To disagree with Phillipson's Have More Children advice

[JustASmallBear]

In various newspapers.

Bridget Phillipson is urging young people to have more children in order to try and reverse the inevitable population shrinkage from a falling birth rate.

AIBU to think at best this is short termism at its finest?

Apart from anything else, young people struggle to buy a home, let alone can afford the expense of having more kids.

I think Phillipson is deluded in believing anyone wants more children when it'll make their lives more financially difficult.

What are the incentives that will make this irresistible?

www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/30/falling-birthrate-bridget-phillipson-education-secretary-labour?CMP=share_btn_url

I strongly disagree with this, we need to look at population on a world scale and we need to reduce the world population. It's growing all the time but there are only a limited number of resources to go round, as well as the inevitable environmental issues caused by overpopulation.

That’s sounds like a bad idea. They sound out of touch generally.

Politicians are really bad at looking ahead 20 odd years and considering how many young people wouldn’t have jobs due to AI,

Plus agree with pp on incentivising those you don’t want to.

The last thing we need is for people to be having more children, the unemployment rate for young people is going up - now at 625,000 - why would we want to add to that?

Jobs are ridiculously competitive, resources are limited, amount of waste created is huge, housing is ridiculously expensive, land is being destroyed everywhere to build and build and build - but house prices don't come down at all.

The answer to any problems we have is never going to be 'have more children'. What we need to do is concentrate on the kids already here and helping them.

I get this. The yoof are criticised for spending too much time on screens but when you actually see them going outside it's treated like antisocial behaviour.

It does make you wonder doesn't it, it all seems like a bit of a scam!

Such an interesting thread. I’m childfree but I see so many of the issues discussed here in family, friends, colleagues and where I live. At my workplace the majority of my colleagues don’t have any children. of those that do, four only have one. One has two and one is about to have a second. This mostly isn’t a high-powered workplace either, but most of us have Masters degrees.

I don’t see how the current societal
setup can possibly allow women to have the kids they want and parent them in the way they want. Let alone do it without state support.

i too am shocked by what women go through giving birth in the NHS at the moment. It should be talked about more so that those of us who haven’t experienced understand how bad it is.

Essentially though until men step up across the board - not just childcare and domestic work but supporting elderly relatives etc and paying child support when they are supposed to and bloody well should - and actually understand and acknowledge women’s work in the widest sense - nothing will fundamentally change. And I don’t see that happening any time soon!

This is a big factor in my choice not to have children. I really can’t be arsed gentle parenting someone until they are 27.

Oh the coat of single parenthood! This is a good point to raise!!

I know plenty of men who bail when the going gets tough. fail to pay child support - or their fair share £5 a week anyone?

Puts mothers in a damning situation. More kids - less chance she has of supporting herself and her children.

I glad PP raised this!

I think that ship sailed with the availability of the pill and them other woman controlled reliable methods of contraception.

Bluntly , I think this is the unspoken part of the ‘have more children’ rhetoric - are the ‘right’ kind of people having children.

I have one DD. I would have liked a second child, but didn’t have her until I was 38 and my age meant the second didn’t happen.

The reason I was 38 when I had her is that DH and I wanted to own a house before having children, and since we didn’t have parents who could give us money for a house deposit, we had to save up. Meaning we were older when we bought the house, therefore older when TTC, and it took a while. Bought the house twelve years ago. If we were trying to do the same now, house prices mean we would have struggled to buy with no help. But renting is so insecure (and rents round here are higher than our mortgage payments), so we’d be stuck. House prices and the insecurity of renting are part of the problem, but what will the government do about them?

In fact I wonder with what I'll call the gentle parenting purity spiral combined with the narrative of family estrangement and no contact that's talked about a lot today, does this all give the impression that childrearing is a high risk and easy to fuck up activity?

ALL OF THIS 👍🏻

Domestically and internationally, the world is a worrying place at the moment. The erosion of reproductive and women's rights globally makes me more inclined to batten down my contraceptive hatches, not have more children.

I am childless not by choice and was in my childbearing years when assistance to conceive was a lot harder to get, more unpleasant and way less successful than it is now. DH and I decided that that path was not for us and we had a happy childless life that improved the quality of life and safety of other people by the work we did.

