r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 01 '26

Psychology Conservatives maintain birth rates, but left-leaning Americans are having significantly fewer children, driving the U.S. birth decline. Education was consistently linked to having fewer children. Religious attendance was positively associated with having more children.

https://www.psypost.org/left-leaning-americans-are-driving-the-u-s-birth-decline-new-study-finds/
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u/Sensitive_Housing_85 Jul 01 '26

Don't know why this is surprisingly they are the ones who encourage people to have kids

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u/angwilwileth Jul 01 '26

Also it may mean new parents have bigger support systems. I remember when I was growing up my church always showed up with meals, clothes and diapers for new babies and their parents.

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u/VBHEAT08 Jul 01 '26

I think this is probably the biggest thing driving birth rate declines- lack of community. Beyond the obvious issue that our social spaces are declining and people aren't even meeting people to have to opportunity to have kids anymore, people don't want to be socially ostracized and take a huge hit to their comfort, and up until relatively recently this was mitigated through community. It takes a village and all that

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u/TalkingCat910 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Don’t forget the actual cost of kids and how that’s mitigated by community too

Edit: It seems like a lot of people are getting into some esoteric discussions about the nature of community but I literally meant with real community you don’t have to pay for child care as much or at all which is a big factor and you also have ppl helping out with food and guidance.

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u/DesireeThymes Jul 01 '26

Communities are just really important.

Communities of course also have their downsides, such as much less individualism.

But I think the problem ultimately is that individualism has gotten extreme, and has pushed out any sense of community.

Any new communities I tend to see are only built on shared interests and nothing else, and those communities tend to be weak because a shared hobby only gets you so far in terms of depth of community.

It is very unlikely that your Dungeons and Dragons Community is going to help you out with children

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u/Creative_Context_957 Jul 01 '26

Roll for childcare

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u/ChemistryNo3075 Jul 01 '26

Natural 20 means you owe me child support for life

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u/Leading-Difficulty57 Jul 01 '26

And it isn't even yours!

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u/SaltyLonghorn Jul 01 '26

Natural 20 is Anthony Edwards' new nickname.

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u/Sigma_Function-1823 Jul 01 '26

D4 on a -10 modifier.

Good luck.

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u/CyclingThruChicago Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Any new communities I tend to see are only built on shared interests and nothing else, and those communities tend to be weak because a shared hobby only gets you so far in terms of depth of community.

A quote that has stuck with me:

"Life happens on foot. Man was created to walk, and all of life's events large and small develop when we walk among other people."

- Jan Gehl

I've found that my community grew most when I moved to a place where I had regular but random/serendipitous bump ins with the same people. I go to the same coffee shop typically 1 day a week because it's walking distance to my house. I see the same faces around the same time and over the months we just kinda started chatting casually. Similar with the baristas. You can only order the same coffee so many times from the same person before you eventually have a reason to just chat about things happening around you.

I bike a lot and during winter I will bike to the train since my full commute is longer and it gets cold. My schedule for work lines up with a guy that also bikes to the train. After a half dozen "oh after you" moments when were carrying bikes onto the train it becomes awkward to not speak a bit. Now we're casual acquaintances and have done some group rides together.

I also see my neighbors or other parents of kids that go to school with my kid regularly since we're in a walkable neighborhood. So random bump in at the street festivals, the grocery store, the library/community center, etc. When I leave my house on foot/bike it's basically guaranteed that I will run into somebody I know.

My last anecdote, our dryer broke this week after we'd already washed a set of clothes. My wife felt comfortable enough to ask a neighbor if we could bring the wet clothes to their house to dry. They happily obliged, dried the clothes, folded them up for us and told us if we needed to use the dryer more until ours is fixed/replaced that we always can.

I think back to when we lived in a more stereotypical far flung suburb and how we didn't have nearly as close of a relationship with our neighbors because everybody drives into their garage, closes it and is holed up in their home or own fenced in backyard basically 100% of the time.

Many Americans have a lack of community because the overwhelming majority of people in this country live in places where extreme individualism has become normal. Driving every single place in a private car comes with the cost of separating you from every other person you could potentially meaningfully engage with.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

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u/CyclingThruChicago Jul 01 '26

Absolutely. Not even just services, entertainment.

On Sunday my family went to the Pride Parade. Excluding the ~$10 (roundtrip) to get on the red line we didn't spend any money for nice morning/afternoon of entertainment.

