And yet, not concerned enough to make the quality of life any better where people want to have children. Its like the greed is getting in the way of their ability to be more greedy in the future.
Cheaper to just force you to have children
Its like the greed is getting in the way of their ability to be more greedy in the future.
late-stage capitalism in a nutshell
We've been at the point where the people at the top (who are there only from nepotism/luck) are heavily rewarded for screwing over the thing they're a part of (and everyone in it) in the long term. And our government fuels the cycle by spending trillions in subsidies and bailouts and stuff for companies after executives & stockholders make them implode.
The people who control for-profit organizations generally don't have much of an incentive to do what's best for the company. Just to do what's best for them and jump ship when things start to go south.
And a falling human birth rate is good for the environment
Yeah as long as that loss in workforce isn’t replaced by massive AI computing. Corporations are far worse for the environment than people.
Ah, just noticed which instance this post was on.
A man working an average job used to earn enough to buy an average house and comfortably support his wife and kids.
Now you need two people in full-time work just to pay rent to the landlord.
The problem is inequality of wealth and the solution is make work pay.
No no, you're wrong. The problem is taxes are too high and the people on the absolute top don't get enough money. If we just make them a bit richer, the wealth will finally start trickling down on us.
Wait! I think I feel it trickling down right now!
Nope. Just piss. Again.
And too many immigrants. Surely if we keep them out, all those low wage manual labor jobs will still get done, and our population will increase
Yeah, Florida just did it wrong. They're not having major farming and trucking issues because they scared away a bunch of immigrants. It'll work this time everywhere else.
The problem is that we aren't sending enough money to the wealthy ... we need to send them more money because they haven't been able to trickle some back to us.
/s sarcasm, this is sarcasm if anyone is wondering
Yacht tax deductions were a good start! Now we need coal and gas subsidies. Those poor capitalists haven't had new subsidies in over 4 years!
Urine luck!
Executives: AI is the answer. We'll replace people and won't have to listen to them whining about how hungry they are.
I keep hearing stories about falling birth rates, USA, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and on and on.
The articles often pose many questions about why younger generations dont seem to care about having kids, but very few articles actually say the real reasons:
Being able to afford a house or stable long term rent without either option competing for money to buy food or other essentials
Further to this the cost of a child once you can get by with enough money for the above
Climate change & future conditions for their children anxiety
The first one is the main reason we could afford to have kids.
We were able to buy our first house because of three things. First the housing market crash in 2008-9. My wife's car was totaled by a rich bitch in a Mercedes. Our rented duplex was robbed and we had renters insurance. The combination of insurance payments and cheaper prices allowed us to purchase our first home.
My house payment hasn't changed since 2009. It made up 36% of our take-home income then. Today it makes up less than 11%. I pay less per month than it costs to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in my area.
The older I get the more I see that landlords are a parasite on society. They extract huge amounts of wealth from the suffering of others.
I bought an old home in ~2016, I'm 100% conditionally with the VA so was looking at fitting expenses to my budget. After recently upping my payment to pay it off for my 50th bday (36 now) its only $600/mo. $632 or something right now cause insurance sucks at the moment.
Ive watched as people have gone from happy for me, to jokingly jealous, to jealous, to cranky jealous, to "I'm going to off you and steal your identity." 🤣
This market sucks and we HAVE to get institutional investors out of housing. We HAVE to start building. In order to do that, we HAVE to stop this cultural bullshit of housing being the prime investment/retirement vehicle for Americans.
Totally jealous, but I'm happy for you. I'm glad you get to own a home.
A big one is that pregnancy and child birth SUUUUUCK. Women finally have the ability to avoid it entirely, and I don't blame them.
Honestly I don't think that's the biggest factor. I think a lot more people would be willing to go through the process of having kids, if they felt financially stable enough to properly care for them afterwards.
im not sure I would call the last point anxiety. As existential threats go its not like nuclear war. Which might or might not happen based on our actions. Its something that is definately happening and extreme good action by us might mitigate it but we by and large have been taking worse actions or at best our beneficial vs non beneficial actions cancel each other out. Heck even without climate change pollution alone has the same ending.
"apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness usually over an impending or anticipated ill : a state of being anxious" -Merriam Webster
Nothing about the word 'anxiety' implies that it's an unrealistic or irrational feeling. You might be thinking of phobias.
