosophy and our notion of freedom, so that it might not be voted away?
"In absolute numbers, the United States has a larger immigrant population than any other country, with 47 million immigrants as of 2015. This represents 19.1% of the 244 million international migrants worldwide, and 14.4% of the United States population. ...
According to the 2016 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, the United States admitted a total of 1.18 million legal immigrants (618k new arrivals, 565k status adjustments) in 2016. Of these, 48% were the immediate relatives of United States citizens, 20% were family-sponsored, 13% were refugees or asylum seekers, 12% were employment-based preferences, 4.2% were part of the Diversity Immigrant Visa program..." [1]
That's roughly 3,200 new Americans every day, 365 days a year. 1/5 of the world's migrants come to one country: The USA. I personally think this is something to be proud of. We are still a nation of immigrants and though the Trump administration did try to curtail immigration, the system is still functioning and relatively robust.
Now, what to do about top international talent avoiding the country because of radical right wing politics that demonize immigrants and conservative lawmakers that consistently try to prevent people coming? I think that's a solution with an obvious answer.
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_St...
Did those numbers decline meaningfully during the Trump presidency? His constituency and platform is very anti-immigrant.
Regardless of that, how many immigrants in the US feel secure in their status? I know a lot of people on H-1B visas who have been in the green card line for over a decade, and live with the constant stress of losing their job and having to leave the country nearly immediately. I also know some who are asylum seekers, and stats aren't awesome there, either; I think something like 40% of them are ultimately rejected, some after years of being in limbo. Even family-sponsored immigration can take years to work its way through the system.
So sure, we have a lot of immigrants here, but I do wonder how many of them actually feel welcome, and secure in their progress toward permanent residency or citizenship, if that's what they desire. And meanwhile, all these immigrants -- even those who have waited years and been granted green cards -- can't vote and meaningfully participate in how they are governed.
That said, I'm generally quite relaxed about the population trend: the 18th and 19th century had ballooning populations in Europe, and collapsing populations everywhere else. I don't think it's going to get to the point where there are serious overpopulation problems in the global south - at least, nowhere near what we already have in Europe.
"Older people tend to vote for their own self-interests, and in the case of Britain, end up controlling the government in power; voters with pensions and homes opt for lower growth and restricted housebuilding, further raising the cost of home ownership for the young and so pushing down the fertility rate still further. If we’re playing a generational blame game for the lack of children…"
I assume you mean a positive correlation.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of the former Eastern Block countries experienced both, a reduction in fertility and too much housing. The latter because so many left for the west. So many buildings were empty that quite a bit of housing stock was removed, see e.g. [1].
[1] https://www.eisenhuettenstadt.de/Leben-Wohnen/Wohnen-und-Bau...
High rents and other features of contemporary society make it difficult and expensive to have children. These things also make it difficult to get enough time for children, with the amount of income-generating work that's required. Then, most of the care is offloaded to professional caretakers, as this gives a significant improvement to the budgets of time and money.
My suspicion is that many who state that they skip kids due to the environment or personal reasons, actually just need a fig leaf to cover the fact that they're financially unable to support kids while maintaining a lifestyle that makes children net positive for their own quality of life. For most, this would be a pretty painful admission to make, but there's plenty of observations indicating it's true for many.
In contrast to most people here, I believe that this is actually a pretty big problem. It's not as bad as having a birthrate of 4 and sprinting into a demographic catastrophe, but economic growth in the sense of making all aspects of life better and cheaper is critical if we want to make civilization sustainable. Balanced demographics and kids raised with love, care, plenty and care from capable parents are a very important part of that. This is one of the things I actually believe the conservatives get right.
If you go back into the early history of conservatism, there was a breed of conservative that wanted to protect traditional social relations against the social dislocation of early capitalism.
The problem is, the people doing the social dislocation, the people doing the enclosures and clearances, were also those who benefited the most from the traditional social relations, aristocrats, etc. So the idea developed in two divergent directions: the first, the conservatives, who tried to protect traditional society by moral education, enforcement, entreaty, etc, the second, the early socialists, who tried to protect traditional society by protecting traditional social relations (usually land rights) through politics.
