We won’t have kids because, despite doing everything right, despite working hard, we’re struggling with finances. Kids wouldn’t be affordable without an extra job, and most of work two already!
This, but also if it’s this bad for me, why would I create more people to partake?
I have some kids and it’s incredibly bittersweet listening to them talk about the little art and music they create. They talk about painting pictures and making songs, being able to live in a nice house while doing that for a living.
Nope, have to be STEM, a nurse, a teacher, or learn a trade, kiddo. All those other degrees are fucking worthless and won’t get you a decent job.
Teacher isn’t going to make them much money and most don’t last more than 6 years.
Depends on the district. Most public school teachers in blue states and suburbs make a decent living.
Not single ones
I live in a blue district and the teachers make just barely a living wage, so not great.
For starting pay? The teachers on every district around me make 75k+ a year once they finish five years and get their required master’s. When they get their masters +40 looking at low six figures.
I don’t even live in a big city. People need to look at the entire pay scale and not just that first year.
The point is that not everyone lives where you do.
I was shopping for daycare trying to kinda get a financial picture of how we could swing it not too long ago and the cheapest daycare I could find came out to about twice my mortgage lol. So I guess I either hit the lottery so I don’t have to use daycare or I just don’t have kids
This solution is of course not for everyone and its by no means ideal, but a third option for some is to start your own daycare.
No idea if that makes sense for you at all, just posting it here for people that really really want kids and need ideas for how to make the math work.
Look for certified in home daycare. Lots of GenX grandmas taking care of kids, and if you find a licensed one it’s a pretty good setup. The one I use is $100/day.
Hey government, are you paying attention?
- You want families? Help people make more money and give them assistance affording literally everything, especially childcare, healthcare, housing, and education.
- Republicans: If you actually care about families, help them afford things as stated above.
- If you really believe in small government, make it easier for immigrants to become Americans.
Otherwise you’re gonna be starting down the barrel of a demographic collapse that will drag America into an economic gutter it’ll likely never class it’s way out of. Like China.
Childcare is a massive one that needs government funding. You can pay 1.5k per child and given that many places do 1 teacher to 3 infants, the literal max that one teacher can make, if every penny went to the teacher, is 4.5k/month, or 54k/year. This does not include facilities, utilities, administration, taxes etc. we all know in reality the teacher salary is much, much less.
In order to fairly compensate childcare staff, rates in reality need to be much higher. The problem is that severely limits access to childcare, which has a cooling effect on parents advancing their careers, because many will not have a choice between being a stay at home parent or working.
Therefore the government supplementing the costs is a much-needed solution.
Boomers: have more kids! we need the workforce
Boomers: all those taxes that made our families possible - nah fuck that. Keep the minimum wage locked for 15 years.
15 more years.
Also Boomers, “Minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage.”
And yet, the person who created literally said it was.
Ok then let’s change it to be so? Do we want people to do those jobs or not?
You used to be able to buy an entire house, pay the mortgage, support a small family, and still have minimal left over. One salary. Companies used to reward loyalty more than they do so you didn’t need to job hop to get anywhere. Universities were affordable, like you could work any job and pay for the semester from that.
Someone more familiar with the economic conditions correct me if I am wrong. Boomers could afford to live because venture capitalists weren’t extracting all the value from the economy to buy yachts.
Why would you link to some gold bug garbage when you could be sending articles on Reaganomics?
Gold bug garbage‽‽‽ How dare you make such an outrageous accusation!
It’s bitcoin bug garbage.
The website basically tries to discredit fiat currency. I have a much simpler hypothesis.
Sure, in fact, I’m about to have a kid very soon.
Oh wow great. You know what it’ll be yet?
Well of course, they’ll be a wage slave, just like their parents.
Boomers are the most selfish generation 🤷♂️
It’s a bit of a selection bias. The self-sacrificing, hard working boomers have died out.
Only the greedy lazy bigots are still standing.
Many people my age have terrible boomer parents who just had kids because “that’s just what you do”. They didn’t even consider you could just not make babies.
