While the reasons for less procreating in this article may be justifiable, especially for those aware of the implications of climate change, there is no recognition of the impact of the huge increase in our exposure to radio frequencies from cell phones and related technology. Studies show that electromagnetic radiation causes damage to sperm, weakening it and causing a drop in production. With the newly-added frequencies of 5G, and more to come in December, meaning untested 24/7 exposure for the population, we should not be surprised if reproduction ceases altogether within the next two generations. Look it up.
9
Is a decline in population really a bad thing? In my opinion fewer people on this planet is better not worse for the future and the planet. If people want children that's fine but if more and more humans decide not to reproduce that's better for the earth and future generations.
45
Odd, you come up with a false dichotomy from 2 countries to prove what you believe ignoring the rest of the world which also exhibits the same trait. The higher the level of development, the lower the birth rate.
Simple.
No hand wringing.
No moralizing.
16
Taking your father’s watch off in a hotel while on a trip, and leaving without it — this would be heartbreaking if it didn’t seem intentional, if subconscious. It is too important to be a mistake. You are ready for something, something new that incorporates your love and attachment. Go forth!
7
The “something” that is stopping women from having children is called the gig economy - in reality our economy has been busily creating part time jobs - what was once one40-hour a week job for one employee has been split into two or three or even four separate “gigs”. Workers who are continuously searching for more employment hours don’t have the time or energy or the money to have kids.
335
The bottom line is that those like the author, and the various elite urbanites she discusses, are not going to contribute very much biologically to the future population, but those who fret far less about capitalism and climate, etc.. i.e. Mormons, Orthodox Jews, conservative Catholics are going to have far more say about who populates the future and far more to say about whatever form future society takes. They are likely also to be better off in their old age, with all those children to care for them.
25
The only hope for human civilization to survive is a lot fewer people. Let's hope it happens fast enough.
26
A reader comment indicated that when a couple "falls in love" they want children. That seems to imply that an abiding love is a sham if a heterosexual couple doesn't feel the urge to reproduce. In that comment, there's also an implication that many homosexual couples who are childless are somehow not able to fall in love to the same degree of satisfaction - which is patently incorrect.
That which is a joy for one person is not a joy for another. I don't think childless people feel that their love is in any way diminished because they do not want children. It's very common to hear that for the first couple of years, after the birth of a baby, a couple's relationship becomes very stressed, for a number of reasons. Parenting takes work and now, very commonly, both parents already have work outside the home and they are exhausted when they get home. Baby-having works more easily when generations lived together and older relatives were home to care for children.
Many single people, as well as couples without children, find meaningful love, receive love, and give love that has nothing to do with parenting. Love is where you choose to find it and its worthy in all its forms.
Wisely, the Ancient Greeks had 7 words for the different kinds of love and each was valued and each as worthy as the others.
It's noteworthy that among couples who had a live birth, more than 40 percent broke up within 10 years.
27
My reaction to this article is to agree that "modern life has become hostile to reproduction". Rather than using the word "capitalism", I think it would be most helpful to blame the high level of materialism which is not necessarily limited to capitalist societies.
Having children reinforces the belief that there is something more important than yourself. Moreover, having children reinforces faith in the future. We cannot build a robust society without those two beliefs.
Right now, our western society has lost its moorings. Clearly, it would be great to have free child care, a pristine environment, and so on, but I don't think it has all that much to do with the "baby bust" -- rather it's an indictment of our selfishness.
26
All I can say to this Article and the various responses is: „What you do not know and do not have, you don‘t miss“. There is nothing more fulfilling for some than loving and nurturing a child,
And probably the same applies to enjoying a life without children. But as a mother and grandmother I found that both groups speak a different language —
12
@reid
It is just a hypothesis, as questioned, amenable to empirical research. Just wondering. No less plausible than the stress factors already readily proposed without more evidence.
But we know pheromones can help attract a female—not merely to the more visibly virile mate, but also to the one with whom, when conceiving a child, the parents’ immune systems are complementary, promoting the health of the child.
And children left in abusive orphanages during critical windows of development without being held or touched will have life-long detachment disorders. While the brains of young adults are still changing quite a bit through age 26.
Besides, the article says this is a mysterious problem, no one seems to know why.
It is fair to ask this question — I have lived on both sides of the OC revolution. Those who were not there don’t really know what the pre OC era was like.
The use of OCs simulates the hormonal state of pregnancy — thats how ovulation is blocked. And we know this state affects the woman’s brain — MRI’s show more working memory for multi-tasking, for example. Pheromones between male and females are affected too.
It’s complicated. Someone should study this.
It’s not Intelligent Design — it’s evolution.
1
The world is fine reproducing. We simply have to get over our own hangups in identifying with niche populations not reproducing. Why not celebrate that the universe is moving towards a movement embracing all ethnicities and races. Even the illegal immigrant movement is a beginning towards releasing all constraints of what or who forms a country. So instead of governments and individuals fretting selfishly over their genes not spreading, why not give to the areas where children are being born? That is where the human race will move on in time. After all this is the ultimate interdependence. This is where our success as a species will lie.
9
In fact, modern capitalism and modern culture are toxic to all forms of life. We humans have created a system which derides motherhood while destroying other species via pollution and habitat loss. The world may have more people than optimal and some decline in numbers would be beneficial but what we are now seeing is a sign of a flawed system that is in the process of exterminating all life: Climate Change.
13
I can't compete with the eloquence of many of these comments, but I'll say that the millenials having children aren't represented in the comments, probably because they are too busy changing diapers right now.
That's all I've got. My brain fog is deep, I wish my baby would sleep through the night, but through the haze of full-time work and parenting and unpaid bills I'll say it's deeply satisfying to do this work, and I'm grateful for the opportunity.
12
A childless woman, especially one in a first world economy, performs the ultimate environmental good deed.
Somehow or in some way, the human population must decrease by several BILLION to remain sustainable. Otherwise, ecological degradation will catch up to us sooner or later. We cannot use resources at a first world rate forever.
The simplest, cheapest, fairest, and most satisfactory way to decrease consumption is to limit reproduction. Educated women choose to have less children for many reasons. This is fortunate if our goal is a more enjoyable and sustainable global ecosystem.
27
It's fascinating to read the comments from fellow readers of this article.
We've seen plenty of responses from those WITHOUT children who explain the positives and/or negatives of living a life without children.
And we've heard plenty of response from those WITH children who have largely explained why they made that decision and the benefit of their decision.
Are there people who do have children that regret that decision? I'm curious if that exists? Do the positives outweigh the negatives? Or would it still be too verboten to say, "I love my child, but I shouldn't have done this."
2
If queried, the overriding abundance of people don't regret their children, but the circumstantial conditions that made parenting harder... the spouse who is a bad egg, the economy that created hardship, the denigration of social supports for families, the limits of time and energy... never the love that is born with them.
It's telling that it is these situational conditions that are often so ammenable to the remedies that a thoughful society can effect if they choose to do so. If more enlightened and generous counties have stronger, healthy families and by extension happier citizens, it is by design, not happenstance. Such societies actively mitigate these negative circumstantial conditions and evolve with a sensitivity toward how the conditions have changed as we've moved from pre-industrial/agrarian living through the industrial age and into the service economies and digital age, adjusting policy and ideology as necessary. The US is backwards in many respects and you can't look at behavior and life choices outside of the context of the culture. Change the culture and you vastly effect the array of options people can successfully enact in their personal lives.
7
I think that (and this is just my personal observation) throughout history there have been many men and women (but I personally believe more men), that didn’t really have a strong desire to have kids, but had them anyway due to societal pressures to get married and have a family. But today, it is ok for these men and women to just say “no thanks” to the whole kid thing.
While its true that kids are bad for the climate, and its tougher economically to raise a family, I think the real reason the birth rate is dropping is because it’s ok now socially for that that portion of people (more men methinks) who really don’t want kids to opt to not have them. The acceptance now of the idea that one can live a good life whether you have kids or chose not to. Thus more chose not.
25
I raised a daughter because I married her and her father. I decided early on in my life that passing on my genetics was not a good idea but I always knew there would be children needing a mother if I wanted to become one. It was a challenging and rewarding experience that changed me for the better. I understand all the concerns about overpopulation etc. but they don't apply when you are giving opportunities for a better life to a child already here. And it is possible to feel that fierce love of a mother for a child you didn't give birth to.