As you can imagine, this cuts in opposite directions: the first group would want to protect, for instance, traditional aristocratic privilege, while the second might want to abrogate it, in order to prevent an aristocrat from taking their land. Both sides would be seeing themselves as 'conserving' the status quo.
This was all about three hundred years ago in the UK, or much less in Spain, or Mexico, or Russia. The current dominance of 'conservative liberals' in all nations shows that the first direction, where you protect the veneer of tradition while allowing unfettered capitalism to trash its innards, won out. The last socialist revolutionaries of the old sort were people like Zapata, protecting their societies against the encroaching Haciendas. Today, there is nothing left to protect, so that's why modern socialists don't have much truck with whatever shreds of traditional culture remain.
Children are expensive. Children take away a lot of your otherwise "free" time (although spending time with them can hardly be considered an objective "waste"). Grandparents don't want to put in the time either, they want to go on cruises and fully "enjoy" their life (along the paradigm of "what can this really do for me?").
Ultimately we end up with parents who want to offload their kids, stuffing them into (expensive) daycares earlier and earlier (despite what research says are negative effects of such early child separation). We have lost the traditional support system of older generations being around, living with new parents, and helping in a meaningful and impactful way with child raising. We have prioritized large inefficient housing, mostly as an investment vehicle, and have discounted the less economically-linked investment and rewards that come from raising children.
In any case, this is a perfect storm for dropping fertility rates, and it seems at this point these factors are so ingrained in developed economies that it can be considered a natural consequence of a population who has pivoted towards wealth building and economic priority.
Despite this shift towards selfish economic efficiency, is anyone really happier? Really really tough to say.
I can say that despite the cost, the career impact it had, and the completely changed dynamic of how I spend my time - raising kids has been the highlight of my life. I've never really been one for considering pure economic and personal efficiency though, and I've noticed I'm more and more of an outlier among my social circle.
I think that's not well supported as the source of the problem, even to the extent it may arguably be true: developed societies tend to have adopted strong social support mechanism, so that having lots of kids so that you have a chance that someone will be willing to support you in your old age is no longer necessary. That's also why some very rich countries are seeing less of the dropoff in natural population growth for their level of development; they also happen to be the ones with weaker social support systems.
I agree that people who remain childless often do so for some of the selfish reasons you describe, but let's not pretend that having a child is a selfless act. Many people have children because they believe doing so will give their lives meaning, because they want to carry on their family name/line, because they are afraid there will be no one to take care of them when they get old. They do so because they feel pressured by their family and friends to "join the club". They feel pressured by their parents to give them grandchildren. And hell, some people have kids by accident, due to a lack of family planning or education.
How many people decide to have a child because they want to enrich their communities, to help with future demographics and the future economy?
Is that really the case?
The grandparents I know are all super eager to get grandchild time and go pretty far out of their way to make that easy for the parents. In the US and Europe anyway, I don’t know that many people elsewhere but I would assume it’s the same.
Especially in the US, geography can make it difficult but I don’t see that as a lack of motivation.
Maybe my sample is skewed but it’s definitely not all wealthy/educated/tech people.
The rich and famous celebrities are asking to have more kids because they will need these cells to run their factory and sell product services. Economy needs to grow every year only for them.
Climate crisis also going to be extremely cruel to all species and these kids have to suffer the consequences of all the previous humans. Bringing them here is way too selfish. Even IPCC report was watered down.
https://scientistrebellion.com/we-leaked-the-upcoming-ipcc-r...
Additionally life is hard, cruel to many.
It's always others' needs. There might be many reasons to have kids but none of them is for the benefit of the potential kid.
I mean, beyond the suffering of being a parent to a 3 year old ;)
Crudely speaking, birth rates in poor countries are higher than in rich countries. An within countries, birth rates amongst the poor tend to be higher than the rich.
In real life we may see some of the nasty sociopolitical consequences of that, but they aren’t irreversible. We can repopulate the depopulated regions, we can restart farming there (now with more automation and better quality of life). We don’t necessarily share the fate of the humanity of the book.
That said as soon as my kids are 18 I’m getting a really expensive sports car, but maybe a used one because years of parenting have ruined my ability to wastefully spend money.
This really resonates. In my 30-40’s peer group, zero of them live in or near their home city/town. Some grandparents have been financially successful enough that they bought a second home to be near their grandchildren, but the “new norm” seems to be both parents work full time to make ends meet without any other parenting support.