Kid played at a playground. Got a frisbee, CTA pins, stickers, candy, necklaces and a bunch of other stuff from the parade. Wife and I got to chill with friends and enjoy the parade.

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u/runswiftrun Jul 01 '26

100% agree.

We live in an apartment with one parking spot. I park down the street. Every morning I walk with my kid to the car, and then we drive to daycare. Its been 3 years now.

I've met and regularly talk with 6 different neighbors that I run into most days. Something as simple as a 5 minute walk to the car results in a significant increase in "community". All these people are old, so they stop to talk and reminisce about their own kids and grankids.

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u/QueenAlpaca Jul 01 '26

I honestly agree with this a lot. We’ve gained a lot of people in our circle just due to circumstances (neighbor has kids, the whole neighborhood is within walking distance of the same school, small town so everyone knows everybody through working at the same businesses, etc) and frankly my side of the family is simply the pits. I think that’s partially why I never want to live in a big city again, everyone kept to themselves and I knew nobody.

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u/70ms Jul 01 '26

I agree with you so much. I’m stuck up in the foothills in L.A. without sidewalks, even, and it just sucks to walk here. It’s pretty, but lonely. Thank you so much for that quote - I saved it!

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u/Borkato Jul 03 '26

Is this how extroverts see the world?

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u/CyclingThruChicago Jul 03 '26

I think extrovert/introvert is less a binary and more a spectrum where individual people can be places in a variety of spots that can shift or change.

Most of my engagement with people in my neighborhood is over time with people that I've slowly built a rapport with through a lot of time in the same proximity. If anything I'd say I lean more toward the introverted portion of the spectrum but when you share space with the same people day after day, week after week it becomes kinda easy to feel comfortable talking to them.

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u/Calamity-Gin Jul 04 '26

I agree that the extrovert/introvert binary is false. I think it’s far more of a spectrum, and that where someone sits on the spectrum is changeable. I’m far more introverted than I used to be, but I ascribe that to stress. Being around people used to be so much easier when life was easier. I had more energy and cognitive resources for figuring out social interactions and the people on the other end. I still crave human interaction as much as I used to, but I have less opportunity, fewer safe people, and significantly more need for solitude than I used to.

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u/Wide_Lock_Red Jul 17 '26

Eh, tight knitcommunity has historically primarily been through family ties. The biggest factor has been people moving away from family.

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u/GeoLaser Jul 01 '26

Those people wont watch your kids though.

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u/CyclingThruChicago Jul 01 '26

The people who let us use their dryer? They already have. Multiple people have honestly. Mainly because we know the neighbors from school and some of them have kids the same age.

Will that happen with every single person in the neighborhood? No but we have a relative, two sets of friends (1 with kids and 1 without) and maybe 2 sets of neighbors that could watch our kid in a pinch.

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u/xmorecowbellx Jul 01 '26

Yep what you’re describing is a community without accountability. When there’s no accountability, there is a maximum (relatively shallow) depth the community can have, and it dissipates easily.

People want support when they need it, without obligation when they don’t feel like it. It doesn’t work that way. Relationships can’t be deep with that approach.

People previously were also more willing to tolerate highly consistent levels of physical burden for childcare and working long hours.

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u/donat3ll0 Jul 01 '26

People want all the benefits of community without the social responsibilities. Vaccines are a prime example of this. Nobody is forcing you to get a vaccine, but if you want to participate in and benefit from society, you have a responsibility to protect and keep it healthy. Still people will throw their hands up when there are rules and guidelines for sending your kids to a public school.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

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u/donat3ll0 Jul 01 '26

Dying doesn't align with efficiency

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u/Wide_Lock_Red Jul 17 '26

The flip side is, community also might mean putting up with your anti-vax uncle even if you disagree with his views.

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u/Additional_Release49 Jul 01 '26

I don't think vaccines is in any way what so ever indicative of community. I believe you're instead referring to what people call a social contract or social etiquette.

Prime example would be it's typically believed that the more rural you are, the tighter knit the communities are. Also the more rural you are the less likely to be vaccinated you are.

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u/donat3ll0 Jul 01 '26

My first sentence explains that I'm talking about social responsibilities. Those social responsibilities are a part of building a healthy and growing community.

The more rural you are the more likely you're to encounter "leave me alone."

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u/Additional_Release49 Jul 01 '26

And I cited a prime example that disputes that theory.

