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!

If, as a society, we supported single mothers with money and access to the mental health support they need and didn’t spend our time telling them how bad at parenting they are, we’d probably find that they were as good as current two parent families.

I'm not against supporting single parents, but I think a significant advantage of a two parent family is that each parent has someone to talk to about the children who is also invested in their development and knows them very well. I'm not sure you could replace that with money, mental health support etc.

In a two parent setup which works well, you have near instant access to suggestions and support with how to handle any aspect of parenting you're finding hard. You simply cannot replace that with money, or even mental health support.

Supporting single motherhood possibly let's men get a free pass on effectively abandoning their children though?

In am going to be flamed for this but single parenthood may not be an absolute ideal and there are many economic challenges that go with it (as well as social). Obviously people break up and you have abusive partners etc. but we would have to think hard about how we normalize single parenthood as in a lot of cases there will be state support which is a political decision. We have seen a reluctance to remove the child benefit cap so this shows some political resistance to doing everything to support the single mother.

In reality a lot of the non ideal men do come from poorer backgrounds and have low incomes themselves and often the women are again from poorer socio economic groups (maybe with low self esteem etc.). You therefore have a conflation of supporting single mothers with increased benefits and even under Labour government welfare bills are a concern.

Of course this thread is a westernized view of relationships and has made me think again about the practices of cultures worldwide including arranged (not forced) marriages to get and ensure the man a woman marries has at least some family approval. I think I was aghast at these practises as a young person but now I can see how historically cultures have adopted approved marriages as an economic defence really.

Have we in the West traded in the security of marriage to some extent for liberty. The freedom to choose and leave a partner is extremely important in a large segment of society but have we left women incredibly socially and economically exposed compared to previous generations? I support nuclear families as an ideal which sometimes can't be realised and I don't think you can romanticise single parenthood and we need to look at the fundamental reasons for the single parent.

Yes, I keep reading that the trad wife movement is on the rise, which seems to be a topic of some contention - the conflict between women being free to live their lives as they see fit but also making decisions that may not benefit other women by normalising situations where men feel housework etc is 'not their domain'.

I do, however, feel that society is increasingly rejecting the idea that housework is a woman's responsibility whilst still being more likely to believe a man should be the provider. There are lots of condemnatory memes from
young women on instagram about men that 'don't want to pay'.

I saw one yesterday where a popular influencer was skipping in the other direction from a bewildered looking man with the caption 'when he suggests 50/50'. Plenty of women applauding it in the comments. Had it been a man saying 'when she refuses to cook dinner/do the housework' I think he'd be seen as a bit of a dinosaur/misogynist tbh.

But that said there are still a lot of piss taking lazy men.

Name me one place in the world where birth rates (in the sense of fertility rates) are increasing? I'm happy to wait, but we may be here some time. Let alone "plenty of places"

Some places have increasing populations, but in most cases that's because ripples of high birth rates of the 20th century means that there are far more 20 somethings having children than there are eighty somethings dying.

Several sub-Saharan countries still have high birth rates, with Niger top at nearly 7 children per woman, but they're all on a downward trend. What they have in common are little choice for women and high child mortality rates.

Perhaps the author regards a significant number of men as a lost cause.

I would agree with their findings. I dated from 17 to 43 and had four long term relationships. I never hid my desire for a child. but none of the men wanted children. They wanted lifestyle things, BMW's and skiing holidays. No ties or inconveniences. Even my eventual fiance changed his mind shortly before the wedding and announced he had never really wanted children.

When at 44 I fell pregnant (which was quite a shock), I chose not to terminate. Twenty seven years of being messed around and lied to was enough.

I have a kind considerate, affectionate son. But he doesn't want children. He doesn't see the attraction.(Obviously he may change his mind, he's still young).

Men are how they are, they won't change so if women are to have babies at all, they need to do it on their own.

"Name me one place in the world where birth rates (in the sense of fertility rates) are increasing?"

Czechia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Bulgaria

Something that has stayed with me from a documentary about child abuse is a quote from a child abuser in jail. He said he would observe the families and single out the kids whose fathers did not seem threatening / scary, or who simply were not present....
🙁
Personally I have been involved with the best and worse of men but it is thanks to good men that I was able to get out of some bad situations with minimal damage.