"Morland talks of the trilemma facing ageing nations, whereby you can have two of the three: ethnic continuity, a thriving economy or a comfortable lifestyle without the huge stress of mixing child-raising and a modern economy. Israel has sacrificed the latter, Japan has chosen to take the economic hit, while Britain’s leaders have given up its ethnic continuity. But that, alas, was a short-term solution, since young immigrants don’t magically avoid the fate of Father Time any more than the rest of us do."
It's a temporary solution at best because birth rates are falling worldwide and doing so much faster than expected. [1]
> Even when an extended family exists (grandparents are still alive, everyone is still married and on friendly terms) it is common for people to move to where the work is.
Do you mean to imply that people are forced to move to where the work is or that they choose to move there? Because that makes a big difference.
[1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545397/empty-planet...
For some people the disadvantages outweigh the advantages (like offering a solution to birth rates, provided low birth rates are a problem). Immigrants and their descendants can and have swung election results. Nothing wrong with this but for some people this is too big of a disadvantage.
This shouldn't surprise you, there are many countries with very little immigration, very strict immigration laws, and low birth rates, so for them the disadvantages outweigh the advantages, and they are not even democracies.
The USA is historically incredibly successful in attracting and integrating immigrants that go on to have great success. While e.g. Sweden appears to have an alarmingly high proportion of immigrants that go on to act in ways that are detrimental to their society. There might exist examples that illustrate the example in a way that's even more obvious.
Once has to wonder whether it’s healthy when more than 50% of your population feels alienated by the country and often has more loyalty and love for the homeland he or she fled.
The immigration system of most European countries is also very broken. More than 60% of immigrants to France don’t even have a high school education and gun crime in Sweden is now among the highest in Europe (despite being the lowest in the 90s) due to Somali gangs.
People are tribal and not every country was birthed as a “melting pot” like the US or Canada. These days the words integration and assimilation are considered racist when talking about immigrants so societies in these countries will simply further polarize.
Saddam Hussein was hardly a teenager when he invaded Kuwait, and Putin is no spring chicken. I don’t know what the answer is, but I suspect this guy doesn’t either.
It’s a shame though, since the collapse of the Soviet Union the share of the worlds population dying in warfare has collapsed. It was already on a strong downward trend after the end of WW2. Let’s hope Ukraine is an outlier.
I'm not sure a younger generation growing up without fear of nuclear war is a safer thing. I suspect that most of the current heads of state being old and belligerant is correlation rather than causation.
Don't worry, there will be inexpensive automated drones to do the killing soon enough.
Putin was a child during the missile crisis, but he cut his teeth in the KGB of the 70s and 80s. His mentors and leaders were, in all likelihood, veterans of the Great Patriotic War.
(To be clear: I don't think that the risk of war ends with the deaths of these particular generations of leaders. But I do think we're seeing a particularly outmoded approach to war at the moment.)
It will still be older people calling the shots, since they have had time to accumulate power and rise in the ranks, but the risk of war increases with the elders of future generations because they have no direct experience or cultural memory of its horrors; "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."
1) They reckon that things like "growing a family" are not the "meaning of life"
2) They value their time and respect the child, so they feel responsibilities on both sides
This is by all means a 1st world problem and immigration is a natural way to address the problem IMO.
I value my time but I can still choose to give some (a lot) of that time to my kids. That time doesn’t feel wasted to me. I have also not given up on all of my own interests.
As for the meaning of life – it is what you make of it, really. And that’s true regardless of whether one has kids or not.
This graph tells a different story. What is your interpretation?
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SWE/sweden/birth-rate#....
What does this actually mean? You say this like women have no agency. They may not follow a typical set of rules, but to reduce their choices to 'the result of being tightly controlled' is very insulting. There are actual reasons many of these communities intentionally have many children
Israel is barreling toward religious extremism.
The ultra orthodox are a solid voting block That currenty controls 15 out of the 120 seats in the Knesset. they almost always align with the far-right religious zionists or the right-wing Likud. Right wing governments encourage their growth while working to decrease that of Muslims.
And it has worked very well. The Israeli left, which dominated politics until the 80s has been decimated since their voter base is not having children. The country is going right, fast. The ultra-orthodox also secure the Jewish majority in Jerusalem and Israel, an added bonus.
