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Comment by duttish | Hacker News Reader

For decades the discussion in schools have been around "this is how you avoid unwanted pregnancy", safe sex and all of that.

With our(northern Europe) crashing fertility rate there's now also discussions about adding on "when the woman is 25 this happens and you're this likely to get pregnant, at 30 it's like this...", just so that people can plan and try for the family they want. If one wants 3 kids and don't want IVF you should apparently start around when the woman is 25-28 or something like that?

But who's financially secure at 25?

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> But who's financially secure at 25?

This is where free daycare, and support from the government helps.

(And yes of course it's not "free", it is paid for from taxes, people are so smart to point that out.)

Different countries have different incentives, but I was really pleased with the setup in Finland when we had our child. A free box of first-clothes, daycare from 1-5 years old cheap enough that it was almost free, and preschool at 6 before schooling started at 7.

Lots of minor perks, such as free transport on busses, trams, etc, if you were pushing a stroller, and so on.

It doesn't seem to be helping with the birth rate though. Not much of a correlation on countries with great natal policies and higher birth rates.

> But who's financially secure at 25?

Those backed up by their government?

it's dysgenic to enable reproduction through welfare. Better to create an economy where young people can start families off of their own labor.

It's the tribe supporting the newest members. Seems the most logical thing I can imagine.

The party in power is doing neither so

We can't help ourselves, we can't help others, but did you see that politician's wife in her expensive boots?

Plenty of people have kids before then and they work out fine. I'm not saying that if you're truly destitute it's a good idea to have kids, but the only people I hear complaining about not being financially ready for kids are those who are objectively well off.

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