Public sentiment overwhelmingly reflects deep concern and frustration regarding declining birth rates, largely attributed to economic hardships, high living costs, and societal pressures. While some recognize a potential positive angle regarding overpopulation and resource strain, the dominant narrative emphasizes financial insecurity and hopelessness, leading many to view parenthood as an undesirable choice in the current socio-economic climate.

Governments

Employers

Society

Eh.  My college age child doesn’t want kids because she’s pretty sure the planet is dying, and half her friends feel the same.  Prestige won’t fix that.

nospecialsnowflake

Prestige is the very top of the hierarchy of needs, the bottom tiers have to be met for that even to be possible. It's poverty, it's austerity, it's a lack of healthcare, of childcare, of affordable housing, of being able to provide the very basics of living. And we haven't even started talking about the climate catastrophe very rapidly growing before our eyes. Solve for that (somehow) and the birth rate goes up.

RoyalZeal

Decling human birthrates may not benefit our current global economic system, but is imperative for earth's ecosystem recovery.

jhgold14

this is dumb. people spend 8 years in medical school to be called doctor because they can afford it. i know TONS of people who would LOVE to start families, but they know they cant afford it so they dont. 

this is 100% about the economy and people struggling to get by.

nbd9000

Isnt "prestige" exactly what the whole trad wife movement is about? That trad wives/mothers are "heroes" who accomplish everything that could possibly be expected of a woman? 

Idk... the more i feel like im being gaslit that motherhood is some sort of heroic act, the more repulsed i am by the idea of it.

VovaGoFuckYourself

Eh, no. Its the money. There was no "prestige" in motherhood 100 years ago, it was just expected of women. The minimum standard and costs of raising healthy children have risen exponentially since then. In our capitalist hellscape, it no longer makes economic (and some would argue moral) sense to have children in many developed nations.

And because the economy is our one true god in this system, you will continue to see birth rates plummet.

EatMyShortzZzZzZ

This is stupid for many reasons, particularly that motherhood hasn't ever been "high status". It's quite literally something almost anyone can do, so how could it convey status?

got-stendahls

So it isn't the inability to afford both food and housing? I learn something every day.

hairy_ass_truman

This is bullshit. Women get praised for having a baby and then quickly made to be a second or third class citizen where they as people lack any independent value (their motherhood is the only thing they are valued for, if that). Women are praised for being pregnant but then blamed if there is something wrong with their child. Women are praised for being pregnant but denied the value of nearly every choice thereafter, including in many places, the value of making a choice to terminate. Mother’s Day is a huge spending day to artificially value motherhood but it doesn’t really effect the day to day life if mothers and often causes more stress than not.

Again,this  video is nostalgic bullshit that glosses over and ignores many reasons why   People, especially female people, are forgoing children. Not everyone who buys a $30 mic on Amazon should be listened to.

Ohio_gal

That sounds like a conservative dog whistle of getting women back to being birth machines

asteria_7777

bro I’m just trying to pay rent and keep my head above water, and people are talking about the *prestige* of making a baby???? People make babies on accident all the time, even the people who want kids and have them can barely afford them, but sure, it’s the lack of fuckin *prestige* in baby rearing that the real problem.

Haunting-East

that person does not understand people. prestige 🙄 it's respect and dignity that are missing from our society. 

prestige?!?! i own a house for SAFTEY. renting was a nightmare of awful stress. it has absolutely nothing to do with prestige. ugh. and literally it was like shooting through the eye of a needle - we barely were able to own a house in our mid forties without aid from my partner's parents. without that i would still on doorstep of being homeless.

i didn't have a child because i refused to consign another sentient being to this absolutely shitty life, that i am suffering. why would i make another slave if i have the choice to not.

paradigm_mgmt

This is some top down halfwittery

This is some moron who writes in an ivory tower and has no clue as how fucking expensive it is when compared to the current historically low wages. I know many couples that are struggling to raise just one kid. They have to go through work schedule gymnastics to avoid paying the outrageous fees for day care. 

This article is pure dumbassery

filmguy36

JackBlackBowserSlaps

Anyone implying society will avert collapse by awarding prestige to the act of parenthood is delusional and ill-informed.

  
I myself will not have kids because I recognize how our population of obligate consumers contributes to ecological overshoot, and I refuse to provide more human fuel to an authoritarian state run by sociopaths.  The future is no place for kids.

Cereal_Ki11er

SidKafizz

Not at all. I think this is smoke and mirrors.

