having a baby costs as much as a decent used car
that’d do it.
This is kind of whatever… partially a white people problem and partially just a result of later childbirth. White people are definitely having less kids, but that’s not true for everyone.
Also by their 40s, something like 85% of children have had at least one child. People are having kids. Most people who are younger than 30 are astounded to realize just how many women do have children.
When they polled people aged 18-30 in the 90s and 2010s, and 2020s, the amount of people who said they would never have children is lower than now, but not by much. People change their mind and a significant amount of people do have children, especially if you’re not white or Asian.
Regardless, people’s choice. Whenever I see articles like this, it always seems kinda “Great Replacement Theory” adjacent. In my head I always put (white) in the title. I.e., a smaller percentage of (white) baby boomers have grandchildren.
Maybe next time leave the ladder behind instead of taking it with you.
The wealthier Boomers left behind millions of tiny little ladders specifically for their kids to climb.
The poorer Boomers died before hitting retirement age, or died in debt, or bankrupted themselves paying for end-of-life health care, or got scammed or otherwise denuded of their accumulated wealth.
Incidentally, its the wealthier Boomers who continue to set national policy from the board rooms and lobbying offices established by their own parents and grandparents. Meanwhile the poorer and more isolated Boomers are left to drown in their own poverty, ineffectually raging at the collapse of neighborhoods and the destitution of their pension funds and the deterioration of their suburban homes, unless their children and grandchildren are able to help them out at the end of their days.
Folks like to pretend this is one generation pitted against another. But its selection bias. The only members of the Boomer generation you hear from are the ones that came out on top. The rest have been killed in the wars or poisoned by industrial waste and lead pollution or foreclosed into homelessness to die on the streets or confined to digital communities like Facebook where they’re drowned out by waves of misinformation accounts. Legions of dead Boomers never got to decide how the current generations live. They were burned up and thrown out, just like the current generation of bourgeois GenXers and Millennials and Zoomers plan to do with the rest of us.
They all came out on top. Even the poorest boomer right now today living in the street had a better shot at the American dream than all but the most lucky of youth right now.
Yes some fucked up or got screwed over but as a vast majority even these people supported and continue to support the same people who have put them there in the first place.
Even the poorest boomer right now today living in the street had a better shot at the American dream
Trying to explain to a sharecropper born in 1945 and dead from cholera or smallpox in 1965 that he had just as good a shot at the “American Dream” as someone born after modern sanitation, public education, and highway mass transit was installed in their municipality forty years later.
But I can’t, because that sharecropper was illiterate and also dead.
well, there are just more boomers, and less gen x/millenial people. It should follow that there will be less babies lmao.
Granted cost of child raising is still likely to be a more influential factor, it’s not the only factor, and we were going to see this anyway so.
Lmfao thanks for ruining our whole society, boomers. Reap what you’ve sowed.
Way to focus, Wall Street Journal. We can always count on you for in-depth journalism
/s
Not the best thesis, but people should have kids and more of them. That’s not open for debate.
people should have kids and more of them
Seems like a personal choice. I can name plenty of people who are trying to have kids and can’t. And more than a few who didn’t try to have kids but got them anyway. I also see a lot of kids showing up in foster programs, homeless shelters, and prisons.
Perhaps the problem isn’t that we don’t have enough kids. Perhaps we’re just doing a shit job of caring for the kids who already exist.
Go troll harder somewhere else. This is a pretty lame attempt to distract the thread.
Ok
boomerbreeder.We need to learn to take care of the ones who are already here before we start making more. That’s not open for debate.
Personally, I think the solution of “not enough kids” mirrors that of a law proposed decades ago: if a citizen votes in favor of going to war, they’re automatically drafted should war be declared.
Republicans/Conservatives the world over want abortion banned, right? Cool, you vote to ban it, you’re automatically added to a list to adopt children who cannot be aborted. The individual gets no say in when the adoption happens, they have no say in gender/ethnicity/etc, the government shows up, hands them a baby, and that’s now their child. Government can do weekly/regular checks to ensure the child is being raised well enough and that the parent is home enough to watch them. And no limit on how many kids end up in your lap, either.
Oh, that doesn’t work with your work schedule/life schedule/etc? Too bad, you wanted to save the unborn babies, now save them. You can’t afford 13 newborns all at once? Sure sounds like a you problem, since you didn’t support any of the things to make the lives of children better, like abortion/contraception/sex ed, childcare subsidies, school lunch programs, etc.
Problem solved: Conservative Christians get to save all the babies, people can still keep making them without fear of it hindering their lives, and the population continues to grow so the capitalist machine can be fed.
No one needs to have kids ever, the world will be fine. That’s not open for debate. Also, I deserve all the money, chocolate, and sex in the world, that’s not open for debate. I like this game!
Fascinating how not having kids leaves me with all my money to buy as much chocolate and sex as I want!