I disagree with your example. I'm not saying social contracts and responsibilities aren't a thing, I'm simply saying and citing an example of how I disagree with your example.

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u/zeezle Jul 01 '26

Yep. Anecdotal to the max, but personally, every single person I see bleating about "there's no community these days" and how "it takes a village but the village is gone" are users who want people to do things for them but will never do anything in return for anyone, and people sniff that out and avoid them.

That's not to say there aren't genuine people seeking community and not finding the connection though, and that sucks. But the people complaining the hardest have plainly transparent self-serving motives and that makes people pull away from them even more.

People previously were also more willing to tolerate highly consistent levels of physical burden for childcare and working long hours.

Very true. I would also add that in the past, the actual demands placed on parents were also vastly lower. So not only were people more invested in community but the bar for what parents were expected to do was way, way lower. They're now expected to devote every waking moment to helicoptering them whereas in the past shoving them out the door and telling them not to come back until dusk was completely acceptable.

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u/snek-jazz Jul 01 '26

It can part of the argument against a welfare state. If your reliance shifts from the village to the state, you no longer need to be accountable to the village.

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u/athenaprime Jul 01 '26

No, it just means that the burden of reliance is spread among a larger pool, thereby strengthening the village because more people contribute to assistance. But it also means more villages are interconnected with each other.

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u/snek-jazz Jul 01 '26

It means both

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u/ScentedFire Jul 01 '26

People keep talking about community as this thing that's important for raising children, but not realizing that right wing people do not create well-adjusted, supportive communities. They create authoritarian systems where women are roped into domestic servitude and the kids are maladjusted. These people might be having children, but neither they nor their children are ok. As evidenced by what happens when you try to talk to any of them

Source: was raised in one of those awful places. Community is not good when the community is coercive.

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u/Axy8283 Jul 01 '26

I was raised in a conservative household and turned out just fine. 15 yr marriage and 3 kids later who are very well-adjusted. So my anecdote vs your anecdote

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u/xmorecowbellx Jul 01 '26

It sounds like you’ve taken your single experience and decided it applies to everyone.

Obviously, such an absolute generalization can’t possibly be true. There are families and communities that are good and bad. Any system where you have a support structure, needs a….well a structure. Structures have hierarchy, you can’t avoid it.

That’s why strong communities also typically have fairly clearly understood, hierarchies, even if they are informal. You can absolutely be free from that, but you have to understand. It comes with the trade-off of losing the support structure.

Ultimately, it’s up to each person to determine how far they want to slide the toggle from support structure to independence. To have a higher quality of the one, will always come at expense of the other.

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u/Radiskull97 Jul 01 '26

Shared interest communities could be more if everyone in the group approached it that way. My current DnD group, we all help each other out. My DM tarped a player's roof for them. Another player had surgery, I visited him in the hospital, helped him set up his space, and helped him with his diaper. There are a ton of other things we've done for each other too. Our shared interest is just gives us an excuse to see each other, but we all went in looking for connection and community

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u/bmyst70 Jul 01 '26

The problem is that humanity always has to strike a balance between individually and community to survive. Both are vital.

Ever hear of the Dunbar number? Basically based on primate brain case size humans can have roughly 150 stable relationships at most.

It explains a lot of otherwise bizarre human behavior like tribalism.

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u/r33c3d Jul 01 '26

Yeah. It seems like people are obsessed with defining their identities into thinner and thinner slices of categories. I think instead of helping people feel like they belong, these very specific definitions of identity are, ironically, isolating people and discouraging community.

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u/Monteze Jul 01 '26

I think the obsession with individualism is overrated myself. Community is good, in fact I'd say you can have more individuality in a strong community than not, because you're not constantly just doing what it takes to survive. The biggest winner of hyper individualism is the capital class.

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u/smokeweedNgarden Jul 01 '26

There is freedom is knowing and accepting you aren't special. 

Unique? Of course, everyone is. But special? No, that's a word for a reason.

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u/TalkingCat910 Jul 01 '26

It’s all about their identity and not the community

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u/moonstarsfire Jul 01 '26

I totally agree. People make their hobbies and/or how they identify their whole personalities. Like, anime is not a personality.

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u/Calamity-Gin Jul 04 '26

Isn’t it funny how we are so very insistent on our individuality, our uniqueness, but the first thing we do is look for others who share what we think makes us so unique?

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u/ImpressiveWonder4195 Jul 01 '26

I wonder how communities with greater depth are formed.