Its happening now though. Its like being anxious about walking down a dark alley because you might get the shit beat out of you as opposed to being anxious about the medical bills you will have while your getting the shit beat out of you.
Climate change is happening now, but the anxiety is about how bad it'll get in the future
yeah. I guess is are they not having it because of anxiety about the future or the fact its a reality now and the future effects are just reality. Is facing reality anxiety?
I'm just saying that accepting your definition of anxiety being tied to apprehension, anxiety about the climate is still valid.
I would say your definition is correct, but your application is extremely limited. The anxiety is about things getting worse, it's a vague nebulous feeling that can apply 1ms in the future or several decades. Or even about finding out past information in the future (the unknown). Or just not knowing what the future holds.
So yes, being super pedantic, you can't really be anxious about the literal state of the literal climate literally right now, but it's instead about the possible future outcomes and events. But it's very commonly understood that when someone says they're anxious about climate change, they don't mean it in the super pedantic literal way
this has actually benn really interesting for me and im now evaluating how I think of both depression and anxiety.
They specifically said they were talking about how bad it would get in the future, and the future is definitely not happening now.
But also, pay attention to the word "usually" in the definition i quoted.
If you think that one cannot be anxious about something happening right the fuck now, then you don't know much about anxiety. Which is not a slam, I'm mostly jealous.
Im starting to get it. the phrase just to me sounds like its more about a possibility but the replies make me get it. I definitely get anxiety from current circumstances although I guess both my wife and I were discussing that with our depression. Its not like it can be cured because it comes from our current circumstances and often you think about like diagnosis and medication and its like how is that going to help when there are external factors. We think of it as more anxiety/depression for no reason or for reasons that should not cause them.
The real reason is more educated people worry to much, and less educated people just go for it.
A lot of women I meet dating think there is no point to having a kid unless you can you are a 8 figure millionaire. it's absurd to me, since i grew up on a family income of like 30K.
After having a kid, I can confirm younger is better. 5 years ago would have gave me a lot more energy, and not significantly less money.
Too much? 🤣
They have 17 kids.
education and healthcare costs too
Also, wouldn't increasing the population cause more inflation. Like if you look at Japans decline in Japanese born citizens it overlaps with the "lost years" of economic growth, which was a surprisingly stable period where depreciation ruled the economy... Prices for every day items were stable for decades on end.
Lol. How much does it cost to have a child in the hospital in the USA again? Oh, $18,865 you say? Huh. What if they need an ambulance to get there? Oh, $500 to $3000 depending on distance you say? And you say also that US Bureau of Labor and Statistics is letting us know that in four short years our grocery prices have risen 22.04% and are expected to rise another 5.11% per year indefinitely? Meanwhile corporate profits increase every single year and minimum wage has been stagnant for decades?
Someone should get them quick!!! I think I figured out why no one wants to have babies anymore!
I would like to also comment on how obscenely expensive daycare is and how fucked up it is we have to put children in school 40 hours a week just so we can keep working more than half our lives away but I feel like anyone reading this gets the idea. They will be begging your ass to have babies in the next 100 to 200 years if we make it that long and I'll bet you all those obscene expenses will be an even greater cost to income ratio then, too. I mean if birthrates are a problem you have to ask yourself are they just fucking stupid or just fucking greedy?
The future is bleak. The least I can do is not create another person to inflict it on.
While the cost of children, lack of support and stagnant wages are definately a factor, birth rates have declined even in countries where income inequality is lower and support for parents is higher.
It is not going to be an easy problem to solve.
Its not a problem. A consistent population is much easier to plan for financially and socially.
Yea it’s only a problem when you need to perpetuate a pirimid scheme.
But declining birth rates won't lead to a consistent population, it will lead to a falling population.
The replacement level birth rate is 2.1 children per woman. The US is at 1.6 but the yearly population growth rate is trending back up due to immigration. Worldwide the birth rate is still at 2.6. Experts estimate that the population will continue to increase up until 2060 before it will start to plateau or gently fall to a homeostasis.
For us and everyone we know it was under $200. I'm not saying that everyone is going to have our levels of insurance but you are greatly exaggerating.
The biggest cost by far is childcare hands down.
Edit: I know I know, a $2500 median out of pocket expense hurts everyone's head cannon.
is this written into the law as covered before deductible and maximum out of pocket?
