Maybe because it’s the only way many without generational wealth can afford to live.
people used to look at children as a way to pass on knowledge, culture, adn ofc, genes
nowadays our genes dont matter so much unless youre a super athlete or mega genius, so passing them on seems frivolous to many. then theres the interent, which houses knowledge on damn near everything. so i guess it makes sense why the desire to carry on would be outweighed at this point
Passing on genes sounds like some Nazi shit.
Honestly at this point there are only a handful of headlines that cover about 90% of news stories:
-Young people ‘choose’ lifestyle choice that was forced upon them by external conditions.
-Young people are ‘killing industry’ that they are not paid enough to even dream of participating in.
-Rich person/people found guilty of or admitted to enormous crime will go unpunished.
-Someones totally unqualified opinion on a subject that we’re reporting as news because they’re rich.
-World ending, shareholders rejoice.Rich people doing stupid things with money because they aren’t being taxed like they should so that the economy actually can survive.
FDR taxes the shit out of rich people so they had to re-invest the money into their companies or lose it to the government. That built a strong, industrialized America with good paying jobs. Ronald Reagan reversed everything and we’ve been in decline ever since. Still a huge number of poor people continue to vote Republican, against their country, and their own interests.
this might be the greatest comment on Lemmy
Disaster capitalism!!! 🥳
By choosing, I think we mean that it’s not an affordable luxury to do otherwise
oh trust me, the right wing would LOVE to take your ability to choose to procreate out of your hands completely. Abortion for sure, but also the the night after pill and even birth control. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/birth-control-is-next-republicans-abortion.html
I really wish that this was just a joke. Those fascists will take anything they can to make themselves feel powerful.
Choosing or forced to choose?
Choosing to not have children is becoming more and more accepted among younger people for a long variety of reasons, among them being climate and economy as well as “not going to ruin my body” and “well i just dont like children”
The best thing you can do for the environment as a person in a western country is not have kids.
That’s not the only reason we aren’t having any, but it’s certainly a factor.
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Neither, really. More like are choosing not to go into child debt. Having a kid costs more than having a house. Good for this generation for taking control of their reproductive decisions.
But what you’re describing is an economic decision.
Was just going to say that.
Of all my younger siblings/cousins/etc, the only ones with kids were accidents. Only I chose to purposely start a family, and that took me a decade of saving.
Most humans choose to breathe for oxygen, study shows.
Choosing. Def had the option to have kids but decided not to.
“choosing”
- low wages
- no unions
- housing is either a lifetime’s savings for down payment on mortgage or a never ending escalator of rent fees
- states taking reproductive rights away
- states threatening contraception
- climate change dooming the future
- war - war in ukraine, war in palestine, war in africa, civil war being threatened by the chud down the street
Gee Mr Wizard, why don’t millennials want babies instead of avocado toast?
they arent choosing it.
They are being forced into it because its the only fucking way to have a chance at NOT being homeless and crippled.
Oh no, make no mistake, I chose it.
However, even if I wanted them, how the fuck does one even afford them?
Don’t get it twisted, many of us absolutely chose to not have kids because we don’t want them.
You can both be right, you know. Many of us also agree with what this person was saying.
I used to want kids. I will refuse to have kids unless I can afford them, and until I can GUARANTEE that their human rights won’t be stripped away by the whims of stupid people who are completely disconnected from reality. I won’t bring a new life into a world that’s rushing towards climate oblivion, either.
I’ll sterilize myself before I’m ever forced to have kids.
OP: everyone in group x does y
Me: not everyone
You: you’re both right - not everyone
?
Agreed. These people are trying to leverage something many of us absolutely aren’t interested in to push for necessities such as fixing inflation, universal Healthcare etc. Except that if those things were fixed it wouldn’t change the birth rate much at all. That’s why Republicans are forcing people to be breeding machines. Educated well off people know better to engage in an activity that is detrimental to their physical and mental health. And making a human means you’re responsible for them until you or they die. That’s the biggest mistake people make. They make a human, then wash their hands of then.
Less of a choice and more of a survival tactic. Plus, my foregone children would thank me.
What choice do they have if kids are basically unaffordable?
No one should have a child unless they are willing to commit themselves to that child 100%. I have a daughter. She’s the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. And if anyone willingly took substantially less effort than I’ve taken to try to raise her in a safe, healthy environment and prepare her for her future as best I can- fuck you, you should have worn a fucking condom.
No child deserves to be neglected.
Interesting/sad how simply due to circumstance, somebody’s absolute honest best at max effort/sacrifice can still be raising a kid in a favela.
Consider the top vs. bottom billion: I expect the latter half’s kids would appear neglected if they were suddenly transported to the former’s McMansions overnight.
That’s not to say the kisses and the love are any less, but the clothes and the education and the soccer practice? I’d bet certainly.
I hope within by two generations from now this kind of pondering is only possible from a historical perspective. The kids deserve it.
Hence my saying ‘willingly.’ You can’t help being impoverished.
I also have kids and love them dearly. However I think that it is important that parents have their own interests and time for their own lives, independent of their roles as parents. Of course with very young children there’s barely time to sleep, but humans grow up quickly! 😄
I’m not suggesting otherwise. You can put the effort in to do all that I said and still have time to do your own thing.
My wife finally are in a point where we can afford to have children, but we are kinda getting a bit old to have children. So we are also choosing the dual income no children life style,
But a big part of that is our age and how long it took to get to a comfortable place financially.
Now we want to focus on saving for a house and retirement.
dinks
I don’t know what this means.
It’s the acronym for the phrase in the article - “Dual Income No Kids”. Might have been more obvious if it were in caps.
Thanks!!