Not the best thesis, but people should have kids and more of them. That’s not open for debate.
you know whats not open for debate? Freedom, and liberty.
LOL 😂
If you want more kids make a world where raising kids is easier, safer, and more affordable. Just stating “That’s not open for debate” is such an idiotic non-answer to the problem of people not wanting to have kids. There are reason people feel this way. Fix those reasons and people might feel differently. Not me, but other people would.
| not me
ok so why raise issues about easier, safer, more afforable if they’re not your reasons?
Because I have loved ones that are living in this world and it matters to them, therefore it matters to me.
Have those people committed to not have kids until those issues are resolved? And have they set thresholds of easier, safer, more affordable to trigger their child rearing?
Most people don’t measure out futuristic measurements for society to get to before they feel comfortable having kids. Plus they will be at a different place and time, so things may change for them to be more comfortable. Reproducing isn’t the top priority for them, surviving is. It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. After the basic needs are met, they will have more energy to focus on kids.
I’m in my 40s and still don’t want kids, so I doubt that will change. The people I know that are young (teens and early 20s) might change their mind, but they aren’t lining up to have kids now. Some seem open to changing their minds later, but most of them say probably not.
I feel ya, I’ve always been a mix of “not ready” and “not wanting”. Then my perspective on what fatherhood even is shifted and I was able to unshackle myself from the Christian thing.
That said, if you don’t want kids for yourself then what impact are you having on those 20 somethings when you soapbox about how difficult and dangerous the world is?
My impact on them is supportive uncle mostly. I don’t try to doom and gloom them with my old jaded take on the world. I know humans will figure this out. It will just be difficult. I tell them to look after each other because no one else will look out for you. Take care of yourself and enjoy your youth, but think for the future. I tell them they might change their mind on kids. I don’t want them to just say no to kids cause they see me doing it.
I love being an uncle and older male in their lifes. I enjoyed teaching the younger guys in the military when I was in there for a while. We can accomplish a lot if we can unite and focus on a common goal.
Go ahead buddy, nobody stopping you.
Aww 8 billion just isn’t enough for you huh?
Why?
I vote for basic replacement. However, if people want to not have kids, that’s fine too. There’s way too many humans on Earth as it is and the only reason why 75% of the species doesn’t starve to death is because we artificially increased the amount of food that we produce by doping the very Earth with poison.
because we artificially increased the amount of food that we produce by doping the very Earth with poison.
to be clear, this only really changes the amount of food produced from a specific harvest, GMO foods are what you are closest to here, but those have very few downsides.
The primary issue here is centralized farming, if we were to decentralize it more, it would be vastly more economical.
In addition to the financial implications, that’s why we’re stopping at 2. We get kids, the kids get a sibling, and it’s a little below replacement level.
I’ll debate it. The world would be way better off with about 6 billion less people in the world.
I’m so done with this garbage random eugenics idea that the world should have exactly 1 billion people on it like some pseudoscience perfect number.
Its not a debate if you use feeling and lack any reasoning to get to your starting position.
There world is not some incapable small bubble that can only support some racist perfect population size of your desires.
bro its literally just anti-natalism
Having a specific population goal is not that.
I don’t think Eugenics or racist is the correct ideas to use here. Less population just means smaller. Not a specific phenotype of human needs to be culled from existance. Just a smaller population.
All biological systems have population limits, and lots of evidence points that humans have passed those limits by quite a bit. Normally, there would be a population collapse due to food scarcity, but humans are capable of pushing those limits with agurcultural science. That doesn’t mean that there are not huge determental effects on the world as a whole for there being an never ending exponential growth of people.
Who needs to be the 6 billion to die then?
Edit: Also go ahead and tell me where you get your population size to land use models so that it can be checked to not be still overshoot if you are so worried about how very few people can be supported by apparently this very limited planet.
And show me this exponential growth that hasn’t apparently slowed at all with decreasing birthsDude, you will die, everyone will die… Not because I will go and kill you because I decided so but because AGING EXISTS. Simply by having fewer kids the population will decrease fully naturally which was the point of the person you’re arguing against. Also you’re incredibly ignorant on what the fuck humans do to this planet which is the only one we have, so many ecosystems destroyed, so many species extint, so much of nature gone…
“@Krauerking@lemy.lol was so preocupied with the question if we could that he didn’t stop and ask himself if we should.”
It’s not about if it’s possible to fit so many and more humans on there but about it being a bad idea on so many levels. But again though… How the hell did you manage to forget that aging exists? I can’t wrap my head around this one. Bruh.
Waiting for a population to age out as a fix for anything isn’t a fix. I’m not unaware I just don’t sit around waiting for hopes and prayers of the slow death of billions of people as an answer.
We have now and current reality. Playing make believe doesn’t help. And who doesn’t have kids? Cause plenty of people will have them anyways despite the obvious issues the planet is facing so how do you stop them?
