AIBU to think a big reason to birth rate is falling is because mothers are made to feel they must do more for their children than in previous times?

[TheJoyOfWriting]

Now there's a lot more focus on mothers needing to do a lot, the whole 'concerted cultivation' thing where kids have a lot of activities that need help and travel time etc, pressure to get into top schools & unis arguably more than there was in the past, and for support & extra activities from an early age to enable this.

Wheras say, children in the 60s and 70s or before had a lot more independent play time and time outside without adult supervision
The gentle parenting thing ties in to this too, whereas before parents generally did not use such high-intensity strategies.

Working mums are made tp feel guilty often of they can't make the school run. But in previous times children often walked alone or with friends at pre-seckndary school age..my gran was walking to school at 6, tho admittedly this wad as an evacuee in the country
I think it's good we're more safety conscious now but also think that it's gone a bit too far in some ways and put too much pressure mainly on mothers.

otoh there's obvs areas where children are unsafe, and this must be addressed.
Maybe also an effect of the climate crisis will be to have less driving, so this would also make streets safer.

There's a lot of talk that mothers spend less time w kids now and this is why there is too much screen time. But I think that's wrong.
Studies show mothers, including both working and SAHM, spend more time with children than most SAHMs in the 1960s did

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/11/27/parents-now-spend-twice-as-much-time-with-their-children-as-50-years-ago&ved=2ahUKEwjuxsiS-dWPAxW3YEEAHXHsO044ChAWegQINhAB&usg=AOvVaw0RS-idWHNILw0SaKskdwRI

I don't think online stuff is bc mothers aren't spending time. I think it's bc there's a perception of less safety so kids are kept inside more than previously and are allowed screen access, so that takes place instead.

I'm saying this as a Gen Z who's really happy that my single mother (we lived w my gran tho who helped a lot) helped w my music & other hobbies. I don't think this is necessarily bad at all, I just think there needs to be more balance.

So what do people think? Is the expectation for children to be much more supervised now making women feel that children require much more effort than they actually do, and therefore affecting the birth rate?

No it’s because it’s too bloody expensive, women have to work more but men aren’t doing more to support them.

Its incredibly difficult to buy a home while you are young and harder to take time off work to raise them.

Its not worth it anymore.

Children today cost so much more than we did. Both in £ and time. Everything is so expensive in 2025.

Why in time?

I wonder if the extended family setup where young couples live with parents could work. In my case it worked bc my gran is v easy going and never imposed her way of doing things when babysitting etc. But I know in a lot of countries where this setup is common, the wife is often bullied & bossed about by the PILs.

I don't think it has to be that way though.

Another reason why multi generational worked for us was bc my gran was lucky enough to get a large suburb house in the 50s when they were much cheaper. Not only are house prices cheaper, space would obvs be a huge issue for many who would otherwise consider multigenerational living.

My parents were not expected to set foot in the school other than a few parent-teacher conferences a year. Activities outside of school were 100% something we took care of ourselves.We helped at home cooking, cleaning, laundry - it's a thing from the past.Believe me - it is not the case today.

Fewer women who don’t want children give in to societal expectations to have them now. I have 3 women friends who are child free by choice that I know of.

I think its more to do with opportunity. My parents were silent gen, I'm gen X, my DC with children are millennial, and I think with each subsequent generation the world has been wider and the choices greater, so rather than being the default it was for my parents, having a family is now one option amongst many.
I agree that the JD for a 'good parent' gets longer and more complex with each generation though, and I feel sorry for young parents that there is so much pressure on them to be an ever changing idea of perfect on pain of grievous harm caused to the next generation.

The Grandparents of today don’t want to help even if they are working less. They see that they have done their job raising their own children.

Totally agree. By the time you’ve done two school runs, made a dinner, chores and work there’s little time for any work on yourself like fitness or reading or learning a new skill and it’s not much of a life is it?

Women have their own money now. They don’t have to put up with men anymore if they don’t want to. They don’t have to be housewives or mothers if they don’t want to. It’s why so many men are buying into this Andrew Tate crap. They aren’t enjoying the loss of dominance as more and more women are seeing through this patriarchy crap.

I agree to an extent, OP. I don’t know that it’s the main driver behind the falling birth rate, but I do think we’ve made parenting much more intense and harder than it needs to be. Like many kids in the 80s, we were basically left to our own devices a lot of the time. We were expected to sort out arguments with friends, to get ourselves to school, to cope when things went wrong. If someone had announced that they couldn’t play on Saturday because their parents were taking them out for the day, we’d have felt sorry for them. We still seemed to have good relationships with our parents; we just had our own lives as well.

In contrast, kids now seem to be constantly listened to and entertained, and I don’t think it’s really benefitting them in any way. DH and I argue over this because he’ll spend all day playing with the kids, and honestly sometimes I think it’s more like a sibling relationship than a parent-child one (e.g. DD and DH are currently squabbling over a game because she thinks he took her turn or something's

No it's because everything is a lot more expensive and the government doesn't want to support people to have children.

They could easily increase child benefit. Improve children's services sure start etc.

Improve child poverty.

Improve prospects for the future- who wants to have 4 kids when the parents know the kids won't be able to go to university or afford a home to live in? But they could probably give 1 or 2 kids help for a stable financial future.

Decrease the cost of nursery and improve maternity leave.

But it's too expensive for a lot of families to have a stay at home parent. And childcare costs are too high when both parents are working. And so people only have limited kids.

@TheJoyOfWriting yes parenting is far more intensive & longer these days.

Because it’s too expensive and the world is a shitty place now

But it's also financially crippling

I honestly think it's mainly down to finances. I've never heard anyone say 'nah we've decided not to have any more because of societal expectations' but have heard plenty of people say it's because they can't afford the maternity leave and childcare costs. That's certainly why I've stopped at one. I'd love another. I'm very upset about it.

We also aren't a country that has invested in the young so young people growing up are aware of this.

This + life is so much more interesting and exciting now for a lot of people (travel, hobbies, exercise & fitness, etc), making it harder to sacrifice for the drudgery of child rearing. Luckily there is a biological urge in some to procreate, which means that the human race isn’t in danger of dying out.

What once was could be again. It would require large cultural change though..

Yes, absolutely.
Plus - more pressure to breastfeed - social pressure if not from NCT groups, midwifes etc.
Social stigma against sleep training - leaving some mothers or couple tortured for lack of sleep.

How?

You talk about children of the 60s and 70s.

Amd forget that those children were born before the pill became available.

What the pill has done is given women choice and choice is always difficult. For starters women now get to choose when to have kids and that gap is much smaller when you're expected to do uni and then work a bit before starting a family at about 28. That's 10 years less than before and 10 years older in terms of energy.and 10 years further into starting to build.a nice lifestyle that's about to be disrupted, and 10 years later in terms of great fertility.

I'm not saying that the old days were better just that lack of choice brings its own momentum.

Also when you choose, you probably choose to have fewer, and feel you owe them more by virtue of that choice.

Plus, as PP have said, it's all damn expensive now. Workforce doubled when women all started working (full time professional careers) and I'm guessing that increased supply of people has depressed wages and hiked house prices somewhat in comparison.

That's sad.. My gran had her own life but she loved spending time with me. I'd definitely like to be a supportive grandmother myself.

I was thinking if schools improve then also children could often go to schools closer by rather than having to do a longer school run bc the schools nearby aren't adequate.