This alone says a lot.
If you were to step outside society and design something from the ground up, one of your easiest assumptions would be "larger families should have easier access to larger housing", wherein reality the exact opposite is true.
An aggressive federal housing construction plan targeting families would do an untold amount of good.
an 18 year auto loan sounds like a bad idea. but $15k (nominal) per year is less than state university tuition.
Our gonverment supports mothers financialy 4 years if you choose lower monthly pays. Usually it is 30 months.
Also we are quite ignorant to trends like "having children is not ecological" or "there are more than 2 genders" or "same rights for same sex couples". At the end it doesn't matter. Those ideologies just support death, no life and eventually die with time. Which is exactly the problem that is described in article.
Not much to complain about.
We have so many problems and a system (in the US) that just seems bought and paid. I’m starting to think my time would be better spent trying to raise a small army than spend time fighting this system from the inside.
I understand there is a real discussion to be had about population growth and Russia as a whole. But the basic premise is a bit exaggerated.
The problem is that we have structured our entire system essentially as a pyramid scheme, where the ever more children coming from behind will mean that the standard of living keeps increasing.
As with every pyramid scheme, once enrollment stops, then the pyramid collapses.
I think theoretically, it's not necessarily about more and more children being born, but rather about productivity increasing. As long as generations manage to be increasingly more productive, then the pyramid keeps going. Obviously, population and output are heavily correlated, hence the issue.
Given how bleak the outlook is at the moment for the people coming into their parenthood years, I don't think anyone can blame them for not wanting to procreate.
How are skills passed two generations into the future? We would have to start over.
They are generated by highly educated people with genetic ability, who also have the means for a stable adulthood and at least a modicum of free time to develop their curiosities.
Not to mention the means to go into science. Very frequently another industry will pay more, and that person never becomes a scientist/researcher.
If the population goes down, each individual is going to have a massive burden of debt and taxation to shoulder. And you can imagine a scenario where this creates a feedback loop of dramatic economic decline.
Even if people were given free healthcare, pre/post-natal care, childcare, etc, I doubt this would incentivize enough people to have enough kids, as the money and time required to raise kids still does not change. If you really want to get into unethical ways to increase the birth rate, you would ban abortions (which China seems to be toying with [0]) and provide no sex education, effectively forcing people to have children. I wonder if we'll see more countries push towards something like that as the birth rate continues to decline.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_China#cite_note-au...
This only makes sense if the population declines faster than the habitability of the earth does.
A minor note, when I was in Japan I heard the term obachan as mildly derogatory slang for old people (e.g., the old lady who throws elbows if you are in her way). I hadn't heard of the similar term rougai referenced in this article.
No doubt it will be a hard adjustment, but those that are around could enjoy a better quality of life than we do as long as you don't define quality as 'inexpensive junk'. More natural resources and open space per capita is pretty nice in itself.
Last time I checked population growth forecasts, the models mostly predict worldwide population contraction within a century.
Substantial increases in longevity could delay that, but avoiding it entirely would take fairly substantial efforts to encourage more children.
As someone with a single child, I'd say substantially improved childcare provisions would be necessary, but insufficient - I could afford a lot of childcare, but having a child is still a lot of work.
Efforts to normalise more help, might help, but some of the options that might help in that respect (e.g. more au pairs, live in aid) are actively countered by high house prices.
https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-acr...
I am fine with the population declining naturally over time. I wish the Western countries could do more to absorb additional immigrants. This would have a positive effect for their own aging demographics but also worldwide as money flows to home countries.
I will probably die about the time population reaches the peak. I have always felt that that peak will be a difficult time because of poverty and demographics. Nothing we are doing now is preparing well for that time.
Fertility rate worldwide has plummeted and the population has peaked. Including these as war relate statistics is disingenuous.
On a different note, population reduction is good for the environment and long term survival of the species but terrible for the economy and wealth - especially of some countries.
See: California and other states prevent rent increases during the pandemic.
If the economy is based more and more on automation maybe it is possible to keep smaller population at even higher living standard and UBI. We might loose few by then trillionaires in a process but who really gives a shit about those.
Because all the propaganda around catalan independence is bullshit.
