‘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.

I don’t think the world is any worse than it was during any decade in the last 100 years.

My dc and step dc want kids, they are still in mid 20’s now but plans are to have them in 5-10 years, all university educated. They aren’t hurrying but definitely are thinking one or two. The trend to fewer children is even more advanced in other countries, Italy I know has a really low birth rate and my Spanish friends say only those on benefits have more than one child (simplification, but mirrors what I see in my town as far as larger families are concerned though 2 is normal in the U.K.)

Housing costs are exorbitant and have risen twice as fast as wages over the past few decades. People aren't going to have children knowing they can't afford the extra bedroom(s) needed.

The job market is on a knife edge with AI and the state of the UK economy.

Russia is flexing it's muscles. A lunatic is running the USA.

National debt is 3 TRILLION and we're spending more on interest than we are on education, which is in a shockingly bad state.

The NHS is crumbling.

The Western World, and especially the UK is in a pretty bad way.

I think that’s a very narrow view.
30/40/50 years ago people were living through a war where I am. Housing was much harder to access depending on the area, no go zones, little progress, the streets and cities were wrecks. Women had little rights in or out of a marriage, no control of their reproduction. Families were much poorer, people had 7/8/9/10 children in 2 bedroom houses.

Thinking this is the worse time in history is really a luxury.

they will be the same parents that want the village to only mean free childcare

It’s sad but I would understand if my children didn’t want children, or decided not to have them. Tragic really.

The usual assumptions on this thread that the child free are well off Im child free by choice and in social housing (so some of you would see me as the "wrong type of person" to have kids.
Back to my first point. When you are in my position and dont want/choose not to have kids it can be to your own detriment. Back in the 90s when i was in my 20s the rule was you had to have children to qualify for a house with a garden or even a larger 2/3 bedroom flat. This was the ONLY way of getting it if you were on a lower income. Im in a one bedroom flat where ive been since 1994 but before that it was a tiny bedsit. But as posters have said upthread if you dont want children you just wont have them no matter the bribe.

Yes, of course factors like the job market, economic climate, climate change are key. It’s good to know that women are educated and able to apply critical thinking to what what society has always previously expected of women and feel ok and confident about choosing what is right for them as individuals

Would you rather go back to World War 1 with a high risk of dying in battle or of Spanish flu, or would you rather have neither apply to you and order your takeaway with Deliveroo? I'm stuck with where I am, but I'm alive and I've got choices.

Still 1 in 2 people will get cancer

I think this needs to be talked about more. There ass a much greater societal taboo against men leaving their wife/child say, 30+ years ago than there is now.

In the UK, possibly linked to the 1995-2006 birth rate itself being very low (eg the age of expected new parents today). This may be dragging figure down.

gen Alpha (if I’ve got that right) the 2006-2015 cohort is a large cohort. Give it 5-15yrs and I think naturally the birthdate will climb again due to larger cohort of first time parents here coming of age.

I have two DDs, won't be encouraging either of them to have children. They are both autistic, although what might be called, "high functioning" they have still had many difficulties. I think I have many traits too although have never been assessed and I have found it hard to manage having children sometimes (although I have). I think it will only get harder as there is more and more to juggle just to be able to afford to live. Just finding a job is getting harder, housing is so expensive, childcare costs a fortune. My DC are already more likely to struggle with finding secure work than other young people. I feel like having children will increasingly become a burden rather than a joy.

Having children used to be something you just did as a matter of course. I think young women especially see there are other options now.

I feel that in the future there will need to be financial incentives to having children if we don't want the birthrate to plummet.

I had similar happen - i developed severe diarrhoea the day after my c section (2020 so dh couldn’t come to help). I asked the midwife at the desk could someone watch dd as I needed the toilet and a shower and she shouted at me she was busy with discharge paperwork and just leave the baby by your bed. She was so nasty I cried.

If I had my time again I wouldn’t have children. Feel like I’ve brought them into a shitty world

My parents have 6 children and if we had followed them and had children at the ages they had children they would have 14 grandchildren. They currently have 3.

Maybe, big maybe, my youngest two siblings will have children and that number goes up, but that is far from certain. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up with fewer grandchildren than children.

Childfree by choice in my 50s.

I think women are becoming more aware that there is a choice - they do not have to have children - whereas as the further you go back through time, it was more and more the done thing; get married, have a couple of children - fewer people questioned it.

Women are realising they do not have to accept an 18+ year drain on their time, money and emotions plus the discomfort and pain of pregnancy. Of course, many women will think it is all worthwhile, a willing trade for the joy that their children will bring - but more and more people are considering that carefully rather than just going with the flow.

That's what they're doing by having no/fewer children.

This. It's bloody relentless. And my H left me high n dry. I had moved away from my family to be near to his so zero support. 🤣

Note how in one of the Famous Five books (Demon’s Rocks), an adult has a great-grandfather. People routinely had children at the age of twenty in those days.

It’s too expensive. Also there’s a real postcode lottery for fertility support in the nhs, I’d say that plays a role. I know a fair few women who are struggling to conceive but stuck on waiting lists.

I'm don't think you understand people who choose not to have kids when you say:

"I don't think people who don't have kids will ever know what they're missing, they'll always see the money they take as opposed to the moments that make it worthwhile".

As someone who knew I didn't want children when I was a child myself, money never came into it. It's an inherent need to not have children, just like most women have a strong, inherent, biological drive to have children. Money doesn't come into it. The child-free by choice are different to couples who say they can't afford to have children. The child-free, like me, do not want children at any cost.

Also, you can't miss something you've never had. I can never miss having children and I never regret not having them. And, I don't "see your life as hell" at all, it's your choice and one I'm sure you're happy with.

I just want to be clear to all that someone who is 'child-free' (as in by choice) is not that way because of any external factors: money, housing, lack of partner. It's like knowing your gay. It's just who you are. If I really wanted a child, no amount of climate change, doom and gloom, lack of money would probably stop me. I'd go ahead anyway. But I'm not programmed that way.

I am child free by choice. I just couldn’t bring a child into this world with such an uncertain future.

Surely the reports of these high temperatures both in land and sea, the impact to crops and our water will be making people think twice about having more children? This, by all accounts, will be our new normal

Also I think that parents of adult kids have changed. I told my daughter to not ever bothering having kids on my account. I am in absolutely no rush to be a grandparent. The World is a horrible place right now and with everything that is going on who wants to have kids that will be the future slaves of multi corporates? There will be an uber rich class and the only way to fight them is not to have kids.