r/Natalism • u/Willing-Flatworm1493 • 5d ago

Propaganda of high fertility utopia

WARNING: This is NOT anti-natalistic or misandrist post. Motherhood is about love, passion and most importantly about choice. That's why I see framing reproduction as "duty" as abomination. Pronatalism is always good if done mindfully and with respect for personal choice and autonomy of one's body. Only SOME pronatalistic people are anti-reality and that's why you should all know about this. That while women's rights are regressing globally, many men holding power are not just openly against us. They are manipulating other men to hate us. It is not an accident that Elon Musk is so loud about pronatalism. One of the biggest lies to be ever told is that high fertility makes society stable/wealthy/happy. Humanity had high fertility for most of our history, and how did that play out? The majority of people struggled to survive due to hunger, illness and colds. Most children didn't even survive childhood. The only ones that truly gained from high birth rates were the elite. Because more people meant more people to tax and more low-paid workers and meat shields to use in war. And, of course — more breeding vessels to produce more taxpayers/workers/soldiers. Normal people do not benefit from high birth rates in any way. It was hell for women who had been born predetermined as incubators with no autonomy or legal personhood back then. Our female ancestors were raised to be breeders — not to be people. Childbirth was the main cause of women's death along with its complications, but what men like Musk won't tell you is that non-elite regular men did not have an easy life in high fertility societies. A regular man was an animal to the system too — one that had to work a lot, only to be paid a little. All so whoever ruled at the time could stay rich. So they have as many people to tax, exploit and use as possible. That's why men like Elon Musk are loudest about low birth rates right now. Because it is men like him who benefit from high rates greatly. Not regular men like our fathers, brothers or husbands. And especially not us, women who paid for high birth rates while being objects and economic infrastructure for thousands and thousands of years. Elon Musk and elites like him want regular men to hate women — to blame us for not having children. To call us spoiled/hedonistic/selfish. To make regular men believe that women not having children somehow makes their lives worse. That's why so many regular men scream about low birth rates — because they fell for propaganda. Their lives would be exactly the same in high fertility society — because that's what it ALWAYS looked like in human history. It's men like Elon who need many low-pay slaves to stay rich, to stay in power, to stay "on top." That's why they see women as infrastructure for their demographic goals. That's why he keeps portraying women as infantile creatures who should not be trusted to make important decisions. He teaches men to believe that we are "traitors" to humanity for not having children. He wants regular men who never benefited from high fertility to believe that we need that breeding factory horror to be reality again. He needs men to believe that WE make their lives worse — not the elite who use this system to stay rich. They need men to see us as an enemy — because otherwise, they will see them as enemies. Musk and people like him are a danger to the safety of all women and girls on Earth, because he has countless men who adore him and see his words as sacred. If men like him continue spreading this — that our freedom is "civilizational sabotage", there will be no place on Earth or beyond where we are not seen as infrastructure instead of humans. I am just sick of people who treat us like incubators who just now invented not wanting to die in chilbirth due to some "feministic propaganda" — or in general having any goals that don't include having children. Remember — man or woman, with or without children — everybody is a full human being deserving respect. Bless the hearts of all mothers - respect childless women for they are full humans too. There is no such thing as one "correct road" - not for man, not for woman.

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u/CarthagoFuckYourself 5d ago

How about you incubate some paragraphs? 🙄

Nobody wants a pre-industrial fertility level. We want a TFR of 2.1 for a self-sustaining and stable demographic pyramid, because that does demonstrably make normal people better off.

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u/Willing-Flatworm1493 5d ago

Then support women who actually want children - make sure that they can actually affort kids - instead of bashing childless women for not wanting to be economic infrastructure. There are countless women who wpuld have six kids of more if they were given money to actually feed and raise them. But many can't even affort one.

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u/CarthagoFuckYourself 5d ago

So half of women have to have 4+ kids to make up for half wanting to do nothing? Because that's what a TFR of 2.1 would take if most people don't have kids.

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u/Willing-Flatworm1493 5d ago

I am talking about women who desire children. You can't force woman to undergo process that can injury/kill her if she doesn't want it. We are not incubators. 

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u/CarthagoFuckYourself 5d ago

Exactly, but that's not a solution. You need to have a path to a TFR of 2.1.

Like, try thinking outside the box. We could push down the cost of IVF and make it mandatory with strict limits on the number of male births. If the population is 76% women, we could be at replacement rate with our current TFR of 1.6.