This entire line of thought of just a decreasing population to a size you think is right is wishful “merciful” eugenics.
Saying you wish we hadn’t got here is one thing and not helpful but one can forgive that as we all get mournful of the past. Hoping for it as a future is wrong and out of our control without some awful steps. I won’t back down on that.
Edit: and you ignored that you said we are still in exponential increase of population which we are not. Its just an easy excuse for the mentality.
Whoa, wanting less people via having fewer kids isn’t eugenics, it’s wishful thinking. I don’t subscribe to the idea of forcing people to have fewer kids.
Edit: I can see how it sounds like I am advocating for eugenics in my earlier post. I will update it.
Thanks.
Absolutes with a goal for a future population often appeals to a specific group that I can’t stand who appeal to it “being necessary” but often leave themselves out. So I try to push back on it so they know it’s not acceptable to take seriously. It’s just not an answer.
I know it doesn’t go over well in these communities but I don’t care. If even it pops up in the back of their head when thinking about “what helps” I want counter words there to say hoping for death of nearly everyone is miserable even if it’s an “easy” out for suffering.
Thanks for being able to recognize it as wishful past missed conservation.
Why do you say it’s not open to debate?
Told my mom if she wants grandkids she better stop voting for conservatives. Didn’t work, and a deal’s a deal.
she better stop voting for conservatives
Democrats have won the popular vote in the last seven of eight elections. If everyone struck this deal, I would expect to see significantly more grandkids than we’re getting.
But also, states like California and New York and Massachusetts are seeing grandkid-gaps bigger than anything you’ll find in Utah or Ohio or South Carolina. If conservatives are causing the problem, you would expect to see more Gen Alphas in the bluer states, wouldn’t you?
The poorer families in those states make do better than poorer families in red states, but not enough to support having kids
I mean, she’s a boomer, if she said she had I still wouldn’t trust her.
Boomers: “Reality can be anything I want.”
Than before?
Maybe they shouldn’t horde and partition their wealth from their children and do everything possible to ensure every penny is spent before death.
You’re not wrong, but this is more of a class issue than a generational issue, although in this case they certainly intersect. My boomer parents don’t have any money; they got screwed over by the 1% just like the rest of us.
even if I had kids my dad would be excluded from grandparenting due to the trump worship. don’t need that kind of influence on the adult family members let alone kids.
Make college and homes unobtainable… You get what you get and you don’t get upset.
Is it boomers that made homes and college unaffordable? I thought it was massive corporations like Blackrock buying up every SFH they can get their hands on, and universities inflating their tuition rates.
no it’s the lack of building supply and market liquidity.
Shit like airbnb is going to have a more influential effect on the market than something like blackrock.
Boomers repealed all the laws on those guys in exchange for better returns on the 401ks and home sales.
They sold humanity to our corporate overlords, they need to be held to account.
They’re so anti-socialism: Suspend Medicare for 10 years, let the system sort itself out.
And Boomers allowed those organizations to exist by their votes.
Make the world a place that will be liveable in 100 years and pay people enough to exist:
A) without children, and B) with children
and boom, problem solved. Statistically, anyway.
Once again Gen-X is ignored. It’s Gen-X hitting grandparenting age.
My two kids probably won’t be parents, and I’m ok with that. I want them to be happy more than I want to enjoy grandkids. Whatever they choose, I’ll be happy with.
I felt pressure from Boomer parents to have kids, and I didn’t want to do the same to my kids. That’s a hard nope.
Once again Gen-X is ignored.
I will maintain, as I always do, that getting lumped in with the wrong group and ignored is the most Gen-X thing going right now.
With that, I conclude: whatever ::eye roll::.
maybe if gen x did something we wouldn’t be forgetting about them /s (i kid i kid)
but seriously, go get into the government or something, you guys are the prime age for entering the government right now.
I mean you can still have grandkids. I’ve heard they’re great deep fried with a light cornmeal batter and a creamy dill sauce.
Yeah this is a good point. Young boomers are, what, 65?
About 59 I think.
Seems like old = boomers and young = millennials for journalist and a lot of people
People are having kids later in life, and the youngest millennials are only ~29.
Millennials are predominantly the children of Boomers, so that’s why these two generations are basing singled out.
Gen-X were called the a Baby Bust generation for a reason; there aren’t enough of them around in order to swap population metrics compared to what came directly before and after.
Wouldn’t this be prime age for boomers to be great grandparents? Unless they mean paying for their grandkids college…
Boomers are 1946-1964. Definitely the older in the generation are in the great grandparent years, especially if they and their kids had kids young, but the younger boomers, especially if they and their kids had their first kids later, will be grandparents.
I wouldn’t exactly call that prime time for them to be grandparents, then…
if they had kids at 30 their kids could have kids at 30.
“If” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
And that’s still just for the youngest of that generation, not the whole of it… I don’t know about you, but I’d hardly call a minority of a minority “prime”.