Good people who are are paying attention don't want to make children they'll love but be unable to care for or protect - with no hope of a safe future.

-Renee

That is…. Not why most people become doctors or buy houses.

Becoming a doctor gives you a stable high income with work that is generally meaningful. Doctors are usually super smart and hard working and want work that challenges and rewards them. Besides, in the current anti-intellectual political climate “doctor” does not inherantly carry any prestige

Buying a house gives you stability and the ability to settle in and make the place your own, rather than being at the whim of a landlord raising rent, not renewing a lease, or not taking care of the property.

I doubt prestige is a motivator for the vast majority of people

Also what does it mean to “make raising kids prestigious again”? In what culture or point of history was simply having children (something that used to be near-universal) considered prestigious?

zeatherz

"Child-free life comes with disposable income" I can assure you it doesn't 🙃

Lea32R

Ah yes the prestige of being able to afford groceries and rent without working a job that gradually erases your soul

digdog303

People don't buy houses for prestige - it's because renting is hell.

macemillianwinduarte

That is perhaps the stupidest fucking thing I have heard in my life. People aren't having kids because capitalism is fucking crushing them from every side. No one has the time or resources needed to raise a child, and even if they did they would be raising them in a dying world and condemning them to a short, miserable life.

Logridos

Nope; prestige isn't a movitator for everyone.  

And for those people who are motivated by prestige, they usually look for conspicuous objects to signal their status, such as watches, clothing, vehicles, houses.  Not kids.

fortyfivesouth

AnotherYadaYada

What's with all the pro population increase posts in here lately? Pronatalist bots?

The. Planet. Needs. Fewer. People.

Declining birthrate is GOOD for the Earth, BAD for the current global capitalist economy. Collapse of the biosphere = NO ECONOMY AT ALL.

furicrowsa

For all the pissing and moaning about falling birthrates, our leadershit makes it clear at every opportunity that they don't actually care about anyone's well-being (unless you're rich, of course).  They just see us as expendable livestock.

Message fucking received.

Zerthax

A significant section of the population seems to have convinced themselves that society disapproves of people being parents. 

I see very little evidence of this- all the examples you list are either spurious (seats on public transport for people with difficulty standing are not 'lumping pregnant women in with the elderly and disabled" in any way other than trying to be considerate) or baseless/nebulous. 

What evidence is there that parents are somehow considered lower status than in some (undefined) past? 

If I can engage in a bit of my own speculation here, I would guess that a lot of this is an outgrowth of Christian natalism, and of particular strands of evangelicalism which have a weird persecution complex (itself probably an outgrowth of considering themselves similar to early Christian groups in the Bible). 

Also, have birth rates collapsed? Where? Are you talking about the world, or the US? If you are talking about the world then as many people worry about overpopulation as declining birth rates. If you worry about declining birth rates in one particular country (or 'the west') then is your worry about birth rates per se, or really about the ethnicity of the babies being born?

Even in the US birth rates are not significantly lower than 10 years ago and have rebounded in the past two years from lows during the pandemic. 

There are plenty of profound social, economic and environmental problems out there. This isn't one of them.

Slopagandhi

I think expecting women to be livestock when we're looking at least 4°C over preindustrial is asinine and whoever wrote this is a pick me idiot.

CertainKaleidoscope8

No one respects families or parenthood in the finacialised 21st century. Museums, airlines, everything considers adults 12 and above because fuck children, they’re just taking up space for adults who are more like to consume more.

Few_Ad6516

I feel like it's akin to child abuse to make them grow up in the 'FuTuRe'. 🙃💀

Active-Pudding9855

i can't speak for everyone, but there are many different reasons i don't want kids. 

i find them annoying. that is not the kids fault, they're just children. but because i don't have the patience for them it would be super unfair to a kid to have a parent who can't deal with normal kid stuff. 

i have an 'ick' around pregnancy. the fact that organs are getting moved around and squished freaks me out lol. 

i have ehlers-danlos and getting pregnant would be dangerous for me. i think the increasing understanding of different diseases/illnesses and their impact on the dangerousness of pregnancy for some people plays a role. 

with the political situation in the US where i live, i don't know how things are going to go. everything feels pretty unstable. 

with climate change, things are going to be fucked by the time i'm 50, it would be even worse for any kids i had. 

and of course, i am a lesbian lol

ActuallyApathy

I watched for 5 minutes, she does not strike me as smart or well read on the subject

Optimusprima

Having children for "status" screams "I'm going to be a neglectful, abusive, narcissistic parent."  Kids would rather not be born than to imprisoned inside a home with "Mommie Dearest."