12
This column ignores the very real fact that any child brought into this world now will suffer from the horrific devastation of climate change. How can one knowingly do that to a child?
21
7 billion people on this planet. Thank heavens people are wising up.
24
@Rich Fairbanks
It's way more than 7 billion right now, and it will hit 8 billion in less than three years.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-projections/
13
Mother Nature bats last.
10
Another reason not to have children is to stop the perpetuation of abuse. Self aware people may choose to "stop the cycle of abuse, refuse to reproduce."
12
Children should be wanted, well-cared for, and handled by at least two parents for best citizenship results. All other options lead to more crime, more ecological poisoning, and a more disconnected society. Which way are our leaders leaning?
10
Changes in outward dress have appeared through history. However, the changes I'm seeing are conducive to a lack of gender identification which I perceive as a lack of interest in promoting oneself as a child producer. The change in outward appearances and what messages are being announced are interwoven.
There are cultures where a woman has to prove she can produce a baby before a man will take her as his wife and cultures where a young woman wraps her posterior in cloth to signal her large hips are fit to bear children. Presenting oneself as fertile surfaces where many progeny are viewed as helping one through life and old age.
In Western cultures, there is no longer the evidence that many progeny will help one through life and old age. I see more aging parents supporting their children than the other way around.
Here, it's desirable for a woman to look thin, young, and playful, who will not burden a man with children to support. Once the burdens of parenting outweigh the perceived present and future benefits of parenting, people will readjust their behaviors.
Parenting, like any other activity, is a lifestyle choice - great for some but not for others. Parenting lasts a lifetime and it's responsible people who recognize what choices will suit their lives.
Every child born in the good-ol'-days can not attest to their parents having enjoyed the role of parenting which was forced on them through religious-social-cultural pressures.
10
It's becoming more clear that attempts at reining in global warming is goin to fail. Therefore, a child born today will probably see a 20 - 30 foot rise in sea level in their lives.
There are 650 - 700 million people worldwide that live in areas that will be under water. They will need to move. The places on higher ground generally already have people living there that will try to resist that move. Sometimes the resistance will involve weapons.
Instead of the 20th century wars being an aberration in terms of size, the wars of the 21st century will dwarf them. I feel bad for those that will have to fight in those battles.
19
With a bit of hindsight, it's now obvious that the now established trickle up aspect of late capitalism is at least forty years in process. The political forces arrayed for this purpose go back much further.
A new word for me, "precarity", meaning an anxiety producing economic insecurity, created by administrations allied with neoliberal agenda, drives voters to choose those who claim they will protect those who have something from those who have less. The ever richer aren't a major voting factor, but they have been successful in convincing many that their political and economic menace are those below them. This is the tragic fallacy of our politics; the "divided nation" that plays right into the hands of those whose mission in to protect the aggrandizement of the rich and privileged.
At the moment that I felt the push to decide about a child, Ronald Reagan come to power. Something like a cold sweat came over me then, much like a fearful premonition. I am childless, but I raise a child in my fantasy, which dramatizes the absence. This fantasy child lives in a world where she doesn't have to adjust her life to the demands of a winner vs loser capitalist competitive society.
Personal experience is different from the analyses of demographers and statisticians. On a personal level, the threats to human happiness and the prospects for misery are growing. This to me is a major shift in our human consciousness, from the anticipations of utopia of the 50's and 60's.
7
@Epictetus
"I am childless, but I raise a child in my fantasy,.."
Yes. I do, too, and I suspect we're going to see a lot more of that.
3
@Epictetus
Great comment, but this article shoots down the idea that economic anxiety is causing less babies.
Denmark is a rich flat society, there is little economic precariousness. But the birthrate falls there.
I think its just a change in societies attitudes that it's its ok to not have kids now. So people who don't want them just say no.
9
Reading the article and many of the comments you realize that the world does have too many people but they are in the wrong place. The best answer would seem to be intelligent immigration policies. Those who don't want kids don't want kids. Sure for some it may be feeling of "I made a mistake" later in life but we make lots of mistakes. That's life.
4
Very interesting article. Wealthy countries could have population growth of zero but the earth's population would still grow if people in poor countries continue to have large families. And as long as the number of children you have equals your worth as a man, populations will continue to grow.
In too many cultures people do not believe the number of children they have is God's will.
3
The planet's ecosystem has to deal with population X consumption/capita. If this number is too great, then BAD NEWS. This has nothing to do with the rewards of parenting but the survival of the planet.
7
Certainly a factor in this phenomenon is that women want to enjoy equal status in the workforce, but men are unwilling to relinquish dominion. They won't help create child care and educational and recreational facilities and opportunities that women might utilize to fully function in the workforce. Men still think of child bearing as "women's' work", think it demeaning, put up obstacles, and refuse to pull their 50% share.
6
@vandalfan @Kim Why should we pay you for your children? I had three kids. I raised two of them myself and had to pay for them and work full time kids. I raised two of them myself and had to pay for them and work full time. Lost many job opportunities because of my focus on them. And yet. Mom. Who quit her job while raising one kid went to court to force me to pay for the
This article is all about the women’s perspective Has none of the male perspective. I can assure you that many men are not interested in being fathers due to the inherent bias against them. Even if they are raising the kids. They will likely not get any government assistance
Many women are postponing marriage and kids because their are no eligible men available who make more than they do. There was just an article by the NYT last month on lack of marriageable men. And of course it’s all men’s fault. But the truth is men will work to support kids and themselves and even a wife. But most women would never work to support a man in that way. They want their cake and eat it to. A man who earns more money. A family as long as he pays for it. And a choice for her. To work or not to work. Many women who want kids now. Think it is the job of government to provide all that. Since there are not eligible men. That is what welfare and other social programs have brought us.
7
A 1.7 child replacement rater is unmitigated good news. If only the whole globe were at this rate. We can easily produce the wealth necessary to support a healthy lifestyle for all of us, more easily of course the fewer of us there are. With the natural world reeling from the effects of our economic pursuits, and of course with ALL of us entirely dependent on that natural world, reducing our numbers makes every choice we will have to make easier.
13
The human population is approaching 8 billion, and even with the somewhat slowing overall growth rate, is still on course to reach 10 billion at least. The planet needs billions of humans less, not billions more. Of course that is billions less ... somewhere else.
There are still regular stories in the NYT and other places where economists are decrying a lack of population growth and what it implies for both capitalist (earnings growth!) and socialist (workers to pay for retirees!) aspects of the economy.
Of all the things that I can personally do to the long-term benefit of the ecology of the planet as we know it, but indeed to the later in life detriment of myself (excepting some lower-percentage of horror stories of child or child-parent relationships gone wrong), not having children is almost certainly at the top.
Which may not really be among the main reasons for not having children, but it makes me feel better about it.
17
People make decisions based on their specifics, but always without all the facts that could come to bear. We never have enough data to know all pros/cons and do the best we can. But I want to share a critical point for the women & men who largely base the decision not to have children on some assessment of themselves as not liking kids, not having a maternal instinct...
Mothers don't have some abstract global love of Children that girds their parenting. They don't have some special universal affection for other people's kids either. The biological imperative focus is the love and care of their own. Intellectually, a mother knows the value of other children because her own children are a lesson in love & she knows other families are similar in loving their children too. Mothers balance a moral equation, parenting to build a thriving life for their own kids and expressing varying degrees of support for the value of Children because interdependence is a real force keeping society stable, functional & this too is desirable instinctually.
To those foregoing kids, live with the decision, but it's disingenuous to pretend your reasoning is grounded & based on sound factors... Truth is how one feels about kids in general has little bearing on how you will feel about your own. In tandem, biology & the metaphysics of love is wondrous and profound! Truth is you don't understand enough of the full experience of loving and raising children to imagine you know what you are NOT choosing.
5
Childless people don't know what they don't know about having children and should not pontificate as if they do. Some decisions are strongly binary. If you take one path, you simply have no insight into the path you did NOT take. It's human nature, but flawed, to speculate, justify and rationalize that you do, especially in hindsight. At best, it's doesn't add understanding of the issues and at worst, it's typically disingenous and self-serving.
If queried, the overriding abundance of people don't regret their children, but the circumstantial conditions that made parenting harder... the spouse who is a bad egg, the economy that created hardship, the denigration of social supports for families, the limits of time and energy... never the love that is born with them.