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How old are you if you don’t mind me asking?
Mid 30s
That’s not old, my man. Many of us are having kids in our 40s.
perfectly ok in that range, it starts to get unsafe for the mother after 40 tho
I don’t know about this commenter, but don’t forget that everyone is different.
Hypothetically, you might be good having kids in you thirties, but one or both of them might have a condition or disability that gets worse with time.
I know people in their early 20s with bad arthritis, and a lot of people want to be able to chase after and run around with their kids. Sometimes chronic pain/illness can remove that option.
Oh for sure, I dont think everyone should or can be parents. Im just saying its not necessarily a death knell for parenthood in that age range
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I think adoption is also pretty pricey but I’m not sure where you’re from.
I make ~$200K a year. As a father of 5, I wish I had not had a single one. I love them, but the stress of taking care of them coupled with the future of the planet makes me regret life choices.
I find it interesting that you cite the stress of raising them as a factor in your regret. Could you not tell that was going to be an issue around the time number three came around? That’s not intended to be accusatory btw. I’m genuinely curious.
You incorrectly assume I’m intelligent.
Haha fair enough
Ok not a Java dev but this would explain the excess children (lol)
Oh hell yeah I’ll never pass up an opportunity to shit on a language i don’t use. It’s the programmer way!
Signed, a PHP developer. <3
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Maybe they meant it like “there is now stress for helping pay for college at a higher cost than when they were born.” Or being stressed knowing if the family lives in a HCOL area (typically where those salaries are offered), they might not be able to live there as well with the current trends in housing costs.
TLDR: things have changed for the worst for newer generations, parents can see it.
God, I wish I was smart enough to lie this well. No. I like sex, and hate condoms. I’m the dum.
I do too, which is why I was on the table getting a vasectomy before the vernix was dry on our one and only kid lol
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Kids are inherently stressful. They’re like little abusive people who you can’t legally defend yourself against.
Not OP, but I’ve found that the older they get, the harder it gets. Schedules are all over the place, and they start advocating for things they want to do that don’t fit neatly into the family calendar (vs when you were able to choose everything for them).
Expectations for parents have also skyrocketed. Your “best” now is far different than what the 1990s parents were expected to deliver. And, of course, you love them and want to provide them everything they need, so you bend over backwards to make it happen. That’s what society demands, too.
I don’t have as many kids as OP, and I can’t fucking imagine wrangling five in the current world…😳
He’s a Java developer
Made a ChildFactory, may as well use it.
He probably doesn’t know what contraception is.
I’m sorry man, I assume you have a bit of family support in this regard?
“choosing”.
Articles like this are not for you and me. These are written for investors.
The plebs aren’t breeding enough future workers for us to exploit to deliver the promised renumerations to our shareholders.
We MUST find out the reason why! No it can’t possibly be that extracting all the wealth into our dragon hoards, I mean, hedge funds is the reason why they’re too broke to support children.
It can only be a LiFeStYlE cHoICe! Like being homeless or poor.
choice or forced the reconcile the gloomy outlook, the right wing would love to take even the right to choose away from the population. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/birth-control-is-next-republicans-abortion.html
“When we advise clients about having children, we honestly don’t even give them the full real details and the real numbers,” said Shannon McLay, founder of The Financial Gym. “It’s one of those things if you see the math of it all, it might make you decide to not have children.”
what a whole generation of pulling the ladder up behind you will do to a society. Party of family values doing everything they possibly can to destroy familes.
In other words, “we trick our clients who paid us for financial advice into having children they can’t afford”.
Yeah, I hope there’s some more context. That quote makes it sound pretty bad.
people won’t pay to hear ‘don’t have kids’
so they skip that part
Because we can’t afford our own lives, how are we supposed to support children? Not even taking into account for how absolutely fucked we all are. Our planet is dying, how can we bring children into this world if it’s all falling apart?
Hey you, I have a quick question about the username
Uh oh, this is awkward…
What are your thoughts on misandry?
I mean a lot of us wouldn’t even if it they paid us. We finally live in a time where we know better and can choose not to be barefoot and pregnant (unless you live in tx).
Put the value back into my income then, ye cunts.
I make the same number as my dad used to. His was a different currency but the number was the same which makes it awfully simple to put everything into perspective.
His house: 350 Mine: a little under half the size: 900
I’m already down 550 in comparison.
His insurance: 90 Mine: 160
I’m down 620.
His medicine cost and doctor visits: basically zero. Mine: 385 and half the medicine comes out of pocket nowadays.
This difference is hard to put into perspectice as the 385 is once a year and medicine depends on the situation.
Him: unemployed wife, groceries cost about 200 for a full month, owns a car and has 4 children.
Me: wife works and has a hobby that makes money, no car because no money left. Groceries: we eat about 2/3rd of what they did and pay 200 a week. No children.
We are down 1220 if we forget about insurance and medicine. I don’t make 1220 more than he did.
Fuck this hellhole, you stole our life and i hope there is a hell for you scumbags.
you stole our life
Don’t blame your dad - however much you resent him it’s not like he has any influence over the economy. Instead blame the super rich who have real influence and are actively pushing policy to widen this social divide.
I doubt he does.
But it is partially their fault: they have the largest political clout by generation so welfare and zoning policies have always suited them at the behest of everyone else.
And even if people don’t have kids, the rich aren’t going to be impacted. They just use immigration as a stop gap until everything is automated away and we see wealth imbalance get taken to 11. I’m talking gated communities everywhere with poverty in-between (e.g South Africa)
You’re choosing to be wilfully ignorant about inflation. You don’t make as much as he did in a real sense.
If only income inflated to match the expenses.
