Men: you’re the cause of our baby crisis

[reegee]

Interesting article in the Times today. It's surely a valid point that Young women should consider the contribution to parenting that a partner might offer when considering having a baby?

Men: you’re the cause of our baby crisis

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/men-youre-the-cause-of-our-baby-crisis-qgqq288db?shareToken=5ca2dd91b4d7a7d64672da6f3bacdf7f

This is a genuine question - not an arsey one! But what do you mean when you say kill it at work but not at the expense of you children, as in work part time or flexibly around them? I struggle so much with this! Again meant genuinely!

I know this isn't directed at me but my career has soared since having DS and I put it down to the following:

• Only having one child
• Having a partner who genuinely does his fair share and has never viewed his career as more important just because earns more
• A flexible job
• being willing to use paid childcare and wrap around care and seeing it as a positive addition to the 'village' it takes to raise a child

People who go on about falling birth rates forget several things:

• First of all, they are falling from a record height. The period from 1900-2050 will be remembered for the population explosion. In 1900, there were a billion human beings. By 1960 that had trebled to three billion. It's now eight billion! There has never been anything like it in human history.
• Second, though birth rates are falling in Europe and Japan, they aren't falling everywhere. African women still have five babies, on average (in some parts of Africa the average is seven). And Africa's population is going to double by 2050.
• Third, the lifespan is increasing. And you ain't seen nothing yet. Soon, there will be drugs to slow and even reverse ageing. Serious people are working on this. By 2030, we'll have senolytic drugs to clear away senolytic cells. But that will just be the start. (Read Andrew Steele's book Ageless.) What's going to happen when you have 90-year-olds who look like 40-somethings? Or when the average lifespan is 130 or even 150? In other words, people won't be dying to make room.

I believe that men are less susceptible to worrying about societal pressures, and this gets them further in society. I do think they are quite different. For instance, women are less likely to apply for higher paid jobs as they wonder if they're good enough for it. Men apply regardless and blag their way through it more.

but there’s also reams of evidence that interviewers do not give jobs to women where they believe there is a skill gap - ie men are assessed on potential, women are assessed on their current competencies. The data are very clear on this point. So women could be said to be behaving entirely rationally here - nothing to do with men being “more confident”.

For me it means I do a great job in my full time job and then come home and do a great job of parenting my children. They have a mother who is present and engaged with them and their needs. Same as you do, no?

Russia doesn’t have the lowest birth rate?? It’s low but not especially, many countries have lower

Y’all forget the women not having children at all. I think there is a difference between the ones willing to have at least one and the ones so dissatisfied with the current system they won’t have any.

I'm also not pp but for me, I think it's simply my outlook such as I don't see full time nursery as a negative thing. I see it as a positive thing for our family, including DS.

But then I'm sure many would disagree that it isn't at the expense of DS since I went back when he was 3 months by choice.

Yes but the African population will not be able to support the ageing uk population

Well it's true for me. Ds' df morph'd into 1950s man the day ds & I came home from the maternity unit.

We left when DS was 2y2m.

I can care for and provide for one child while working full time. On my own I cannot do more so I have one child. Younger dsis had the same problem, she has one child. My closest friend has one child although she's stayed with her bone-idle dh.

I'd say the birth rate is going to fall further unless they sort CMS. JRM's views are irrelevant.

ie men are assessed on potential, women are assessed on their current competencies

I wonder if any of the unscientific "men are good at business skills, so we can assume he'll be good at that "because he's male" belief comes into this at all?

Incidentally, I have a business degree and a 30 year business career, without being male. 🙂

As do I mintjulia. And two kids. Perhaps we are not actually women?

@stealthbanana I'm self employed but yes fully present at work and fully present with DS. I do feel my work is impacted by DS - I don't travel, have to take days off when he's sick (split equally between DH and I luckily), take time off for appointments, he also in nursery 3 days and I'm lucky to have my parents who take care of him the other 2. He's happy, but I feel exhausted sometimes and that's just with one! So I suppose it came from a place of how does someone kill it with both, without running themselves into the ground.

Also apparently not a woman here. Work full time with a 5 month old in a male dominated role at a senior level.

Men are still seen as providers. I know men who love hiring men with families as they're seen as more 'safe, loyal and hardworking'. They've got more to lose. Whereas women will 'get distracted and have more time off.' It's sexist crap but these are hugely common views and what's expected of many men and women.