Yes and yes although the latter can be quite high. I'm not saying our healthcare isn't insane, I'm just saying it costs nowhere near 18k outside of edge cases. In reality full time daycare will run you 22k/yr for a moderate cost of living area and is, by a long shot the most expensive portion until college.
I mean if i get to maximum out of pocket its a bit over 7 grand now which tends to be about the same as my monthly cost on the insurance for the year and one kid will raise my monthly cost from spouse only to family (although keep em coming as after that they are all free). One decent surgery can pretty much push to max out of pocket. Of course that is max out of pocket for what is covered. Like this machine that automatically ices and puts pressure on an area and is proven to have better outcomes from surgery is not covered (one of the many health insurance chicken contests. sure we will pay more because you will have more issues if you don't get it but you will have to live with lower quality of life). Anyway just some perspective on cost because while not 22k it can get up there.
Yes, in edge cases. None of it, even the extreme edge case, adds up to the 80k in daycare until college. For the large majority birth is a trivial concern vs the loss of income or daycare.
This is basic math.
well im not sure I consider myself and edge case but I get your point.
Hey GOP assholes, taking away bodily autonomy doesn't get you more babies.
you want more kids make houses affordable and give people time off from work.
If you want to further subjugate women so rich people can get away with more creepy sex crimes then you do what the GOP is currently doing.
Hey, falling birth rate means lots of empty houses. House prices will go down. Problem solved!
Bullshit, we have lots of empty houses now because they are owned by corporations to pad out their balance sheets.
It was a joke.
The capitalist class only cares about birthrate for productivity. Don't blame us for not caring about reduced productivity when most of us get a tiny fraction of the benefits of productivity. Also, what happened to all the shrieking about overpopulation? It's all just fearmongering to drive people to act in ways to benefit the capitalist class. I'm tired, leave me alone.
It's also dumb legacy thinking.
We're in the process of creating a labor force that threatens to put the majority of people already existing out of work such that we need to figure out how to restructure society in a post-labor era.
What the fuck do we need a high birthrate for?
I'd love to have kids. I think it would be wonderful to be able to be a foster parent as another option.
I can't afford it. Its impossible. We can barely afford living as it is. How the fuck am I supposed to raise a kid?
I'm shrugging at falling birth rates not out of indifference, but out of a lack of ability to do anything about it.
Hope? Things could improve, or at least hope that the next generation will be able to improve things. At the very least I see movement to try to do something about housing and college expenses. Maybe they’ll succeed. Renewable energy and electrification seem to be coming, regardless of active resistance. Too slow and too late, but maybe they’ll succeed. We’re in the middle of a wave of enthusiasm about high speed rail. Maybe they’ll succeed
Wealthy employers shrug over falling standard of living and lack of affordable housing and food
I can't understand why anyone would expect most people to want to have kids. I can hardly afford to take care of myself, things look like they're only likely to get worse, and all indicators are that if I did have kids, they would be facing an even worse future when they hit adulthood. Why would I do that to them?
I have kids. I love my kids, and being a parent is the best decision I ever made for myself.
I can't say I would recommend it, though.
I am also a parent who dearly loves my daughter (it's her 14th birthday tomorrow!) but I don't want anyone to have kids who isn't willing to take the time and the effort and spend the money.
No child should be unloved or neglected.
My kids don't want kids. I'm cool with that. It's not my decision and I'm definitely not interested in playing grandma daycare.
Neither me nor my sister really want kids, but my parents want to be grandparents. Makes for some awkward family dinners
Lots of single parents out there with no support.
Maybe we need a big brother/sister program, but for grandparents.
Honestly I bet that'd blow up.
The decision is much too big to let anyone pressure you one way or another. It's totally okay for you to want what you want, and it's okay for that to change throughout your life.
Same, but they only want grandchildren as facebook sex trophies. No interest in babysitting or being supportive in any other meaningful way.
They were able to raise children on a single salary without leaning on family for childcare, so why can't we? Surely nothing has changed over the last 30-40 years.
If politicians want people to have more children, maybe they could do something to make having kids less ruinously-expensive.
If young Americans had financial stability, better mental health, hope for the future, etc. I'm sure that birth rate would go back up.
It's not like people don't enjoy fucking anymore. It's just that they're more careful than ever not to reproduce, because they can't afford parenthood.