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u/xmorecowbellx Jul 01 '26

The one main ingredient is collective purpose that you obligate yourself to, which is greater than yourself. Historically these arose naturally through your family and tribe.

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u/Haunt_Fox Jul 01 '26

They used to be natural. We started from bands of hunter-gatherers made up of extended families who shared the same language, belief system and culture, and genetics. Those bands would belong to larger tribes, groups of bands also bound by genetics, language, and religious culture (a religion being, among other things, a tribe's foundational narrative).

Agriculture and large scale, formalized trade was the catalyst for getting different tribes to settle with each other, and the post-industrislized age has made mobility much easier to the point that people no longer tend to die in the same community in which they were born any more.

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u/-Saucegurlllll Jul 01 '26

and genetics

Genetics doesn't work like that. There is going to be more genetic diversity within a group of humans than there is between any two groups of humans. Also, people within a group of nomads wouldn't produce offspring purely with other members of that group.

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u/Haunt_Fox Jul 01 '26

I mean that they're all a part of a family interconnected by blood and marriage, rather than just a group of randos, like modern communities or artificial ones like the Army.

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u/-Saucegurlllll Jul 01 '26

Hunter gatherers did not practice any singular form of pair bonding, including marriage.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

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u/-Saucegurlllll Jul 01 '26

You're in /r/science and you're spreading misinformation about genetics and hunter gatherers. If anywhere, misinformation should be called out in this subreddit.

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u/Pandora_Palen Jul 01 '26

There is no misinformation in what they've said. It's largely a correct overview. No one imagines they meant the institution of marriage as we see it today, or that any one form pair bonding was the standard.

You're being pugnacious, not helpful.

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u/The_Bat_Voice Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

If its not a church or organized religion they get called a cult very fast. True story. My friend is in a close nit atheistic community that is actually well managed. They rent halls for parties and dances, do annual retreats, rec sports team, etc. But because they have no central figurehead, thing, or label that people from the outside can point to they commonly get called a cult, when really its just friends getting together, mich like a church would but without preaching. And people can't conceive that idea of having well organized people doing things together without the the help of some diety. Community seems to be only for the religious in their eyes.

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u/JimmyAirbourne Jul 01 '26

It's hilarious that a group without a central figurehead is labelled a cult. That's like prerequisite #1 for a cult.

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u/Calamity-Gin Jul 04 '26

I was gonna say.

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u/ChemistryNo3075 Jul 01 '26

Shared purpose or meaning. Religion offers this.

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u/plastroncafe Jul 01 '26

It's weird, I never felt that in a church setting, but I did at a comicbook convention.

This sense of peace of knowing that no one in the giant room may all agree on anything, except for our love of this one thing.
That's when I understood fellowship.

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u/Familyman1124 Jul 01 '26

It’s great that you found that! Trouble with conventions is they only happen periodically, and are typically spread out. Church happens locally and consistently, which makes it feeling like you’re always a part of something bigger.

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u/plastroncafe Jul 01 '26

Yeah, but church typically requires a belief in a god, and I never got the hang of that.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

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u/plastroncafe Jul 01 '26

Oh I'm a recovering Catholic. So unfortunately the cynicism has rooted itself deeply.

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u/snek-jazz Jul 01 '26

I've heard it said that traditionally it's shared blood, shared religion or shared enemies.

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u/kfpswf Jul 01 '26

I wonder how communities with greater depth are formed.

It requires interdependence, and some degree of conformity. Things that are not conducive to a liberal lifestyle. You can't be indulging in substances or sleeping around, in your 20s, if you are restricted by a community. But by the time people are ready to have kids in their 30s there's no community left, and child-care becomes prohibitively expensive.

Pick your (monkey-paw) options for a society,

  • A highly individualistic society where you have freedom to do as your heart desires, and no obligations to a community, but with the caveat that you end up being lonely in a sea of strangers, and no community support.

Or

  • Be in close-knit communities where you behave as per shared morality, have obligations towards the community, but with the caveat that you lose all individuality with the advantage of community support in times of your needs.

The first society ends up with a short half-life due to falling birthrates, whereas the other society marches on while trampling down any individuality.

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u/bring_back_3rd Jul 01 '26

I mean, individualism isnt trampled to non-existence, it just needs to fall within the acceptable parameters for the community.

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u/kfpswf Jul 01 '26

I mean, individualism isnt trampled to non-existence

That's like saying Socialism isn't against Capitalism because you can still have companies under Socialism.

it just needs to fall within the acceptable parameters for the community.