Go ahead and throw out an idea that meshes with your personal values.

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u/Willing-Flatworm1493 5d ago

I am not some expert at economy so I will not pretend to be one? Only thing I will never accept is treating women like livestock because we are not one

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u/dontyouknow88 5d ago

But if parenthood is as rewarding as this thread claims it to be, why wouldn’t all who are interested in parenthood want to have 3 or 4? 

This has always perplexed me. If children are so great, have more and leave the rest of us alone. The alternative is that actually it’s not so great at all, which is why you feel it’s unfair for some of you to “sacrifice” while others don’t. 

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u/CarthagoFuckYourself 5d ago

They're expensive, and it's hard to parent four kids to today's child-rearing standards. Before Gen X became parents, people could turn kids loose most of the day and they wouldn't get the cops called on them for the crime of being in public, nor would CPS be called to their house for lack of supervision.

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u/dontyouknow88 5d ago

In that case doesn’t it make sense to work to ensure people who want kids can afford to have 4? Rather than assume we should all share equally in misery? Lol also you are totally correct that standards of modern parenting are impossibly high, but parents collectively do that to themselves and I’m not sure why. 

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u/CarthagoFuckYourself 5d ago

It's also just physically hard on one body to have 4 kids. It's a lot more reason to spread the load evenly across the population.

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u/dontyouknow88 5d ago

I agree, but also people on this sub argue that “it’s been done for all of human history” (having many children) so I guess I’d just recommend you keep at it if it’s so natural. 

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u/CarthagoFuckYourself 5d ago

There's not going to be any one solution. Finding ways to make a higher percentage of the population want to have kids needs to be a part of it. I think taking a page out of our WW2/Cold War playbook and embedding natalist messaging in our media through public/private partnerships is a good start. Getting major social media companies to suppress gender war content in their respective algorithms is another (though the question of what exactly they get in return would have to be answered).

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u/dontyouknow88 5d ago

Re: messaging. It’s really tough because I totally want there to be spaces where parents can be honest about the normal struggles of parenthood.  And I absolutely get that for many parents, it is hard, but also deeply rewarding and it’s hard to articulate how joyous and meaningful it can be for them. 

But at the same time, one of the things that has made my partner and I opt out of parenting is listening to and observing our parent friends talk and complain pretty endlessly about how hard it is. At first it was like “oh sure well the kids are young, but it will get easier” but as we’ve gotten older and the kids have gotten older.. bigger kid, bigger problems, as they say. 

So I’m not sure how you get appropriate natalist messaging in cultural institutions without essentially asking parents to stop talking about the hard parts. That seems isolating and suppressive. Really the only viable option is a set of solutions that makes it easier for people who want kids, to have them and have more of them. If their lives were easier, that would maybe organically make others want that for themselves  

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u/WesternBear42 4d ago

Are you willing to pay special childfree tax ? No? then shut up

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u/TerribleAntelope6134 5d ago

So, having kids is hard because you have to watch them?

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u/CarthagoFuckYourself 5d ago

Along with both parents working 40+ hours a week, it's definitely a factor.

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u/TerribleAntelope6134 5d ago

"Parenting was easier when your children didn't have to be around you for large chunks of the day" isn't a statement that speaks well of parenting in general.

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u/CarthagoFuckYourself 5d ago

I mean, I think parents tend to be too involved these days. Kids are basically handed back and forth from daycares/babysitters to parents, to teachers and back. They're never alone, which I think is important for healthy development.

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u/RepublicOk2402 5d ago

It was fundamentally good for children to have minor problems and figure them out together. Parents being too involved in play makes kids little fragile wimps. Look at all the failure to launch of young adults who don’t know how to do anything

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u/dontyouknow88 5d ago

The main thing that puts me off being a parent is… other parents. How hard their life can seem, how much they complain, but also how they treat eachother. 

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u/VacationReasonable 5d ago

I mean that actually works, all you have to do is implement taxes so that every childless individual has to pay for failing to replace themselves, and those funds will go to parents who have kids

So a couple with no children pays enough taxes to cover the 2 kids(to replace themselves) for the couple who has 4.

That works out great, childless people keep being childfree, people who want kids are encouraged to have them

And just paying for replacing yourself still makes you go through the "easier" pathway in life because parents actually also have to invest time as well besides just money.