Children used to be a means to support aging parents. Now, with the downward mobility, it's the other way around.
Good point. Also with retirement systems in place, now I don't have to birth a child just so someone will take care of me in old age rather than just being left to die after my labor isn't of value anymore
Yeah I guess this just works for pmc. Those seem like the people not having babies anyway.
I read this first as less 15 to 19 year olds being born and I was like wow, is it otherwise common in America for women to give birth to teens?
Honestly the American cultural fascination with high school would make much more sense if people were born as teens over there.
I've also heard the theory that High School is a person's first taste of semi-autonomy and is remembered fondly because high schoolers are yet to feel burdens like work and student loans (in theory).
But I still don't get why high school is much more of a thing over there than in other parts of the West.
Not as much anymore, but even in the 80s and 90s, about 15% of babies in America were born to teen mothers.
You know you're living in a healthy, vibrant society when the prospects for life there makes people stop having children.
Nothing unstable or failed about that.
By far and away our biggest concern for having a second child is economic.
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that birth rate tracks with hope for the future. So, not surprising that it's on the decline.
You know what happens when people have no hope for the future?
they start revolutions. so there's a silver lining to this
Idk how we could measure hope for the future, but if we could I'd 100% expect births to follow along with it.
It's when you ask people questions like, how hopeful are you about the future?
Lol I mean yeah. Idk I feel like it's more complicated than that but I guess maybe it isn't
I mean, you ask lots of people and do statistics and ask other questions too, but yeah that's pretty much it.
Very true. My family is fairly affluent and I have little doubt that I'll be financially stable, but I cannot imagine having children with the climate crisis on the horizon. I am already worried about it affecting me, I couldn't bear having to worry about my children's future.
am still laughing at Matty Glesias and his dumbass ONE BILLION AMERICANS thing
I can barely afford myself. How am I supposed to bring a kid into all this?!
you talkin' to me?
Bickleization
fun word btw. Also the truth, taxi driver/Travis seems even more relevant to a lot of males now that capitalist society is even more alienating and isolating.
they meant to write pickleization - it's when somebody turns themself into a pickle. funniest shit i've ever seen