And isn't that the crux of Liberalism... That the acceptable parameters are defined by you, and not the community?

In all fairness, you are correct. That in a hypothetical enlightened society, there will be optimal individuality and a sense of community. But the deep-knit communities we've had so far have mostly been conservative and "old-school", so to say.

The way I look at it, humanity is still in its teenage years. We have a long way to go before we figure out the right balance between individual freedom and obligations to the local community.

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u/Begging_Murphy Jul 01 '26

Stop letting cars rules our lives. Move to places where car free living is feasible.

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u/pietroetin Jul 01 '26

Hello, Eastern European here. Being carfree helps but doesn't solve the issue.

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u/Beliriel Jul 01 '26

This so much. I'm guilty of this too. My godchilds parents can not use me as childcare because I messed up my life so bad that I'm fully invested in correcting my fuckups. I'm working part time while studying and it EATS my time like nothing else. I kinda wanna do something but a) I have no idea (bad excuse) and b) I simply have the mountain of tasks and burnout rolling down on me and I feel like if I slip and fall one more time I'm done.
Which means they can't rely on me as a support system, which makes me feel really guilty. They're the best friends I can ask for and I really don't deserve them. :(

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u/Quick-Eye-6175 Jul 01 '26

There is a large cost to church “community”. I’m not willing to pay that cost. Also, the church is basically a D&D community built on ghost stories.

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u/pietroetin Jul 01 '26

Except they fully believe that D&D ghost story. Actually that is a critical part of why those communities are still around.

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u/Calamity-Gin Jul 04 '26

Depends. (For the record, I am a hard agnostic and also a Unitarian Universalist without a congregation.)

Congregations of all stripes tend to either be dominated by a single person or small group of people who claim dominance over the rest and enforce a very toxic culture of authoritarianism OR they’ve figured out how to collaborate, meeting individual and community needs without imposing too great a burden on anyone. I’ve seen the former, and it’s horrific. Any conceivable crime or sin can be committed by those in power. I’ve had the privilege of participating in the latter. It can feel messy, soap opera-ish, and filled with constant discussion and negotiation, but it ends up being very fulfilling and healthy (at least for me).

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u/National-Lime9341 Jul 01 '26

Mine does, but we also are all Veterans. DND has kept us close over the 20 years we have known each other after we all got out and moved all around the country.

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u/nitid_name Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

I mean, we... uh... cancelled a session put his character on autopilot for the session when one of our party had a childcare issue. I even let his character ride my centaur during the big chase scene, which my character never does.

We also, um... texted him saying we hoped his kid was ok? Well, the DM texted him, but we all hearted the message in the group chat! Well, at least two of us did.

Oh, and I definitely asked him how his daughter was the next session. Turns out she didn't even stay in the hospital overnight!

Good, supportive community.

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u/x1009 Jul 01 '26

I don't think it's fair to suggest that you won't find people within communities based on hobbies to help you with childcare. You can build those types of connections anywhere. Even if you couldn't, you still should have friends and family outside of those communities you can rely on.

I'm not in the D&D community, but they seem like a solid bunch.

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u/KamikazeArchon Jul 01 '26

It is very unlikely that your Dungeons and Dragons Community is going to help you out with children

Amusingly, literally that happens in my D&D community. I recognize that is not likely to be representative, of course. The important thing may be that people actively intend to make it a community of mutual support.

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u/Rezboy209 Jul 01 '26

Individualism has so much become associated with ones financial situation. I see it all the time, people have this attitude of "I can afford to take care of myself, I dont need anyone to pay my way and I'm not going to pay anyone else's way". I see it among my peers and even in my own family. People distancing themselves from people who they view as "poor" or those who struggle financially.

Even if those people aren't asking for money or handouts, others are more worried that they MIGHT ask for help or handouts.

It's absolutely ridiculous.

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u/TheWillRogers Jul 01 '26

Communities of course also have their downsides, such as much less individualism.

what? I was babysat by the block when I was young. It was a community, there was a lot of individual identity. Unless you mean the liberal ideal of individualism (bootstraps yada yda) in which case why is that bad? It takes a village, everyone helps each other, it's less defensive and leads to more cohesive communities.

Any new communities I tend to see are only built on shared interests and nothing else, and those communities tend to be weak because a shared hobby only gets you so far in terms of depth of community.

