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"Right" by who? Who gets to decide what is right and wrong? That's not for anyone to decide. It's all opinion. It's only the 2 people involved to decide. NOT you. And who cares? Why do you care so much. If you are so happy in your decision, then why does it matter? Live your life and stop worrying about and judging those who decide not to have kids.
My husband and I don't want them for every reason you can think of. Name it, that's a reason. The end, and I don't care if you think it's right or wrong. NOT your business buddy. Who the hell are you to question whether it's "correct for society". You don't get to decide what happens in the uteri of everyone woman in the US, so move along and find a hobby.
Seriously? Is this your "stern", finger-pointing "warning" to "get on that baby-making"!! Wow. I'm sure they are changing their mind and "getting right to it" right now!
That was not the point of the thread. I am talking about the consequences of highly educated intelligent couples that decide not to procreate. In a sense it is a loss for future generations. One may think that it is no big deal at the individual level, but on a large scale it has consequences.
Last edited by Julian658; 11-14-2015 at 04:42 PM..
Degrees are not inherited, but if at least one of your parents went to college, you are much more likely to go as well. Kids typically follow in their parents' footsteps in regards to education and career/salary expectations.
1. China ended not just with aging population. China ended with not enough males to create a family and poly female families, with a shared male.
2. USA current birth rate is below reproductive 2.1 child per female. It's 1.7 I believe. At this rate, country population simply can not be sustained and will be declining. Along with health care geared towards maintaining life at any cost. Before you post something smart in response, go visit a dozen of mid level skilled nursing facilities. Also, check what is going on in Europe with "tolerance" towards immigration. Ahh, I forgot. US is actually somehow immune to all this, right? We take only angels... Sorry, my bad.
3. As the result, US population is maintained or increased from outside - by immigration - and by - in numbers - preserving lives. Brave statement "we keep our citizens living longerI I'll suggest to digest after visiting the above mentioned skilled nursing facilities.
4. Moderator cut: Off Topic
5. Ad hoc, over population. Allegedly, Earth population sextupled in only 200 years. Towards mid 19th century it was only - allegedly again - 1 billion. Then it simply exploded - allegedly - somehow magically in the countries that never experienced such explosion before and by far, never had any "improvement in quality of life" to justify such explosion. Either someone turned on some unknown switch to make this happen or, it's a bunch of lies. Yes, go ahead and look up "official" statistics. Official statistics have always been catered to those in power interests and, coincidentally, explosion in human population started AFTER Malthus came up with his theory and it was picked by globalizers to justify population reduction.
Of course they do. Kudos to them, it's very courageous and goes again the (bad) spirit of the times in our day and age when the last fad to date is to have babies, and more babies, even with artificial means, although our dying planet is already overpopulated.
The likelihood that the planet will die is 100%. The main issue is: Who goes first? The planet or the humans that live on the planet?
Good point. You may 'save' the environment but you also eliminate your unique gene combination from the gene pool.
Having a happy and invigorating family life is indeed a wonderful outcome of having children. Some men leave the child rearing mostly to their spouse, which allows them to be highly productive and useful members of society, yet they are able to enjoy the family setting. But the spouse needs to want this to be her main career. Not every woman accepts that.
When both husband and wife want to be maximally productive, they may end up not feeling that they would be able to give children the attention they deserve. I think that is why some highly educated couples do not have children of their own, even when they would have qualified as great parents. They are dedicated to improving society in some other way other than raising children. And as mentioned above, some highly productive men and women don't even want the distraction of a full time spouse.
In a sense we all live for the moment and some see children as a distraction from the goal. But it is a short term goal, no doubt.
The likelihood that the planet will die is 100%. The main issue is: Who goes first? The planet or the humans that live on the planet?
Who in their right mind would want to be on the planet when it dies? Empathy would be the preference that the humans die out first. Let the cockroaches and micro-organisms experience the death of the planet.