Even if I could afford to have kids (which I can't) or believed in forcing anyone to have to be alive without consent (which is impossible), there's no way I could ethically justify making somebody have to live in what is probably The last century ever of human civilization.
I'm very happy that I don't have kids. I still have no idea what compels people to have kids these days. They must not know the things I know.
Every now and then I see a parent having a tender moment with their child and I smile. I then reflect on whether my vasectomy/shirk of parenthood was the right choice.
I always come to the conclusion that it was. Perhaps when I'm older I will feel differently but I just can't imagine that in my life for a long time.
having a tender moment with their child and I smile
Worst case scenario for me is I go "kidnap" my niece and nephew for a weekend and get it out of my system.
Completely agree.
Look at an ocean temperature graph if you are even entertaining the idea of bringing new life into the world.
Fewer people means increased wages. Fuck em.
The only reason economists say immigration can offset falling birthrate. Is because the system is designed for low wages to keep the system running
I heard on NPR that every day, like 30,000 30 something's come into parenthood. Just imagine that number not getting a job, but having a single baby each.
The problem with capitalism is you run out of other people's labour
It's like a pyramid scheme or something.
As a species we have the tools, technology, education, knowledge, cognition, and intelligence to override an animal instinct to reproduce willy nilly. We're more than that now. People should know what it means to choose to have children and weigh the benefits vs the costs to their lives.
Have children when you want to and when it makes sense. If it doesn't make sense, then don't do it. Humanity will survive thinning down to many billions fewer humans sitting around consuming resources. A person who never existed in the first place because healthy adults decided to put their time and resources into something else shouldn't be lamented, but a choice respected.
My family has a long history of not having many children. Our family tree is one of marrying in people and then just not growing larger generation to generation. We have plenty of childless couples in the tree and they make the coolest aunts and uncles a kid can have.
Clearly your family has a long history of enough children since you’re here to talk about it.
I feel like the opposite. My grandfather was one of 13, my mom was one of six, I was one of four, but the next generation only has my two. So far the odds of one more generation are not looking good.
Sure, the world is overpopulated but that’s a short term problem. Every estimate has a peak within 50 years, then a drop. It would be better for us all if that drop were a slow decline to something more sustainable rather than steep, chaotic, disruptive, if the slow drop were uniform, rather than much steeper for some
The FAO Food Price Index* (FFPI) stood at 119.1 points in April 2024, up 0.3 points (0.3 percent) from its revised March level, as an increase in the price index for meat and smaller upturns of vegetable oil and cereal indices slightly more than offset decreases in those for sugar and dairy products. Although it registered a second monthly uptick in April following a seven-month long declining trend, the FFPI was down 9.6 points (7.4 percent) from its corresponding value one year ago.
Uh yeah, that'll happen when we are financially ruined for life and facing an ever worsening climate disaster because of greedy pieces of shit. If we can't reliably support ourselves, how can we support children?
Just what the fuck are we supposed to do with that???
There's over 300 million people in the US, I'm not at all concerned about falling birth rates.
Don't play the game if it's rigged
You don't want to pay ever increasing prices on one of the most expensive undertakings a person (or couple) can do... An undertaking which may also act to increase inflation its self!?
Get all your right wing nutcase friends to have more babies “for the cause”, then get all your left wing nutcase friends to have more babies because “oh noes, Project 2025”. Pretty soon your social security will be funded and you can retire in peace, far from either
Or instead of overpopulating we can increase immigration to fund social security without having to wait multiple decades.
Ha! I thought the plan was to kill off the workforce before they could reach social security.
Definately not me. Im cheering it.
Wonder how nice it would be not to put 0‐20% of your income into a 401k. Or the money I need to put into a HSA in case I get destroyed in medical bills. Or crippling student debt.
Maybe that money could go into housing or children.
Yours for only fordy-naaan low low payments of nanteen nandy-naaaan
We have an endless supply of illegal emigrants we don’t need to have kids.
It’s not endless. Birth rate is declining everywhere and standards of living are generally rising, meaning fewer people with incentive to uproot their lives for another place they’ll be treated as criminals. That flow could easily stop and any interruption switches us instantly from growth to serious shrinkage
Believe it or not, Earth's population is not ∞ and most of the people who live in places other than the U.S. don't plan to come to the U.S.
It is endless enough for us. We literally need to put up walls and barbed wire to keep people out.