Young people should give strong consideration to these last factors when making their own decision rather than how they think they feel about an experience they know nothing of the intricacies and intimacies of at all. People have always had to be consummately brave to risk the unknown in some endeavors and in doing so cannot benefit from the those who offer a pretense and false surety for own choices or couched regrets in life.
8
I left the workforce to spend 25 years raising and homeschooling my three children. It was by far the most meaningful work of my life and all three children went on to attend college.
But now in my 60’s, I find myself unable to earn a living wage because of my long absence from the workforce, without a pension and taking home less than $10,000 year in Social Security. No consideration is taken of the fact that I saved the community hundreds of thousands of dollars in public school costs and helped produce three fine young adults who contribute to society.
To encourage women to have children, perhaps we need to reconsider what counts as valuable work?
18
@Kim
No one is going to compensate someone for homeschooling their children. Dropping out of the workforce for any reason (childcare, eldercare, whatever) for more than a couple of years is extremely risky. I know a lot of people (not just women) in the same boat.
10
@Kim My mom did too. Thank you. Yours was the most valuable work in world. I am sorry that our society does not recognize your contribution with the dignity you deserve. Yang has brought this up in the debates and it really made me think why no other candidate has brought this up before. It seems like a no-brainer to value parental labor.
6
@Kim Why should we pay you for your children? I had three kids. I raised two of them myself and had to pay for them and work full time kids. I raised two of them myself and had to pay for them and work full time. Lost many job opportunities because of my focus on them. And yet. Mom. Who quit her job while raising one kid went to court to force me to pay for the kid. The court never even obligated her to work. Yet because I was the man. I had to work and raise kids. You made the choice to raise your kids. And I think you made the right choice. But because I was the man. The choice was made for me.
This article is all about the women’s perspective Has none of the male perspective. I can assure you that many men are not interested in being fathers due to the inherent bias against them. Even if they are raising the kids. They will likely not get any government assistance
Many women are postponing marriage and kids because their are no eligible men available who make more than they do. There was just an article by the NYT last month on lack of marriageable men. And of course it’s all men’s fault. But the truth is men will work to support kids and themselves and even a wife. But most women would never work to support a man in that way. They want their cake and eat it to.
3
Overpopulation is the elephant in the room that no one wants to mention when they talk about our Climate Crisis. Every day the planet says hello to 400,000 new mouths to feed. We've had the means to do something about this since the 50s and we don't. Each new child needs food, water, shelter, and the means to make a living, representing more carbon than any of us can make up for with a lifetime of frugality. Our natural world is going through a mass extinction event because there is no room for any other species than ourselves. Let us start talking about how to reach everyone with effective longterm contraception. We have plenty of babies but we are rapidly running out of time.
25
Having children was an interruption in my life. With an unhappy marriage and no profession, I was at the mercy of a husband who treated me as a convenience for himself. I finally picked up and left, got myself a professional degree and became financially independent. Haven't heard a word from my children in a quarter of a century; regret ever having birthed them. I think of them as dead; and one never expect to hear from the dead.
58
@Gabriella Funny, my mom feels just this way about me. I'm glad for her that she is now free and independent. After years of therapy, I no longer apologize for my existence. Her regrets do not have to be mine.
57
@Gabriella I'm so sorry things worked out like that.
7
@Ann I’m glad you have learned this I hope my kids know this too. I love them dearly. But there demands were too much. Had to separate myself from them.
2
My 30 something niece announced that she and her husband were expecting their third child. They have a 4 y.o. boy and a 6 y.o. girl already.
What came to mind was: why? Are they so insulated in their suburb and with their trips to Disneyland that they don't know about this climate crisis? Her retired father and mother are wealthy - they have three homes - and they help with the grandchildren by babysitting and giving gifts. But my niece and her husband both have college degrees. Surely they've heard of this climate crisis.
333
@Pseudonym I'm not planning to move to a one room cabin in the woods either. Did buy some land overlooking Lake Superior as a hedge for family if northern Michigan along Lake Michigan isn't far enough North. Jet skis are winterized till next season. Haven't seen any protests at the gas dock up here in the Summer, but might provide a bit of entertainment.
5
@Pseudonym let’s not get too sanctimonious about other people’s reproductive choices. A lot goes into that, and not all of it in your control. We can *all* do better for climate control, but the truth of the matter is that all of us are guilty of actions that are bad for the planet every single day.
54
@April It's much easier to change habits than reverse the decision to have multiple children. Unfortunately for your argument, reproduction needs to be below replacement rate before it can start shrinking.
Right now it appears that the ice caps will melt more quickly than even a deliberate slowing of the birth rate could possibly reduce the world's excess population.
20
My mother passed away in February this year at age 89. When she was born in 1930, the global population was 2 billion. Today it is nearly 8 billion. That kind of growth is absolutely unprecedented.
It took all of recorded history up to the mid 19th-century to even reach one billion.
Our entire economic system is based on a ponzi scheme in which the supposedly more populous younger generations support the older generations. That is not permanently tenable.
It has been proven over and over that as women are given opportunities and education, fertility drops. How this is a bad thing is beyond me. Perhaps dropping fertility is nature's way of creating a course correction. It certainly is better than all the other ways populations have traditionally been regulated: disease, famine, war...
The world is not going to depopulate tomorrow. We should embrace this change as a positive new normal and adapt our societies accordingly.
2026
@Bill
The ponzi scheme you speak of I am guessing is Social Security. This system does not need more people it needs more money. At the present time once you earn $129,000.00 you stop paying into the system. So all one needs to do is eliminate the cut-off. pretty simple but the wealthy do not want to pay their fair share.
205
@oscar jr
OK - Soc.Sec. is perpetually raided as our govt. is perpetually under-funded.
My first thought at "ponzi scheme" was the debilitating debt that many of the younger generations take on if they wish to acquire higher education.
74
@Bill
"Perhaps dropping fertility is nature's way of creating a course correction."
That was exactly my reaction. The rate of animal fertility responds to environmental factors and available resources. I have read that deer have more twins and even triplets when there is an abundance of food and less environmental stress. This adjusting the size of the population as a result of available resources is rather different from the balance of prey and predator.
Humans are more complex in what we're adjusting to, but we know we are destroying our biosphere. The biosphere does not care about economic "growth." I love children and would never criticize a woman for having a child any more than I would criticize her for terminating an unwanted pregnancy. But a declining human population is a necessary correction for our species, and we are going to have to learn to come up with better definitions of individual flourishing than corporate exploitation of resources and consumerism.
We might just have to find more meaningful ways to care about one another.
263
This is great news! Let the planet heal from the nuisance of human existance. Collectively our karmas will make us extinct.
98
@RealYoga - I think a global population decline is much-needed and should be welcomed, but I'm not a misanthrope who wishes for humans to go extinct. Would you go to a funeral and say "I'm here to celebrate one less nuisance in the world"? Shall we look forward with eagerness to your own death?
8
Considering that nearly, if not all, major issue facing humanity directly relates to our massively & unsustainable over-population, this is tremendously good news.
There are far, far too many humans alive and it's been that was for decades. Cutting our numbers in half, at minimum, is in reality the *only* way we save ourselves and our planet.
While these numbers are most certainly not because collectively we've decided to do something about our over-population, maybe, just maybe, the decline in fertility is a result of people being sick and tired of living penned in a pressed up against one another like sheep in a barn.
This is a good thing! Maybe, the best if things.
475
@M.A.A Totally agree! I am childless Boomer by choice. Zero Population Growth was well publicized in the 70s and fell off the radar after that.
217
@Earth Citizen Good think it did and as a boomer who is going to pay for your social security and Medicare if fertility rates drop more. You I assume want to take advantage of every new medical technology that can extend your life and quality of life. Such technology has greatly contributed to increased population especially in industrialized society's and again children are needed to support those who are often leaving many more years in dependency than are children who become those that support them.
11
@BC - there's more than enough money to go around that with some redistribution of wealth we could afford to support an older generation even while seeing a rapid drop in numbers of young people paying into social security.
We should set a global goal of a human population consistently between one and two billion. It's our only hope of not completely obliterating all of the other species--not to mention ourselves.