It gas nothing to do with gray hair, which, BTW, are mostly tourists, mostly from UK, people that can afford to travel in autumn and that don't enjoy the same climate, if not much better, of catalonia at their homes (or if they can afford to travel go somewhere else, because they are not old!)
https://www.thenewfederalist.eu/i-have-never-supported-catal...
Really it is but a step away from reading like some Alex Jones crazy talking and selling bone broth.
If the author wanted to look like an asshole, I guess mission accomplished?
Also, it’s quite ridiculous to claim this was somehow just a matter of age, since there’s a reason for only finding old people at Port bou, most young people from Port Bou are in Barcelona, where colleges are…
Even young people didn’t want war, because here there’s an ingrained distrust of the military, since twice in Barcelonas history the canons built to protect it were turned around and used to raze it to the ground by the people sworn to protect it.
If the government wants to avoid disaster, they need to make changes to fix this reality. Example: add a k% tax on everyone, and a x% tax reduction per child you are the legal guardian of, up to y children. Use the money raised to subsidize day cares, public schools, etc.
Make the idea of having a kid less awful and people will do it. (That wasn't meant to be a double-entendre but I'll take it).
I don't doubt that in the near term all manner of inflationary paroxysms will be employed in a desperate attempt to stave off this inevitable result ... but the big picture, globally, is deflation.
If healthcare alone would have been taken care of, we might have considered 2 kids. But for now, I hesitate to have even 1.
Healthcare is important, everyone deserves that, kid or not. - Europe has that figured out more so than the (richer) US. But you don't need a massive house to raise two kids (although a bit of garden would help).
I'd say to wait for a state that you could call "stability" may be imply a wait until it's too late; your decision making should incorporate other factors such as your biological age, your levels of energy and support potentially available from grandparents where still applicable. If you map all of these out over time, you will see that while jon stability may or may not improve most other facctors will worsen irreversibly.
The problem in America is the rat race never ends and that it is FAR TOO EASY to lose your hard earned wealth. Lawsuits, divorce, healthcare costs, daycare, tutoring all suck money away very quickly.
Furthermore, laws are set up in a way that can take away your earning potential. A small criminal records from 20 years ago can affect your career at a private business. A loss of drivers license will impede you from getting to work. A health issue will get you disability and FMLA but set you behind in the corporate rat race so fast that you will regret it.
In America, the fall is precipitous. You could have been a model citizen for 40 years of your life. But only one slip up (say a critical health diagnosis) and you are on the slippery slope down.
This, as opposed to Asian countries which have a free market and yet, the fall is not precipitous. In most other countries, if you have been a model citizen for 40 years, it's very hard for your life to fall apart.
There are 2 of them, and one of me. I am 'enslaved' to the bank for the next 20 something years. I am self-employed in the trades. I have very solid foundation in fixing and building things, which seems to survive many economic downturns as things that are needed to be done, are needed to be done regardless if a booming market or not - You just may face a bit more competition at that point.
Not ranting against you, or picking on your decisioning - Obviously it is a super-personal choice, and I'm glad thoughts have been put in place about many factors involved.
That being said, I've heard "I'm going to wait until I am 100% fully stable and secure to do **" my entire life. While I will agree that there are certain conditions and 'times of lives' that are extremely bad* ideas to do large things, especially when it comes into involving other dependents, I really don't think 100% stability is ever achievable.
You or your significant other could be taken out by a car tomorrow, or be caught in a fire, or even hit by lightening.
Obviously I had my first child when I was in the lower 30's -- for me, I'm finding this to be a very nice timeframe that worked in my life. I was far less stable than I am now, in the conventional sense of having a savings account, or owning a house, and I've managed to both purchase a house, and while hardly rich by any conventional notions of the world, when the car(s) break, or the house needs a roof, I am able to have those things done by either paying $ outright, or using prior life skills to offset the labor charges of those things making them more financially easier to swallow. My point is, now I am 40. They are still pretty little, and yeah, children require an insane amount of work and energy input to not only 'maintain', but 120% of what you have to offer to really enjoy the experience. I, personally, wouldn't want to be any older than I am now while having children at the ages they are - Advil is frequently consumed by now, part of growing up rolling around on a skateboard, part doing manual trades for (most) of my working life thus far, and part just being 40 and out of the 'Spring Chicken' age.
