Posted on 06/22/2024 10:59:39 PM PDT by thecodont
We’ve done several podcasts on America’s declining fertility rate, and why South Korea has the lowest birthrate in the world. But we’ve never done an episode on the subject quite like this one.
Today we go deep on the psychology of having children and not having children and the cultural revolution behind the decline in birthrates in America and the rest of the world. The way we think about dating, marriage, kids, and family is changing radically in a very short period of time. And we are just beginning to reckon with the causes and consequences of that shift. In the new book What Are Children For, Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman say a new “parenthood ambivalence” is sweeping the world. In today’s show, they persuade Derek that this issue is about more than the economic trends he tends to focus on when he discusses this issue.
If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.
In the following excerpt, Derek talks to Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman about their book and about their approach to explaining declining birth rates.
(Excerpt) Read more at theringer.com ...
Women would rather sleep around in their 20s and then when they want to get married, they won’t settle for the man that would still pay full price for a cow that gave away its milk for free.
“...Rachel and I, in the book, explore how the actual dating scripts that we abide by include very long explorations on the dating market, they include dedicating your entire 20s and early 30s to more or less casual dating, certainly not dating with a view to family. They involve an endless vetting of that potential partner through long, nonexclusive dating, then long, exclusive dating, then cohabitation, then trial parenting a pet before one even is willing to consider having children.”
There’s not much latitude in the above-mentioned script for a woman who has traditional, conservative morals and would like to focus on actual courtship with a goal of marriage.
Society could be doing a much better job of helping serious young people vet quality marriage partners.
Also, children are supposed to be a natural outcome of marriage; this article seems to assume it’s some sort of lifestyle choice, like choosing upholstery.
sex has been too easy for men and now many of them do not know how to romance let alone find a gal to marry....
>> sex has been too easy for men
Actually, no. Women always held and still hold the cards.
The issue as I see it concerns delayed social maturity that is at least 8 years behind the strong biological drive to have sex. And factor in the Progressive agenda that:
- teaches girls to hate boys throughout K-12
- teaches young women about “toxic males” in college
- brainwashes young women into thinking that abortion is the ultimate right of independence
- and, that working throughout the fertile years is the financially most secure path
Everybody misses the real point here in the USA.
Men don’t want to have kids because of one sided divorce laws.
My mother was married 4 times.
She may well have been a bar slut.
I saw what she tried to do to two of those husbands.
her last husband died on her so she didn’t have to
screw him over.
Many other women bought into the feminists crap,
that destroys a normal home. As we can see the fertility rate goes down dramatically.
I have one question who, will care for them when they are old?
No kids, there will be NOBODY!
Y’all think about that.
full disclosure;
I’ve been married to the same woman now for almost 47 years, we have one daughter. Wife was mostly a homemaker. But did work outside the home sometimes as she wanted, when she wanted.
She retired from outside work as of 2000.
Thank you!
Nonsense.
Men are not hormone driven alley cats.
They are perfectly capable of holding to moral standards as they expect women to.
Laying all the responsibility at women’s feet is lazy and blame shifting.
A strong nuclear family with two parents will interfere with the Left's plans of dominating America.
They've already destroyed the Black family so they have the Black voters on their plantation.
Now they're after the Colonial stock. So far, it's working. Unmarried female voters are dependent on the government. Male voters are disillusioned with the system so they're withdrawing which benefits the Left as well.
I didn’t lay blame anywhere other than to point out the direct offensive against young women.
But if you insist, yes, it’s the females that have changed the landscape.
Which is what the Left wanted. By dividing us, they are able to conquer us.
Like approaching a High School Diploma by saying, "Spend your teens and early 20s thinking about the supposed benefits of getting a diploma, then spend your 30s investigating what HS to attend, then spend your 40s playing more Xbox, then - when you hit 50 - start seriously considering whether you should even attend HS."
Regards,
Agreed.
FWIW, my heart is heavy as it concerns the biological obstacles the Progressives have placed before our children. I’m a father of both a daughter and son. The Progressive attacks on their God-given prospects in their relatively young lives is infuriating.
Modern, Western (American) society champions rugged individualism, wealth and education, competition and “getting ahead”.
Religion and basic Judeo-Christian beliefs or values are laughed at as being anachronistic.
So-called “Equality” has narrowed the gap between the sexes.
Women who “want it all” in the end must juggle and struggle with that life choice. Men are afraid to commit due to the laws and increasing pornography.
The bottom line is that we have become a selfish and narcissistic society that values self-expression over common sense.
The Boomer “Me Generation” has gone awry from generation to generation to the point that people now question their biological sex.
There's still pieces of America as we know it. It's not completely gone.
But we may have to move to places like Des Moines, Iowa or Ogden, Utah. But I don't think it'll make that much of a difference. They'll catch up with the rest of America in another ten years or so. And they'll be ruined too.
So the first step to solving a problem is admitting that we have a problem. People are starting to wake up. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. Now we are talking about it.
It’s a judgment and mercy of God.
It brings an end to the line of the godless and spares a life of misery for children of men who hate Him.
Agreed, the issue is being discussed.
We're making progress even though we may not see any results immediately.
Thank you! The courts favor the BM and view dad as just a walking wallet. Then when the BM trash talks dad, has kids calling him by his first name, insists that the kids call her flav of the week “dad,” falsely reports abuse to gain custody, then crows about being a “single strong, independent*, mom doing it all” (TM), the analysts pontificate their amazement over mass shootings, drug abuse, youth violence and the low birthrate. *(with the help of massive child support payments)
The main reason why young people in the west are having fewer or no kids is mostly economic and not cultural. Having kids means you will live your life basically near the poverty level and not be able to properly save and invest. If you want to raise feral kids, send them to govt schools then release them into the wild at 18, uneducated with no future except plumbing GO FOR IT.
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