Maybe we just think more for ourselves than the older generation.
Right??? My siblings have an 18 year span, I’ll be 38 when the youngest graduates highschool. I feel like I already have kids, I’m doing so much emotional and financial support for these ones
Worse in my case, I had the sort of parents who thought that more was better at any cost. My childhood really sucked.
pretty sure that’s why I exist.
Yep. My parents let me know why a burden my existence was at all possible times. They would leave me and my brother home alone (aged 8 and 5) after until bedtime. I have no idea what they were doing because work ended three hours ago. We lived off ritz crackers and easy to make food.
The teachers would tell us to shut up and be grateful we had a home when we talked about being hungry. Back in the 80’s you didn’t get free/reduced lunches. You were just a kid who forgot their lunch money for the 100th day in a row because you are a stupid piece of shit.
The 80’s were wild. No idea how Boomers got away with so much child abuse.
When we grew up wondering how we would address overpopulation, impoverishment wasn’t something we had in mind.
If it gets bad enough, birth rates will go up. Developed countries typically have lower birth rates than undeveloped countries.
Developed countries typically have lower birth rates than undeveloped countries.
That is more to do with education and women’s liberation (including contraception), than finances. Which I suspect is still the predominant reason that birth rates are dropping, with finances just a secondary reason.
— Karan Singh
but is that related to infrastructure or wages?
They lack a social safety net for retirees, so children take care of them in their old age. Children are also a source of wage labor. We’re already softening up on child labor here in the USA to address the labor “shortage”.
it’s by design
Seems like a side effect of unchecked greed instead. If it were properly designed people would be able to afford enough bread and circuses to stay complacent
Also, *gestures wildly around themself* look at the state the world is in. Which sane person would want to bring a child into this fucked up world?
Well, you and similar people know the world is fucked up, but there’s a lot more people out there swimming in the ignorance of simply believing everything is fine or that the people raising problems are catastrophising and that everything will somehow work out.
Those people will keep having kids even if basically every sign pointed to the certainty of that kid’s life ending early during some kind of traumatic existential struggle.
There’s just a percentage of society who simply don’t put in much thought beyond their immediate existence and future. That’s almost definitely bad in the grand scheme of things, but I guess on the flip side, they potentially live happier lives in ignorance before getting blipped out of existence.
Those people will keep having kids even if basically every sign pointed to the certainty of that kid’s life ending early during some kind of traumatic existential struggle.
They’ll keep having kids, but the kids won’t last as long.
I mean, 50% of humanity doesn’t have an inner monologue- they’re essentially just moving from one impulse to another.
Half of everyone. There’s no chance for this species without radical change.
Don’t confuse lack of an inner monologue with not thinking or not thinking critically. I lack a monologue when not doing verbal tasks, but I think visually/spacially/relationally instead for other tasks or when in rest or in the experience of my own consciousness. I pinky swear I’m not a philosophical zombie during that time:)
I still think there’s no help for humanity without radical change, lol.
We’re socially still cave-people, just with advanced technology. Technology that is increasingly a mystery even to its Users.
Ultimately, our species is more likely to fall back on our tribalism and devolve into religious ravings than to endure to something more enlightened.
What’s the deal with inner monologue??
i have 1 until i learnt not everyone has one. what impact are there if one doesn’t have an inner monologue or voice in their heads…sans the schizophrenics
i have 1 until i learnt not everyone has one
What?
If you’re talking about aphantasia that’s less than 5% of the population, not half
Approximately 30% to 50% of people regularly experience an inner monologue, while the remaining 50% to 70% do not have a talkative brain.
https://www.bustle.com/wellness/does-everyone-have-an-internal-monologue
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/inner-voice.htm
I distinctly remember developing one when I was around 8. I wanted it then, but it hasn’t shut up since
A lot of people that aren’t doomers.
I don’t own a house with fortified bunker and a literal ton of food. Can’t buy a house to begin with. Being a doomer is for the rich.
Why do you need a house, a bunker? Being a doomer is being pessimistic about global problems, not prepping for the apocalypse.