Time goes by, and with it, we get older. There is no way of changing that. The other factors in modern life, the money, the housing, the 'stability' can ebb and flow both by actions of your own and by actions too varied to even account for -- But time goes one direction.
I wish you the best, and strongly suggest if you want to have a child, and it's not 'the worst time possible' to do as such (drug addictions, homeless, uh, similar things) then perhaps ditch some of the fear of 'stability' (that truly very few have; none if you acknowledge life can end at any time for any of us) and get to doing the living!
Hard times happen to many; Even us single parent folk (and yeah, it makes things a bit harder, that's for sure) but I can promise you, if you care and you're willing to put the effort in, boy, it's worth it!
One could make an argument that fertility rate of 1.8 is a good thing. There is a better control of the labour market using immigration. Automation won't hurt that much.
Can someone please tell what does he mean exactly by that sentence?
Something like 45% of the US geography is essentially unpopulated - with tons of resources.
It’s nice, I guess, but America’s economic growth comes from the overpopulated areas: Silicon Valley, Manhattan, Austin, etc.
I’m not directly disagreeing with you. Obviously both America and China can be happy !
The severe droughts in that area mean limited water and grassland for grazing.
I can’t see any major development beyond what’s there already with limited water.
Some minor growth comes with the cyclical oil booms but coal is politically dead.
Additionally Health services in China don't match those in the West, so they will lose people far faster.
China is in a much worse state than even Eastern Europe when it comes to population. It doesn't look like it, but China went into decline 3 years ago and will not stop declining until at least 2060. And it will be quite a steep decline starting in 2030 or so.
>country does not have enough men to spare.
144 million people live in Russia. This war is a terrible tragedy but it will not depopulate the country. It won't even depopulate Ukraine through casualties, although it's having a fair effect due to refugees (44M population, millions of refugees). Putin does not care about the families of the fallen, he is playing Civilization and you can't expand your borders without moving your pieces.
The west broke the entire 'family' equation by nationalizating elder care (social welfare, retirement homes) and introducing the concept of a nuclear family. People still spend the same on elder care (in taxes instead of in person), but without any personal connection to those they contribute to.
Children = retirement was a big part of the incentive. Kids took care of you once you reached 60. The last 20-30 years of your life were glorious. "Respect your elders" meant that you get served food, chauffeured around and enjoy being an angel in the eyes of your grandkids. This same thing made being a parent easier, because the grand parents helped out. Moving away from this has made being a parent harder and worsened the long term incentives.
American infrastructure and the 'nuclear-ness' of upbringing also plays a role. It forces parents to invest an insane number for hours into their kids for even the most basic shit. The soccer mom meme is a direct result of unsustainably built suburbs and separation of responsibility. I grew up in dense communities, where all my friends lived within a 5 minutes walk from my house. I didn't even need to leave my building. The playgrounds were within eyesight of at least 1 parent, who would periodically peek to make sure the kids were still there. This allowed my parents to leave us unsupervised at a much younger age. The elder kids would walk the younger kids home from school. Younger grandparents were happy to be babysitters for kids from the entire community for free. Moving away from wide-social-webs and towards nuclear units has destroyed all of this. This put burden of parenting entirely on the shoulders of 2 (sometimes single) working parents who're working more than 40 hr/each. Ofc having children sounds unappealing.
Then there are the impossibly high standards of being a parent as portrayed in the western media (especially educated circles). Your job as a parent is to make sure your child doesn't become a total loser. That's it. Anything more is extra. Kids are expensive because every parent is expected push their child into Harvard. Let kids be kids, most of them are going to have mediocre careers and no amount effort is going to change that fact.
Today, other people's children as seen as 'their burden'. Society needs to start seeing children as the total societal advantage that they are. The young are the ones who do the heavy lifting and keep the $$ coming for an economy. Their taxes subsidize the lifestyles of the old. They create new art and media that most amazes us. They are an endless source of optimism and liberal (in terms of being liberated), unlike the cynical and conversative (in a sort of jaded failure averse resignation) ways of the old. Not everyone enjoys being a parent, but a majority enjoy being the cool uncle/aunt. At a societal level, children bring joy that is obvious to everyone who chooses to look.
