Why women aren’t having babies

[SmudgeHughes]

I saw a young woman post this on social media recently and thought it was so well-expressed that I had to share.

‘The problem isn’t that men want more children but that too many men want them without restructuring their own lives to carry the burden of parenthood.

If men matched their desire with an equal willingness to parent like taking the night shifts, booking the appointments, shouldering the career sacrifices then women would be more open to the idea.

Until then, women are simply refusing to be the ones who pay the highest price for someone else’s dream.

That’s not selfishness but wisdom hard earned through centuries of women being told that family is everything only to find out that "everything" really meant everything is theirs to do.

Women are increasingly unwilling to subsidize men’s dreams with their own exhaustion. They are making rational decisions about their capacity and saying no not because they don’t love children but because they know love alone doesn’t neutralise burnout, stalled careers, unaffordable childcare or the silent erosion of identity that comes when one partner carries the bigger share of parenting.

So when men say they want more children women hear something different like, I want the idea of more children but I haven’t accounted for who will actually raise them.

It’s similar to someone who dreams of a puppy without calculating who will walk it or clean the accidents on the rug. Women have woken up to a truth previous generations often swallowed.’

There was more; just thought it was beautifully expressed.

No, can't say I have. Enlighten me?

There is data. I think I remember that Ghana (or was it Nigeria) was the only country in the world where women were still aiming for three or more children.

Not a lot of online and social media in regions with no electricity or phone signal
let alone water
or paved roads
where the soils are so poor that subsistence farming and cooking over charcoal from cut down forests is the norm
and where the only free health care came from USAID
and the only free education is provided by the Jesuits
and where 'women's gardens' are backbreaking allotments

I think a lot of women are coming round to the idea that parenthood is a choice and that there are probably already too many humans on this planet.

The motherhood penalty is also likely the reason for the pay gap as young women have outearned young men for at least a decade now, with the gap closing around the approximate age of motherhood. The Economist did a study which found that childless female execs continue to be promoted more aggressively than their male peers.

I imagine it's a bigger decision for many to weigh up now that we're not destined to a life of domesticity - the change of lifestyle is probs going to be more pronounced for somebody with a good career. I'm approaching 30 and have no desire whatsoever for children. I've got a goddaughter, two nieces, and a nephew. I like kids but no way do I want to sacrifice my life like many mothers do.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jun/10/un-population-fund-unfpa-report-reasons-falling-global-fertility

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clynq459wxgo

The countries surveyed - South Korea, Thailand, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, US, India, Indonesia, Morocco, South Africa, and Nigeria - account for a third of the global population.
They are a mix of low, middle and high-income countries and those with low and high fertility. UNFPA surveyed young adults and those past their reproductive years.

The UN has at least asked people in 15 countries - and it seem to be everything said on here - cost, lack of suitable partners/unfair shared work loads and higher expectations on parents - so they feel they can't have number of kids they want or kids at all.

I don’t know. I don’t think it’s just the men. My partner is great. He probably works on average a week a month so he’s around all the time. I work similar amounts. We have great family support. We are still only having two children. Same for half the people with kids I know.

The other half of everyone I know has stuck with 1. Some due to having the first too late, some due to precious first child syndrome, some due to resources, some due to trauma of some kind such as having awful pregnancies/births/ difficult first borns.

I only know a couple of people with 3. I think they are mad and superhuman 😂

There are also lots of people I know who have none. Mainly due to not finding a suitable partner.

It's not just that, if you look at the younger generations, you'll see that media had brainwashed young women into the casual sex, 'not catching feelings', sleeping with numerous men, narcisstic- spending hours of the day on looks, watching endless makeup videos, constant scrolling on social media, being treat like sh*t by men who just want to sleep around and not commit, accepting sexist male behaviour- kind of culture. Celebs are all getting divorced, the Kardashians- Kim bascially a former porn star- ie got famous due to porn- are teaching women that meaningful relationships and settling down don't matter. They say theyre billionaires which is way out of most womens realistic sight, yet act in their instagram videos like literal young girls pandering to and at the mercy of sexist boys (so called men)- not like grown up women. How do young women have time to have children or save for houses and the future when they are constantly scrolling social media, trying to keep up with new trends, watching endless makeup videos, comparing themselves to others filtered images, being bullied by and deseperate trying to impress Legions of Andrew tate brainwashed super sexist love island, self obsessed narcisstic young men and incel weirdos, acting like younger girls who are there to please and pander to sexist insecure men, and not adult women like their mums likely were etc. Even the most famous supermodels now look like and like the most immature young girls with no responsibility, pandering to men. The Patriarchal media has ruined society.