Is it? Because I don't know where you live, but there's plenty of space around here.
We don’t need more slaves to capitalism.
And that is exactly what they're concerned about.
And yet, not concerned enough to make the quality of life any better where people want to have children. Its like the greed is getting in the way of their ability to be more greedy in the future.
Cheaper to just force you to have children
late-stage capitalism in a nutshell
We've been at the point where the people at the top (who are there only from nepotism/luck) are heavily rewarded for screwing over the thing they're a part of (and everyone in it) in the long term. And our government fuels the cycle by spending trillions in subsidies and bailouts and stuff for companies after executives & stockholders make them implode.
The people who control for-profit organizations generally don't have much of an incentive to do what's best for the company. Just to do what's best for them and jump ship when things start to go south.
And a falling human birth rate is good for the environment
Yeah as long as that loss in workforce isn’t replaced by massive AI computing. Corporations are far worse for the environment than people.
Ah, just noticed which instance this post was on.
A man working an average job used to earn enough to buy an average house and comfortably support his wife and kids.
Now you need two people in full-time work just to pay rent to the landlord.
The problem is inequality of wealth and the solution is make work pay.
No no, you're wrong. The problem is taxes are too high and the people on the absolute top don't get enough money. If we just make them a bit richer, the wealth will finally start trickling down on us.
Wait! I think I feel it trickling down right now!
Nope. Just piss. Again.
And too many immigrants. Surely if we keep them out, all those low wage manual labor jobs will still get done, and our population will increase
Yeah, Florida just did it wrong. They're not having major farming and trucking issues because they scared away a bunch of immigrants. It'll work this time everywhere else.
The problem is that we aren't sending enough money to the wealthy ... we need to send them more money because they haven't been able to trickle some back to us.
/s sarcasm, this is sarcasm if anyone is wondering
Yacht tax deductions were a good start! Now we need coal and gas subsidies. Those poor capitalists haven't had new subsidies in over 4 years!
Urine luck!
Executives: AI is the answer. We'll replace people and won't have to listen to them whining about how hungry they are.
I keep hearing stories about falling birth rates, USA, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and on and on.
The articles often pose many questions about why younger generations dont seem to care about having kids, but very few articles actually say the real reasons:
The first one is the main reason we could afford to have kids.
We were able to buy our first house because of three things. First the housing market crash in 2008-9. My wife's car was totaled by a rich bitch in a Mercedes. Our rented duplex was robbed and we had renters insurance. The combination of insurance payments and cheaper prices allowed us to purchase our first home.
My house payment hasn't changed since 2009. It made up 36% of our take-home income then. Today it makes up less than 11%. I pay less per month than it costs to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in my area.
The older I get the more I see that landlords are a parasite on society. They extract huge amounts of wealth from the suffering of others.
I bought an old home in ~2016, I'm 100% conditionally with the VA so was looking at fitting expenses to my budget. After recently upping my payment to pay it off for my 50th bday (36 now) its only $600/mo. $632 or something right now cause insurance sucks at the moment.
Ive watched as people have gone from happy for me, to jokingly jealous, to jealous, to cranky jealous, to "I'm going to off you and steal your identity." 🤣
This market sucks and we HAVE to get institutional investors out of housing. We HAVE to start building. In order to do that, we HAVE to stop this cultural bullshit of housing being the prime investment/retirement vehicle for Americans.
Totally jealous, but I'm happy for you. I'm glad you get to own a home.
A big one is that pregnancy and child birth SUUUUUCK. Women finally have the ability to avoid it entirely, and I don't blame them.
Honestly I don't think that's the biggest factor. I think a lot more people would be willing to go through the process of having kids, if they felt financially stable enough to properly care for them afterwards.
im not sure I would call the last point anxiety. As existential threats go its not like nuclear war. Which might or might not happen based on our actions. Its something that is definately happening and extreme good action by us might mitigate it but we by and large have been taking worse actions or at best our beneficial vs non beneficial actions cancel each other out. Heck even without climate change pollution alone has the same ending.
"apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness usually over an impending or anticipated ill : a state of being anxious" -Merriam Webster
Nothing about the word 'anxiety' implies that it's an unrealistic or irrational feeling. You might be thinking of phobias.
Its happening now though. Its like being anxious about walking down a dark alley because you might get the shit beat out of you as opposed to being anxious about the medical bills you will have while your getting the shit beat out of you.
