To be concerned about trad/Conservative Influencers

[sleighbells00]

Does anyone feel concerned by the trad/conservative influencers targeting young people with these sorts of messages? I came across this video on YouTube, basically about how motherhood should not be a choice but that all women should fulfill this role. I love being a mother but I would hate for a young girl/woman to stumble across this and feel that her only path in life revolves around having children, women should live the lives that bring them happiness and fulfillment.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7mqAp-tDI&t=55s&pp=ygUQY2xhc3NpY2FsbHkgYWJieQ%3D%3D

No country is self-sustainable, not even North Korea manages it. No countries (and lets face it, the concept of a 'country', as in a single political entity is a very recent one) has ever existed without trade in both goods and labour. Some countries are net exporters of goods and labour, some are net importers and it was ever thus. The UK is a net importer of both goods and labour, and a net exporter of services. India is a net importer of goods, but a net exporter of labour and services. Neither the UK nor India could function in isolation.

"Is there evidence (and I’m genuinely asking, I don’t know a lot about this) that the current population level isn’t sustainable? With the right changes of course."

Most if not all of our planet's current problems, from global warming to pollution, from deforestation to depletion of resources are a direct cause of the exponential increase of human population in the last couple of centuries. You can campaign for going vegetarian or watching our carbon footprint, but the stark truth is that our planet has limited resources and can't sustain the unchecked growth of apex predators who have learned to double their life expectancy with technological and scientific discoveries.

Some restraint on the growth of our total population is unavoidable going forward, unless we spread to other planets which looks unlikely for at least another generation.

"birth rates will eventually decrease in the countries "

Of course. As their level of education and per capita income increase, so will their willingness to limit the number of their offspring, as has happened in all developed countries.

Until then, their people will immigrate to developed countries which will support these countries where population is growing very slowly if at all. Everyone wins.

You’ve just switched purposes. The extinction of humans might be helpful to the planet but it would mean human society ceases to exist. As we are talking about society the continued existence of that requires women to have children.

Immigration is not a sustainable way to look after an aging population as it just leads to a larger aging population

Thank you. I had a look after you posted and ended up on the Population Matters website who do seem to say 8bn is too many but I couldn’t see much backed up (I assume it is, just couldn’t make sense of where on their website). Do you happen to know if there is modelling and/or estimates out there for what an optimum number might be?

I don’t think we’ve been at replacement rate here since the 70s, so is our population increasing because of immigration? Or aging population, or both?

Tricky one for policy makers… getting the right level of decline to manage the population adequately.

Our population is aging, but slowing, its immigration causing the increase in the UK not native people having children.

I wanted to address the thing upthread about ‘choice’, ‘values’ and ‘feminism’.

Some people seem to believe that ‘it is un-feminist to have values’ and they get to it by the following flawed logic:

1. Feminism is all about women having ‘choices’, because oppressed women have no choices - they are essentially the property of men.
2. Because of this, every time a woman makes a choice, no matter what that choice is, it intrinsically is a feminist act in and of itself, and no choice made by a woman can be more valuable that another.

Therefore evaluating which choices are better or worse and then internalising these considerations as personal values, is un-feminist.

Well…. Everyone has values, whether they like to think they do or not. An essential life skill is to evaluate what is better and what is worse and to live by it if possible. It is one thing to say ‘you are entitled to your own values, but I don’t share them’ but another to say ‘oh well- I think this is better, you think that’s better, it’s all relative’.

The whole point of having values is the belief that some things are better and some things are worse. Saying ‘we don’t share the same values’ is a polite way of saying ‘I think my choices are better than yours and you think your choices are better than mine- it’s personal and we’ll never agree’.

People on this thread who don’t share my family and child-centred values, have shown themselves to not share my other values too - the important of arts, culture, science, technology, accrued human knowledge and understanding. We as species might as well just become extinct, we as a culture might as well just die out, the last person to know a folk song passed down through millennia to just die alone in an old folks home, with no one to pass it on to - it’s no loss.

I don’t not share the values of joyless, nihilistic fun-sponges, I don’t feel their miserable negativity is worth celebrating, and there’s nothing about feminism to suggest I should.

I know people who want children but can't afford to buy a flat or house of their own first. I know people who want children but can't afford to rent somewhere big enough to have space, or are conscious of what happens when you have a school-age child and 30 other people competing for the same property. I know people who want a second but can't afford childcare. I know people who don't want them at all because of environmental reasons, because there are health issues going on, or because they just don't really feel the need to have one.

None of these reasons are any more or less valid than anyone's reason to have a child, and it's depressing to hear people take the view that this makes them some kind of robotic unrelatable 'fun-sponge'.

it's depressing to hear people take the view

I find your views depressing.

Its mutual.

I don't and never have wanted children. I've known this to be the case since I was eight. I find it really depressing to be told that this makes me less of a human being. I thought feminism was about not reducing women to motherhood as much as it is about celebrating and valuing the job of being a mother. I feel like I'm being told that I'm not being a proper woman or even a proper human being, and you can miss me with that.

Anyway. I didn’t have kids because I ‘wanted’ them. My first was the happiest accident of my life.

Good for you. I was a happy accident too. However, both my mum and you had to want that enough to continue the pregnancy, it wasn't a total fait accompli!

I find it really depressing to be told that this makes me less of a human being.