70
Do you really think the 1% wants you to be individual and independent and childless? They want you to be part of a marketing category. They want you to be dependent on wages and financial products. They want you to give thousands of hours of free labor to create another consumer to replace you when you die. Anyone who thinks capitalism encourages you to be your own person has never tried to be their own person in a capitalist society.
14
"Has modern life become hostile to reproduction?"
I'd say 'no' to that. Modern life is now far better for babies due to all the advances in medical care, sanitation, education, etc.
What is hostile to reproduction is the grossly unequal distribution of wealth, low wages, lack of parental leave, cost of health insurance, cost of housing, mothers who must work, and GOP politics that don't care about people after they are born.
1055
@Mike: I think the quality of education has declined since I was a student.
59
@Mike "...mothers who must work..." What about mothers who WANT to work? As long as women are expected to leave the workforce and their chosen careers in order to birth babies and raise them the birthrate will go down. I agree with your other points, but as a highly educated woman with a skill, passion, and career that HAD to be pursued consistently during the child-bearing years I must fault the assumption that women still must do it all - not just provide a womb but continue to take on the primary burden of childrearing.
82
@Mike also, fathers who must work. I, a father, would gladly be a stay at home dad if we could afford it. It's not the mother's sole responsibility to raise kids, just as it isn't the father's sole responsibility to earn money for the family
76
I found this article to be highly informative and thought provoking. With regard to the various environmental exposures that affect fertility that were cited, I wonder if vaccines may also play a role. Based on data available from the Office for National Statistics in the UK (see link to graph below), for England and Wales, rates of conception for under-18-year-olds fell by 44 percent since 2007 and through 2016, while rates in those over 29 years old increased. It was in 2008 that the HPV vaccine was introduced, and it has been administered mainly to younger women, suggesting at least the possibility of a causal role. A graph of these rates by age group can be seen in Figure 2, available at:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/conceptionandfertilityrates/bulletins/conceptionstatistics/2016
1
Nobody should have more than two kids. That's my take. One has to consider the future of the planet. Mind, you, I'm a boomer who had three--but my second pregnancy turned out to be identical twins. But it was always my plan to have only two children because to do otherwise in this overcrowded world is sheer insanity. Of course, I kept the second twin! But even back in my childbearing years, I recognized the problem of overpopulation. And I'm very accepting of my friends who have opted out of having kids--it's a difficult job, and not everyone is cut out for it.
10
The author of this article has missed a very large factor in the drop in having babies: climate change. Many young people do not want to bring a child into a dying world. What will life be like for that child when the seas have risen, weather is brutal and food is scarce? As fulfilling as having a child may be to adults, those who consider the quality of the child's future life, put that child first and their own fulfillment last.
6
In the not too distant past, if a woman had sex, she got children. Very large families were not uncommon. Then, children died of, what would be be today, minor illnesses. Children lived in communities of relatives who took over much of the child raising leaving the young parents free to build a secure estate: hut, house, business... Most of those children did not leave but were there to support their parents in their old age (who were looking after the grandchildren) These conditions do not exist today. Biological parents are the sole caretakers, children grow up, go out and are not available to look after aging parents. Having children today is very expensive. The benefits are pretty meager, consisting of enjoying them (or, not) bragging about their accomplishments (or, not)...then, when they are adults, spending limited time in person or on the phone (or, not) catching up with their lives. It's easy to see why so many young adults choose not to procreate.
13
Procreating is a very basic animal instinct to ensure species longevity. We humans have evolved to realize that, and understand that the human race is under no threat of extinction. More and more of us are also discovering that there is more to life than passing down our genes. So more than any social structural deterrent, human evolution is the reason why more of us are not having babies.
3
We no longer need large families. I have two children, and I'm glad they're a part of my life, but I didn't have them because I thought my genes were so great they had to be passed on. This is the ultimate in hubris and selfish behavior. Most poverty occurs because of too many people for the country's available resources.
11
The writer asks what's stopping us creating the families we desire. The answer is in her article, like a box of chocolates you never know what you're going to get.
4
As a grandparent I sometimes think that 50 would be the best age to become a parent. All those pressures to get ahead starting to subside, all those distractions from seeing the beauty of a baby starting to mean less. All those babies in need of homes their bio-parents will never provide. Is there an assumption being made that adoption is a lesser relationship?
5
Even half of the 7.5 BILLION human population currently using this planet is too much to sustain it as well as all of its other dependent species of plants and animals.
9
One of the things the author didn't mention is that demographers have long said that the planet would reach population stability. For a while, it was thought to happen around 9-10 billion (probably not 11).
Most projections seem to stop with the max, as with this one:
https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019-Wallchart.pdf
This article, in contrast, deals with population decline:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline
I'm surprised the author didn't touch on the countries in pop. decline article.
1
World population in 1950's was just over 2 billion. Since then it's been a steady march up, predicted to hit 9 billion by 1950.
The article talks about declining birthrates, but that only apply to developed parts of the world, where it's mostly flat or slightly declining. We still continue to add billions to this fragile planet with no end in sight.
My question is, why is so important to maintain current populations in the developed parts of the world? Is there fear that those societies will fail?
Aren't robots going to replace a great many jobs in these societies? Why worry about a little population decline in these parts of the world?
Everything is to be just fine. Or, maybe not. Don't worry about it. Try to enjoy your life and stop moaning and crying about made up problems.
5
Instead of teaching History, we should teach, "Your Future." What with climate change, the difficulties of earning a living for one's self, homes priced out of sight, ....
Who can afford to raise a family on only 2 incomes?
6
@Old Old Tom Or just teach “Waiting for Godot”
Very well done, thoughtful and well researched
2
May I suggest reading the John B. Calhoun Note in Scientific American 1962 called "Population Density and Social Pathology".
4
The declining birth rate is good news. Humans are already over the carrying capacity of the planet, by at least 30%.
10
Nigeria, India, Indonesia & Brazil have had population growth rates exceed 30% in the last 20 years.
When individuals are unable or unwilling to curb reproduction, the world simply waits for climate change to wield its slow poison.
9
The "selfishness" argument cuts two ways. Thinking you are "unselfish" by giving your child life and dedicating your every waking moment to his or her welfare, you may someday stand accused of "selfishness" by that very child. If life feels like a curse to your child, did your act of "unselfishness" backfire? When you spin the DNA roulette wheel, you have myriad possible outcomes, some of which could feel like a life sentence. It is very brave, and possibly foolhardy, to spin that wheel. But that's life.
4
Face it, the last thing we need on this planet is more kids. I have one and that is the right number. The carrying capacity of the planet is obviously less than what we have produced. All other spiritual or emotional arguments are null in void. Get a dog and plants some trees people.
11
When I was born 76 years ago the global population was about 3 billion. If I live another 15 years it will probably be about 9 billion by that time------- in other words, a tripling of global population in a single lifetime.
If mankind does not dramatically curb population growth, Mother Nature will, and we all know her reputation. Her methods will definitely not be humane.
We need to embrace, promote, and support sex education, contraception of all forms, and yes, even abortion for women who choose that option. The alternative, ultimately, is fire, floods, pestilence and starvation for billions of people.
The only reason I can see for not doing all of the above is a belief in "The Rapture," a fantasy to which I do not subscribe.
12
Eight billion miracles are more than enough as this planet spirals to climate catastrophe.
13
shocking that in a world where every single problem can be traced back to human over population, declining fertility is presented as a bad thing.
No wonder we are heading towards the Sixth Extinction this century
17
Interesting that the author claims that societal acceptance of “voluntary childlessness” is a step forward. People who chose not to have children are “child-free”. Her choice of terminology assumes that children are the automatic “right” choice for all, and without them is a form of “less”. There’s are plenty of legitimate reasons women and men chose child-free.
9
Due to the momentum in Earth’s energy system and climate a child born today will live to see things fall apart. It will get very ugly.
9
All of the 7.6 billion people on the earth today will die. Let's assume most of them will be dead in 110 years from today. On the date 11/17/2119,what will the planet earth look like? 100 more years of global warming. 100 more years of destruction of all the other species on earth. What will the human population look like?20 billion or zero?Whatever it is,it won't be a place you want to live. You want to have a child born 9 months from now,live those 100 years?
5
Perhaps not having children has something to do with this.
“planners at the Pentagon have been quietly preparing to take charge of a planet shaken by climate chaos.