Climate change is happening now, but the anxiety is about how bad it'll get in the future
yeah. I guess is are they not having it because of anxiety about the future or the fact its a reality now and the future effects are just reality. Is facing reality anxiety?
I'm just saying that accepting your definition of anxiety being tied to apprehension, anxiety about the climate is still valid.
I would say your definition is correct, but your application is extremely limited. The anxiety is about things getting worse, it's a vague nebulous feeling that can apply 1ms in the future or several decades. Or even about finding out past information in the future (the unknown). Or just not knowing what the future holds.
So yes, being super pedantic, you can't really be anxious about the literal state of the literal climate literally right now, but it's instead about the possible future outcomes and events. But it's very commonly understood that when someone says they're anxious about climate change, they don't mean it in the super pedantic literal way
this has actually benn really interesting for me and im now evaluating how I think of both depression and anxiety.
They specifically said they were talking about how bad it would get in the future, and the future is definitely not happening now.
But also, pay attention to the word "usually" in the definition i quoted.
If you think that one cannot be anxious about something happening right the fuck now, then you don't know much about anxiety. Which is not a slam, I'm mostly jealous.
Im starting to get it. the phrase just to me sounds like its more about a possibility but the replies make me get it. I definitely get anxiety from current circumstances although I guess both my wife and I were discussing that with our depression. Its not like it can be cured because it comes from our current circumstances and often you think about like diagnosis and medication and its like how is that going to help when there are external factors. We think of it as more anxiety/depression for no reason or for reasons that should not cause them.
The real reason is more educated people worry to much, and less educated people just go for it.
A lot of women I meet dating think there is no point to having a kid unless you can you are a 8 figure millionaire. it's absurd to me, since i grew up on a family income of like 30K.
After having a kid, I can confirm younger is better. 5 years ago would have gave me a lot more energy, and not significantly less money.
Too much? 🤣
They have 17 kids.
education and healthcare costs too
Also, wouldn't increasing the population cause more inflation. Like if you look at Japans decline in Japanese born citizens it overlaps with the "lost years" of economic growth, which was a surprisingly stable period where depreciation ruled the economy... Prices for every day items were stable for decades on end.
Lol. How much does it cost to have a child in the hospital in the USA again? Oh, $18,865 you say? Huh. What if they need an ambulance to get there? Oh, $500 to $3000 depending on distance you say? And you say also that US Bureau of Labor and Statistics is letting us know that in four short years our grocery prices have risen 22.04% and are expected to rise another 5.11% per year indefinitely? Meanwhile corporate profits increase every single year and minimum wage has been stagnant for decades? Someone should get them quick!!! I think I figured out why no one wants to have babies anymore! I would like to also comment on how obscenely expensive daycare is and how fucked up it is we have to put children in school 40 hours a week just so we can keep working more than half our lives away but I feel like anyone reading this gets the idea. They will be begging your ass to have babies in the next 100 to 200 years if we make it that long and I'll bet you all those obscene expenses will be an even greater cost to income ratio then, too. I mean if birthrates are a problem you have to ask yourself are they just fucking stupid or just fucking greedy?
The future is bleak. The least I can do is not create another person to inflict it on.
While the cost of children, lack of support and stagnant wages are definately a factor, birth rates have declined even in countries where income inequality is lower and support for parents is higher.
It is not going to be an easy problem to solve.
Its not a problem. A consistent population is much easier to plan for financially and socially.
Yea it’s only a problem when you need to perpetuate a pirimid scheme.
But declining birth rates won't lead to a consistent population, it will lead to a falling population.
The replacement level birth rate is 2.1 children per woman. The US is at 1.6 but the yearly population growth rate is trending back up due to immigration. Worldwide the birth rate is still at 2.6. Experts estimate that the population will continue to increase up until 2060 before it will start to plateau or gently fall to a homeostasis.
For us and everyone we know it was under $200. I'm not saying that everyone is going to have our levels of insurance but you are greatly exaggerating.
The biggest cost by far is childcare hands down.
Edit: I know I know, a $2500 median out of pocket expense hurts everyone's head cannon.
is this written into the law as covered before deductible and maximum out of pocket?
Yes and yes although the latter can be quite high. I'm not saying our healthcare isn't insane, I'm just saying it costs nowhere near 18k outside of edge cases. In reality full time daycare will run you 22k/yr for a moderate cost of living area and is, by a long shot the most expensive portion until college.
