It’s becoming unfashionable to have kids

[Housebuyingfamily]

Birth rates are on the floor which people frame as, people would have more kids were it not for the cost of them or climate change, etc etc. But I feel like it’s now more than this. As if we have a global child-free culture that’s growing every day and it’s becoming increasingly “unfashionable” to have kids, even looked down upon.

I don't know how you got that from what I wrote. Things aren't binary or black and white. It can be true at the same time that 1) it's a good thing that people don't have children they don't want (this is such an incredibly obvious point I can't imagine how anyone would disagree with it). 2) Having a choice around having children is better than not having a choice (again, very obvious) and 3) making the choice to have children can be very difficult, particularly in a time when there is a strong societal message that you shouldn't have children until you're living in a big house in a desirable area or you shouldn't have children at all due to climate change/overpopulation.

So? She presumably raised her dog from a puppy. Equally, you can also say you train children.

’Raised’ isn’t a term exclusive to children, and neither is ‘trained’ exclusive to pets.

Then I misread the tone. I apologise.

I don’t think having children is unfashionable, it’s just that not having children is talked about in a more positive way. Of course that can tip over into being unpleasant about people who choose to have them - as a CF millennial (32, DH is 33) I’ve never liked the breeder/crotch fruit insults, but I think that’s a small minority who unfortunately like to make themselves heard. Online we are just trying to find a community of our own, where we can talk about our lives and our feelings with like minded people. Sometimes you just need to have people around who get it - it’s not a must but it is nice to speak to other childfree people.

DH and I have a flat and a cat - growing up it was always my dream to be living in a big city with a cat, and that’s what I’ve done! I do love her a lot and call her my baby in a joking way because I care for her a lot, but she is a cat, not a child. She doesn’t require a lot of input, but she keeps us company and makes us laugh. My best friends are having babies now, living in the suburbs, and while I’m chuffed for them it has only underlined how that’s not for me and DH. He had a vasectomy last year after a very unexpected pregnancy, and the relief that we won’t have to go through that again was huge.

DH didn’t really think about children until he met me and realised he didn’t think there was a choice and you ‘just have them’. My mum had me as a surprise baby - didn’t know until she was 3 months along, and I think about the life she could have lived a lot. She endured awful abuse as a child and then she had me at 26, quickly became a single parent, and her life became about me. While she did a good job in difficult circumstances I think if she had her turn again she would choose a different path. I’m very grateful that she has always told me to follow my gut instinct, which I have done.

The population is currently growing but birth rates are so low in many countries that population will reach a certain point and then decline pretty soon. The problem with this is that there will be far more older people than younger, which places a huge burden on younger people.

Thank you for your reply. My argument still stands.

Many people seem unable to appreciate the significance of population composition!

To be fair, in previous decades there were such huge amounts of scaremongering about the planet being overcrowded and the dire consequences of that that I'm not surprised this idea has become embedded and that it's hard to imagine a world with too few people (or too few young people anyway).

What will be interesting (and possibly scary/divisive) will be how attitudes towards immigration will have to change. Within my children's lifetime countries will be begging and pleading with young people to immigrate to their shores, there will be huge competition over who gets to have all of the people who these days are considered surplus and unwanted. The less interesting and more scary question is how men will find ways to coerce women into having more babies -that's very much their style.

Within my children's lifetime countries will be begging and pleading with young people to immigrate to their shores
@GratitudeGrump
I agree. It was pointed out in the interview with Paul Moreland (during the intelligence squared podcast that I linked to a few posts back) that countries with higher birth rates tend to be those with cultures incompatible with modern Western culture, so integrating will be difficult.
He proposed the ultimately we will need to find ways to allow young people to start families in their young adulthood without them having to miss out on educational and career opportunities.

To you, perhaps. IMO it falls apart with the slightest examination of it, but to each their own.

I suppose it's worth remembering that the situation we have now - widespread contraception, women with careers - is, in historical terms, very new. Once upon a time, no one who had a high paying, responsible job got pregnant (as they were all men!). Even in my mum's time women weren't expected to have big careers (she had to hide her engagement for fear she'd be fired). Ideally, we'll transition to system that takes for the granted the fact that a proportion of the population will get pregnant (and that the non-pregnant partner also needs to participate beyond two weeks of paltry leave) and it becomes a lot easier to integrate all aspects of life.

Raised/trained I really don't care, I've had her since she was 8 weeks, trained/taught everything she knows.

Why are you picking one word out of that entire post? She is a dog, I look after her to the best of my ability and made sure she turned out to be a brilliant companion and not a pest to others. She doesn't bark on the garden/walks, she's not reactive and she doesn't approach people/animals and I don't take her to cafes/restaurants.

What even is a fur baby? Why are you so rattled by the fact people care about their pets and look after them so well? Are we meant to have animals, feed them shit food, pat them on the head occasionally, leave them alone to do as they please and give them the absolute bare minimum amount of care so we aren't accused of treating them like "fur babies" shouldn't you be more concerned about the animals that are neglected?

If some people do choose to call their dog a fur baby then so what? Why does it bother you so much, if it makes them happy who cares? Why be so judgmental?

I could comment and judge when people have kids then moan about how exhausting/expensive they are but I don't because it's none of my business and their life choices don't affect me just like other people calling their pets fur babies and treating them well is non of your business and shouldn't bother you if you are happy and content with your life.

'And parenting styles these days is 100% a factor. It's that my niece has cited as the reason that she has chosen not to have children. She doesn't want to fight the battle of attempting to raise a child in a world of gentle (non) parenting.'

This is one of the reasons I didn’t want children. I'm sure if DH and I had ended up having a child/children we would have done our very best to bring them up well, love them etc. But as part of that we would have had to facilitate friendships with other children and having seen the way many, many children behave, nope.

