To think all of these people can afford children they just don't want them

[Surgicalprecison]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g7x5kl5l8o

These articles on the BBC lately show me people's priorities in life have shifted, they don't want children enough to compromise on their current lifestyles.

53k is the average income in London. But most londoners nowadays who are of childbearing age have had help from parents buying property or will get free childcare. My ex colleague was probably on less than 100k combined but had 2 children, she and her husband basically never moved out until they married and bought a 450k home and her dad helped her care for the 2 kids while she went back to work.. I have been told on mumsnet that to afford children in london, you need to be wealthy or v high income (6 figures), planner ( saved up nursery fees/ bought property- me ), inheritor (get help from parents in terms of rent free living; gifted deposit, gifted home or free childcare- me as I basically never rented past university) or on benefits. Alternative is debt.

What I didn't plan for is infertility in my 20s and early 30s lol. Other than ttc /not using contraceptive sooner than most londoners. Doesn't look like any of these people have the same kind of help though.

All I can come up with is people need others to have children so they can justify their own breeding

It is a choice not an expectation

Not wanting children is a valid choice, whatever the reason is for not wanting them

I have more than my fare share so more likely to get grief for that 🤷‍♀️

It's not anyone's responsibility to be having children so there's more people around to wipe arses in the future

Exactly.The people who keep saying people should be having more children, to care for the elderly, have no clue.

Absolutely this.

I think for a great deal of child-free people it's not a financial decision at all. They just don't want them.

I can understand why new adults these years would NOT be wanting kids! Parents today spend gazillions of $$ on their kids: birthday parties are in the thousands of dollars range, and the kids get a birthday party EVERY yearf from year 1; commercials/adverts show kids wanting the "best" car to show up at school in so they can look the "best" getting out of the car on school drop off: guilting parents for not making enough money; parents paying full ride for kid's college expenses or being on the hook should a loan be taken out; kids needing to be in paid up soccer and sports leagues and parents paying for all sorts of expenses with that; and the lists go on and on! It is as if there is some big competition parents are all in to see which one can outdo the other! Is insane when I sit back an observe these parents these days.

Its not like that @Sheri99 . You do what you can. Thats like believing everyone lives like the adverts. No one does!!

Why would the PP do that particularly? There are lots of jobs that need doing - she’s just making the point countries need a workforce of a decent size to support older retired people.

I genuinely can't work out why people are getting so defensive and feel the need to post repeatedly that they don't want children. Nothing in the original post said there was anything wrong with not wanting children, and OP has repeatedly reaffirmed that since. She is just expressing puzzlement that people frame not wanting them as not being able to afford them.

However, while I think OP is right, I do understand why people see it that way. I might say we 'can't afford' a third child, but to lots of people we could, easily. What we really mean is that we don't want a third child enough to outweigh the downsides, including the financial impact, whereas we did want a first and second that much. If I found out I was pregnant tomorrow we'd manage to afford a third child. If we suddenly had loads more money I would still hesitate over having a third, but it would be much more attractive. So, it feels somewhere between 'we can't afford it' and 'we don't want a third' - neither is quite true. I think the same is true for a lot of people weighing up whether to have children at all.

Clearly financially the best decision would always be to have no children. No one is better off with them than without them. Deciding to have them is always an 'irrational' choice, and so it's always going to come down to how much you want them.

When you get told that you're not contributing to society in any way it's quite hard not to get defensive.

Amazing how people just don’t see this.

Yep, adopting children at any age is difficult. Adopting a teenager who has either been removed after years of substandard parenting, or who has spent a decade in care, is going to be mindbogglingly hard.

The people "looking after" the elderly are not just carers. They are all types of HCPs, social workers, those in the restaurant and retail industries, those in the trades, financial services, and that's just those that are directly interacting with the elderly.
Beyond that teachers are training the next generation of all those above, so are universities, and everyone paying taxes and paying into pensions is looking after them financially.
We need all kinds of adults working - not just those who change the sheets/fix their hips/arrange for a stairlift/actually put in the stairlift/serve them dinner on Mother's Day/invest their pension wisely/sell them food.

I thought OP was picking up on the media trend for articles like this, with that implication, rather than emphasising it herself (apologies if I missed something, haven't RTFT). The falling birth rate in the west has long been a mad right-wing trope, linked to their desire to limit women's sexual and reproductive freedom, but recently it's become a bit more of a mainstream "concern" (scare quotes deliberate as it does not concern me in the slightest).

The full thread is quite the read.

But OP didn't say that - one commenter, pages in, did. By that point dozens of people had already posted just to say how much they don't want kids. I just find it strange.

Sorry If this is difficult for you to understand, with the 'looking after’ term, l’m specifically talking about carers, not all health care workers.Your comment that says ‘not just the ones who changes the sheets’ shows you are indeed a person who wasn’t got a clue, how undervalued carers are.I’m using the word carers because l’m only referring to people, who are care assistants in residential homes, auxiliary staff in hospitals, care assistants working in the community, who do all aspects of care, not social workers, not sure why you’ve mentioned retail staff, hospitality
financial services, which has nothing to do the original point, why would the younger generation choose to care for the elderly as a career, when the role is so undervalued and looked down upon which you’ve clearly illustrated in your comment, clueless.

It's a purposely goady thread, there's been loads of them lately. Again, hard not to get defensive.

God why are people so snarky on this site? OP hasn't passed any judgement on people not having children, she's just, saying she thinks they're not being entirely honest - perhaps because of societal/familial pressure, I don't know.

I've found these threads very interesting and not at all goady. It gives me great hope and pleasure to hear the human race is declining.

I think it can be tricky actually when you earn above average. If you have kids and you are the working poor then top up benefits will largely cover the cost of your child. If your not entitled to help and want to continue work and need f/t childcare then I can see how it’s really challenging financially. I mean £1200-£2000 per month for childcare is a lot. Also kids aren’t mandatory, some of my peers are child free and loving life with their excellent uninterrupted careers, awesome holidays and disposable income. Planning early retirements and second homes in warmer climes. I will be slogging away to put kids through uni and hoping to die quickly in my old age so dc can inherit the house rather than all my hard earned cash going on card homes!

I do love my children but I wouldn’t recommend having children to anyone.

It’s not declining really. The number of children born in the world is much the same but the location of those births has shifted. There are fewer children being born in Europe/ Asia but more in Africa. I watched an interesting ted talk on this, women have less children when they are educated, have an income , access to contraceptives and most importantly the child mortality rate is low.

When people are saying we need a growing population to care for our elderly, why don’t they do it or indeed their own children Probably because it’s underpaid and challenging.You can paid more, working in a supermarket with none of these responsibilities.

Who cares what other people chose to do in this respect?

It's very hard without support. I have local family and they aren't interested in helping. Which I understand as it's their choice, it's very hard to see others with support and see how much easier their lives are. Youngest DC is very high needs and this makes it harder.

In hindsight, I wouldn't have kids without support. I knew we wouldn't get any, we thought it would be ok but it's so hard. The world has changed greatly since first DC, we have both said that we wouldn't bring children into this world due to climate change, how hard it is to make ends meet... We wouldn't have been able to afford more than one child now either.