Decent-Box-1859

God, shit really is happening like Handmaids Tale, isn't it?

PenguinColada

I just don't want to bring children into a hellscape world where they can only choose between wage slavery or homelessness

point_of_you

I’m confused about this. I thought collapse referred to the collapse of society, and I thought falling birth rates are something that could help delay the collapse! Am I not understanding collapse?

Defiant-Tone8240

prestige matters to the educated

[https://youtu.be/sP2tUW0HDHA?si=MsM7zEFOK4NudMu7](https://youtu.be/sP2tUW0HDHA?si=MsM7zEFOK4NudMu7)

at least in idiocracy the couple wanted to have kids.  

some fortune 500 companies were adding daycare as a perk does that exist today?

DINKs should not have to justify existing.  

tell your aunt that never married to call my crazy uncle and give both of us the stink eye.

daviddjg0033

Not from what I've heard. Most women in particular have said they don't want kids for one or more of the following reasons:

1. They're expensive, they can barely afford to take care of themselves, much less another person. Childcare costs are high. 

2. It's more unsafe to be pregnant now than it was 10 years ago, I'm mainly talking about the United States here, though. Even if a woman has no risk factors and plans her pregnancy carefully, something can always go wrong, and too many places are letting women lose their lives instead of intervening when there are complications. 

3. More women are becoming celibate as a means of birth control, but also because they can't find a suitable mate to raise kids with. Phrases like "married single mom" have become more common. Women are becoming frustrated that the available men around them are lacking maturity, self sufficiency, emotional intelligence, basic hygiene, and/or basic respect for their female partners. 

4. This one applies more equally across the gender spectrum: people can see the effects of climate change happening, they're hesitant to create offspring in an environment that doesn't have the safety or resources necessary to raise them to adulthood. 

I also want to add, the people choosing not to procreate seem to be predominantly women (from my vantage point), and I've heard the phrase "men want kids like kids want puppies" more than a few times.

SourBlue1992

r/collapse, let me ask you: if there were signs of an apocalypse in the absence of a loving God promising eternal life, is it moral or rational to have kids? Not saying that's how people explicitly think, more how they feel.

ishitar

I'm post menopausal and possibly on the spectrum knew from the age of 8 I didn't want kids because they're sticky and noisy and I get over touched easily.   Kids are a sensory nightmare.  I really didn't have a thought in my head about prestige when I decided that just the amount of drool and body fluids they produce.

wwaxwork

SweetCherryDumplings

No, this is diminishing the very real concerns of this generation around climate and collapse and trying to make it look like we're just fussy little shits chasing some illusion of 'prestige'. I don't believe this is true at all except maybe for a tiny percentage of wealthy socialites.

DeepBurn7

I think it's complete nonsense. Wanting children is a strong biological drive I would say most of us have. Either a little or a lot. It's a minority of people who say the knew for sure from early on that they never wanted children. The social pressure to procreate and have a family is also very strong.  Exactly because it provides legitimacy and respect. Particularly in white collar jobs, this is a thing.  It's a type of prestige , having and/or coming from a respectable family. 

Those two factors combined mean most people decide to have children at some stage of their lives. 

People are deciding not to have kids because the latter pressure to have a perfect family has eased and at the same time, the planet is dying and the cost of living is insane. 

So people are saying no thanks and no way.

Having a family has BEEN prestigious. It's just untenable for most people right now. They couldn't swing it even if they wanted to.

I didn't have children because I was never willing to do it on my own and the state of dating/relationships, I honestly never found anyone worthy of being someone's father.  So that's that.

TigreImpossibile

People need to account for the fact that birth rates started dropping in Europe in the 1800s. In the US they started dropping in the 1920s - they jumped up after WWII for 20 years but by the mid/late 1960s were dropping again, and have been low here ever since.

In other words, this is not a new phenomenon.

The best explanation I've heard for this fertility decline is that people realized they &amp; the kids would be better off if families were smaller. It's a consequence of modernity - kids are more expensive to raise, and they definitely do not bring in money.

mandiblesofdoom

Seems cruel to bring a child into the world given our likely future. Not sure any amount of prestige could fix that

blissin21

Dude, parents get all sorts of special treatment. They can just peace out at work and not make up the hours and just say, "children" and everything cool. Look at the tax case. 