I mean if i get to maximum out of pocket its a bit over 7 grand now which tends to be about the same as my monthly cost on the insurance for the year and one kid will raise my monthly cost from spouse only to family (although keep em coming as after that they are all free). One decent surgery can pretty much push to max out of pocket. Of course that is max out of pocket for what is covered. Like this machine that automatically ices and puts pressure on an area and is proven to have better outcomes from surgery is not covered (one of the many health insurance chicken contests. sure we will pay more because you will have more issues if you don't get it but you will have to live with lower quality of life). Anyway just some perspective on cost because while not 22k it can get up there.
Yes, in edge cases. None of it, even the extreme edge case, adds up to the 80k in daycare until college. For the large majority birth is a trivial concern vs the loss of income or daycare.
This is basic math.
well im not sure I consider myself and edge case but I get your point.
Hey GOP assholes, taking away bodily autonomy doesn't get you more babies.
you want more kids make houses affordable and give people time off from work.
If you want to further subjugate women so rich people can get away with more creepy sex crimes then you do what the GOP is currently doing.
Hey, falling birth rate means lots of empty houses. House prices will go down. Problem solved!
Bullshit, we have lots of empty houses now because they are owned by corporations to pad out their balance sheets.
It was a joke.
The capitalist class only cares about birthrate for productivity. Don't blame us for not caring about reduced productivity when most of us get a tiny fraction of the benefits of productivity. Also, what happened to all the shrieking about overpopulation? It's all just fearmongering to drive people to act in ways to benefit the capitalist class. I'm tired, leave me alone.
It's also dumb legacy thinking.
We're in the process of creating a labor force that threatens to put the majority of people already existing out of work such that we need to figure out how to restructure society in a post-labor era.
What the fuck do we need a high birthrate for?
I'd love to have kids. I think it would be wonderful to be able to be a foster parent as another option.
I can't afford it. Its impossible. We can barely afford living as it is. How the fuck am I supposed to raise a kid?
I'm shrugging at falling birth rates not out of indifference, but out of a lack of ability to do anything about it.
Hope? Things could improve, or at least hope that the next generation will be able to improve things. At the very least I see movement to try to do something about housing and college expenses. Maybe they’ll succeed. Renewable energy and electrification seem to be coming, regardless of active resistance. Too slow and too late, but maybe they’ll succeed. We’re in the middle of a wave of enthusiasm about high speed rail. Maybe they’ll succeed
Wealthy employers shrug over falling standard of living and lack of affordable housing and food
I can't understand why anyone would expect most people to want to have kids. I can hardly afford to take care of myself, things look like they're only likely to get worse, and all indicators are that if I did have kids, they would be facing an even worse future when they hit adulthood. Why would I do that to them?
I have kids. I love my kids, and being a parent is the best decision I ever made for myself.
I can't say I would recommend it, though.
I am also a parent who dearly loves my daughter (it's her 14th birthday tomorrow!) but I don't want anyone to have kids who isn't willing to take the time and the effort and spend the money.
No child should be unloved or neglected.
My kids don't want kids. I'm cool with that. It's not my decision and I'm definitely not interested in playing grandma daycare.
Neither me nor my sister really want kids, but my parents want to be grandparents. Makes for some awkward family dinners
Lots of single parents out there with no support.
Maybe we need a big brother/sister program, but for grandparents.
Honestly I bet that'd blow up.
The decision is much too big to let anyone pressure you one way or another. It's totally okay for you to want what you want, and it's okay for that to change throughout your life.
Same, but they only want grandchildren as facebook sex trophies. No interest in babysitting or being supportive in any other meaningful way.
They were able to raise children on a single salary without leaning on family for childcare, so why can't we? Surely nothing has changed over the last 30-40 years.
If politicians want people to have more children, maybe they could do something to make having kids less ruinously-expensive.
If young Americans had financial stability, better mental health, hope for the future, etc. I'm sure that birth rate would go back up.
It's not like people don't enjoy fucking anymore. It's just that they're more careful than ever not to reproduce, because they can't afford parenthood.
Even if I could afford to have kids (which I can't) or believed in forcing anyone to have to be alive without consent (which is impossible), there's no way I could ethically justify making somebody have to live in what is probably The last century ever of human civilization.