Young people just want to have fun, there’s no harm in it?

I think though that settling down has become difficult because the men don’t want to do it. My opinion anyway.

You'll see a huge change in the way the younger generation are today compared to the way say my parents were 30+ years ago. Many home owners, worked their asses off for their children/ to have kids, both the men and women, no time wasted on social media, more responsible, mature, good social skills, less anxiety possibly etc. Young people nowadays have been brainwashed heavily by the media- and it's now 24/7 with phone scrolling on social media etc. I know this because as a young woman, I've experienced some of this and now i'm 20 yrs behind in life progress and wasted so many years on just rubbish and sexist young/ youngish men.

I've even heard kids say their mums rarely talk to them, they're always on their phones and things like that. Young men have been radicalised by fools like Andrew Tate who is a rapist and is super sexist. It's sad.

Yes, I'm sure sexism didn't exist until Andrew Tate came along.

You'll see a huge change in the way the younger generation are today compared to the way say my parents were 30+ years ago. Many home owners, worked their asses off for their children/ to have kids, both the men and women, no time wasted on social media, more responsible, mature, good social skills, less anxiety possibly etc.

Your parents 30 years ago were part of the generation (X) the media were then losing their shit over as we were all going out on raves, taking illegal drugs, drinking to excess, smoking, having casual sex, teenage pregnancy through the roof, we were completely hedonistic and would never amount to anything. That's if we even made it out of our 20s.

Same shit, different parameters, different generation.

The biggest trick that has ever been pulled off is convincing women that lowering their sexual boundaries is empowering and sticking it to the patriarchy.

Haha, agree with this. Does PP realise 30 years ago was… mid-1990s?!

I mean, I guess more of us were homeowners but you could still buy a house for 3 or 4 x annual salary in the early 2000s. And we didn't waste time on social media because it didn't exist, or not in the way it is now. I did waste quite a lot of time playing The Sims and Medieval Total War though.

Until the 1960s, women didn't possess any sexual boundaries at all. Their boundaries were set by the men who held authority over them. Some had to marry, others were made to remain celibate, many had to turn to prostitution. Each was a means of survival.

Men continue to take advantage of women, as they have been for millennia.

Some of this lowering did result in some benefits because I don't think it's healthy for women to be slut-shamed or to do this to each other, or to equate liking sex with being a bad woman in some way (I've read a number of accounts from older women who've said this).

It's gone to the extreme now though and I see the same eagerness to please men taking a modern form. Today young women seem more fearful of being called a prude, 'sex-negative', or kind-shaming.

Men were in control then, and they hold a lot of control now. Women lose out, both ways. Giving women their sexual boundaries means first giving them economic ones.

Do we have boundaries, in 2025? Even now, women who know how to be man-pleasers catch the best breaks in the workplace, as well as on the dating scene. No wonder they’ll do anything in bed.

Meanwhile, saying “no” to a husband, for many, means risking marital breakdown and loss of the roof over your head. And over the heads of your children. Ask the nearest SAHM, and listen carefully to the silent reply.

“Best trick in the world”? Teaching women that submission would make them happy. We saw through that one long ago. Good luck, @Thedevilhasfinallycaughtupwithhim, in trying to pull it off a second time.

I assume you’ve misinterpreted my post.

No, I understood it all too well. Another edgelady of the manor, trying to lump the blame for today’s ills on the 1960s. It’s not at all convincing.

“Edgelady of the manor”? 😂😂😂😂
I’m not blaming women. Men have convinced women. Women are the victims of patriarchy.

Some background on me.
I grew up in Rotherham to teenage parents and went on work with victims of domestic violence.
No lady of the manor. Just someone with experience of seeing how successfully men are able to manipulate the world to ensure women remain subjugated.

You’re the victim of your own delusions. Women never “lowered their sexual standards”. They didn’t have any standards of their own, prior to the 1960s: other people told them what to do.

Men are still in charge; men still set the agenda. Reversing the sexual revolution won’t alter that. Giving women some financial autonomy will.

Yeah. You don’t understand my point. You’re not arguing against anything I’ve written.

So why not address the root causes of this power, rather than making an irrelevant point about sexual choices? There I was, thinking that a tough start in Rotheram instills some realism.

When women can separate their self worth from the validation of men, we will have achieved something.

Correct. Pinning the blame on sexual freedom is a quick and easy way to lure women back into old-school validation. The type that locked unmarried mothers away for life, the type that allowed marital rape, the type that - just below the glassy surface of respectability - drove an ugly and thriving sex industry. So maybe think again before peddling the "we were conned by the 1960s" line.