TransitJohn

I don't think it is about prestige, I think it is about economic security.  People don't want to risk having kids if they don't feel financially stable enough to give them a good life.

Human0id77

My sister was paying 1300 a month for childcare and she is the only one out of 4 of us that has kids(two).

Darthmat08

I just straight up don't want to be a dad.

Garet44

Too many humans is the root cause of collapse.  Full stop.

AllLifeEqual

Birth rates are inversely proportional to development and urbanization.

It's simple: Children in cities are a burden. It's almost unimaginable to live with 3 children in a metropolis. 2 children is below renewal rate. 

There's no mistery. There's nothing to fix. No one will ever want to have 3-4 children while living in a city, unless we're about to re-invent our entire way of life.

kurtgustavwilckens

I never understood hiw declining birth rates translate to collapse.
By all logical means, it should be the opposite. 

pakZ

I want to school for quite a few years. The reason I did it was to get the credentials and knowledge to qualify for a professional job. I think my job is cool, but I go to it every day because I need the health insurance and money to live on, not so I can feel prestigious.

KarlMarxButVegan

The only important thing is that the birth rate must continue to fall. The planet can only sustain one or two billion humans max and anything over that ensures further destruction of the biosphere.

Resident_Character35

This demonstrates a limited understanding of the concept of prestige. My partner went to an exclusive school, a number of his old friends are millionaires or more, and most of them have 2+ kids.

The current generations of reproducing age might not look at parenthood as a *source* of prestige, but many of those with the kind of money that can be passed down still have kids. Their doing so and sending them to private schools, taking them on trips around the world, etc., indicates their privilege/prestige. Short of a large-scale redistribution of wealth, that kind of prestige or status can’t become more widespread.

I personally would never aspire to reproduction for ideological and other reasons, and would still be childfree even if I had a lot of money. Furthermore, most of them were expected to reproduce and their lives generally seem like a nightmarish web of familial obligations that make me really relieved not to have a lot of money.

Edit: More specifically, any kind of “you get a gold star for reproducing” approach to prestige would be fundamentally hollow and unappealing, especially given that jobs that would support an SSI/tax base will increasingly not exist thanks to AI and related market forces, so those people would just be purposeless surplus. Alternatively, tie number of offspring to UBI and we end up back in decidedly unprestigious “welfare queen” territory.

mdlway

I think we have to interrogate why anyone thinks the birth rate is an issue in the first place. It’s an economic concern. Capitalism requires exponential growth which is not rooted in material reality. In the natural world when resources become scarce (also a foundation of capitalism) populations decrease. A decrease in the birth rate is an obvious outcome of an economic system based on scarcity. Capitalism is at odds with the laws of nature and should not be used to measure our future or progress as a species.

nothingrhymeswithnat

There is a global male fertility crisis, its been being studied since the 1970's.  Last round of research showed that globally all human males had lost 55% of their fertility.  Which translates into less children due to difficulties getting pregnant.   

That is one aspect.  Factor in that for a single child to be in daycare, it is $500 a week, $2000 a month $24,000 a year, in the US, for 2 children that doubles, and so on and so forth.

Add in the lack of pregnancy care for women pre and post natal and that mothers are dying at higher rates.

Add in astronomical housing costs, and food costs, and it becomes not an issue of *prestige*.

gazagtahagen

I think for me it’s fear: there is no help for parents; they’re expected to do everything on their own. It’s just not worth it. There is no village. I think making the world look on child rearing more positively might help fix that—businesses might prioritize giving time off if people demanded it more fervently, for example. Whatever helps ensure parenting isn’t complete hellish sacrifice will I think help a lot too.

As for those who fear the world will end soon: the world was always almost about to end. That’s why you have kids. You find someone you realize would raise a kid to be someone who would make the world a better place. The only way to save the world is to have kids—if only to give us something to save.

Smergmerg432

Nostalgia. Parents do have higher status if they are in a decent marriage and working. But it’s not as high as it once was. Long term child free women have lower status.

Choice-Standard-6350

Nope. It's late stage capitalism. People are overworked, have no time for social life and forming relationships, are isolated and have no hope for the future (rightly so, just look around). And even when they want to have kids despite all of that they often are too poor and even if they manage to get to a position when they can imagine affording it they are in their late 30s or older and for many this ship has sailed.

WTF_is_this___

I think the author is projecting their own desires onto others more than anything. I don't know any person tho chased doctorates and titles just for the sake of being called that. 