I am one who never had children. Part of the reason was economic but here's the rest of the story. I loved my H(dead now) but I knew he would never do his half of the kid raising. And I knew I wasn't good enough or self sacrificing enough to voluntarily function as a single mom to two kids! Next, I didn't want to lose my own identity and just be 'Mom' for the rest of my life. That one is probably selfish but it's how I felt at the time. I wanted to travel, be spontaneous, and do fun things. Diapers and snotty noses didn't give me any warm fuzzies.
Today I have a very different SO. If I had been married to him from the start, we would probably have had a child. I say one because that's most likely what we could have afforded. Neither of us have biological children.
The economics part of this equation let me retire at 53 instead of working till I was 70 because of kid-related expenses. But the cosmos finds a way to even it all out. I spent more than a decade doing elder care. And that may well be worse than raising children!
I would never urge people who don't want kids to have them anyway!
I am one who never had children. Part of the reason was economic but here's the rest of the story. I loved my H(dead now) but I knew he would never do his half of the kid raising. And I knew I wasn't good enough or self sacrificing enough to voluntarily function as a single mom to two kids! Next, I didn't want to lose my own identity and just be 'Mom' for the rest of my life. That one is probably selfish but it's how I felt at the time. I wanted to travel, be spontaneous, and do fun things. Diapers and snotty noses didn't give me any warm fuzzies.
Today I have a very different SO. If I had been married to him from the start, we would probably have had a child. I say one because that's most likely what we could have afforded. Neither of us have biological children.
The economics part of this equation let me retire at 53 instead of working till I was 70 because of kid-related expenses. But the cosmos finds a way to even it all out. I spent more than a decade doing elder care. And that may well be worse than raising children!
I would never urge people who don't want kids to have them anyway!
Taking care of elderly parents is a difficult job. I was blessed with parent that were healthy. Now that you are a widow and childless---------do you ever wonder what it would be like to have children at this stage of your life? You helped your parents. Who will help you?
I agree 100% with everything you said here. My husband and I both have college degrees (mine is in Physics, no less), and we don't want kids, for every possible reason. And I totally agree that no one has the right to tell me I am doing the "wrong thing".
However, I also agree with the premise of the thread. I am terrified that as ludicrous as the Idiocracy movie is, it is a not altogether incorrect representation of the way our society is currently headed. It is completely true that the more educated members of society are having fewer children than the less educated, a trend that tends to escalate exponentially.
Despite understanding that, there is no amount of money you could offer me in order to make me choose to have a child. It has nothing to do with economics. I just don't want children. Most people I know who have chosen similarly say the same thing. The money is a nice bonus, but isn't why we made the decision.
you better hurry up and have kids! The world needs more smart people with high IQ's whose parents care about education!
I think Idiocracy is right. You see it happening in real life, 3rd world, poor, uneducated people have at least 3 kids per couple. the parents don't value education since they themselves didn't receive much education, so they also don't educate their kids. the cycle repeats itself when the kids are 16 years old.
People forget how much kids cost society. Fewer kids means fewer people paying into social security and the like, but it also means smaller classes, more one on one attention, and maybe more kids learning and fewer dropping out, which means more kids are getting better jobs. Better jobs means more money coming in and more taxes are paid into the system.
Fewer kids means the crime level goes waaaay down, since by the time people are in their 40s, they aren't as apt to commit violent crimes anymore. Fewer kids means much less competition for jobs and apartments, which means wages go up and rents go down. Fewer kids means a lot less childhood diseases and fewer illnesses, like flus and colds, which most adults catch from children. That means fewer sick days and higher productivity at work for the adults already here.
Fewer kids means less people driving on the roads and bridges, which makes our infrastructure last longer and need fewer repairs over a longer period of time. Fewer people on the roads means transport time for goods and services goes down and prices might drop. The demand for fuel will go down, and those prices might drop. Competition for colleges will drop, and those prices might begin to drop.
I personally think there's lots more advantages to having fewer kids in this country than we have now. I just wish more people would think like that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian658
Taking care of elderly parents is a difficult job. I was blessed with parent that were healthy. Now that you are a widow and childless---------do you ever wonder what it would be like to have children at this stage of your life? You helped your parents. Who will help you?
Without kids, I will use the money I would have spent on them to hire a caregiver.
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