This need for your existence to be validated by other people makes you sound like a transactivist. Particularly the way you are making things up and putting words into other people’s mouths.

You are a human a human being. No one has said otherwise.

If you weren’t a human being - I’d be pretty impressed you were typing into mumsnet… unless you are an AI bot and MN has been cracked.

Clearly we're not going to find any common ground here, my mistake for feeling irritated after half a lambic on a hot day and the years of arsiness from others one gets at not wanting children prickling at me as they tend to when reading tradwife comments on the internet.

I was so uncertain and worried about everything thing I thought I was going to lose, that I was seeing a therapist throughout the pregnancy - I was so anxious.

But, it all changed after giving birth. I could almost hear angelic choirs.

I felt the way your mum felt when she saw your sweet little face.

I don't quite see why you think this is trad/conservative influencers. I have seen far more bizarre influencers than this.
To have children or not is not necessarily a 'conservative' mindset

No necessarily. Many people have profound problems with abortion. Or discover their pregnancy too late. Society offering abortion as an option, and even being happy that society offers that choice to other women, does not mean it is something all women feel is a choice they can make.

Going back to this lack of care if humans continue to exist - doesn’t that simply reflect a lack of stake in the future? You will die so what do you care what comes after? What do you care for others? They will die too. What matters if a child is sterilised? We are told not all people are of equal value anyway. Why not introduce MAID and euthanise the ones of less value?

I don’t think the trad/conservative influencers are needed.
Just look at this thread, the feminists (I assume people on femknist board are actually feminist) are eyeballs deep in it themselves.
I’ve seen some of these social media accounts, there not anywhere near as bad as the commenters here.

Well yes, you’re right, I don’t care what happens when I’m dead because…I’ll be dead? Not sure what you’re on about re sterilising children but incidentally I am in favour of voluntary euthanasia for people with incurable illnesses. I think it’s absolutely barbaric that we put animals out of their misery but prolong human life and suffering at all costs. Nothing to do with deciding someone has more value than another, and I’m also not sure what MAID has to do with the topic at hand…?

Some of the replies in this thread are genuinely baffling to me! 🤐
I feel like I've seen zero shame aimed towards childless & single women here, just a lot of understanding.
Conversely however, a lot of anger/shame towards women who decide that they do want children, viewing it as misogynistic and selfish to want to have kids?
Insisting that there's no biological urge (presumably because that didn't happen to them personally? So therefore it simply must be made up. Silly women, right?)

Shock at the mere suggestion that women and girls could do with some more maternal role models rather than the "girl boss", "We can do/be anything" narrative.

I'm sorry but... No.
That these words are making an appearance here tells me all I really need to know.
If anything it solidifies my viewpoint that being childfree is being pushed on a large scale and that motherhood as a whole is being "advertised" to women and girls as something to be feared and avoided at all costs.
Then on top of that to be told it's misogynistic to want to be a mother. That's almost like saying it's homophobic to be straight. Or It's Transphobic to be Cis.

I am truly sorry to those who chose to be child free that you have experienced shame or anger towards you because of your choices.
But that does not take away from women like me, and I assume many others who have experienced shame and anger for WANTING to have children - Shame and anger that has funnily enough reared it's ugly head on this thread.

Just because you can't comprehend that scenario happening in real life to you personally, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Especially so when you're perpetuating shame and anger by directly telling those of us who do want children that we're selfish and thinking through a misogynist lense...

Much like @RebelliousCow said up thread;
"What is going on here ( this thread) is resistance to the idea that being a mother or looking after a home and family is automatically negative, restrictive and unliberating - which does tend to be a very common sentiment that is being pushed on young people these days."

If you feel a type of way about motherhood being spoken of positively, if you have a problem with it, that's on you and you probably need to reflect a bit to figure out why.

It's constantly hammered down my throat how good and ideal it is to be child free, all the while shitting on motherhood.
In contrast whenever I see motherhood or family content (the rare occasion it's promoted on my feeds), they don't feel the need to shit on those who decide kids aren't for them... Not even a mention.

You can raise people up without bringing someone else down...

I must say I am not concerned by this. More concerning is influencers normalising gender transitions at a young age.

My own values are very much child/family centred and anyone, male or female who chooses not to have children (ie their lack of children is not because they weren’t able to find the right partner, experience infertility or are exclusively same sex attracted) has values 180 degrees from mine. I don’t get it. I don’t think it’s a positive choice. I certainly don’t think it’s one worth celebrating.

However, I am far too busy worrying about my children’s future to give it much concern. I wonder where all these people get the mental space to bother judging it.

Your views are really quite narrow-minded and vile and very much prove childfree people's concerns that they are misunderstood and vilified.

To be honest, it reminds me of when you go up North and you are confronted by all these people with a chip on their shoulder, saying stuff, rather threateningly, like “Southerners think they are better than us”.

And you think, but don’t say out loud “The truth is, Southerners pretty much never even think about Northerners or The North.”.

This is what it is like - all these “we’re so happy with our choices” [the lady doth protest too much] - “yeah being ‘child free’ is such a great choice” [🤔whilst hanging out on a parenting forum called Mumsnet] people, trying to muster up some sort of movement and identity, whilst imagining that everyone else gives a shiny shit. They don’t. We’ve got stuff to get on with.

If you were that happy with your choices, why would you be constantly raking over them and looking for validation.

I’m not going to give you any validation. I think you made the wrong choice.