‘It’s a spiritual and cultural problem.’ Mary Harrington on declining birth rates #birthrates

[smjenkin]

If you penalise women for motherhood, fewer women will choose motherhood.

[lauraantal]

I’m from Hungary.
People don’t want to have kids simply because they can’t afford them.
Everything became crazily EXPENSIVE.
If you as an adult cannot take care of yourself, then how could you take care of a child and make ends meet?
First fix the economy and health care, I promise more kids will be born

[Tonedefdom]

It's an economic problem. It's too bloody expensive to have lots of children these days

[Orlando-Braga]

How do you explain the drop in birth rates in communist Russia, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall? The problem is indeed spiritual and cultural, but it has to do with modernism, and not just capitalism.

[michaelprick]

It's simply an economic problem. Raise the wages, make living more affordable, and make the housing market back where it was 50 years ago and you will see a baby boom straight after.

[doris]

Hey if i had found a good man who was emotionally intelligent and supportive and was a real partner I'd be married with kids... Marriage is still one sided and can be a terrible deal for alot of women

[gerhard]

Our economies today, really since the 1980s or earlier, are predicated on the fiat debt based model which requires asset prices to keep on rising in order to perpetually fund it and keep money washing around the system.

Couple that with 'the emancipation' of women over the decades which has also, ironically, indirectly helped to further fuel these rising asset prices as they enter the workplace rather than staying at home then essentially you have one of the keys to understanding how this situation has arisen.

It's the law of unintended consequences.

It also helps to explain why it's near impossible to unwind now both for cultural and economic reasons.

[mollygrace]

When the standard of living raises in a country, the birth rates decline. Unless you’re living in a very rural, agrarian environment, there’s no benefit to having more than 2 children, if at all.

[davebutler]

Ignoring the concerted effort by the entertainment industry to demonise and denormalise parenthood.

[bibliowolf]

🎉it's economics (kids are unaffordable), combined with lack of familial support (families don't get along or live near enough to help with childrearing), lack of community, and esp. Career/financial penalties for motherhood.

[cloudk]

As a woman there is absolutely NO reason for me to want to have kids.
In fact there are countless reason why I never want kids.
(Although a lot of then stem from the fear of pregnancy and labor itself, i refuse to participate in anything that could result in me tearing from my vagina to my asshole 😂)

[david]

There may also be an underlying biochemical reason for declining birth rates. Specifically a build up of endocrine disruptors in the water tables and food supply.

[specialized]

Do we need more people on the planet ?

[ecoaide]

I love Mary Harrington, and she's absolutely correct on this. Techno/consumer capitalism seems to be deeply antithetical to family creation.

[AliBaba-mbpu]

If people are slaving to keep a roof over their heads how could they afford spare rooms and food for children...

[justjacqueline]

Love reading the comments many decrying the right of women and how bad it was for women and is for women.Yet so many high powered lawyers in the real world walk away from their giga-salaries in their 30s to have a family/Whilst the poorest of the poor are having children at a young age.

[meemz]

How about encouraging people to be good partners to each other. No one seems to understand how to do that because no one ever talks to their children about it. When men and women are in a healthy, happy relationship, having kids is a wonderful thing. No one seems to have any emotional maturity or intelligence anymore.

[baumulrich]

but our chief technocapitalist is a nine time father...

[LaLeMay]

I agree. I can’t afford to have children. I don’t want to have to work full time, farm the kids out to expensive nannies / daycare, and be run ragged unable to enjoy my children nor able to commit to raising them properly. If I work full time and have kids I cannot raise them properly. You have to have one parent stay at home to do a proper job raising children. Fact.

[lavienestpasunlongfleuvetr]

My grandmother endured 15 pregnancies and birthed and raised 13 children because contraception was illegal in her country. She had little to no political power and wasn't allowed to work in the civil service as a married woman and was under the control of her husband the moment she was married. He could rape and beat her without fear of prosecution or even divorce, because marital rape wasn't illegal and divorce wasn't legalised until the 1990s. He could have her thrown into a mental hospital on his say alone, while she had no reciprocal power. This all happened in a northern European country...and the likes of Jordan Peterson would have us believe that these kind of societies were never 'patriarchies'.
Women simply don't want to go back to that kind of life, and frankly, neither do most men.