Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cubicles? I would love one, today it's nearly always open offices.
You have an office? They closed mine and told me I’m remote now.
That's even better than a cubicle
What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
451–460 of 927 posts
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#452My $0.02 is being a mom sucks. In modern relationships, men just want to work and come home to a cooked meal and clean house, but their wives are working just as many hours the men are. Having kids means tension in relationship, unpaid labor by the woman, and stress parenting kids. Even if the husband steps up, he still can't breast feed for 3 hours per day. Pregnancy is really terrible on the woman's body. Post-part…
I think that you're right and that this is one of the predominant reasons for declining child births. I think that if I were a woman that I would personally choose career or personal life first before having children, all other things in my life held equal. I have a lot invested in those things, they're here and tangible, and they bring me joy. Media says that it's the economy, but I've never once believed that to be…
> Media says that it's the economy, but I've never once believed that to be the leading factor. People had babies when they didn't have fresh food, running water, or even homes. Certainly far worse lives than we have today.
One thing to consider is choice. Historically women didn’t have the ability to avoid having children short of abstinence, and even that wasn’t a given in a culture where marriage isn’t voluntary, marital rape is legal, education limited, and you’ve had religious indoctrination saying it’s a sin your entire life. Men didn’t have the risk of dying in childbirth, but had the rest to varying degrees (e.g. stories about wives pleading for children with men who in the modern world would be recognized as queer).
Now that people have choice, the technology to implement their decision, and a huge financial swing (children are expenses rather than cheap labor and your retirement plan) that historical baseline is increasingly irrelevant.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
It only happened after WW2 because the US came out of that war as the only untouched developed economy. A WW3 isn't going to leave anyone unscathed and would probably mean all-out nuclear war.
Did other countries, especially the ones that were ravaged by war, did they have baby booms? I'm curious now.
US feared people from ravaged countries would embrace communism, and showered them with cheap cash for jobs and reconstruction. Unfortunately capitalism today faces no competition, and it's devolving into techno-feudalism. The super-rich have a hard time sharing wealth with the rest of us, in absence of credible threat of some revolution putting their heads to the guillotine or something like that.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it does not, not for countries like the US that are primarily composed of immigrants. I think we often forget that a lot of the white people here are immigrants, too, usually only a couple generations removed.
Presumably either the countries being emigrating from must be at replacement rate, or themselves declining? Somebody has to be producing the next generation, somewhere..
Yes, which is how it is and I don't see this changing any time soon.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#455cultures would have to change to encourage motherhood and fatherhood, keeping marriages intact, etc. Also campaigns against contraceptives/abortion would help
Abortions will happen regardless, they will just cause more deaths, look at the era where Romania banned abortion. Doesn’t seem like the winning solution is to apply policies that directly reduce the amount of people that _can_ give birth
abortion kills women who will give birth in the future. It's not just one killing is potential killing of many future people who don't get to exist.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#456Earlier quoted context omitted.
Abortions are not the primary reason why teen pregnancy is way down. There's actual data, you know. Fewer teen pregnancies is a reason why birth rates in the US are declining. But it isn't driven by abortion. And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place.
> And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place. The other side of this is insane to me... the "oh actually looming human extinction won't be so bad" thing. Sub-replacement fertility rates are slow-motion extinction. Animal models where they "bounce back" is irrelevant, those animals have their extremely high above-replacement fertility all…
Looming human extinction? The population is still growing.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
it is heavily politicized, atleast for the forseable future, until society reaches a conclusion, people will lie with statistics, smear their opponents in discussion as bigots, sexists, whatever. But sooner or later it needs to be asked and acted upon. Should society structure itself to penalise abortions, and reward births of children. Did our old religious and conservative societies where parents and grandparents h…
> folks who'll say back then kids didnt have a great childhood If you count a 11 year girl child to be raped by and then married to her 60 year old (maybe wealthy) relative then yeah she indeed had a fucking fabulous childhood. > penalise abortions, and reward births of children For fuck's sake - there's a difference between a teen abortion and an adult abortion! But then you wouldn't understand why one "aborts"! Oh…
Who said I'm for or promoting teenage pregnancies ?????
No woman should be allowed to be married off to someone until they are 18 especially with that kind of age gap.
Marrying under 18s with 30-40 yr olds is not a solution and diabolical, no major religion even recommends that.