Predicting ever more extreme weather, famine, and social collapse around the globe, high-level experts like former CIA director James Woolsey and former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gordon Sullivan outline a chilling vision of endemic violence and “militarized adaptation” to disaster.
As hunger and disease turn to conflict in the Global South, planners inside and outside the Pentagon are preparing to shut borders, control population movements, and intensify U.S. intervention abroad.”
https://www.utne.com/politics/natural-disaster-zm0z13sozros
4
Profound on so many levels, I really don't know where to begin commenting, but I shall Forward the article to most everyone I know!
BIG THANKS, NYT!
1
Three observations:
1) People who don't want children leave the world to the children of people who do. Some demographers alread estimate that world population will start to decline around 2040.
2) The problem of advanced economies is lack of children, not overpopulation. that was one of Prof. Sussman's points. Also, read NY Times stories on population problems of Japan and China.
3) Worries about overpopulation in emerging economies are misplaced. The next generation is likely to to have fewer children as those countries transition from tradtional farming to modern agriculture and/or industry.
3
In 2003 here in Hove, Sussex, I decided after a long winter's campaigning to keep something as essential as our great locaklCarnegie Library, this was not a country into which I could bring children. Sometimes, naturally, I felt rueful at that - but realised it was the correct decision when having to campaign again for the Library in 2015.
4
The Earth’s huge population is exacerbating climate change which contributes to famine and war.
Most of today’s refugees and those who are requesting asylum are coming from countries whose problems have been created largely by overpopulation. Take the Syrians. Even though most of Syria is arid and subject to drought, Syrians routinely have 7 - 8 children. Before modern hygiene and medicine this may have been necessary to maintain the population, but those times have past. Since Syrians continued to have large families, the population exploded. Farmers had to feed increasing numbers of people. To water their crops, they had to drill down deeper and deeper. It was in the midst of a very long drought, that they gave up farming to find work in the cities. Once there, many joined the revolt against Assad. Overpopulation helped bring about the war which made many refugees.
Look at Guatemala where Mayans have continued to have as many babies as “God gives them”. The family farm has to be divided for each generation, and now the farm has to be divided among too many people. The farms have grown too small to support a family - let alone one with 8 - 10 children. Still, Mayans do not believe in using birth control.
When farms do not provide enough income, some turn to logging which leads to climate change. Guatemala has always had droughts, but now it has been in a long one so many are asking for asylum.
Some cultures encourage people to have too many children.
9
This was an articulate and well thought piece. My two cents worth: as a mother having children is always a risk. My children have brought me my greatest joy and my most profound heartbreak.
And please know 'putting your eggs in that basket' is far from a guarantee of achieving your aim of a child. The child to frozen egg ratio is discouragingly low, not to mention the physical hazards embodied in producing children this way. I feel for the many women who embark on this journey not realizing its perils.
2
Probably has to do with pessimism over the future: https://www3.nd.edu/~kbuckles/BHL_fertility.pdf
2
There is no crisis. Any country worried that its population is falling or (in the case of the US) that it now includes a great many elders and fewer young people contributing into social security programs, merely needs to increase the number of immigrants it accepts.
Immigrants contribute far more to their new country than they receive, and tend to be young and determined to earn a good living no matter how difficult the work might be.
6
@MLChadwick
So the point of existence is to produce stuff (i.e. babies and work?). Why? How about let sleeping dogs lie and not have any children? What is the harm of not producing anything (children or more work)? Why do you have an agenda for the future generation such that they need to be born to "do something"? Why not have no future generation do anything? What does it matter if by collectively not procreating humans die out? What are we even trying to do here anyways? Work and entertain ourselves? Whippety do.. not worth the suffering.
4
There is no crisis. Any country worried that its population is falling or (in the case of the US) that it now includes a great many elders and fewer young people contributing into social security programs, merely needs to increase the number of immigrants it accepts.
Immigrants contribute far more to their new country than they receive, and tend to be young and determined to earn a good living no matter how difficult the work might be.
4
Demographers can project population sizes, but are not qualified to tell us what is an optimal size. Capitalism spawned a population explosion never before seen in the 200k history of Homo sapiens. But these sizes are inherently unstable, prone to conflict, and ultimately unsustainable.
Capitalism also transforms everything, including children, into commodities. No rational person is going to invest in a child when the return has so little yield. Better to spend it on a dog. In our case commodification works to the advantage of the species. Most people people in their 20s and 30s make lousy parents and shouldn't have them. Those who get them in their 40s treat them like ornaments and a selfish opportunity for "fulfillment." After having the kid, they get depressed when they figure out that for the next 18 years, they're stuck with them.
8
We see ourselves as being outside, or above, the natural world, instead being of an integral part of it. Man has "conquered" nature.
Simply put, the ultimate cause of declining birth rates is over population. Over population is also the cause of global warming and climate change.
If there were only a billion of us, our air would be much freer of the pollutants and carbon dioxide that are causing perturbations in the atmosphere. This is obvious.
The article is full of talk of reasoned, conscious choices individual people are making about forming families and procreating.
But there are larger natural and cultural pressures at work here that we are not consciously aware of for the most part. We sense unconsciously that there are too many of us and that we're fouling our planetary nest.
One way we react is through warfare and genocide -- culling 55 million of ourselves in WWII. And we throw up signals in movies and art, our collective unconscious, which are full of "the end of the world" stories of zombie apocalypses, alien invasions, etc.
War and collective fear in art and politics are not an accident. They're a symptom of population pressures and a warning to ourselves.
Capitalism is based on the premise of eternal material growth. As little Greta Thunberg recently reminded us, this is an unsustainable economic model. We must reduce our population -- one way or another.
7
@Al Tarheeli what if we just changed the economic model rather than reducing the population. Perhaps population growth in the Third World might decline if we didn’t keep those countries in abject poverty and using their children as labor to put together $150.00 American sneakers? Certainly our present system of economic growth and distribution can not be sustained over the long haul, but does the economy serve us, or vice-versa?
2
Probably you can find references to this phenomenon in the animal world and historically -- that animals slow down or eliminate procreation for a while as a response to a perceived on-coming threat.
5
I’m surprised school shootings and mass shootings in general were not mentioned in this article. No matter where you live in the US, there is the very real possibility every day that your child will be gunned down.
6
I guess its valuable to study but really, there are way too many people for the planet to sustain.
"“White America is now feeling the effects of neoliberalism capitalism that the rest of America has always felt,”
Wow, there's a mouthful.
1
beautiful and well researched article. I'd say even in today's writing market (I'm a "free" writer) you'll be able to hold your own. I'm 50, attorney, retired, no kids (but dog!!) by choice. Kids are lovely but don't feel you HAVE to have them. If you do, you'll do OK in journalism, a tough field. D.A., J.D., NYC
1
If I believed in the left-wing dystopian view of reality assumed by this writer, I wouldn't have babies either. I don't and neither should you. Check the facts. Read Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now, go forth and multiply.
4
no kids, no future.
3
@sam The future will keep coming right on schedule, kids or not.
5
There are thousands of children in foster care seeking a forever family (something that amazes me given to Pro-Life community's existence). And I do not think you need to save 200,000 to adopt.
3
I find it extremely odd that climate change is not the number-one focus of this article. Every day I see parents with their new babies and wonder to myself, How can they? What sort of blind optimism impels people to procreate in these times, when we're faced with near-certain global disaster? My son is now 19 years old, and no one and nothing has ever given me more delight. But if I had to do everything again, knowing what I know now about climate change, I would never have him.
8
It is sad to know that in many countries people can't even afford to have a child or they can but are afraid of the future existentially. You may think this is a first world problem (China included) these are real economic and social fears possible parents.
2
I urge you to watch "Idiocracy" to get a better idea of the direction society might be headed in. Yes, it's a completely implausible farce ... and yet.
6
Anyone making under about 150k per year do NOT have children. You are only condemning your children to be the servants of the wealthy.
America has one of the lowest rates of economic mobility of the highly developed countries. Much lower than most of Europe. If you are not rich your child will be stuck struggling for money and enriching the wealthy.
Those who are not in the top 5% of wealth do not have children. Let the wealthy figure out what to do in the future when they have no one to boss around.