I'm 33. I don't want kids, and that's been my position ever since I realized I can never have the same standard of living that my parents have. I can barely survive on my own, let alone raising kids. With war and humanitarian crisis, a society that punishes you for not always working looming. No thanks

Issah_Wywin

Human population, 1975: 	4,070,735,277

Human population, 2025: 	8,231,613,070

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/

PorcelainFD

From my observation, it's just about ownership. I always observed people who own homes/land being more open to having kids. 

I believe it feels more "secure", and I also don't want to get kids before owning a place of my own.

I think the rest

gokkai

Huh, I do think subconsciously I fall into this a bit. I grew up being told over and over that getting pregnant is the worst thing I could do as a girl. Worse than boys committing rape. 

Then I was told to only do it if I was rich enough. 

Then I worked with kids who had had traumatic births, causing disabilities and learned from these women that you become not human to healthcare workers the moment you might be pregnant.

 People laugh about how pregnant women have to accept they lose all dignity. Women get assaulted during birth and shamed for being in pain. It all sounds so horrendous and traumatic I opted out.

vocalfreesia

Motherhood was never "prestige" for women. It was an expectation of unpaid labor dressed up as a "natural calling."

While I think parenthood isn't for everyone and never was, recent developments that give women the same options men had for centuries just show that given the choice women would have less children with partners who are more helpful with their children.

Some women still want to embark. But some given the option won't, especially if doing so means a general reduction in options and quality of life overall.

BigLibrary2895

I'm gen x, having children was somewhat prestigious for my generation I think. Marriage, buy house, start family is a good definition of success for my gen.

I suspect it's the gens that came after that look at things through a different lense: climate science started to tell its story, economic realities started to bite - esp wealth inequality, politically things have looked less hopeful. Changes have happened to extended family units and gender ideas have been challenged as well all along that timeline - not good or bad but things change.

If you can get two good salaries going do people still feel that you can live your nuclear family, white picket fence dreams?

(I ran into some genetic health problems quite young and decided not to pass them on. People still tell you to 'go for it' anyway. But that's just that kind of general friendly optimism that pervades, they're not going to be in your life day to day to help or anything)

Radiant-Visit1692

This is a painfully stupid argument. 

The reason is education and women's rights. The more you know about the world, and the more control you have over your reproductive rights, the less likely you are to subject yourself to the risks of childbirth.

Fatticusss

Mongolia did that, check it out. They got good results.

Ninjorp

Her theory sounds similar to Thorstein Veblen's Theory Of The Leisure Class.

NelsonChunder

Look into pfas contamination and how it impacts the endocrine system. That where the birth rate collapse is and will come from below all of this other societal rot

Terry-Scary

I've noticed the exact opposite living in an American suburb. People who are well off/have cushy white collar jobs are breeding like rabbits and are very pretentious and proud of their kids

MDG_wx04

I wouldn’t want to see my children starve and suffer while the planet dies. That has nothing to do with prestige.

RueTabegga

There are a lot of things that make people want or not want kids but outside of designer babies and religious people like Mormons/the quiverful movement I doubt prestige is part of it. I'm 20 and I'm not having any because women's healthcare and healthcare in general is so down the toilet. I also don't want to raise a child in a political climate like this. It's so bad these politicians would rather let the earth become progressively more hostile than not get some more money to hoard. I'm not making workers to suffer for them. I don't want to do that to my hypothetical child or children

Santi159

They’ll come up with anything except paying us more

RickCrenshaw

Prestige won't feed, clothes and educate a kid you can't afford when more to than half of your income goes to just paying rent

Tadpoleonicwars

Doubtful, it's probably just money for a lot of people

Hello_Hangnail

So kids are great and gift and the best thing in the world, but the second everyone stops glazing your ass for having them people stop?

WIAttacker

I’m an educated woman with an advanced degree who had to give up my career when I had my first daughter, who has a rare genetic disorder and a high level of care needs. If I’m being honest- yes, I do regret having kids, not because I don’t feel respected by society anymore ( which is also true), but primarily because of runway climate change, rising  fascism and inequality, and the incredible stress of everyday survival.

Jellybean1424

Don't believe the hype. It mainly comes down to money.

BarleySmirk

Some people like cats, some like kids, others prefer dogs. 🤷‍♂️

RipplesInTheOcean

capitalist bs. We have 8.2b ppl on the planet, almost 400m in the US. We are currently killing the planet. The last thing Earth needs is more people. The same amount of kids are still being born ffs.