Ah, indeed. I was mixing up doomer with prepper. Regardless, you don’t have to be a doomer to think the world is shit. You can be hopeful that things will change, but not want to submit an innocent person on pure hope that things will improve.
The “innocent person on pure hope that things will improve” is 100% doomerism.
I live in a box of 6 flats. 4 of the people have kids, the other guy is renting to have a place to come back to when they return from working abroad. All of the flats at 40m2, people earning a fraction of a salary people in the US do, when the cost of living is maybe 80% of the US. Yet nobody is starving, the kids have a great life, parents are happy. Life goes on as it always has, with couples marrying, having kids, growing old together. This isn’t something that’s somehow unique to here, happens everywhere.
If you want kids, you can get them, support them and give them a bright future. If you don’t want them, fine, just don’t say you can’t have children because the world sucks.
Lol, OK breeder.
Cringe.
lol ok. You’re looking at everything and then arguing that the people who notice things are bad.
A lot of people
that aren’t doomers.headed towards doom.
For me it’s the climate - no point in bringing a child in a world with a society that will inevitably collapse and a possible world war over land that’s still inhabitable.
Adoption maybe - but for me more children only equal more future suffering - and if not for my children because it’ll be somehow possible to shield them from the worst then for a couple of others that have to suffer in exchange when western countries pull up the drawbridge and let the global south deal with the mess they made for those countries…
Avocados > Children
Why not both? Makes for a delightful breakfast
How do you so yours? do you put the avocado on the children or the children on the avocado?
My parents had an avocado tree. I have more neighbors. More neighbors don’t give 🥑 avocados.
The real reason. Mmm avocados.
I guess we’ll all just be childless cat ladies.
For me it’s more about not subjecting a person to my own residual trauma and a society that’s accelerating towards self-annihilation
For me, a Zennial, born between Millennial and Gen Z, I won’t have kids due to following reasons:
- My abyssal lack of/difficulties with social interaction (I’m practically an hermit), friendships and relationships (not sure what “loving someone” is/means; I feel more comfortable among literal “demonic entities” and computers than with people)
- Climate changes turning Earth into a vision of underworld that even Dante couldn’t imagine, with ever-increasing scorching temperatures.
- Other complex and multifaceted political, societal, technological, esoteric, philosophical and scientific reasons too long to be summarized and enlisted.
- And, of course, finances: it’d become worse for my hypothetical son/daughter.
Not that Earth and Nature couldn’t bear more individuals (considering a mutual respect between the Homo sapiens and the whole biosphere, a respect that Homo sapiens clearly lacks), but the idea of a children growing in a world where 120°F/48°C is the “new normal” can’t be bearable. Not to mention that Homo sapiens is walking towards extinction due to our poor relationship with the environment and with ourselves. Unfortunately, next generations will inevitably face ever-increasing, deadly issues. Not only humans, other animals too (some are already becoming extinct).
Bro you are like my twin. Same generation same problems.
I’d like to double click on what you mean by “literal demonic entities” - thanks!
Lilith, Kali, Stolas, Lucifer, Baphomet, entities and deities that are often seen as malevolent but are neither evil nor good, they’re multifaceted sentient forces of Nature, manifestations of the Cosmos, archetypes of the transcendental divine. My quotes around the “demonic” is because I don’t see the demonic as inherently evil.
Got it, I was more confused by the ‘around literal’ part of the comment. So like, are you summoning via a ritual? Honest question.
While I do rituals, it’s not exactly a summoning ritual. I do rituals involving (red) candles, incense sticks, hand-drawn symbols and sigils in order to meditate and widen my spiritual perception, focusing on my openness to Lilith. Physically, my spiritual development is (sadly) not enough to see or hear, just feeling a shiver.
I don’t (or, at least, I respectfully avoid to) summon Her, it’s She that suddenly and unexpectedly reach to me through one of the following three forms of spiritual interactions.
