To wonder if people will think more carefully about becoming parents after this?

[OrangeSlide]

Do you think that now people have seen that the shit can hit the fan and they might be solely responsible for the well-being and education of any children they bring into the world, in particular without practical state support in terms of schooling, people might be less inclined to have children?

I wondered this at the start when schools closed and I’ve thought about it more and more as the situation has progressed.

No OP. I don't think so because there are plenty of parents, sadly, who have not been doing any education with their kids. So it's those children who will miss out the most from all of this.

Autism is not a Pandemic? Can you give more info Tania.

Er - I wasn't saying it was.... Maybe you need to re-read what I wrote?

I’ve been so glad that my kids aren’t older. It must be really hard on those trying to work from home with very young kids.

A friend of mine is self-employed and her business has been very badly hit. She has absolutely no savings to fall back on and yet she only wears designer clothes and make up, travels abroad on holiday several times a year and has a really nice house. I can’t help but wonder if people won’t change their thinking about money and be more careful in the future, but I suspect not.

Nope.

"Aren't people solely responsible for their children's well-being in normal times? I think the education thing has been very overblown."
Some MNers have posted and are tearing their hair out being with their kids 24/7. Once they are school age, they are usually out of the home 5 days per week for hours so the teaching staff are responsible for them then.

I think the pandemic probably has brought home to parents how difficult it would be if they had to care for their children 24/7. It wouldn't be easy.

The Covid 19 Pandemic is barely anything.

Wait until Brexit fully comes into effect in the UK and Ireland after 31st December 2020. It'll be a slow devastating build up. Like a Tsunami.

People will still continue to have children.

Life exists Offline.

Oh sorry Tania I did misread.

Your point then is that every parent must weigh up every eventuality?

Your point then is that every parent must weigh up every eventuality?

My point is that people rarely seem to consider that very common difficulties will affect them and/or their children.

You mean globally?
Or in the UK?
This applies to both men and women?

A lot of women and girls get no choice.

Wait until Brexit fully comes into effect in the UK and Ireland after 31st December 2020. It'll be a slow devastating build up. Like a Tsunami.

People will still continue to have children.

Exactly. We're all the product of a long line of people who reproduced in the very worst of times throughout all history.
If that's genetic (it is) then we're primed to do the same.

Any mutations in that urge to reproduce no matter how shite your kids lives will be (i.e. a mutation resulting in a person who decides that they don't want their kid to suffer) by default aren't passed on.

Evolution, innit?

Wait until Brexit fully comes into effect in the UK and Ireland after 31st December 2020

Brexit isn’t coming into effect in Ireland.

Well not do much.

When women can earn enough money to support themselves and have access to contraception and abortion, birth rates plummet.

So maybe look to the men.

I don't know if you're talking to me there, Shiney - but I'm not saying that it's a woman thing alone. I've said 'people' throughout, bar the one example where I cited a woman I'd seen on TV. Because it happened to be a woman that I'd seen on TV.

It’s put me off having another - if we have another lockdown in the future I wouldn’t be able to cope with anymore than I have.

I very much doubt it when people have still been trying to conceive during lockdown.

The world will still go round and in a while the pandemic will just be a blip in the memory.

A small percentage of parents and would be parents will even decide that from now on, home schooling is the way to go!

Googling United Kingdom fertility rate gives 1.70 births per woman (2018 - latest available figure I think).

It sure doesn't look like people have children willy-nilly.

farmertom Mon 29-Jun-20 23:03:51
No I don't think so, I think the people who carelessly/thoughtlessly have kids will continue to do so without much planning.
.......

I agree, also those who have done a lot of planning, eg with infertility problems. Many have still been 'trying' during the pandemic. There's nowt as queer as folk.

Some people are being very weird and defensive on here. The OP asked a reasonable question.

Yes, I think the birthrate and fertility rate will both go down after this. Not solely as a result of this, but because of a whole bunch of factors that COVID19 has brought to a head. There is an air of pessimism in the world right now. That is not conducive to making people want children.

Most natural disasters and pandemics are followed by a decrease in the BR and FR, not an increase. This is true even in poorer countries and is likely to be even truer in rich countries. The fertility rate after the 2008-9 crash started falling from about 2010 (meaning that people started planning fewer pregnancies from about 2009 as the real world consequences of deep recession became clearer) and has actually never really recovered ever since. The FR has declined gradually ever since in most countries, albeit with a little bit of up-and-down from year to year.


The BR will probably fall quite a lot next year, might uptick slightly the year after (as people go ahead with pregnancies that they wanted but put off for the pandemic year), and then settles into a long-term pattern of very gradual decline.

No. My husband’s grandmother gave birth in 1944 while in hiding from the Nazi’s. The girl she gave birth to is my husbands mother. Wars and pandemics will happen and people will still have children.

I think it'll have an effect. I know a few families who are no longer planning another child due to the CV crisis. A huge amount of people didn't think 'what if..?' really applied to them before.

Some people were in previously 'safe' jobs or at least thought they'd get another quickly but have seen entire industries near collapse. And I don't know anyone who previously gave much thought to how they'd manage if their school and/or childcare options were removed for 3 months or more.

OP, not for the reason you have given (home ed) but I did say to someone last week that if I didn't have a child, I would seriously consider not having them, because the world seems a horrible place. Educating my child has been the least of my worries, but I'm a teacher for the same age group as her so that part has been ok.

@TaniaMount you’re probably right about that!

I dont even know how to answer your question OP. Having a tough lockdown with kids doesn't mean you wish you didnt have them, it just means you had a tough lockdown. I felt lucky to have my kids there with me in lockdown, my friends that didnt have children felt for me that I had the children but I think it's something that you'll never be able to explain, like when people say 'it's great you'll have a break from the kids' and I think, I might need a break, but not necessarily loads of time away from the kids, they're part of the package now!!

Has the world ever been a “lovely” place?

I was born in 1980. My childhood was interspersed with public service videos about what to do with bodies in the event of a nuclear attack, the Ethiopian famine, acts of terrorism by the IRA, the Rwandan genocide, recessions, AIDS panic and comparatively huge numbers of abductions and murders of children.

Perhaps I sound flippant but while it is right that we went into lockdown, it isn’t something I foresee lasting long now and three months is neither here nor there in the scheme of things. And as with most things there have been positives to emerge from lockdown as well as sadness and grief.

There are any number of nasty diseases, for most people coronavirus will not kill them. In 2025 when my baby is starting school I think coronavirus will be as distant a memory as the things I mention.

No, the opposite. People at home more with partners, not so easy access to contraception/ MAP. There will probably be a baby boom in 9 months.

People forget quickly. Most think this is a once in a century occurrence so won’t worry about such things.

And there are plenty of 10yo out on their bikes from dawn to dusk so home schooling is variable to say the least.