BobbyBaby13

No. I think people are avoiding the obvious.  It’s too damn expensive. Daycares can cost $3000/mo.  Then you have activities, university. That’s basically the reason. It will affect what jobs you can get re:scheduling. And people don’t want to admit how bad the economic inequality got, how bad the economy is, and how much people don’t want to pay for universal daycare and longer maternity leave.


There is also the amount of work in parenting has increased for better or worse (it’s a mixed bag).  My son is a freshman in HS and I have to go over his Google classrooms with him once a week, drive him around all over the place, make sure all his extracurriculars are organized. And talking to my friends it’s the same with their teens.  We were much more independent as children - I don’t remember my parents checking in with me once about homework or activities. So we are like upper middle class and can afford it but it’s still a financial drain and a time drain and a career killer.

TalkingCat910

Genealogy goes back to prehistory? That's impressive.

gxgxe

Educated_Goat69

I read an article a few years ago that said the new trend among the super wealthy is to have lots of children because they are so expensive. 

Personally,  I always thought that pregnancy and having children was incredibly tacky and low class. No idea why, but my first thought when seeing a pregnant woman is to automatically think she's a single mom or a teenager.

Unspicy_Tuna

how about instead of prestige we get:

-free healthcare for all

-100k/year until the kid is in school (adjusted for inflation annually) 

-50k/year after that until the kid is 18 (likewise adjusted annually) 

-no hiring discrimination re: resume gaps when we return to work part time or full time

-free education for all including college

millfoil

I'm not even going to engage with the argument of whether declining birthrates are an absolutely bad thing under any economic organization, because this is some of the most out-of-touch social media influencer-brained bullshit I've ever heard:

-most Doctors dont do it for prestige, but because they care about saving lives and have the spirit to do so or because it's a stable career choice.
-People don't want to become homeowners for prestige, owning your own home instead of renting provides far greater stability and freedom to do what you want with your own property; it provides greater liberties than renting to a landlord.
-Having priority access to seating and convenience while carrying a greater physical burden is absolutely NOT A BAD THING.

OneFluffyPuffer

This person has never seen a Patek Philippe watch ad.

CharleyZia

I would only try to achieve “prestige” to make easy money, and the comfort that buys so how is chasing prestige not just a derived form of chasing money and comfort?

Sofa-king-high

There are papers on people's willingness to pay for status. Here is an example. [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/019027250406700109](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/019027250406700109)

So there may be some truth to this argument. However, there are many other motivations. The desire to have children is built into our genes to propagate the species. It takes very strong motivations on the opposite side to over-ride this basic instinct.

My guess, without formal research, is that there are multiple factors at play here, but it is reasonable to hypothesize that prestige is one of them.

NyriasNeo

More precisely - its culture. Its the top factor in moving the birthrate either way.

chefko

Psychology is not what’s at play, it’s highly material and economic. When folks who are used to living comfortably they make choices to preserve that even as lifestyle costs creep.

Incendiaryag

LjubowKollontai

tatilcieko

We're collapsing, in part, because of too many people. Encouraging the creation of more people just speeds that along; it shouldn't be prestigious. And people are catching on. 


But I do think there is something to your argument about parenthood, especially mommyhood, in other words being considered low-class. Social media being filled with women whose entire identity is "I'm A Mom!" makes it an even more pathetic path that educated women don't wish to emulate. In my opinion.

Magnesium4YourHead

“childfree” and “social approval” is a huge leap. not saying people who don’t want kids are persecuted or anything but not having kids is still considered by the majority of Americans to be an unconventional choice at best.

that_cad

I’m not concerned about prestige whatsoever. 

I am more concerned about having to drag an 8 year old through the apocalypse. 

No thanks! Shit is hard enough as it is with just me and my husband. Why bring a child into this mess????

littleolivexoxo

THORSTEIN VEBLEN! PECUNIARY STRUGGLE! READ VEBLEN, PEOPLE!

Semoan

Worthless propaganda that's ignoring other obvious factors, such as economic hardship or the accumulation of toxicity in our world.

Collapse_is_underway

All of the written material ever written on "The collapse of social reproduction" vs a new pet theory.

vicxvr

Discussions surrounding declining birth rates examine their global implications on economies, labor markets, and social structures.

Impact of Declining Birth Rates

Why This Matters

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What the people want