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.

Why is it like this? Plenty of cultures don't have so many out of control children,,esp in public. Was this common in previous times?

Take France. As Pamela Druckerman wrote last decade in her book, children there are expected to behave & fit in with the parents. Many other countries are similar. We don't need to stand for this toleration of unacceptable behaviour.

I think that is important now sadly bc of how obesity is rising in kids & so much food is UPF.

I agree to some extent. Otoh don't you think women getting more career opportunities (which is good imo) & men behaving worse recently has any impact?

Also some people who would have felt pressured before don't have them, does that make them automatically immature?

No of course not but children no longer play out...so unless their parents organise for them to do outside activities, they are stuck indoors. Like in school holidays, I was a sahm...it was relentless and I had little time to do housework or chores...in previous decades in school holidays, your children would knock for their friends and get out the house. But I had to accompany them everywhere and organise everything.

There is no value within society to the domestic load . If a woman is successful she outsources it to another woman. Men therefore will never invest themselves in the domestic load unless they personally enjoy it. It just has no status. Even the trad wife is showboating.
So women end up having it all. What is the
‘ Motherload’ working and domestic even if its planning it outsourced. Women’s work
Then you have men captured by Dating apps like a visual catalogue of shopping for the perfect one. Lets face it there is always something better around the corner so trying to get a man to settle literally and then stay focused on settling as they don’t feel the ticking biological clock. Also now with Ready meals, Microwaves, Deliveroo, Cleaners, Apps The Batchelor life is not too shabby. You don’t need a woman’s touch there’s an app for that
Then you have cost of living crisis in my era it was the Credit Crunch and the expectation that your status is what you own not who you are.
Then we have Helicopter parenting and the self flagellation toss up of being less at career or less parent. All the activities laid on for kids now so expensive and the childcare as Grandparents have busy active lives dating etc they are not at home knitting or baking .
My partner told me last night about this so now you can be ancient and still have children or same sex can have full DNA from each partner in 10 years time

I think we’re far enough down the line now that the idea that “you can have it all” is clearly a fallacy.
Women pay the price for every little stretch.
Women expected to work full time.
Women are still expected to do the majority of the housework and brain admin.
Women are still expected to be the primary parent.
And parenting expectations are now in a different realm to the 70/80s.
Women are still told that their efforts if anything less than this are not enough.
You see it on here everyday!

It’s too much. And women are seeing that and making informed decisions.

Agreed. I was in Japan with work recently. Schools are within walking distance, children do the commute themselves, they take themselves to violin, baseball, tennis, maths club etc., after school as this facilities are typically located within walking distance of the school, and then take themselves home - from 6 years old.

When I spoke about doing the school run until 11 and hobby runs until 16, Japanese women thought I was mad.

They have their own issues so you can't transplant that model brick for brick to here, but it's not written in stone that women have to devote every waking moment to our children or risk being labelled a bad parent.

And yet Japanese women are having fewer children than even us!

As I say, they have their own issues - namely very rigid gender roles in marriage, very high barriers to re-entry into the workplace post maternity, and a high proportion of the country living in greater Tokyo thus being away from the family support network and therefore leading to a solitary, support free childrearing experience.

Anecdotally, I think this generation are getting less support from their parents than their parents had from their own parents, if that makes sense 🥴

'I'd just personally rather have an easier life where I can relax before and after work, and at weekends, and have copious amounts of time to eat really well, go to the gym, socialise, and rest, and have full financial independence and autonomy over my own life.'

Hard relate to all of this. I am so grateful that I am a priority in my own life. I really did want to have children, felt the longing and the ache and grieved not being a parent for a long time. But I spent 20 years working with children and had no rose tinted specs about what would be involved. I knew that the reality was not for me. Im 45 now and so grateful that I made the right choice for me

But fundamentally you can't make a thing that involves physical pain/damage, huge expense, repetitive activities you find really boring, sleep deprivation, sublimating your own pleasures for someone else's etc etc appealing by encouraging more outdoor playing. The kids are still coming home at some point. People used to have kids because that's just what you did but now it's an active decision that many just don't want to make.