Global population isn't rising because of birthrate though. Global birthrate peaked in the 1970's. Global population is growing because people are living longer. The Global population is predicted to peak at about 11bn before dropping to between 9 and 10bn and then dropping rapidly as each larger generation ages out. The problem is the inverted pyramid of more older people needing the support ( human and monetarily) of a smaller younger population but we need to look at how that can be achieved, either through technology, working longer etc. I imagine we will need a complete recalibration of the economy. We have been wedded to continuous growth but we can't have that. I doubt the welfare state will survive such high levels of dependency as it has now, never mind in the future.

I think her comments have been misinterpreted. She says she wants people to have more children ‘if they so choose’, ie she wants to make it easier for people, not force them. Which seems fairly uncontroversial.

The world population is at a record high - obviously - more people alive now than ever in any point of human history.
I remember when the world population hit 7 billion and a lot of news coverage was given to this....now there are just over 8 billion people in the world and I didn't see any coverage at all.

The world cannot sustain the number of people it has. There are not enough resources, not enough energy/food/water solutions for the future.
There is massive poverty in many countries and the population strain on the earth's wildlife, climate, atmosphere is huge. Human beings are totally out of balance with all the rest of ecology.

Quite we should be looking at reducing populations and dealing with current inequalities, not having even more children.

Bridget Phillipson Is a privileged freeloader who sees nothing morally wrong with accepting free Taylor Swift concert tickets for herself and her daugter.

I’m rationing my baked beans to scrape some money for my daughter’s travel card to her grammar school

I agree with this. I have several incredible friends who are now 39, were in long term relationships when their partners left them after 10 years or so to "go and find themselves and be happier". The dating pool in mid/late 30s is brutal, several of them wasted another year or so with men who seemed decent and then also cheated or fucked off, so through no fault of they're own, women who wanted to be mothers are looking unable to be able to find the right relationship to do so. They will find happiness in other ways im sure, but I find it upsetting on their behalf.

@LegoNinjagoWhats that got to do with families and dc?

@Allisgoodtoday That’s not our responsibility and something over which we have no control. Hopefully you don’t have dc given your views. Hopefully you have enough money without needing money from the state for anything. If we continue like this you will need shed loads.

To be fair to them, they weren't saying it was a good idea. Just that it's something that's been suggested elsewhere - maybe Hungary? I was only half listening, half lost in my own thoughts!

In fact, I've just googled and Hungary have pushed ahead with it for mothers of 3+ children, and 2+ soon.

Whoops link:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungarys-orban-launches-tax-exemption-mothers-cap-housing-loan-rates-2025-02-22/

It’s short term to shore up an economic model that is failing us all badly now and will crash with climate change effects really hit

And it was the boomer generation who raised the men right now some of whom are entitled arseholes, who think domestic work is woman’s work, who think they should keep all their money, do fuck all in the house, not marry but expect wife privileges, have kids and let the “misses” look after them.

So you could say that parenting technique wasn’t great.

Admittingly Gen X have also raised some of the incel lot. We are Gen X. And have boys. And think oh my god how do we do this!

So time will tell how the millennials get it wrong, and they will, in some ways.

Who you have children with is more important than how many.

There are so many wonderful experiences having children, ours are worth the money, we are happier, calmer adults, they bring us laughter each day, they are mid teens now and work at school, cause no trouble, are funny, run errands, do chores, have interesting virewpoints, give us a connection to the future, it is a pleasure and privilege to watch them grow. They have given us a many great memories as a family, the are the main reason for our drive and success. I think, whilst we wouldn’t demand n caring duties, they would advocate fr us if we need it as we get older. Our lives are much better with them. But I had children with a loyal, kind, devoted, strong, loving, funny, caring partner. I didn’t have a burning desire to have or not have a child or two, but together with H it continues to be the best thing we have ever done. I wouldn’t have had kids with just “anyone”.

The theatre shows, days out, amount of swimming, holidays, building sandcastles, fairground rides, swings, basketball hoops, paintings, baking, fancy dress making, bike riding, puddle jumping - the list is endless, we wouldn’t have done without them. It’s not all bad.