10
In 1986 my wife and I found our first dog on the side of the road. We’ve had several more since, some pedigree some from the pound. All dogs are a problem; we loved them all dearly. In 2003 we adopted a child. All children are a problem. We couldn’t love her more. People should be free to choose how they want to live. I, for one, feel more alive to my own goodness (whatever that might be) in the self-sacrifice required to love and care for wife, my child, my siblings, my friends, my dogs, my garden, my forest, my rivers. My idea of reproductive justice? “Less of me and more of you,” …and that’s how I hope to save the planet.
12
Self actualization now competes toe to toe with motherhood and fatherhood. I would say the costs of raising a child according our cultural standards in the twenty-first century are enormous. Children's lives according to the contemporary paradigm is that every moment of childhood and adolescence has to be carefully managed and protected.
So young people are tied down by dreams of realizing their full selves, launching careers in a supercompetitive career world and establishing long term relationships when so many competing demands require attention.
Then there is the fact that young couples and individuals can't seem to afford to form families.
A couple of generations ago, with gender roles fixed, having children was simpler. Children were not typically micromanaged. Those minority groups mentioned in the article that continue to have large families subscribe to the traditional model.
There is good and bad in all of this. We are becoming a gerariatric nation. That can't be good.
7
The great philosopher Isaiah Berlin said "The first function of any social organization is the elimination of extreme suffering". Duh. There are social organizations that connect children who are extremely suffering to adoptive parents who can nurture them. Isn't that the optimum solution?
3
Homo sapiens is reproducing itself at quite a pace, doubling the population every 40 or so years.
The result of having over seven billion of us is that we've strained the planet's ecosystems to the point of no return.
All those burgers and lovely things we must have come from somewhere else, like the rainforest, which is dwindling away to nothing.
Making more people is one thing this planet does not need.
ZPG!
7
The rich get rich and the poor get children. Lyrics from song almost a century old.
8
This idea of a "healthy" economy requiring constant and consistent population growth is an old one, based in the industrial economics of the 19th century which required a constantly increasing work force to keep factories and militaries viable. There was always a need to stay one step ahead of global competitors.
Conditions are much different today. And if we know anything about ourselves it is that we are infinitely adaptable to our surroundings.
Some heterodox economists believe modern economies are increasingly unable to create full employment. Advances in automation and changes in structural factors have decreased the demand for labor relative to economic output each and every year since 1973.
Unskilled workers can't find jobs. Skilled workers might make marginally more but any fewer are needed. Even in countries like Denmark, with robust social safety nets, there is a social stigma associated with being on the dole. People need food, water and shelter. They also need to feel valued.
H. Sapiens will adjust to its new environment. But it is likely to undermine everything we think we know about healthy economies and growth.
3
Thank goodness that population growth is finally slowing. Let it shrink to about 10% of what it is now and the world could be a paradise of abundant resources and automated production. I raised 5 kids, three adopted because other men were too pathetic to raise their own.
11
"After decades of restricting most families to just one child, the government announced in 2015 that all couples were permitted to have two. Despite this, fertility has barely budged. China’s fertility rate in 2018 was 1.6."
The paragraph contradicts itself unless 1.6 is 'barely budged' from 1.0 [which it isn't!]
3
It seems that for the most part people are not having kids because they don’t want to have kids. Maybe they’re missing something swell, and maybe they’re not. Who is to say? They cost a fortune, and daycare , education and health care cost the earth. Americans, and perhaps others, invented the “mommy track.” If you’re a woman, you can’t have a career and kids. Pick one. Looks like they did. And it’s not kids. Want kids? Change the rules.
10
@Voter It's not always "career" vs. kids, especially for women. Some people don't want to live a parent life. Most people (men too) don't have Careers, they have jobs. Adults work, unless they are taking care of young or old dependents.
I knew I didn't want children when I knew I didn't want/comprehend "career." I knew if I was a waitress living in a fourth-floor walkup studio apartment, I still didn't want to be a parent.
And yes, I did lose one good guy over it, but there was no compromise possible.
2
To me (as a white guy), this smacks of white supremacy. Because only in (mostly) white countries are birth rates declining. In (mostly) brown countries, they are not dropping. So what is the problem you are describing?
5
@Mogwai --Excellent point. A quick Google search provided this: Malawi's fertility rate is 5.05 births per woman, Tanzania's is estimated to be 4.9, Niger's is 6.62, Burundi's is 6.04, Mali's is 5.96. Africa's overall population is set to reach three times that of Europe by 2050, It does make me wonder why the Danes are so upset.
5
At some point (and I hope it happens soon) Human Beings will have to realize that our Earth's ecological system can not support endless human population growth.
We can argue over the the exact number but if we want to live well among other living being and plants we will need to attend to this.
Education and not force is the key!
5
In a world as troubled as ours, could it be a good thing to lower our population until we can live on it sustainablely? Or, is this just a 'developed' country problem as the total pulation on earth is exploding?
2
No more babies? Well, thank God the Creator!
6
Can this entire article have been written without one mention of the overall population of the earth? of the density of populations in places like Denmark and China? The human population of the earth is hardly at risk! It would be very interesting to explore the biology and psychology of reproduction as population and population density increases. This article missed a golden opportunity to do that.
7
After reading this piece, how can one not think of the
thousands of migrant children locked up on the border
by trump and steven miller.
4
Many of the comments are "Overpopulation bad, no children good!"
In general, overpopulation is certainly bad. But population decline in the West also has consequences. Without younger people to support a graying population, societies can no longer afford social services and pensions, and that presents very real problems for all of us, especially as medicine has allowed us to live longer.
Just look at the high rate of suicide amongst Japan's elderly.
Aging populations lead to less innovation, and less productivity. In other words, a poorer society. When companies have fewer younger workers available, they may either move operations out of a country or rely more heavily on robotics or AI.
Many people have a similarly simplistic view of economic growth:
"Grow bad for planet, must have zero growth." However, maintaining either a zero-growth economy or a theoretically perfect population are both impossible--both will either grow or contract. An economy that is not growing will contract, which means a more impoverished society.
A graying society in economic decline is one that is less likely to care about long-term environmental problems, and one less likely to have the means to fix those problems.
6
@Scott Cole We have plenty of immigrants who can do these jobs.
4
@Scott Cole
When we lose most of the coastal United States to rising sea levels and have to deal with millions of climate refugees the problems of a graying society won't matter very much.
9
Excellent essay. Another factor is the the isolation from extended families that late capitalism incentivizes. Young adults are encouraged to go where the jobs are, leaving behind families. They then face the prospect of parenting without the logistical and emotional support that grandparents, other relatives, and long time neighbors traditionally provided. We try to replace that support by hiring strangers to care for our kids while we work, but that support comes at a steep price in the US, and can't entirely replace the support system of extended family and community. Having families will always be overwhelmingly challenging until we find better ways to replace the lost support of extended family and community.
As a working biologist I came to realize that the ultimate meaning of an individual life is to pass on one's genes. Humans are uniquely perverse among living organisms in thinking that work or bucket list traveling are viable alternatives to reproduction.
11
Commenters keep bringing up global overpopulation as an obvious reason not to have kids. But these are regional issues. Overpopulation is a problem, just not for the people reading this article. Just like ocean plastic is a problem, but it’s not your smoothie straw that’s causing it. The vast majority of ocean plastic is traced to 5 rivers in Asia and one in Africa. Whether or not you have 0,1 or two kids is a drop in the bucket compared to people having 5 or 10 kids in developing countries with no access to contraception or education. Fix reproductive rights in developing countries and birth rates with drop and global population will stabilize. But that’s not going to happen if smart, empathetic people stop making smart empathetic babies.
13
"While climate catastrophe has revived elements of the insidious discourse of population control..." Hmm, well, yes, population control, or better yet, voluntary smaller families is the way to go. I have two children with two women, that is negative population replacement. I believe we have to get the human numbers down, not just replace us. Late stage capitalism is a scourge, and so is runaway population growth, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America. This world was far more livable and ecologically balanced when the population was around 1 - 1.5 billion in the 1890's.
5
Regarding interdependence, I feel people should realize that both socially and personally, adoption in the the right way can be as wonderful and rewarding as having a genetic reproduction of oneself. Giving birth is only the beginning of a very long and rewarding experience of child rearing.