I think facilitating things like more outdoor play and not schlepping kids to so many activities is often aimed more at those who enjoy having DC, but may have fewer than they'd like due to practicalities. The idea being on a population level, it's not going to persuade anyone who really doesn't want to be a parent, but some of those currently having 2 would have 3 if a greater share of keeping those DC entertained was met by the kids on the road.

People used to have kids because that's just what you did but now it's an active decision that many just don't want to make.

Some of us have kids because we want them and actually enjoy them and many would even have more if it was just that bit easier.

I think it should be fine for women to say - no not for me - but for those who do want kids to discuss why then end up not having or having fewer than they want.

We'd have has another but extremly poor maternity care in last pg - adversly affected both Dh and I - and basically money meant we delayed that choice till we moved areas and by then felt age gap was too big with other kids we'd be a bit too old for us and stretching the money futher despite having more disposable income than before would have adversley affected existing kids.

Dsis also had extremely poor maternity care - she had a second but had 13 years between - and new partner - neither Dad stuck around and went on to have more kids with other women - none prior to ones with Dsis - they didn't stick around for either. She didn't plan to end up a single parent but like many that's where she found herself - and it's harder than with two involved parents as there's just less resources.

Exactly, helicopter parenting was a very recent thing & it us no good. Japanese children do well at school normally so all that isn't necessary for good results.

Hmm..I get that, but is that all necessary? Sleep deprivation should not be long term.

Maternity care is shit in the UK. Birth does not need to be a bloodbath.

Why are children much more expensive than in the past? Schools are often one issue,

More cars.
Stranger danger ( ironic when online grooming is now more of a threat)
Cultural shift to being very risk averse. Nurseries and schools with their extremely risk averse approach are most new parents first exposure for the standard they should have as parents.
Blame culture where if you let your kids play out and something happened you are to blame as a bad parent.
No other kids for your kids to play with as kids don't play out any more.

I really notice how poor kids physical skills are nowadays and its because parents pull them back whenever they try to do what would have been utterly normal kids stuff when I was young 40 years ago ( climbing a wall or a tree).

Ironically, there are real mental, emotional, social and physical ill effects to this ' safety' culture.

There is a really unpleasant miserable undertone to many posts on this thread.

I hate this portrayal of children as some misery burden for women to carry -as if there is nothing but joylessness in raising kids.

I hate this ' wine o'clock' attitude to having children, as if you need to anaethetise yourself against the hideousness of having kids.

I hate the way everyone assumes you can't wait for school holidays to be over so you can get rid of your kids.

I had no maternal desire at all till a massive hormonal injection in my late 30s that was so overwhelming I eventually could not ignore it. I raise my two kids in very hard circumstances. But honestly, they bring me tremendous joy and pleasure. A colleague described it best, ' its like someone has given you the best present ever that keeps changing and getting better.'

Perhaps one of the reasons fertility is declining is because of this fucking horrible pervasive narrative that kids are a burden that women should avoid.

Lots of comments that do not seem to recognise the fact that birth rates are falling EVERYWHERE

In Africa - with villages and no roads and agricultural economies
In Scandinavia - with incredible equal wraparound care and policies
In Asia - with huge rural populations declining fast
In Japan - with its independent but fewer and fewer kids

Its not housing costs
Its not traffic
Its not helicopter parenting

Its women finally having the choice to control their own fertility

I don't have any babies because I thought my fertility would be fine until I was 30. It wasn't.

I don’t personally think it’s a case that current women have woken to anything. I think previous generations didn’t have to live up to such high standards of parenting as we do now. I think that is what has changed.

I agree with this.

Given access to education and birth control, the majority of women want 0, 1 or 2 children. Some want 3 and a very few want 4 or more.

"Why would anyone want children? They are very expensive and time consuming" That is what my DS said to me a few months ago. I guess I'm not having grandchildren, which is OK.

If I was 20 ,with the knowledge I have now ,about how much there is to do with having a family ,a house ,a husband,a few pets ..
No way would I of done any of it
I'd of got my own place and stayed single .

I think expenses have gone up. In the past children were not expected to have huge amounts of outings, hobbies were lower key etc. Plus schools should be good, state education is inexcusably poor all too often