Did anything happen in 2016 that young women might have interpreted as a signal that they were on their own and facing hostility?
My wife and I are conservative. My neighbor and his wife literally worked in the Obama White House. I have a Trump-era kid and 2 Biden-era kids, as does he.
Both our wives care about election outcomes and yet neither would look at 2016 or 2020 or 2024 and decide "never mind" on their life-long commitment to family. And neither would anyone else. Nobody was trending in the good direction and then was derailed by an election.
My wife and I are not conservative; but I would agree that no one is tracking the election results as a go/no-go indicator for child-rearing. My wife and I have 3 children, two of whom are adults so our decisions were made in a different era. Instead of bipolar political outcomes, I think many are affected by a sense of unchanging disinterest in the wellbeing of the great mass of people that populate the country. As long as the GDP rises, it’s good times, right? Few on either side of the political divide want to talk about the distribution of U.S. national income. Want more kids? Make life less difficult for families. Both major parties have completely failed to do this.
nice lil both-sides-ism fantasy escape - now back in reality, do tell which party specifically platforms AGAINST distribution of concentrated wealth ? and which one is FOR it?
Hm?
> on their life-long commitment to family.
You can hear how disconnected your lived experiences are from the topic at hand here, right?
You do you.
One huge benefit of religion is a timeless/eternal orientation in thinking. Like, if someone takes concepts like "spending eternity in heaven or hell" - they are indeed thinking about eternity, a topic that an atheist never has to be concerned with. And I say this as someone whose religion does not orient around a traditionally understood heaven and hell.
The reason I mention that is because it's obvious that in the grand scheme of things whatever you're worried about today won't matter. Whatever evils you see in the 2024 election (I don't but that's the political difference) pale in comparison to what someone could discern at different points in time. And yet - I am very glad my great-grandparents decided to have my grandmother despite the turmoil around the Soviet revolution. I am glad my grandparents decided to have my parents despite their horrific experience in WW2. Both of my wife's grandparents literally went through concentration camps as eastern European Jews, and still went on to have families. I have cousins born soon after 9/11, etc.
The point is - looking back on it, as real as those events were, it would be exponentially more horrible if they "won" not by how horrible they were, but by making good people give up on the whole game.
If I dare go on a limb - I'll suggest an alternate perspective. Whatever forces caused you to see "fascism and antifeminism" so strongly today that you're not having kids, have done you more permanent harm than anyone else.
Frankly, this is the most presumptuous comment I think I have ever received.
I also do not understand why I need to justify this decision in public.
My last question was one of curiosity. I can reframe but I don't insist on an answer. As I clumsily tried to allude to - I see religion as a source of "timelessness" that anchors somebody to something other than what's happening today. I hear from my religious friends things like "we know it seems today that X, but our faith supports us in believing its Y." So for them, "be fruitful and multiply" would be Gd's eternal command, that would override whatever seems to be the case today. So I was genuinely curious whether that's very different in Christianity (I know there's a huge range of sects and beliefs within it) and how these things are reconciled. But I of course understand that's very personal and I didn't mean to tangle my curiosity with a need for you to "justify your decision". Sorry.
I also find the idea that "thinking eternally" is bound so tightly with "having children" to be very odd.
>> I also find the idea that "thinking eternally" is bound so tightly with "having children" to be very odd.
I guess I can't relate to that. What I do today in my life is only due to (a) the fact that my ancestors fought and labored to survive and procreate and (b) of the values they passed down.
From my grandfather's perspective, I am his agent in today's world, and Gd willing my own grandchildren will be mine (and therefore his) agents in the future.
So one thing I meant around eternal here is that my own role and time is less significant in context of this greater continuity. Or put it another way, I could easily find seemingly valid reasons to not have kids but the fear of breaking this cycle and being the last of the line feels to me very opposite of orienting to eternity. Again, I understand that's not the choice you're making and that's totally cool, I am just explaining my framework.