I would say so, yes. If you care about crime, education, and opportunities.

Not all of us are going to live in Cambridge or the like, of course, but if you have the opportunity to give your child a better life - why wouldn't you do that?

I bought a lovely house in a lovely area before having children. Because I want a nice life for me too.

(Again not meant to be provocative, just interested) is it your view that if someone can only afford an 'undesirable' area (whatever the definition of that may be) they shouldn't have children?

The modern notion of retirement is also brand new in historical terms - until a hundred years ago the idea of people still in reasonable health stopping work just because you reached an arbitrary number of years old, and then being supported by the state financially for the rest of their lives, was unprecedented.

In the space of a couple of generations the notion of being owed a decade of enjoying healthy and energetic leisure time before another decade of perhaps less healthy life perhaps with some care needs (both of which earlier ill health and early deaths means not everyone gets, but we have come to feel entitled to and that it's unfair if we or our loved ones don't get) has become normalised.

The idea of 50% of 18-21 year olds going to university instead of most of those going straight into work and paying income tax and NI, and the knock result of all those people believing they're overqualified for practical vocations, leading to too many 20 somethings expecting to do office jobs and a shortage of skilled people in trades and hands on professions is also brand new in the last 30 years.

A lot will have to change in the next 30-50 years.

True. These transitions are always very hard though - people get an idea of what life should be like and find it hard to accept when things are different. I really wish people (including so-called experts) would stop peddling the trope that this is these generations are the first to have it 'worse' than their parents. It's such obvious bollocks - the generation who were young adults at the start of WW1 and parents of young adults at the start of WW2 very very definitely did not have it better than their parents!!

Unfortunately most people can’t afford a lovely house in a lovely area. In my town that would be about 800k. I bought a house in an ex/council estate which I think is pretty nice but apparently on Mumsnet the area is “traditionally avoided” - that was 400k and took us 4 years to save the 80k deposit. We have good jobs and are good at saving. No idea who is buying the 750k 3 bed new build popping up all around us.

I have a view that people have a personal responsibility to maximise the resources they can for their kids, which tends towards having children later.

As I said, someone is always picking up the slack for people who do not - whether that is through help from friends and family or the state.

I worked to have a nice life for me because I actually like myself, and I wouldn't want to have a kid in a situation where they would have a worse upbringing than I did. I also wanted to travel, work on my mental health, take career risks, and find the right partner because those would be good things for me as a person which in turn would be better for my child. I earn good money and have had enough experiences where I would not feel trapped by my circumstances - and hopefully can raise a fully-rounded human being.

You don't need all of that, of course, but I see my peer group that had children before earning decent money, or finding the right partner, and their lives just look shit. Fighting all the time, stuck with each other, living in too cramped flats in rougher schemes, being skint all the time, never going on holiday (or even a date!). And they are so bloody boring - because their kids are the only things they have. And I'm sure they would say that it's all worth it and "they made it work".

It's not the type of life I would want for myself or a child. I'd rather have the best life I can and then have kids as a much wanted and planned addition, rather than because they just happened.

I addressed all that in my first comment. It's all getting harder so we are having fewer children later.

That's fair enough, though I'd argue there's a quite a wide spread of possibilities between a lovely house in a lovely area and a shit life in a bad area. Also, you can never assume that life will go as you planned - you might set everything up perfectly and still end up in difficult circumstances just because of how things work out.

What worries me is the thought that some people really want children but because they feel they don't tick a series of boxes they put it off (potentially until it's too late) or they don't do it at all. It seems like a very big thing to miss out on because of an idea of a standard that you have to adhere to.

Yeah but I think the needs of the actual child (person!) trump anyone’s “desire” to have a child in shit circumstances. Is it more important for you to fulfil an urge, even if that means the kid living in a cramped flat, no holidays, rough school, no dad e.t.c….or to accept that it’s not fair for the kid to have a crappy life and struggle just because you had an urge?

Despite us having more comforts, life is harder and worse in a lot of ways today. I wouldn’t want to bring a child into it, especially if I couldn’t give them a comfortable life. Then again I’ve never had “the urge” so maybe it’s easy for me to say 🤷‍♀️

There is a big spread of lifestyles, absolutely, and also a very stark difference in lifestyles between my peer group who had kids young and those who waited. The ones that waited have objectively better lives.

I do think there are people who leave it too late, but this goes back to another of my points. Children are just not seen as something you have to do. People have more choices and opportunities.

So a lot of people are thinking "If I am going to do this I am going to do it right - or not at all", which is very black and white. But given having children is the single biggest choice you can make in life (or at least it should be), you can understand why people want to mitigate risk. You are right, life can change a lot. So I tried for kids when I got married, established my career, and got on the property ladder at 30. Rather than when I was 22, still at uni, working in a pub, and dating an "artist". Each to their own.

I understand your argument but the idea that someone has to provide a certain standard or having a family is out of the question doesn't sit right with me. My cousin for example had her first when she was 20, it was unplanned and everyone in my (very Catholic, Irish) family made her feel bad about it. Sixteen years later she's married to a lovely man in a beautiful house with a total of four children. Similarly my sister's SIL had her first when she was 16, causing huge upset. Her daughter is now a lovely 12 year old, SIL has a nice house and is children's nurse in a great relationship. Those were not ideal circumstances but I don't think anyone with any sense would look at them and say they did the wrong thing. Equally I've known people who've had the good job and the big house before having children who've ended up in dire circumstances due to various things (illness, gambling addiction, loss of job due to covid). I don't think there's a point of perfection that people can reach to guarantee everything is plain sailing and giving people the impression that they have to reach a very high standard before even considering children potentially cuts them off from what, to me, is a very normal life stage.

This. So many people care more about becoming a parent than about the life they can provide for a child.