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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Too much? 🤣
They have 17 kids.