Posted on 10/07/2012 12:17:06 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
My 21 year old married daughter is dying to have kids. Her and her husband have decided to postpone children for another 4 years until the economy bounces back.
She’s very sad about it, but doesn’t feel like she has a choice.
I'm sorry, but this is not going to "mitigate" anything because these people and their children are not being assimilated into the society the way our grandparents were. It will, again, be more like Europe where you see different ethnicities living separately from the native populations, never truly becoming part of the nation.
In Europe there are a lot of "no go" areas in major ciites that have been taken over by immigrants; and, because they (as we are also doing) refuse to assimilate these populations, but, instead, decide that "diversity" trumps national survival.
I wish I could be more optimistic; but, since the education portion of our culture is ruled by the teacher's unions, the indoctrination arm of the Democratic Party, I don't see a lot of hope that these immigrants are going to help continue the American experiment because they are not interested in being Americans.
....and therefore, to solve this problem, we just need more immigration, right?
When I drive through a Hispanic town - and there are towns or parts of towns in NJ that are 50-90% Hispanic - almost every woman out walking has children with her, pregnant, one, two, three, four, small children. They don’t think they need that big house in the suburbs or that Lexus minivan to have chidlren.
I live where the white/Asian professional class goes to have children. Most Indians and Chinese have two children; the white families average higher, but not nearly enough to make up for all the women putting career first, having zero or one child in the more expensive cities.
Currently, 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year; 350,000 immigrants leave each year, resulting in a net immigration of 1.25 million. Since 1970, the U.S. population has increased from 203 million to 310 million, i.e., over 100 million. In the next 40 years, the population will increase by an additional 130 million to 440 million. Three-quarters of the increase in our population since 1970 and the projected increase will be the result of immigration. The U.S., the world’s third most populous nation, has the highest annual rate of population growth of any developed country in the world, i.e., 0.963% (2011 estimate,) principally due to immigration.
Immigration will not solve our aging problem however. The median age of immigrants in 2010 was 41.4 compared to 35.9 for natives.
birth rate of children per woman in the U.S. is about 1.9. But the downward trend will almost certainly force the U.S. to rethink how to financially support the elderly and fund programs like Social Security and Medicare, ongoing economic debates that will take on even more weight as the country ages.
Even if the fertility rate were 2.1 (replacement level), we would still have a problem. In 1950 there were 16 workers for every retiree; today it is 3.3; and by 2030 it will be just 2.2. 10,000 people are retiring daily and will continue to do so for the next 20 years. By 2030 one in every five will be 65 or older--twice what it is now.
SS and Medicare are pay as you go programs, i.e., today's workers pay for today's retirees. SS started running in the red in 2010 and Medicare Part A started running in the red in 2008. These programs are unsustainable. They must be changed or they will consume the entire federal budget.
That is sad, so different from when my wife and I were young. We had a child in our mid-twenties despite being poor, and we didn't care (middle of the Carter regime). We were happy and got by until things improved. Our daughters did the same, having children despite trying to get by, and have steadily improved their economic situation. Children don't necessarily need money, but they do need love and attention. I can understand postponing if that can't be provided.
Mexicans stop breeding when they move to the cities. It’s happening the world over. The problem is not just selfish,careerist, feminized yuppies in the Europe and the U.S. — it’s global.
No problemo. We’ll just import more uneducated Mexicans and America-hating jihadists. That’ll fix things right up.
Medicaid, the nation’s largest public health insurance program, is a critically important part of the social safety net, serving more than 60 million individuals. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicaid finances more than 40 percent of births in the United States and is the primary payer for two-thirds of the nation’s nursing home residents.
In economic downturns, Medicaid rolls expand as income levels drop and people lose jobs and the accompanying employer-sponsored insurance. Enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program is estimated to increase by one million for every 1 percent increase in the unemployment rate. From December 2007 through June 2010, Medicaid enrollment nationwide increased by almost 18 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In 2010, monthly Medicaid enrollment averaged 57.7 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
You are right. I imagine some people simply do not want to bring children into the world as it is now. Look at the debt hung around their neck as soon as they are born in the US.
