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?

That needs to change...

My dream is to be an MP, I'm thinking of how we can facilitate this. I wish we had SureStart centres back, for one, the government has talked about this, and I think it would help a lot.

That needs to change...

My dream is to be an MP, I'm thinking of how we can facilitate this. I wish we had SureStart centres back, for one, the government has talked about this, and I think it would help a lot.

The birth rate has fallen before, it will go up again. It swings back and forth. Don't worry about it.

Why can't men help? If both parents are working full time then it's not like the woman has more time to do housework & childcare

We need better state schools but how would parents save money?

Raising children on a single income today is a hard job for most parents. And tbh I don't think it's going to change the next many years.

What did you feel school expected? Homework help? Extra research? PTA?

Yes, I think this comment is unfair to the many younger grandparents I know who do help!

I mean heaven forbid women should want to have nice lives!
Also you can drink when breastfeeding (I know it isn't the point of the thread but need to correct it wherever I see it!).

I think things like nativity plays are nice & it is nice for parents to volunteer if they have time but this seems an awful lot...

Before people decide to have kids they aren’t thinking of the time constraints, they’re thinking of the cost. Women have to work, they put off kids until they are financially stable, many have careers and having kids is happening later and not at all for some women then due to fertility issues related with age.

The multigenerational model has fallen down in this country. Pursuing jobs and careers the families are no longer collocated and the grandparents themselves are also working later. By the time the 30 somethings are having kids the grandparents are older and unable/unwilling to be able to be very hands on with grandchildren and may be some distance away.

I’d wager root cause is affordability

We need better state schools but how would parents save money?

School funding is based on head count & it's already too low but falling rolls means even less money.

I think all the statistics show that the more equality and choice women have the less children they choose to have.

I think it's sad when women want kids but can't have them for whatever reason but I think that pronatalism has a slightly sinister "women back in the kitchen" vibe to it.

A lot of polls show women wanting more but nit being able to afford.

Hmm we had two children.

main reason we didn’t have anymore where

1- we had no space . We bought a two bed terrace before our first child arrived, and couldn’t afford to move. (Because of income and price of next house size )

2- little to no help . My mum occasionally watched a child (wouldn’t have both at same time) . In her defence she was working full time .

3- I can’t tell you how poor we were for so many years. We had nothing. ( on a side note, if we had been renting, we would have got our full rent paid on our income , which didn’t happen for our same priced mortgage payment. I know many people will disagree with me , but I always felt we should have been able to claim an equivalent housing payment )

I would have liked another one, but I don’t know what the government could have done to help us…. Made council housing available so we had more room ? Putting cb up £5 a week wouldn’t have encouraged me. The £18 we got for the first one paid £8for a box off milk a week, £5for a pack of nappies and wipes £2 for two boxes of baby porridge £2 for two toddler groups a week and two jars of baby food for when we had something we couldn’t mash for tea .

eventually the low birth rate will affect me as a ta (it already is actually) we have three classes in our primary that arnt full - this is a massive funding gap for the school to fill , and support staff are the first to thin out.

I hope you're right...I feel guilty myself as I only want one child & keep hearing about how this kind of decision is making the birth rate fall. But if a lot of women do want more & have less bc it's less affordable, we need to help with money, not press women to have more children than they want.

I kind of disagree with this though. Most of my friends who have them have two and would kind of vaguely like 3 but only if they had a load more money but also kind of want their bodies and lives back anyway. So I think asking how many children people want is a bit random as it can change week to week. If I had all the money in the world I'd have 4 but v happy with 2.

Lots of third kids I know where whoops babies and now contraception is a bit better and people a bit older having kids this is maybe less likely now? So my parents planned for 2 and had 3 for example. Less likely to happen to us.

Out of interest why do you think it is better that people have more children?

Apart from paying our pensions and there must be a way around that surely?

You can't make people want to breed.
I never wanted kids - I refused to have the rubella vaccination at middle school, as it was of little benefit to me.
If people want kids, they need to provide for them.
They need a home, food, clothes and toys...and LOVE.
Don't force people to have kids they don't really want.

The birth rate has fallen before, it will go up again. It swings back and forth.

@LBFseBrom No country has ever reversed birth rates once they have fallen before replacement rate so why would you think that?

Apart from paying our pensions and there must be a way around that surely?

Immigration & higher taxes, not that popular though.

How does it disadvantage children if you don't go to events? Do other children leave them out? Are the teachers nasty? That's very wrong.

@TheJoyOfWriting I think that poster means if a parent is more engaged in their dcs education & extracurriculars it's beneficial for the dc & puts them at an advantage.

Primary schools that often are very good result wise often have very involved & invested parents.

I wasn’t expected to be in school often (my children are adults now) And even if I had been expected to, I wouldn’t have been there because I was at work. Things haven’t changed that much. But expectations have. We didn’t have much money, nearly everywhere I took mine was free. I didn’t feel compelled to make sure they had lots of out of school activities but some of their friends did. I think parents now are often far too worried about what other parents think of them.

Get rid of the triple lock. Let my generation have some of the huge wealth the boomers have through property and amazing pensions. Then maybe we might have more kids. Instead of telling us to go back to the 70s!

What way? There seems to be a lot of potential issues: smaller workforce, smaller pensions etc

I think it's the expectations on women to be flying high in careers and independently financially stable before having a child. Couple that with the cost of living and there are many women who are at an age where it's difficult to conceive by the time they achieve that. If they do have a baby they're expected to return to full time work before the baby is one, for most people that is exhausting, so they don't feel able to have another. MN seems to have lots of women who manage to be financially independent and secure, conceive in their late 30s/40s and find working full time and parenting a breeze. Great for them, but I don't think that reflects the majority.