Nobody told them that later in life many of them would wind up as empty and unfulfilled cat-farmers with no families.
Oh well. Going along with the wrong crowd has consequences.
“Smart people don’t reproduce like rabbits, stupid people do. That is the basis of what supposedly makes Marxism/Communism/Socialism work. A never-ending supply of idiots”.
Wouldn’t the number of childless American men in their 40’s be correspondingly higher than the 1970’s as well?
A little unrelated, but I often wonder if the sharp increase in autism since the 1970s could be do to older people (both men & women) having more children. My wife and I are in our early 50’s, but all of our children are adults. However, we have plenty of friends in their 40’s who have infants. That was never the case 30-40 years ago.
Since when does choosing not to breed mean your life is “empty” or “miserable,” or that you have failed as a woman or as a human being? Some women are not cut out to be mothers, or simply have no desire, and choose not to, and are much happier for it. Is that so wrong?
The main reason for this trend is fear of divorce.
Many of these people have seen parents, siblings, friends, etc. go through nasty divorces and don’t want to live through the experience themselves.
Women often complain that there aren’t many available and suitable men, or that men are afraid of commitment. But it’s not fear of commitment. It’s fear of finding themselves separated from their children and sometimes having to pay for their wife’s second family. And, of course,women are afraid of being deserted, too - being traded in for a younger model. It’s a self-perpetuating trend.
Reverse Darwinism.
I have had one kid and I still plain on farming cats. My son is allergic to cats, but as soon as he is gone the cats are moving in. My mother had seven kids and would have a house full of cats if she had her way. She feeds every stray that comes around.
And what percentage of those not having children are of the Caucasian persuasion? I bet its higher than the diverse crowd or the latinas!
And just think how green it is not to have children!
Why have kids when you can party into your 50s an die alone?
I well remember being pregnant during this era and feeling heat from liberal work colleagues.
http://markdowe.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/the-concept-of-overpopulation/
The over-population scare campaigns of the 1960s and 70s nevertheless generated a great deal of interest in population control, and most countries now have more or less effective birth control programmes in place. Some countries, such as Singapore, have found that their attempts to reduce the birth rate were too effective and they now need to encourage people to have more children...
I just bought a house from a childless woman (widow) who recently entered a nursing home.
It was interesting—the house was sold by her 4 nephews (actually husbands of her nieces)—and no one cared about her furniture or her things so basically my husband and I got to keep all the furniture and whatever belongings we wanted.
Made me think about what it would be like to be childless at the end of life. . .
Kind of funny—she was the original owner of a 4 bedroom house built in 1975 and so my 4 kids will be the first kids to ever live in these 35 yr old bedrooms!
To be fair some of them are really ugly, and not just physically.
Medical technology - labor saving inventions - leisure and entertainment have all influenced or blunted our God given, natural reproductive instincts.
There is no one reason - we have to consider all individual and societal influences that guide our lives.
Children raised in broken homes, abortion, contraception, homosexuality, IVF, materialism, movies, celebrity fads; all of which affect young men and women - before or during their search for a *mate* i.e. the mother or father of their progeny. The sixth sense.
This is virtually the first time in history that the most educated, employed, wealthy, fit, etc., are not having as many children as the uneducated and lower class.
It used to be survival of the fittest - the ones who had the brains and the resources (money, food) reproduced. The exact opposite is happening now worldwide. People who can’t afford children are rewarded for having them, especially here in the US and Europe. And don’t get me started on how the Islamic culture is reproducing like rabbits.
Socialism has inadvertently created the demographic of our destruction.
The world will devolve into a very strange oligarchy if the trend continues.
bflr
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Part of it is biology. Our gametes are more fragile than in decades past, probably due to environmental contamination.
We all know that in a newly polluted stream, it is the soft bodied fish and frogs that first show deformities, and these are usually in the most sensitive areas — the reproductive systems. This is true for humans as well. Fertility is FALLING.
Now, for the males of the species, their gametes are produced fresh constantly, so they are not quite as affected. But for each woman, her full amount of eggs was completed before she was born. Her uterine environment may have been compromised by the air and water taken in by her mother, as well as the frankenfoods her mother consumed.
In past generations women over 40 could still have children. Not so much any more.