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?

I think its money- I have 4 friends who have chosen not to have kids and their lifestyle is amazing- we on the other hand grit our teeth for uni fees and a child doing an apprenticeship on less than minimum wage. Also GP’s have to work my PiL both worked till their early 70’s so they could afford nice things. 30 or 40 years ago GPs helped out (if they lived close).

They don't need to change men's behaviour. Just rule them out. Make it attractive for women to have children without blokes. All you need is the sperm. The government could tax blokes more and give it to women who choose to parent alone. WIN WIN.

And so they have. There seems to be a lot more expectations that grandparents should look after their grandchildren much more than in previous generations.

Definitely this one. The whole "It takes ages village to raise a child" doesn't exist anymore.

People having kids later in life than before, grandparents a bit older. Boomer generation now, didn't doing much actual child raising themselves.
The grandparents helped out a lot more back then in the 70's and 80's. It was expected / assumed that they would do this. So those Boomer parents were spoiled and are more inclined to be resentful of the idea of babysitting their now, grandchildren. This doesn't go for all of them but you see it a lot more nowadays.

Then people moving away from their hometown so no childcare network available and nursery fees expensive.
I only have the one child and I'm too long in the tooth now at 46 but I always knew we wouldn't be able to have another child due to all of the above (except moving away).

If you look up social history, you will see that men earned far more than women, and women rarely had full time jobs when they married.

When the family came along, in the 1950s-to 1970s more children were born and mothers were not expected to work full time. The men didn't always earn enough to keep a family and the mother did have to work part time to supplement the family income.

When women campaigned for equal pay, more women wanted to go out to work full time, and that increased the payload for employers. Once more women were working and getting equal pay, costs went up everywhere, including housing and by the end of the 1970s prices were rising. When the tax relief was withdrawn on mortgages, both parents needed to go to work to pay the housing costs.

Now mothers, in their wisdom, said ''blow this for a game of soldiers, I am not wearing myself out having children then working full time'' and stopped being a slave. That has reduced the birth rate, and until someone comes up with a suitable answer, if they are wise, mums will not overburden themselves.

I can see what you mean, for example that 50 years ago it seemed less common to help your child with big expenses much past the age of 18 - things that often seem expected now like helping to buy their first car (as well as the huge costs of lessons and insurance), partially funding university, helping with the deposit to buy first home etc. These could be tricky for many people to do at all, but especially if they had more than 1 child, with the general cost of living rises.

But to be honest I think it is a double whammy - I think another major reason for many people either being childless or only having one child is the seeming rise in fertility problems. Maybe I see it more often as a SMBC who had her only child at 41 (via fertility clinic because I didn’t find the right partner and was then too old/too poor to have any more) - but nearly everyone I know/meet seems to have had their children in their thirties or sometimes even early 40’s like me and many do seem to have struggled with either primary or secondary infertility.

Compare that to my parents generation - most of whom seem to have started their families in their early twenties and who tend to have 2, 3 (or more) children. Or my Grandparents generation who often started in their late teens and had 4, 5, 6 children etc (admittedly lack of available contraceptives would have made a difference there).

There are likely several reasons for delaying having a family - I think mothers (or even parents in general) being expected to do more for their kids is probably only one of them.

I can see what you mean, for example that 50 years ago it seemed less common to help your child with big expenses much past the age of 18 - things that often seem expected now like helping to buy their first car (as well as the huge costs of lessons and insurance), partially funding university, helping with the deposit to buy first home etc.

My father said to me that when I got to 21 there would be no more money from them at all for any reason. I was fine with that.

I have helped none of my AC children financially with car, house deposit etc. - I don't have the money!

Going back to an earlier post about grandparents no longer being inclined to help with GC, I am grandma to 7 and have helped a great deal - and saved my AC a load of dosh by providing what child care I can - and I have enjoyed it. I have a wide circle of friends of my age and none of them do no GC care - they ALL do a LOT - every one of them. I really cannot think of one who does not, some travelling long distances to do so. Round here it is the norm that grandparents help with their GC.

No one makes anyone do anything. We all parent how we want to. It doesn’t hurt children to be bored or amuse themselves sometimes.

Grandparents are less likely to want to help with childcare when their children expect that they will comply with a rigid set of rules. The "village" is no longer allowed to help with childrearing because you are not permitted to tell a spoilt brat off. Modern permissive parenting raises spoilt children, why would anyone want to look after them. You increasingly see teachers, who are paid to put up with them, complaining.

Parents are now expected to support their child for life - not until they started work at 14 or 16 or 18 ( 21 for just 5%). They are also not allowed to expect anything back, not even a little gratitude from their offspring.

No I think because it’s too expensive to live and house a family and pay for childcare. Plus I think it’s more acceptable to say you don’t want children and there’s more to life without such a stigma

IMO the soaring cost of housing has a lot to do with it.

I'm not convinced by the argument that you can choose to parent how you want because things like parenting never happen in a vacuum in any sort of society.