I'm very happy that I don't have kids. I still have no idea what compels people to have kids these days. They must not know the things I know.
Every now and then I see a parent having a tender moment with their child and I smile. I then reflect on whether my vasectomy/shirk of parenthood was the right choice.
I always come to the conclusion that it was. Perhaps when I'm older I will feel differently but I just can't imagine that in my life for a long time.
Worst case scenario for me is I go "kidnap" my niece and nephew for a weekend and get it out of my system.
Completely agree.
Look at an ocean temperature graph if you are even entertaining the idea of bringing new life into the world.
Fewer people means increased wages. Fuck em.
The only reason economists say immigration can offset falling birthrate. Is because the system is designed for low wages to keep the system running
I heard on NPR that every day, like 30,000 30 something's come into parenthood. Just imagine that number not getting a job, but having a single baby each.
The problem with capitalism is you run out of other people's labour
It's like a pyramid scheme or something.
As a species we have the tools, technology, education, knowledge, cognition, and intelligence to override an animal instinct to reproduce willy nilly. We're more than that now. People should know what it means to choose to have children and weigh the benefits vs the costs to their lives.
Have children when you want to and when it makes sense. If it doesn't make sense, then don't do it. Humanity will survive thinning down to many billions fewer humans sitting around consuming resources. A person who never existed in the first place because healthy adults decided to put their time and resources into something else shouldn't be lamented, but a choice respected.
My family has a long history of not having many children. Our family tree is one of marrying in people and then just not growing larger generation to generation. We have plenty of childless couples in the tree and they make the coolest aunts and uncles a kid can have.
Clearly your family has a long history of enough children since you’re here to talk about it.
I feel like the opposite. My grandfather was one of 13, my mom was one of six, I was one of four, but the next generation only has my two. So far the odds of one more generation are not looking good.
Sure, the world is overpopulated but that’s a short term problem. Every estimate has a peak within 50 years, then a drop. It would be better for us all if that drop were a slow decline to something more sustainable rather than steep, chaotic, disruptive, if the slow drop were uniform, rather than much steeper for some
Now let's see 2022 and 2023.
Edit. Oh wait! It's back down.
https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/
It's not back down to 2019 prices
https://www.fao.org/images/worldfoodsituationlibraries/default-album/home_graph_3_may24.jpg?Status=Master&sfvrsn=ba07d6c5_113
Never said that but you're right.
Just providing even more context than you did
That's fewer kids on my damn lawn! (shakes fist)
And more fucking! I wish I had done more fucking.
Uh yeah, that'll happen when we are financially ruined for life and facing an ever worsening climate disaster because of greedy pieces of shit. If we can't reliably support ourselves, how can we support children?
Just what the fuck are we supposed to do with that???
There's over 300 million people in the US, I'm not at all concerned about falling birth rates.
Don't play the game if it's rigged
You don't want to pay ever increasing prices on one of the most expensive undertakings a person (or couple) can do... An undertaking which may also act to increase inflation its self!?
Theme to lean into: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement
Get all your right wing nutcase friends to have more babies “for the cause”, then get all your left wing nutcase friends to have more babies because “oh noes, Project 2025”. Pretty soon your social security will be funded and you can retire in peace, far from either
Or instead of overpopulating we can increase immigration to fund social security without having to wait multiple decades.
Ha! I thought the plan was to kill off the workforce before they could reach social security.
Definately not me. Im cheering it.
Wonder how nice it would be not to put 0‐20% of your income into a 401k. Or the money I need to put into a HSA in case I get destroyed in medical bills. Or crippling student debt. Maybe that money could go into housing or children.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
🤷♀️🤷♂️
Shrug©®™
Yours for only fordy-naaan low low payments of nanteen nandy-naaaan
We have an endless supply of illegal emigrants we don’t need to have kids.
It’s not endless. Birth rate is declining everywhere and standards of living are generally rising, meaning fewer people with incentive to uproot their lives for another place they’ll be treated as criminals. That flow could easily stop and any interruption switches us instantly from growth to serious shrinkage
Believe it or not, Earth's population is not ∞ and most of the people who live in places other than the U.S. don't plan to come to the U.S.
It is endless enough for us. We literally need to put up walls and barbed wire to keep people out.
Is it? Because I don't know where you live, but there's plenty of space around here.
plastic is stored in the balls, my dude