6
Ms. Sussman is arguing that the choice to have no or fewer children is associated with capitalism's effect on the economy, the environment, and the options available to people at the top of the economic heap. One of those options is paramount: birth control. Until the middle of last century, women did not have an effective way to control their fertility short of abstinence. It's no coincidence that women's participation in the economy outside the home really gained steam with the advent of the pill. Would 19th century women have preferred fewer children, given the choice? I think, based on their diaries and letters, the evidence is, yes, and they were not contending with the same environmental and economic issues (they had others, which by and large were worse). Anyway, I think most people want small families if they want them at all, and that this is not a new phenomenon, just one that can now be acted on.
We need fewer people. The choice about having children and how many is the biggest single environmental choice you will make. To those who want no children, thank you. To those who raise others' children, thank you, thank you! For the others, let's change US policy to help them. And for everyone, let's get serious about caring for this planet.
14
For thousands of years most people spent their lives doing hard physical labor from sun up to sun down, then collapsed into crude shelters that offered minimal protection from heat, cold, wind, rain and snow. Death from violence, disease and starvation was normal. The lucky survivors did not live much longer.
Yet, people had children, lots of them, knowing full well that their children's lives would also be nasty, brutish, and short.
Then came a miracle. The industrial revolution and capitalism transformed millions of people's lives. They made possible unprecedented human flourishing where people now rightly expect to live long lives filled with an expanding array of opportunities for individual fulfillment.
There are of course constraints, as there always will be. No choice or opportunity will ever be without cost. There is always a trade-off, to choose one thing means you must forgo something else.
But capitalism is not the problem here. If women, and men, choose to have fewer children that's because capitalism made possible other choices instead. The fault, as always, lies not in our stars or in capitalism, but in ourselves.
8
The problem Ms. Sussman is really talking about is not that people aren't having babies, but that the "right" people aren't having babies - that is, educated professionals people in developed nations. The global population has, in fact, grown dramatically over the last 100 years but that growth has largely been concentrated among those living in poverty. In 2017, the top 20 countries in fastest population growth were all in Africa. In the US, single women living at or below the poverty line are five times more likely to have a child than women living in the top 20% of income. In both cases, access to birth control and health care are curtailed by circumstance and reproduction is often not a choice. The problems Sussman talks about in this article are specific to a certain kind of people and certainly don't constitute a global crisis (at least not in the sense she implies). Most of the challenges she explores in the article are the very much the province of the privileged.
9
I just graduated from college. I was at a party last night in a Manhattan one bedroom with lots of flex walls responding to questions about my future plans. I told some friends I wanted to work for five years and then start a family. My candor was met with surprise. A lot of people my age do not have the bandwith to consider starting families because their lives are consumed by work.
It is my mission to create harmony between my ambitious professional and creative ventures and my desire to raise a part of the generation that will have to save our world. A lot needs to change to make it possible for everyone who has this desire. Young people need to stop pretending that their identity ends when they focus on something other than themselves because humanity's future depends on it.
7
Because of the spread of birth control, for the first time in the history of our species, women can chose to have or not to have children. That fact is something to celebrate. The idea that all women somehow crave children above all else is ludicrous and many women and men who chose to have children regardless of education or income are unprepared and emotionally ill equipped to be parents. Thank God more and more people are choosing not to become parents. It's a huge commitment.
At a time when we are grossly over populated, to spend so much time and concern about falling birthrates is also ludicrous. For many of us falling birthrates is extremely good news.
17
I think the answer lies in the hypothesis stated early on in this piece: wages are not keeping pace with the cost of living, would-be parents have their own debt to pay off, and the rising cost of "extras" + college are simply prohibitive.
My own observations are that young people from expensive metro areas are leaving the big cities and moving to medium-sized metros so they can have a life. Places like Denver, Austin, Pittsburgh, etc. have lots of amenities at a fraction of the price to live in SF, NYC, LA, or Chicago. And with companies having a harder time attracting talent in these areas for those reasons, many are creating satellite locations which is ever-easier given always-on technology and communication platforms.
Climate change and wage stagnation notwithstanding, it will be interesting to see if there is a higher birthrate in these smaller cities in a few years' time.
3
Global capitalists are probably trembling at the thought of a declining birthrate and the resulting population decline. I'm 71, never had a burning desire for children and the need to carry on the family name. I've done my part for the planet, glad to see more and more people doing their part. As Greta Thunberg so wonderfully stated recently, "We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth". That, and the need for an ever increasing supply of consumers to prop up economies is what is dooming this planet.
10
“The first step is renouncing the individualism celebrated by capitalism and recognizing the interdependence that is essential for long-term survival.”
This brings better education, childcare, and systems to support parents and families.
I couldn’t agree with you more on this statement, but it should be extrapolated beyond parenting and into society at large. Even within the US, each city handles te responsibility incredibly differently, thanks to our fractured local tax systems.
In many of the major US cities, I watch my friends who become newly minted parents struggle to make decisions, crippled with anxiety over schools and childcare from birth. Our failed public education system and lack of reasonable child care and paid family leave has to be the biggest obstacles facing myriad parents.
However, in towns with a stronger collective consciousness and parent-forward community (and not necessarily higher taxes) there are good public schools and programs, and my friends have no worries about the next 18 years of education. Those anxieties literally do not exist.
They can focus on spending time with their family instead of buttering up the local private schools and saving to spend the Brooklyn price of $60,000 for two children to attend Pre-Kindergarten.
1
Anna, better you than me.
I agree
When I was in my 20s, I wanted to get married and have kids, but the men I was dating were running away when I would even say "I love you", let alone speak of marriage or kids, and I am talking years long relationships, to where I almost lost hope and patience. For men, it is easy to put it off as they can have kids even when they are in their 60s, but if you are a 60 year old man and you date a 20 year old woman, I am not sure how true that love really is... In any case, I find men are less interested in kids than women are and that makes it difficult. Some of the reasons may be financials, but for many are selfishness, thinking kids get in the way of their experiences, completely missing the point of having kids: leave a legacy to the next generation and teach them all the good stuff. Only then you can die happy! P.S: I finally found a man who wanted to get married and have kids, but it wasn't until I lost patience with his flakiness and asked him either he's with me for good or not at all and stop wasting my time. That apparently worked and now we have a 10 year old! We did want another one, but for the reason listed in this article (money, lack of paid parental leave, etc) we decided ti stick to one.
7
@Irina There are a lot of ways to leave a legacy to the next generation and teach them all the good stuff aside from bearing children. I'm sorry if you didn't find any.
4
the article lists many valid reasons for the decrease in fertility rates. however, it fails to discuss the fact that one of the main reasons people have had children in the past was that those children would care for them in their old age. the nature of what is termed late capitalism is such that this no longer is the rule so a huge reason for procreating no longer applies.
3
@Stephen Of course, taking care of your parents in their old age goes beyond financial issues.
Thank you for articulating the hunger and longing for genetic continuity so intimately and eloquently at the end of your article.
2
@B Wolfe Note that the author also acknowledges that that continuity may be "fictitious and tenuous". And many people simply have no such hunger or longing. To each his/her own, as many others here have said.
3
I am a 31-year-old female in a stable long-term relationship who is currently agonizing over the question of whether to have children. In the "no" column: impending climate disaster, hopelessness about the general state of the world (what with Trump being in office, probably until he dies), losing the independent adulthood I love so much, the absolute knowledge that I will have to do much more than the lion's share of the work in raising them. Motherhood in America is looking more and more like a prison, especially if you read the Opinion section of the New York Times.
The "yes" column is getting shorter and shorter, but I always end up thinking of my wonderful mother, who had four children she absolutely loved and stayed home with us until we were in our teens.
I'm curious, though: A lot of commenters are sharing their satisfaction and lack of regret with their own childlessness. I would love to hear from those (especially women) who have had children and regretted it.
6
@Emily
I can only say, from my experience and general observation, it doesn’t always work-out the way you have envisioned.
Sure, parenting can be the ultimate in joy, fulfillment and experiences.
It can also be heart-shattering, with broad life-long collateral-damage, not to mention financially debilitating, if your child has a serious physical or mental health illness.
You don’t get to opt-in to parental tragedy ...it’s usually thrust-upon, and it’s forever.
Just another point to consider. I know there is nurture, but there also is nature...and much is out of your control.
3
@Emily: Take a look at “Regretting Motherhood, A Study” by Orna Donath. I am happily married for decades, and do not regret being (voluntarily) child-free.