On a practical level there are examples like how I am not allowed to decide when I feel my children are ready to walk themselves home from school.

Yes the added burden of needing to work, or wanting to, as still too many men won't step up parentally or domestically, hence women having to do more I would say does contribute to the declining birth rate.

Perhaps we are over the hump now that there has been plenty of examples of the GenX/Millennials where women thought that men would be more equal in all things, and as this hasn't really played out as imagined that women coming up behind them are learning from their mistakes and choosing to have financial and relationship independence and not have the added burden of having to work just to fund a household, but also still do more than their fair share of domestic chores and child rearing.

Lots of women (and men) realise that their only function is not to just reproduce and if they don’t want children then they don’t have to.
women are waiting longer to have them, so limits how many they can have. I had my daughter at 37. (40 this year) I’m definitely too old for a 2nd. I would like one but I think energy wise it would be hard. We also can’t really afford a 2nd one. I enjoy giving all my time to just my daughter.

Hardly a WIN WIN - Sperm Donor children have their own issues.

There's plenty of decent fathers out here who do their fair share. Maybe it's a you problem?

Cost may play a role, but many women are simply choosing not to have children—it’s not just about it being “more acceptable.”

A child-free life means pursuing a great career and truly enjoying life. And when it comes to intimacy, women can find it whenever they want it.

Parents dont have to parent by by popular opiniom social media, competing with 'school mums' (to use a popular mn expression) or relatives

So much of what women do or not is blamed on anyone or anything else, maybe women need to be responsible for their own decisions like men are?

Women have as many brains so maybe use them more and think for yourself?

I don’t think it’s just expectations to do lots of things that weren’t done in the past like elf on the shelf etc. I think there’s an overall change in how parents are expected to be. It’s an extreme example but when I was growing up there were cases of children being murdered who had been playing in fields with other children or who wandered from their mum out shopping. Basically being away from their parent at a young age. Those parents never faced criticism. Whereas now if a child was taken or killed there’d definitely be accusations of bad parenting.

Posters are comparing the present to the 1960s and they have some good points. Families were actually encouraged to have more children by having baby clinics around the country, especially in towns and new towns created after the war. There were hardly any hospitals in the 1960s so home births were usual in some areas. Mothers were given grants towards the expenses of giving birth at home!

People should take more interest in social history. There are so many clues and points that would serve us well now and which we can learn from. Now in the age of Ai we have the information at our fingertips - no pun intended.

I think another reason why women are reluctant to have more children is the burden of educating them and the fact that after they have taken out huge loans to finance university, they leave without a job and the loans to pay.

In the past there were large families who had none of those worries, because if an 18 year old was able to get into University they were given grants which they did not have to repay. There were two types of grant, mandatory and concessionary, where the local education authority made partial grants where students could not qualify for a mandatory grant.

That made an enormous difference to families, especially in the 1960s and 70s when there were more places and more jobs.

@GiraffesAtThePark agree

I have helped none of my AC children financially with car, house deposit etc. - I don't have the money!

But the government now expects parents to
help with uni costs

Money - childcare is exceptionally costly and more than one child most women give up work. Without a second income people can’t pay their mortgage, ergo one child is financially viable and safer.

Time - women have to work to survive. What jobs let you finish at 3pm? Jobs perhaps, a ‘career’ - not many do. Women are highly educated now, so they’re choosing careers.

Societal pressures - many women had children because it was expected of them. Life is no longer like this. Women realise they can choose what they want, not what is expected.

Family dynamics - grandparents aren’t as able to help as they too are working much layer and living to be much older. Often women are stuck between managing being a parent, managing a household and often elderly care - having more children isn’t manageable in this setup.

the world - the future is arguably not all roses - cost, pollution, war, economy closely collapsing in various places - people are more educated as saying “do I want to bring someone into this?”

Technology has made a difference. The need to have internet access and so much more for recreation is becoming more expensive instead of cheaper.

How can families go without the computer access and TV, other technological access? It separates the wealthy, who have access to knowledge, and the poorer families who do not. I can understand why mothers would be reluctant to have children if they cannot provide these things.

All those technology giants are so wealthy if makes your eyes smart thinking about it. The costs of phones and computers, games, etc, should have come down by now, but they have not. Why not?

Too bloody expensive! I still live in a house share! Theres no way i'm going to be in my own place terribly soon, let alone financially viable enough to have a child!
Also, and this may sound selfish but - I love my job, I've worked really bloody hard to get where I am, and I dont want to give that up for lost sleep, nappies and a serious lack of intelligent conversation for multiple years. I'm also not a great one for being clung to, and would actually have a breakdown if i had something attached to me or my boob all day. I also include the actual making of the child in that - sex is gross (just me - highly uninterested in sex, and hate the noise, and texture of anything related to mens appendeges -)

In my experience women do 90% of the mental load with raising children.
They wouldn't choose it again, despite loving their children.
They would make a different choice.
One and done is the very popular and being driven by women.
No discussion, just one and no more.
They want their professional careers and one child is just about doable.
My childless friends never regretted their choice.