Women not having children as not enough good men

[AdamRyan]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/11/why-a-shortage-of-mr-rights-means-single-mothers-hold-the-key-to-the-falling-birthrate

Interesting article about the falling birthright.

Yet the conclusion isn't "how to encourage men to become more suitable candidates for fatherhood"

It's "support single motherhood".

I'm really interested why the author picked that angle. I'd have thought making men less shit would be a better answer personally!

Birthrate

Sorting out men is a much longer project than supporting women. How would you go about it, and how long would it take?

I don't know. But the article says as many men as women want to be parents, so it's in their interests too.

How would you support single mothers better? As a single parent (not what I intended) it is brutal. I can't see what measures you can put in to make it easier really as most of the difficulty would only be avoidable by having another parental figure around or not having children

Men don’t want to change / be good, they are getting worse by the second and seem to be proud of it.
Men also never had to change, work on themselves, women and society just lowered their standards when it comes to men.
That’s why it all falls on women.
Everyone loves to demand women to do more, take on all the work.
Always have, always will.
Smart women end the cycle and won’t have any kids at all.

There are plenty of good men. What a strange article. The failing birthrate will have more to do with economics and a shift in culture attitudes

I doubt the main reason for the falling birthrate is lack of decent men LOL there's always been a lack of decent men that is not a new thing. I think it's more economic and that women now have the freedom to choose.

If you support single mothers then you put the services in place that could then be expanded to support lower income couples.

I think it's more economic and that women now have the freedom to choose

Yes - that's what the article says. They have the economic ability to support themselves and the contraceptive freedom to choose when to have children- but many women who want children aren't having them because they can't find a suitable father

I was interested why her answer is "enable more women to be single parents" rather than "enable men to be better prospects"

This is the elephant in the room imo

I'm really interested why the author picked that angle. I'd have thought making men less shit would be a better answer personally!

I guess if the author is talking about women who want children now, it might be a bit late to change the (already grown up) men of the same age, but you can support single mothers.

I'm really interested why the author picked that angle. I'd have thought making men less shit would be a better answer personally!

There are plenty of decent men out there, maybe the answer is for women to stop going after the bad boys/men.

This. It will take at least a generation to change the attitudes of men, and I think they want to push the birth rate up sooner than that.

I'm a full-time working single mum with no support from my ex. I have one child. I could not cope with more. Replacement rate for humans is more than 2 children per woman, but I'm not convinced many single mums could be persuaded to have a second child on their own. I would not.

I haven’t read the article yet but will the next generation of boys who’ll become men be “better” if they don’t grow up with fathers? They won’t be exposed to unhealthy imbalanced family dynamics but they won’t see men doing parenting at all so how will that help?

Ironically, its only feminists that think men deserve better.
Of course, they don't hear that. The message they get is that 'boys will be boys', we can't expect anything better from them and don't listen to what the awful man hating harridans are saying.

Genuine question. ...
Do feminists understand that women have a huge hand in shaping how men turn out? Given that we are mothers to these people.

Sorting out men is a much longer project than supporting women. How would you go about it, and how long would it take?

Yep

This. It will take at least a generation to change the attitudes of men, and I think they want to push the birth rate up sooner than that.

And* *another yep.

There* *are very few actually good men out there, and I’d guess it would take multiple generations to see an actual change in men.
And that would have to have everyone involved, just one or two parents won’t do it.
There is nothing but messages and attitudes out there that women are lesser things, and men are the important once’s, even the shit one’s.
Anyone who has son(s) and are actually trying to raise them into decent human beings know that everything is stacked againts them.

Do feminists understand that women have a huge hand in shaping how men turn out?
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make; feminists aren't responsible for all women, or how they parent. And once children enter school, parents don't have as much influence as you'd like to think. Our children have the accent used by their peers, not their parents.

You haven't actually answered my point either. Do you think men deserve better than 'boys don't cry' and 'man up' and Andrew Tate?

I think the low birth rate has something to do with women choosing, with their partners, to have less children for economic reasons. And has fuck all to do with single mothers really. Even in the Nordic wonderlands. Raising a child is expensive and the list of things people want for their children gets bigger. They want holidays and university education and to be able to get a house. All things that weren't necessarily the default for many several decades ago.

Why are we assuming it's purely women making this decision? Maybe men are actually being more responsible too in all this and choosing not to have as many children. Ironically given the subject of the comment article. But that side of things doesn't fit the narrative that men arent up to scratch.

Last time I checked, having a baby involved two people in the decision making process. This article reduces men to passive bystanders who are feckless and useless and we are having a conversation about single mothers in some kind of moralistic warped bubble of bullshit.

On top of this, the expectation of society seems to continue to be that women have no purpose but baby making yet this is also being actively rejected by many women. The whole article is framed as 'women simply haven't met the right man to have children with' rather than 'women don't want to fuck up their health and have more or make an active choice to be child free doesn't cross the radar of thought processes. Choosing not to have children just wasn't an option in the past. It's often not seen as a valid choice now. The writer fails to recognise that many women don't want children and assumes they should have them and the only reason they don't is due to lack of crap men. What kind of warped logic is this?

Nor does greater infertility related issues due to the rising age of starting a family. Western society has more complex health needs. Women who may have died earlier in life in the past or in other countries due to chronic conditions, survive to adulthood... Or simply make different decisions based on genetic conditions which are now identifiable.

Honest to god that's a dreadful article.

Sorry didn't realise you were asking me anything.
Yes I do think men deserve better.

Wasn't trying to really make a point was just curious.. I asked because I see feminists discussing how men are and its strange to me as women influence the outcome from the get go.

Honest to god that's a dreadful article.

It really is.

The general theme is 'lets take a highly complex issue with multiple contributing factors and boil it down to one single factor, which actually probably has very little bearing at all.'

@Valentinesquestion Totally agree. I suspect that many see fatherhood as how their dads parented- they came home from work sat on the sofa and played with the kids before bedtime.

The stories I read on here regularly shock me. For example men expecting the woman to save for maternity leave and pay her usual 50% of costs or men who think that going to work means that they are exempt from getting up at night.

Are there? I'm struggling to find any... If you know some send them my way will you!

Unfortunately this is most of my friends and a lot of us were single parents because we didn't want the men on offer.
Men seem to have totally lost their direction. I don't think they know what they are any more more and they expect all of us to be as tolerant as mummy, which of course we are not.

men expecting the woman to save for maternity leave and pay her usual 50% of cost
That's shockingly common, along with women paying for nursery and a cleaner, and not having anything left out of her wages.

Why don't men identify with the women they claim to love, or their own children? They seem to other us so easily.