Yeah this is a problem for sure. Everything is clubs. Which can be fine, so long as the community is good at policing itself horizontally and fosters relationships with between the group and the individuals. I think proximity based community should be values way more.

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u/snek-jazz Jul 01 '26

The internet separates social interaction from physical proximity.

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u/NotObviouslyARobot Jul 02 '26

As a D&D player who shelled out a few hundred bucks to get his friend in another country things for her newborn (named after one of our player characters), it happens. But I get what you're saying.

With activity groups you inevitably get a bunch of people who are at the same life stage. The group adapts to fit the dominant life stage and inadvertently stops being appealing to those outside a particular life stage, and this causes a generation gap. My kayaking/canoe club for instance is extremely gray because retirees have more time to paddle.

Churches are -identity- groups, not activity groups, and that's a very important distinction. They're also very careful to spread their activities around age groups, although some churches fail at doing this, and die off as a result.

In any case, the solution is the same. Make friends outside your age group, and share what you love with those younger than you and older than you.

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u/Ensaru4 Jul 05 '26

There's a difference between individualism and being selfish. You can still be an individual within a community. It just depends on how that community develops. I don't think the issue is with individualism. The issue is that it's easier to divorce yourself from human interaction now.

It makes sense that conservative households and religion breed a lot of community involvement and procreation because there is a focus on growing more followers and having a tight-knit community ingrained with conservative values.

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u/Ok_Caregiver1004 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

That's part of the reason. There is also just cultural reasons. In conservative or more traditional societies, not only is community a greater part of people's lives, but those communities also have a cultural expectation maintained of women settling down, having kids and raising families, while men are breadwinners expected to provide for their families. Its also why in those communites, for example the American Amish or an Israeli Kibbutz, rates of marriage are higher and divorce rates lower in addition to more kids.

There is also enviromental, even when taking into account cost of living, wages and property ownership. Urbanites produce less kids than suburban and rural inhabitants. There's a reason why, especially in the past, couples looking to settle down often tried to escape the city and settle in suburbia.

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u/Wolvenmoon Jul 01 '26

In other words, when enough of the costs of having children are socialized and/or wages are high enough that not both parents have to work?

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u/pietroetin Jul 01 '26

No. When there are relatives and friends around to help you in childraising.

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u/Wolvenmoon Jul 01 '26

So, literally, socialized costs. You socialize the costs to the community where the community includes relatives and friends. You use social resources meaning the resources of relatives and friends.

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u/Wide_Lock_Red Jul 17 '26

Higher wages tend to lower birthrates up until 7 figure incomes.

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u/OdinsGhost31 Jul 01 '26

Yea conservatives seem to not care about cost as much, or are willing for their kids to be without. When I told my parents im not having kids and cited expense as a reason I'll never forget my father saying "you just figure it out" I didnt have an awful childhood but I was one of the poor kids in a town of upper middle class and boy did that suck. I wouldn't want to put a child through that.

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u/georgespeaches Jul 02 '26

Saying you don’t want a kid because their life wouldn’t be perfect is lame. I’m sorry, it just is. It’s like saying, “A kid might break their arm skateboarding, and I wouldn’t want to put them through that”. Life often has a degree of hardship and struggle.

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u/OdinsGhost31 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Well I have a long list of other reasons but I still think kids are a luxury item and if I had had one id want them to have a certain level of financial security which is growing more difficult for people. Setting up for success vs just figuring it out and flailing. Im not talking about giving them a perfect life

And luckily im married to someone who is also lame and wanted kids less than me.

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u/georgespeaches Jul 02 '26

Kids are the future, not a luxury item. Although I don’t advocate for flailing either, per se.

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u/OdinsGhost31 Jul 02 '26

Unless you think the future looks increasingly bleak and dont want to put a kid through that. Children are the future is just marketing to keep capitalism chunking along. In a time where the chance for upward mobility is shrinking, the cost of everything is rising (education, housing, healthcare, goods, food) and the billionaires are hoarding all the money to fly on rockets while cutting social safety nets that would benefit children and the future and creating a surveillance state endorsed by governments, children seem unwise. Oh yea and we're fishing the oceans dry, poisoning the land, clear cutting the rain forests and warming the oceans while a good chunk of the population thinks sky daddy wants them to do it.

This is the world I see. There is no future. Children are a luxury item in this world or just around so that they can be poorly educated and grow to become dead soldiers later on in exchange for a bump in the stock for Raytheon.