Did you ever figure out how to define that 47%?
When there is nothing else to do...
That’s OK. Conservatives are having babies. The joke is on the liberals. Hahahahaha
Girlz just want to have fun (a la Cyndi Lauper)
Boyz just want to LARP or FPS.
That doesn’t leave much room for assuming the responsibilities of parenting.
Chesterton on birth control/population control: In 1925 Chesterton wrote an introduction to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in which he said that “The answer to anyone who talks about the surplus population is to ask him, whether he is part of the surplus population; or if not, how he knows he is not.”
Hubby and I weren’t even middle class when we had our first, but we did have three things going for us that these kids don’t:
1. Hubby had a stable job with a steady paycheck. (There was *some* money to manage)
2. Medical Insurance
3. Hubby earned just enough that I could stay home with the baby.
Now my SIL has insurance with the Reserves, but is still looking for a job. Once he gets a job, his paycheck may not be enough and my daughter will probably have to work, too.
She wants to be a SAH homeschool mom, so that’s not going to fly. (”I’m not having kids so somebody else can love and raise them!”)
Once my SIL gets a job, they need to pay off some debt and get a little in an emergency fund. (Plus have the security that this job is *really* going to stick.)
My son just dropped out of the workforce to return to college. He hasn’t had a girlfriend in almost a year. (”What’s the point? I have nothing to offer a woman right now. Like I’m even close to being able to support a wife. Why have a relationship?”)
Depression. Desperation. Panic. Disappointment. Grief. Fear of the future. Feeling hopeless and useless. Bitter.
That’s our kids’ generation.
Both of my kids are rock-solid conservatives and they are both determined to vote. My son is praying for an energy boom so he can put his mechanical skills to work. (He’s been talking about leaving the country to find work if things don’t turn around within the next three years.)
That’s our kids’ generation.
Wow, seems true. When we were young we were naive and didn't know better to fear the future. Chalk it up to modern media indoctrination? One daughter doesn't have insurance and decided to have a mid-wife deliver her baby. We were concerned about the childbirth not taking place in a hospital, but she was optimistic and all turned out well. Our other daughter went ahead and had her baby despite her husband being unemployed for the last couple years. They both wanted babies and tried to get pregnant. Times are difficult, everyone's situation is different, but I really hope young people don't give up on raising families of their own.
One bright side, sort of, is that it's the blue states that are reproducing at Euro DeathSpiral rates.
In a sense - in other words - why fight the liberals? They are killing themselves off - red state babies in a few generations should start winning out at the polls. But it's more complicated than that as LibertarianLiz points out.
Immigration of those who do not accept and embrace Western culture - particularly the Enlightenment principles upon which, in addition to a Creator, we were built ... they only need time, and eventually, they won't need a judicial branch to wreck the Constitution ... they can simply and legally use the voting booth lever. If 4 western culture couples each have 1 child, and that continues, skip one generation and 8 westerners just went to 1.
If I'm remembering correctly that many European nations are at 1.2 or so ...
It's why Mark Steyn calls Europe "Eurabia."
It's rather bleak.
Free birth control and abortions (and big government making life so expensive that it's only smart to have 1.2) is cultural suicide.
One viewpoint for Christians is that this is simply the physical expression of God's spiritual wrath that will be visited upon Judeo-Christian societies for the west's disrespect for life.
The media portrays women as the default victim in almost every case (ref: Reddit/MensRights). Men of my generation are getting sick and tired of this. More and more our society is being bastardized and we are being punished for our hard work.
A non-trivial portion of men under 30 have decided to forgo the traditional school-marriage-kids-retire path through life. Many have chosen to forgo relationships with women altogether because the cost-benefit it out of whack. But you will NEVER see this as a conclusion from the fem-centric sociologists who do these studies. It doesn't jive with mainstream viewpoints, and quite frankly, men are told to "man up" and deal with it.
The birth rate will continue to go down, as will overall intelligence. Idiocracy here we come.
And yes, I'm wearing my asbestos underwear.
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