Good point, these countries do seem to be bucking the global trend. Seems to be a combination of strengthening economics and a spike in immigration from countries with a higher fertility rate, generally people bring their higher birth rates with them from their culture of origin for the first generation only.

What a pile of bollocks. The falling birth rate is a complicated one, mostly because the world is burning, the future looks economically bleak, cost of living and kids are a fucking expensive career killer.

but
let’s blame women for being picky

Men are how they are, they won't change so if women are to have babies at all, they need to do it on their own

i had a contraception failure early into my relationship with dh. When I saw the line, I knew I had to decide if I wanted the baby, before I told him. On the chance he fucked off (which, I appreciate most would).
let’s face it, it can be financial and career suicide even with a partner let alone on your own. That’s before you consider any disabilities.

"let’s blame women for being picky"

The whole point of the thread is blaming men for being shit (rather than a myriad of factors involved, as you rightly point out.)

In past generations reliable contraception was not so available, not was abortion. So women naturally had more children whether they wanted them or not.

In addition, if a young woman in a relationship became pregnant, her boyfriend was expected to marry her. So lots of young men were more or less forced by social expectations to settle down while still young. A lot of these marriages were not happy ones.

Well I know of families of females that take no interest in who their daughter marries. Their parents just turn up at the ceremony just like any other average guest. Not interested in meeting the family of the man or getting to know them atoll beforehand. Surely this is a western concept? because I can't imagine other cultures doing this. That is beyond freedom it is bordering on neglect to not even show a passive interest as to who your daughter or son for that matter, is going to be spending the rest of their life with. There has to be a happy medium somewhere?

You're talking about the third world, right? For the most part, women in the third world don't have reproductive freedom or equal rights. If they did, the birthrate would decline just as it has in wealthier countries. They are having babies whether they want to or not, so it's not comparable.

That is the brutal truth.

Asking as a single parent (child’s father completely absent) how did this man single out the children he could get away with abusing? Did he know/meet the children through services eg schools/scouts or did he befriend/date the mothers/families?

I do worry for my child being singled out as ‘vulnerable’ and although I don’t date partly for this reason obviously men who want to abuse children find them.

That's not not how men are bought up though. They are bought up to"have character" be good at sport or driving or niche academic subjects.
Girls are bought up to be characteristics like friendly or nice or bubbly.

You can get great men bought up in the stereotypes of what makes a man but equally you can have lovely blokes just bought up not to be twats. Sadly bringing up normal decent people that are male isn't enough apparently. They have to be "men".

"I'm not sure what point you are trying to make; feminists aren't responsible for all women, or how they parent"

Yet many posters on here hold men responsible for other men....

He befriended the mums, as a typical american drifter he moved around the country a lot, always in search of victims.
Im trying to remember the name of the documentary, will let you know if I do..
Good on you for being cautious, your child is lucky to have you. I wish the system did more to support responsible parents such as yourself.

I think the “decent but boring men” also lose out from this. Women don’t have to “settle” (which is a good thing!) so don’t have any incentive to find a nice kind man who she can tolerate (or even enjoy) living with for the next 40+ years. This means men who are fundamentally kind and decent, but a bit annoying or with a few quirks or an unfortunate face etc etc get overlooked in favour of “exciting” men.

(I think the same thing has happened for much longer for women as men don’t look for ones who’d “make good mothers” so nice boring/unattractive women are overlooked for hot bitches who’ll put out 😉)

And, notably, you're the only one who gets it. We're a tiny minority. The others will continue to debate the lack of 'good men' until the deluge and horror comes.

Well, debating doesn't affect it either way so I see no harm in doing so.
But yes, most people are in deep denial. For example, we have two devastating hurricanes in the southern US mere weeks apart and they still haven't clued in that there is a reason why weather events are increasing exponentially in frequency and ferocity.

How many 'baby daddy's' are around? There is endless babies being born to unsuitable fathers, on here alone there is daily examples

Then they keep on having them

I really would rather my daughters not get married and not have children.

I've not seen very many (if any at all) marriages where parenting is fair and equal:

Id rather my daughters have a life of enjoying their careers and spending money on themselves.

Also, it seems cruel to create a generation just to support the over population of elderly people Big Pharm has created. We're just enslaving generations for pharmacy profit.