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.

What you don’t do, though, is patronise in the Head-Prefect tones of “Rotherham” woman, which no working class person I have ever met has ever done. And yes I agree, the English class system is gross.

We have patriarchy all around the world. Men are linked via the internet and are using it to be oversexed morons creating AI deep fakes porn. Women are using it, albeit less, to get a real picture of men and turn away from them in disgust. This is true in Korea, Britain, France and the US: I’m not familiar with every country in the world but I expect women elsewhere talk to each other as well.

There anre, I would say, two outliers in the way women are treated: one is places like Afghanistan, which is probably going to have a demographic collapse by reverting to old standards for women, pre-modern medicine and no birth care.

The other is Sweden which would make the more interesting study, but it may be I simply don’t know that country and the reality of the majority of men and child caring that hides behind the apparent feminist cover for foreigners. Certainly it has troubles with immigrants so women are still quite able to see what men are.

Climate change and job security are the other two factors, that are definitely present in the minds of young women I know.

Plus, no matter how many times women have fought for it, or how hard, the reality is we do not have equality in work or in the home. There are still distinct jobs dominated by men and by women, women being pushed out of the men’s ones by their harassment and refusal to accept women as equals. We still have the example of Rachel Reeves as the ‘first’ female chancellor and the misogyny she is treated to as an example. Female public figures get hate, rape and death threats far in excess of the men. Women’s work by contrast is paid far lower than it ought to be with language constantly urging them to do more for free. Sexism is still here. And you wonder why young women don’t want to reproduce this species??

True, women will always have to push back on men's rights. This will always be the case. However, you need to recognise that life has never been better for women (and men). Birth control, laws against rape, no medieval punishments.

Young women and men don't want to reproduce because the internet has forced them in to a doomism mindset, despite life being actually relatively good.