Iron discipline that's how.

@JaneyGee

You say “birth rate” but you must mean “net population growth”

Birth rates are falling globally and have been for 2,000yrs from a record height of 8.0 in Ancient times to 6.0 during the Renaissance to 4.0 post 1750 modern times to 3.5 in 1950 to the current 1.8 as of 2023, which is below the replacement rate of 2.1.

Birth rates have been falling everywhere, albeit at different rates. Global population growth is not due births, but due to fewer preventable deaths.

The reason population exploded for centuries was due to everyone living longer, especially infants and children NOT due to “record high birth rates”.

@labamba007 why don’t you travel? I travel 3-5 days a month, my DH holds the fort when I’m away. Requires some coordinated diary management but is very doable. People take time off for all sorts of things, having to do that doesn’t seem to be a big deal to me?

of course I have weeks where everything is out of whack and I feel exhausted but I used to have them pre kids too! I think a lot of it is just the pressure we put on ourselves to be giving 120% in all areas.

As long as women have education and autonomy the birth rate will fall and fall because men just can't step up.

I think there are larger forces at play than birth rates falling “because men can’t step up.” This perspective presupposes that all women want children and want lots and lots of them, when we know for a fact that a significant number of women do not want any children, and the vast majority who do want children do not want any more than one or two children regardless of whether their man or men “step up”.

The issue of overpopulation and overcrowding also suppresses the biological instinct to have children. The economic realities of the cost of children is currently the #1 reported reason why women have terminations- although stigma around not wanting a child may make this a go to socially acceptable excuse for termination rather than the expression of actual feelings on facing another pregnancy and childbirth.

Globally, as a species we need birth rates to fall enough to counter the longer lives we lead so that population growth stabilises or planetary environmental collapse is inevitable (unless we start colonising Mars). So, it’s not a bad thing that many men won’t “step up” as in so not really want children either imho.

@stealthbanana

I know very few women who have worked full time continuously since coming back off maternity leave, the exceptions include one whose parents live with them and pick up all the childcare and household duties (she comes home to a clean house, laundry done and a meal cooked) they are not British and multigenerational living is the norm, a doctor married to a professor who had a live in nanny, and lawyer in international corporate (aka very well paid) law who has a stay at home husband. Most women I know with children under 8 work part time, some in their original careers others in local jobs that aren't lucrative. This is reality in a normal middle class area.

I do wish people would realise that men and women are fundamentally different. Biology has dictated this. I feel like women have been sold a lie that we can and should 'do it all' (i.e. career and children), and yet when I see women 'doing it all' they are miserable and burnt out.

Sweeping statement - and hugely short-sited/risky for you.

I would describe myself as 'determined and burning out' personally :)

But that's significantly better than 'unhappy and trapped', or 'old, alone and in poverty' which would have been my other 2 choices if I hadn't maintained my career (perhaps my fault for picking the wrong man some might say)

Also remember the other partners job comes into it, my ex worked 60+ hours a week, out at 8am never back before 6, most Saturdays, some Sundays, normal in his field at the beginning

It might be your reality but not mine @gogohmm - I’d say 75% of my friends work full time (and husbands do the same). Some took longer mat leaves / did 4 days a week when kids were under 2 but now that we all have 3+ year olds everyone is back - and many of us took 4-6 months mat leave and then went back full time. There are a cohort of stay at home mothers in school but they are mostly either very wealthy foreigners (where they still have nannies and housekeepers) or women who were not career oriented pre kids and their husbands don’t have any interest in the kids stuff (ie they do everything at home). One of my best friends is in the latter camp and she is an absolutely amazing person- there is no way I could do what she does (my housekeeping skills aren’t up to it, and nor is my patience!).

That's just not true.
Just because this is your direct experience doesn't mean that that is representative of all working mothers.

I live a middle class area and most people (men and women) work full time in professional jobs and don't live with their parents or have live in nanny's etc. They manage through flexible working and nursery /wrap around care.

We have an 8 year old and are both senior academics at different universities. My job involves international travel 3/4 times a year. We use wrap around care 3 days a week and occasionally grandparents ( and I mean occasionally) and flexible working hours. My career has accelerated quite quickly in the last 4 years so it is possible.