‘It’s not a nice world to bring children into’ - Births fall to the lowest level in 50 years - BBC article

[OneBusyFinch]

Just reading this article and don’t think I’ve seen a thread on it.

More people are having fewer children - and it’s not just the UK, the data shows it’s a worldwide trend. Interesting reading the different perspectives.

Certainly from my family, friends and neighbours and just people I know, the responsible decent people are having less children or none at all whilst the irresponsible, shittier ones seem to be having plenty 🫤

I'm not surprised by the figures. There are no incentives to having children any more. It's a hard slog from the moment of conception in terms of:

• getting decent healthcare throughout your pregnancy and birth
• Maternity Leave & pay issues. Paternity leave is next to nothing so the onus is on the woman to stall her earnings, pension and career
• Childcare is a nightmare. Again pressure for the woman to figure it out at their own detriment
• Child maintenance system is useless. Men have no obligation to step up when they conceive a child
• Education is a minefield these days. Resources are crippled and teachers are exhausted.
• As above re further education - degrees are hardly worth the paper they're written on now
• Teens these days can't even get a driving test or a part-time summer job
• There's no careers/jobs for them when they grow up, and that's before AI properly takes hold
• Good luck moving out of your parents house and getting your own place 🙃

Yeah, I wouldn't be in a rush to have kids either, if I was doing it all again.

My main concern here is - the government will begin to manage the situation. Look forward to regulations being brought in about abortion and contraception. It's a tale as old as time.

For me it’s about the quality of life I can give me and my children.

This is part money, and part time.

I want to live in X way. First of all that means we both work. A bigger house is probably unaffordable.

I want to be able to afford to save, retire, go on holidays, buy what I want, fund anything my kids need (education, tutoring, cars, flat deposits etc).

I want to have time to actually meet their needs (physical, emotional, mental), and to meet my own -
to be able to relax, have hobbies etc.

I am also very conscious I will probably be supporting them (and even living with them) well into adulthood.

All of this means having lots of children becomes more unattractive, to the rational brain.

As well as maternity pay and paternity pay, it’s the impact to pension as well - especially for women. This article, talking about three quarters of workers not on track for a moderate pension, states ‘Women have about half the amount of money saved in pensions as men, tax authority figures suggest. And 28 is the age when women start to fall behind men in saving for retirement, investment platform AJ Bell has found’

Is this the same BBC that promotes David Attenborough who says the world is overpopulated? I can't make up my mind if we're too many or too few.

Motherhood has become incredibly intense. All the criticism, blaming and judgement that goes on about how it needs to be done to do it right.

When I was young my mother very much classed herself as a wife first and a mother second. She saw the home as her dominion and we were either there to help out or get out from under her feet.

There were absolutely tonnes of expectations about how the house would be, absolutely spick and span but parenting expectations were on the floor compared to these days.

Parenting has become relentless in the standards set, really difficult to afford and honestly such hard work balancing working and parenting.

Frankly I'm amazed that anyone still has children given what's going on in the world and economy and so on, really brave I think (no that's not sarcasm). I don't have children.

Financially children are a really poor choice, looking dispassionately at the whole thing. They cost so much money these days. I have a retired friend who had 5 children, she can't afford to replace her car and she was a teacher for 40 years, some part time. All her and her husband's money went on raising kids. He still works though, he has to. They're lovely people and their children are lovely, but I can't help feeling a bit sorry for them. That's not a retirement I would want, counting every penny. They still have one of their children living at home.

The post natal wards are evil. They don’t want to look after you. A nurse said I was taking the piss when I asked a midwife to hold my baby.

Less is fine! The world is groaning under the weight of the immense human population.

Well said.

Reading threads of mothers right now with non sleeping babies in one bed flats so zero options, i think housing is part of it for a lot of people. Clearly not the only issue - parents a few decades back had 4 plus children in two rooms etc - but who would choose that if they could?

I completely agree with the points made by @foreversunshine

I had one DS, had my birth and post natal care not been so bloody awful I may have considered another but I certainly wasn’t going through that again.

DS graduated last year with a good degree but can’t get a job, he lives with his dad as he can’t afford to move out.

I honestly worry for his future. Both DS and his girlfriend have decided they don’t want children. Neither do most of my cousins and my nephew.

My nan was one of nine children, my mum one of four, I have two siblings - one is child free by choice and the other has one DS. That’s a huge difference in just a couple of generations.

Having children right now is tough financially and emotionally so I am not surprised. Young families cannot afford houses, good jobs are hard to find, loads are saddled with high student debts, mortgages or high rent and high childcare costs and a broken education system don’t help.

"Stacey Waring, 40, a nurse from Nottingham, says global uncertainty has made her think twice about starting a family"

"If I'd had children, I'd have had to reduce my hours at work," she says"

"I'm a huge traveller and go away whenever I can in my camper van, which I wouldn't be able to do if I had children."

I think if she's got to the age of 40 without thinking about starting a family, and gives a reason of travelling in her camper-van would be hard with DC, I don't think global uncertainty is the problem.

It's better for the planet and natural resources, but hard on the economy. It's confusing to me as a lay reader, I was reading that the lower birth rates would lead to labour shortages... so we currently have NEET's unable to get work, would that problem balance out then down the line?

Good point!

we are too many as a species, this article is just looking at some of the reasons why the birth rate is dropping.

I don't think 720, 1380, 1750, or even 1971 were particular nice times to bring children into. The difference is, women have a lot more choices now.

Still, the world population is 8.3 billion and half of them are under 30. In a number of countries, women still don't have great choices.

What do you mean?

Non-sleeping babies in one bed flats so no options?

Options to what?

In a couple of years 1 in 5 young people won’t be in work. What’s the workplace going to be like for those born now? In twenty odd years.

Isn't the problem, the falling birth rate in the developed nations? The solution to which could be immigration from the parts of the world with higher birth rates. However, we don't have the infrastructure to do this.

It really hasn't.

Parenting now is easier than it's ever been as you have control over the number of DC, cars, modern technology, the benefits system, schools etc.

What's changed is the rise of the Internet and social media that people seem unable to ignore.

And the rise of the Internet and social media where people tell each other just how hard parenting is.

Maybe the last however many years where population always going up was seen as positive due to economic factors is no longer possible.

Among people I know, it’s not that people are avoiding having kids due to global or societal issues. It’s just more accepted that people can choose to be childfree. They might cite the global situation as one reason why they’re glad they don’t have kids or claim it was a reason why they didn’t, but I don’t genuinely believe it was a deciding factor. It’s a side benefit or a good sound bite.

The biggest change I’ve seen is in one child families. Lots more of them than when I was a child. We only have one child for a range of reasons including cost of living, wanting a higher standard of living etc. But ultimately, even if those issues were solved we also just only want one child.

Fair enough we can agree to disagree.

Both parents working 40 plus hours per week, unaffordable childcare, unaffordable housing, impossibly high parenting standards all started becoming a problem before social media.

My kids are older now and I just see things even getting much harder now.

I disagree with this. Parenting is harder now for middle-income households where both parents work because:

• Two parents working = more expensive and stressful childcare, fatigue, less time and energy for housework/admin
• Fewer 'villages' available for support (communities now weakened, more parents live away from grandparents/extended family)
• Higher social expectations for parenting (clubs, enrichment activities, school activities ti keep on top of, disapproval/perceived dangers of letting kids go 'free-range' outside all day)
• Higher CoL (housing, childcare, bills, travel etc.)

Those are just some reasons which come to mind, there's probably more.