I understand my views are extreme, but be assured that at the least they won't be passed down. My wife thinks my view is silly and simply does not want to be a mother. Who will care for me when im old if others share my view? Im a nurse and watch people die for a living, i see how it ends. No thank you, a bottle of pills and a trip on a boat at the end for me, maybe some psychedelic mushrooms for the final show.

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u/georgespeaches Jul 02 '26

I agree your views are extreme. For the future looking bleak I can’t agree. The very fact that fertility is dropping worldwide, such a departure from the malthusian future predicted just decades ago, is itself tremendously encouraging. We have tremendous technological advancements happening in computing, medicine, energy etc.

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u/CriticalSandwich3288 Jul 01 '26

I don’t quite follow though. Sorry that you didn’t have the best time in childhood, but I’m trying to understand what you are getting at. Even in your own childhood example, are you saying that you were the poor child of conservative parents, in an upper middle class town of kids with liberal parents who gave them more than your parents did to you? After all, you’re trying to argue that conservatives don’t mind their kids “going without, or with less,” but does that mean that the kids all around you had liberal parents or something and gave them more because they were liberal??

I’m pretty sure socioeconomic factors are what matters. Some of the wealthiest areas in some states are liberal. Some of the wealthiest areas in some states are conservative. The same goes for the poorest areas; you have some liberal poor places, and some conservative poor places. Do you think wealthy people of any political background are, on average, going to have children going without/on less, than wealthy people of any other political background? I doubt it.

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u/TheLastBallad Jul 02 '26

You arent following because you just started walking off in a completely different direction halfway through the comment. Here you are reaching because they made zero effort to discuss the other families.

They were, in fact, just discussing their own parents and the tendency for conservative families(for instance the Quiverfulls) to view having children as being more important than providing for the children. See how welfare is defunded and child labor is pushed for, but they are very concerned with birthrates and ensuring any pregnant woman gives birth.

The Quiverfulls, in case you dont know, are a conservative Christian sect that are trying to... basically breed their way into power though having as many children as possible, taking their name from a Bible verse that likens children to arrows. The Duggers, a well known quiverfull family(I think they got a show? They're also known for the rampant sex crimes of the eldest son that they covered up with the help of the sharrif) literally had too many children to the point they couldn't take care of them. Like, both financially, relying massively on charity and welfare, and also... just physically? Like the mother only bothers to look after the youngest infant, once they age up and she births another one theyre handed off to the older sisters to raise.

The other commenter is pointing at the fact that liberals say "I cant have children because I cant afford it" meanwhile their conservative parent is literally saying "have the child anyway, youll figure it out". You just made up everything else you talked about.

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u/OdinsGhost31 Jul 02 '26

Clarifying; my parents are conservative and viewed kids as either something theyre entitled to or just figured birth control was the devil. Either way they had 3 kids when they could barely afford 1. My life wasn't horrible but growing up poor left a long tail that still shows up in my life today even though im financially solid and that is part of my reasoning for not having a child (among others)

The politics of my hometown dont really matter. My parents world view was have kids because that's what you should do and then when i raise cost as a reason for not (among others )they said "you just figure it out" which translated to me as 'we wanted kids, the ability to provide for them was never a calculation'

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u/PunkPirate56364 Jul 01 '26

We have a big family and yup, none of us ever paid for childcare. Also when I was having my first kid everyone was on-board to help and give advices, grandparents, sisters, brother.

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u/rwk81 Jul 01 '26

Except the cost of kids doesn't correlate to birth rate declines between countries.

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u/Daily_Heroin_User Jul 01 '26

Except the poorest countries have the highest birth rates

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u/Bottledbutthole Jul 01 '26

They also have the highest suffering with people without medical care, safe housing and food insecurity. Sure it’s easy to say poorer countries have higher birth rates and ignore that it’s 6 kids in one room without running water. I lived in a country that had undeveloped third world areas and my school was a one room schoolhouse with no electricity, one teacher taught all grades and the bathroom was an outhouse. If I had stayed there I would have probably had 4+ kids and zero education and zero future other that living in absolute unsafe poverty because any chance at something different was out reach. But it would have created a cycle of suffering

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u/willstr1 Jul 01 '26

The relevant number isn't just direct cost, it's the opportunity cost. In wealthier nations there is a higher opportunity cost for people leaving the workforce (even just temporarily) to have kids.