But, as long as we encourage the 'everyone outside my tiny circle of concern is a chore' mentality borne from nuclear thought, the incentives will continue to discourage tolerating children in society as a whole.
I think that the development of artificial wombs with a dash of genetic customization will lead to a new baby boom in the next 10-20 years.
Isn't it a wonder why we can't get fertility rates up?
Nobody wants to go backwards in terms of tech, creature comforts and things like that so you wont see people returning to farm the land and live off the land like you used to see just a hundred years ago.
Everyone here is almost certainly playing their part in building the future and that means less people are needed on the planet. Brains appears to be beating brawn, which is why you get paid high wages.
Anecdotally, it seems a surprising number of these young men are already fathers (of children they could barely support). Furthermore, there is a male surplus built into birth rates, and the number of men is not the limiting factor in population growth.
It's quite obvious the reason is economic. Establishing healthy families is really difficult.
> that there is almost no civil war in countries where 55 per cent or more of the population is aged over thirty.’
Correlation, not causation.
Literally the next sentence.
A plausible correlation would be; a spike in population growth would cause both an excess of young men, and a shortage of resources (which is a cause for war).
I’m a first-generation child of immigrant parents. So is my wife. In our families, we have a lot of cousins around our age. Many are childless. Similar story amongst our circle of friends.
In Canada, we’ve supplemented our low birth rate and labour force with immigration. We’re small enough that it can continue to work for a while. But given the investment made by our immigrant parents and by our government, it behooves us to work hard, contribute to society and pay back that debt.
Yet, with fewer children, we’re losing the opportunity for those returns. If our parents came for a better life, we should keep making more smart children, with the capacity for new ideas and innovation, in an environment that fosters and promotes that.
Given all of the places in the world, we won the genetic lottery. Makes little sense to squander it.
I also reject the notion that humanity is a cancer on the planet. Growth is the route to solving our problems.
The two most important factors in having successful children are: 1. having two parents and 2. having older parents at child birth.
There’s a ton of data on this. Maybe it’s correlation only, but it also makes sense. Parenting is too difficult for a single person. And waiting until you’re established and stable will give your kids a better environment for growth.
Living in the Bay Area, there is no real sense of permanence. Many people are here because salaries are so high, but if they don't stay high they will need to leave. Many people are pushed out because the area has become so unaffordable. Many of my closest friends live day to day not knowing if their visa will be renewed. A friend at my company just relocated to Vancouver because he didn't luck out in the visa lottery. I have several friends who are looking to leave because they cannot provide stability for their children. I myself am renting. I would like to stay here permanently, but the houses on my street have doubled in price (not value) over the last two years. I still may be able to afford to buy one, but the idea of paying more than 10k/month for an 1300 square foot house is hard to swallow.
California of course has tried to address these problems, and has been trying to address them for a long time. Overall, these efforts have been a failure sometimes doing more harm than good (see prop 13). California hasn't even been able to build a functioning high speed rail system even though it has been fully funded for over 20 years. The society that made these places does not seem to be the society that we need to fix their problems.
We have many people, with many ideas. We don't need more people to keep having new ideas. We just need to provide a stable environment for the people that we do have, and give them the space to express themselves.
Edit: btw, if it is true that new ideas are what we need, then the best way forward is adoption. What better way to get a new idea into a desirable place?
Pretty complicated when the housing market and labour market are such that, on average:
* You don't own a house (= less money)
* You only have a fixed-term contract (= low financial stability, banks less likely to lend you money)
* To get a job, you will likely have to move away from family/relatives (= no support network)
* You & your partner likely have to work full-time (= less time for child care)
We are like addicts to the drug of life, too scared of admiting we have to stop spawning other addicts as a mean to an unreachable end. We do not accomplish anything by "creating a need and satisfying it". We do not accomplish anything by creating every problem and solving some of them (or even all of them).
Unless you’re wealthy and/or live in an are insulated from the effects, you’re signing kids up for a world that is going to be drastically different and worse due to climate change.
People can't afford to do either.
Children raising children has got to be one of the biggest jokes that nature plays on us.
and condemn them to overcome all the mistakes young parents (and possibly economically challenged parents, with many more mouths to feed) make also due to lack of experience