The first and main form is through what’s called as “gnosis” (stream-of-consciousness): all of sudden, words start to pop in inside my mind, I feel the need to write them down. This leads to more unexpected text, until I have a long text, often containing Her spiritual directions and/or warnings (generally in a strict tone of a wake-up call, like a spiritual “dose of tough medicine”) to me, communicated through a free-flowing stream of mental words.
It also involves dreams that inevitably became episodes of simultaneous false awakening loops and sleep paralysis (but not as unpleasant as it sounds), with Her presence becoming more and more intense to an almost unbearable point. In those dreams, all I can see is a silhouette figure standing somewhere across the room, so energetically intense for me to bear, where I’m caught on a mix of fear and awe.
Thirdly and rarely, it’s Her name appearing at the most unexpected places. It’s the most complex interaction to explain through a brief summary, but: imagine trying to chill watching some TV Series regarding fictional FBI characters investigating mundane things (so, nothing nearly related to spirituality) and, all of sudden, you see “Lilith” written on a paper inside a scene. Or using Google Lens to find out what species is an insect that appeared inside your home, and being taken by the app to a 2019 insectology page (not even closely related to spirituality as well) whose author’s nickname starts with “Lilith”. Both scenarios are real and actually happened to me. Maybe it’s a confirmation bias, but it’s too coincidental to be random.
I tried to summarize as briefly as I could, but I couldn’t avoid a long reply, sorry.
Thanks for the reply!
Not having kids is one of the biggest middle fingers to the capitalist machine. Take away their wage slaves and lets see how much good their money will do the rich.
All these conspiracy theories about how the elites want to reduce the world population have always been nonsense. If you look, all the most vocal ones have been promoting population growth and when you look at history, downward population trends have only increased the common person’s rights. They want a surplus of people so we fight amongst ourselves.
It’s also the single best thing any individual could do to reduce their carbon footprint.
Maybe if our leaders created a society more conducive to having kids more people would have them.
I wonder how many won’t have any due to the Weimar conditions in America or the looming climate apocalypse. In combination with financial issues I assume it is huge.
Very hard to justify bringing more people into the world when the folks already here feel so miserable.
I’m a millennial… aren’t we a bit old for this shit anyway?
We’re going to be retiring soon, some of the older millennials, and they’re still going to be telling us to have more kids lol.
As a Class of 2000, aka OG Millennial, wtf are you talking about?
We’re in our early 40s.
That’s what I’m saying! Too old. Did you know the medical term for a pregnancy after 35 is geriatric pregnancy? Ya bro, we’re getting committed to the old folks home soon here, you and I.
Old folks home playing nothing but My Chemical Romance and Dr Dre + Eminem
And some of us are getting ready to leave the work force, that was my only point.
Wtf “some of us?” You and Zuckerberg from what you’re suggesting.
Americans who got lucky in life have a bad habit of shrugging off the majority that didn’t as somehow irresponsible and not worth considering.
My cousin does this. Looks at you like you’re speaking a foreign language when you say you can’t afford something that would make your life easier like replacing a malfunctioning appliance right now.
Privilege is a bubble of willful ignorance akin to the Republican bubble.
I think early 40s is a fine time to retire, if you don’t have to support your children and you’re in a dual income situation.
If you’re that 1% super elite CS student, then sure you can retire at forty. The rest can’t even if they are child free.
That’d probably only work if you met your SO immediately when you began working, and you both had the same money plan.
Otherwise it’s probably not enough saved money to support 2 people, only 1 (edit until the later 40s)
My wife and I make similar money and created a 20 year plan 20 years ago, we won’t be rich, we just won’t have to work. Think living off $4k a month for two people for life.
If you do it over 20 years absolutely it can be done.
But to do that and retire in your early 40’s (40-43.33) as you suggest means people will need to likely meet in highschool or early college and work on it right away once they start earning income.
Unless people happen to create a similar plan 20 years prior and are able to find each other many years into their plans. It is possible, but it’s harder.
edit: changed the perspective to people, not specifically you.
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The youngest millennials aren’t even 30 yet, and there’s lots of places where most people have children in their early 30s nowadays
Eeeeh, it’s still technically possible.
