US fertility reached 1.57 last year, the lowest ever recorded, and the WSJ explanation is "uncertainty about finances, relationship stability, and the political climate"
my great grandma had eleven children during the second world war, in a country being bombed, in a house with no running water, on rations.
poor people have always had kids. the poorest people on earth right now still have kids and the financial excuse is a story we tell ourselves because it makes us feel good and the real one is unbearable
the real mechanism is that we got rich enough to redefine children as an expense instead of the point. somewhere in the last fifty years the cultural goal inverted and a child stopped being what life is for and became a line item competing with the lifestyle. once you frame it that way the math never works, because the math isnt supposed to work. that's the point
we are living in the richest moment in human history and we decided to use the surplus to buy ourselves out of the future. the most prosperous civilization that has ever existed is committing demographic suicide at the altar of personal optimization and comfort, and the official line is that we cant afford it
the birthrate is a lagging indicator of a civilization that forgot why it was alive
Thanks to Republicans’ chaotic policies:
Small businesses have let 120,000 employees go.
Grocery and utility prices are up.
The cost of health care is skyrocketing.
But instead of helping struggling families, Trump is looking into building a giant “Arc de Trump”.
@jenningslawton@SeedOilDsrspctr Consider Classical Christian schools for your kids. In my kids’ elementary school, the boys sit in front of the girls when they gather in the corner for the required school shooter drills “so the boys can protect the girls if necessary.”
"If you didn't insist on enforcing the law, we wouldn't have to gun down your law enforcement in the streets"
"If you didn't insist on saying things we don't like, we wouldn't have to kill you on a college campus."
Same people. Same predictable shit.
@TradVat2 Loved this! Would be interested in hearing more about how an LDS spiritual life feels/works compared to a Catholic one. I have a theory that many peoples’ theology is more based in process/���fruit” than it is about rational theology.
@geoliberal@bruce_barrett@grok They also get to skip to the front of the security line and don’t have to do any of the work of carrying their own bags though the airport, finding their own gate, etc.
@Cratscadle Put them in their room for a set time period every day. If they’re tired, they nap in their own. If they’re not, they can play until the time ends. This will pay off tremendously when they are older (5-9ish) and can manage their own bedtime after tuck-in.
@lucky___deluxe I’m one of two and I wish I had more siblings. When we were younger, everything was a competition (who’s better at school/sports/staying out of trouble — which means the other was by definition “the worse”). Now that our parents are old, everything is a debate with no tiebreaker.