We need to restructure our society so that men and women aged 20-25 yrs old, can have a easy access to owning their own homes, with sustainable careers and occupation.
We need to make children before college postgraduation studies or even higher studies like phd not only more acceptable but the norm.
Pedophilia should not be encouraged and most sane societies have been vehemently against what you're saying (including me).
This cycle of people having kids after 35 yrs old, needs to be fixed that is the disaster.
> I mean is the moronity this common? For fuck's sake, freedom to abort is not what is killing the birthrate - it's the way our economy and other aspects of society is going haywire - and the way wealth and benefits are tricking up, not down, the work culture for example the way that is forcing people to work day and night and yet they can't own a house - among other things. Goodness!
I agree with what you said, but abortion is also causing the issues, its been normalized that its ok if majority of men and women attempt to have their first kid after 30 (it should not be this way). Premarital sex, casual sex and one night stands has destroyed the whole notion of commitment between man and a woman. Our Instagram feeds that constantly glorify unattainable photoshopped beauty from select actresses and actors influencing the masses all the time, has made expectations of men and women delusional.
There are many issues, and some of the main ones are what you described correctly , with it being overworking people, not giving 20 yr old stable careers instead keeping them stuck in gigwork, internships, and no career growth or help. They must be rectified, our society has enough wealth to fix this.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#458Earlier quoted context omitted.
Abortions are not the primary reason why teen pregnancy is way down. There's actual data, you know. Fewer teen pregnancies is a reason why birth rates in the US are declining. But it isn't driven by abortion. And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place.
It’s strange to see that anecdote so highly upvoted when it’s so trivial to look at birth rates by parental age. Reduced teen pregnancies are not the driving factor in recent fertility rate declines at all. It is interesting how an appeal to emotion with a difficult story can lead so many to overlook the obvious shortcomings in that explanation. Honestly this entire comment section has a lot of people making guesses…
Maybe it has something to do with the “you are not good enough” treadmill the modern world has everyone on. I don’t think people of yesteryear contemplated if they were ready to start a family. I don’t think they contemplated if a job was the “right fit”, and I doubt they scoured the world looking for their soulmate. So, if you live in our current time period where you are never “complete”, then you may have a hard time feeling confident about any next step.
Obviously the downside to this was that just about any idiot from yesteryear saw themselves perfectly qualified to start a family.
The solution is somewhere in the middle.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
Abortions are not the primary reason why teen pregnancy is way down. There's actual data, you know. Fewer teen pregnancies is a reason why birth rates in the US are declining. But it isn't driven by abortion. And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place.
It’s strange to see that anecdote so highly upvoted when it’s so trivial to look at birth rates by parental age. Reduced teen pregnancies are not the driving factor in recent fertility rate declines at all. It is interesting how an appeal to emotion with a difficult story can lead so many to overlook the obvious shortcomings in that explanation. Honestly this entire comment section has a lot of people making guesses…
I said "a" reason.
Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I agree, his experience is also salient. Ease of access to birth control and ease and safety of abortion will be having a very detectable impact on the birthrate. Not saying they need to be restricted, just that they're very relevant data points.
it is heavily politicized, atleast for the forseable future, until society reaches a conclusion, people will lie with statistics, smear their opponents in discussion as bigots, sexists, whatever. But sooner or later it needs to be asked and acted upon. Should society structure itself to penalise abortions, and reward births of children. Did our old religious and conservative societies where parents and grandparents h…
When people feel the game is unfair, they quit. When the game is society, the society ceases to exist.
It's wild that we find it harder to change the system than to walk away from it entirely. People opt out in a thousand small ways - refusing to have kids, refusing to participate, numbing themselves with distractions, or just mentally checking out. If the core pitch of society is "keep grinding or suffer," it’s not surprising so many people choose not to bring new life into it. Liberty and freedom aren't abstract ideals. Their real absence makes people find coping mechanisms in a world that often feels rigged.
If a society truly wants to persist, it has to give people a reason to stay - something more than survival, more than struggle, more than empty promises about meritocracy or bootstrap fantasies. Otherwise, the logic of self-preservation kicks in, and people will exercise whatever autonomy they can muster, including the right to say, "No, not this."
So, yeah, access to abortion isn't simply about individual rights in the abstract; it's a symptom and a signal. When people would rather not create new life than subject it to the current system, that's not a moral failure on their part. It's an indictment of the system itself.
TLDR; make a better society bruh.