5
@Lakeriegirl Of course I have considered that. My list of cons in my original post is far from exhaustive.
I'd also add the ruination of my body, which my entire life I've been told to keep thin and attractive; the extreme physical pain and horror of childbirth, including the very real possibility that I or the child could die from it—there are too many cons to list. I want to hear people's parenthood regret stories. Those are the stories I think we hear the least because the subject is so taboo.
2
There are populations that are multiplying more than those who are not. That would be interesting data to see.
Me, educated (best schools, etc), chose not to have children and plenty of my contemporaries as well.
Brief, incomplete comment.
3
Who, other than the 1%, would want to raise a child in a world controlled by Republicans?
The GOP is doing everything in their power to make sure that only 1% can afford a decent living, that only 1% can afford healthcare, that only 1% can avoid decent legal representation, that only 1% can afford higher education, that only 1% will be safe from mass shootings, and that only 1% will be able to survive for any length of time on a planet they are hell bent on destroying.
Who in their right mind would want to subject a child to the nightmare world that the GOP is creating before our very eyes?
A world of despair, sickness, poverty, legal abuse, ignorance, racism, violence, and pollution for the 99% and their children.
9
After thinking about this article for a few hours, I wonder why the author failed to mention substitutes for children, namely, dogs and cats. Without being facetious, we can say that for some people, dogs and cats provide emotional support and companionship in a preferably way as opposed to children. In fact, it is my understanding that even airlines allow pets to accompany passengers on flights over the oceans. In some families there are two children and one dog which has equal status to the children. I think there are urban populations with more pets than children. In my neighborhood, a mile from a big college, almost every single female I know owns a dog. The dog becomes the first child and sometimes the only child.
10
My explanation for falling birthdates is that this is just Mother Nature correcting herself. We humans have exploded in population this past century. We needed high birth rates in the past because many children died due to poorer conditions, etc. Now, we have a higher rate of survival. We don’t need to have more kids. We actually are overpopulated. So birthrates are falling and our planet will hopefully be better off.
11
@Kitinla You articulated what I was thinking: that right now a smaller worldwide population would help the planet. The negative impact of human activity on the environment and the climate is in direct proportion to the number of people on the planet. Maybe a course correction is in order.
5
It's nature's way of telling you. . .
3
check out the graph @ world population.org (from 1050 t0 now...amazing picture)...and projected to increase dramatically in the coming years...free birth control for all, please, around the world...
6
As Raymond Carver said, “Parenting is unrelieved responsibility and permanent distraction.”
7
People are not seeing a future for the planet, much less children.
7
This is from my coverage 25 years ago, summer 1994, Sierra Magazine, previewed by Mike Winerip on page B-1 of the Times right before it came out:
This summer, crucial sections of the EPA's fundamental reassessment of PCBs and their chlorinated-chemical cousins, dioxins, were leaked. The judgment is dire. Once lodged in the human body, PCBs are implicated in breast cancer, brain cancer, malignant melanoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and soft-tissue sarcomas. Even at current background levels, the EPA found, PCBs can damage the body's immune and reproductive systems. The average amount of dioxin-like substances in the body is 9 nanograms (a nanogram is a billionth of a gram) per kilogram (ng/kg), although burdens vary widely due to diet, workplace exposure, proximity to toxic-waste dump, and so on. At 13 ng/kg, sex hormones are diminished in men; at 47 ng/kg, decreased growth is observed in children.
The latter effect is now held to be the chemical's most serious danger, because PCBs mimic natural hormones such as estrogen and can severely disrupt the body's endocrine system, resulting in birth defects and sterility.
https://vault.sierraclub.org/sierra/200103/conspiracy.asp
4
Birthrates in the Middle East and Africa are still soaring.
6
By natural selection, those advanced nations averse to having children as they are overwhelmed by mental stimulus and complex social functions, will pass away to leave the young carefree love struck lovers of less advanced nations to procreate and take new places in the world. Love conquers all.
2
Oh my god: it's because babies are so hard! AND children.
6
It seems the Republican solution is to put women back as breeders under male control. Hence the refusal to pass the ERA, The increased focus on male power religions and the vilification of birth control and abortion. The rise of incil right wing hate groups. Coercion generally doesn't make for a happy family.
8
Any rational person should realize that the basic cause of environmental collapse is human rats being fruitful and multiplying. Given the choice, many modern couples seem to have made a very rational decision that women have better choices in life than to produce litters of grandchildren to please their elders.
10
Women are finally taking steps to free themselves from under the patriarchal fist that has smashed them down for thousands of years and now all of a sudden the world is "oh, woe is me!" Yeah, right. Tell that to pre-teen girls being gang-raped in India and 15 year olds in some of our own southern states who are deemed "old enough" to "marry." If you want babies, world, speed up the change. We're still a long way from going extinct as a species.
5
40, happily married ten years, no kids, not a billionaire. Didn't want to create any more poor people/drones/slaves for the ruling class.
17
I don't get this bemoaning about falling population rates. Isn't the world wildly overpopulated as it is? As good stewards of the earth, shouldn't we be slowing up on reproduction?
11
Education seems to be the biggest decider in how many kids you will have. If you have access to education and opportunity, why on earth would you start having kids in your 20s unless it was an absolute goal in your life. You'd wait. And wait. And wait. I'm glad I was able to have a kid when I was nearing the end of my fertility, but plenty of my friends chose not to and they seem pretty happy. The best thing for the planet is less kids. It's interesting to note that Democrats on average have a lower fertility rate than Republicans...
8
Declining fertility should be celebrated not lamented. Our planet was well populated when the global population was 1 billion; it is now nearly 8 times that size. Re-wilding the planet would make it a much nicer place to live for all of us.
12
The best outcome for the earth & it's non-human in habitants would be for humans to become extinct.
7
I read and reread this article. The author is all over the place. Denmark, America, China. Capitalism, socialism, equality. Seems those two masters degrees taught the author to use lots of words but little real world practice. As a parent of 2.0 grown children enjoying college and prepare in for world in the US debt free, it seems Sussman’s article has enough unconscious bias and opinion for her echo chamber.
5
Dwindling birth rates are excellent news for Planet Earth. Overpopulation is at the center of almost any problem you can name.
9
The world has enough babies but the demographics of some countries will require immigrants.
China will start inseminating women if the state decides they need more.
Japan is no longer restricting all immigration.
The US is lucky to have immigrants, whatever Trump thinks
4
Less people overall is a good thing for the planet.
More poor people overall is a worse thing for the planet.
We have a choice to make.
6
Enough of this pro natal handwringing. Where is Zero Population Growth when we need them?
Falling birth rates are something to be welcomed and encouraged!
M
11
More of this, less whining about Trump. Bravo. A nyt piece made me cry
1
Hmm. Interesting experience. A long-time conservative, I seldom (as in hardly ever) read the NY Times. I entered its URL on a lark and read this article. In general this and other headlines I saw confirmed my feelings that the liberal elitists in the world really ans still do consider this paper their bulwark just as those on the other side of the fence pick FoxNews or something similar. But to the point, this writer feeds almost every mistaken conception (IMO) contrary to what I believe. Firstly I believe in God and am confident He who said "multiply and replenish" won't allow his world to die from the supposed terrors of "climate crisis" - no matter how many "scientists" predict otherwise. I don't believe there is a population crisis; every predicted over-population calamity I've ever read or known has failed to come to pass. And then there's the awful selfishness of those who offer all their excuses for why they can't be bothered with children. But this article's real overriding thrust, in spite of its title, is that capitalism is awful and destroying our world. Well sorry, but faults not withstanding I'll take capitalism (early or late versions) any day to socialism or (ugh) communism.
I see now why I so seldom bother to read this newspaper. It's editors, writers, and apparently most readers, live on a different planet from the one I know.
5
The world is swarming with human beings. The forests and seas and other wild places have been, and continue to be, eaten alive. Why is "low" fertility even a worry?
8
So, it all comes down to selfishness.
"Children would be the end of me," could be not just the declaration of one Dane, but of an entire generational cohort from Kobenhavn to New Haven, London, UK to London, KY.
Like the article says, with all of the wonderful opportunities for career! travel! wild self-fulfillment!, who the heck wants kids anyway? Besides, the world doesn't need one more mouth to feed!
And there you have it: The catechism of a new age. And it even comes---as should any religion of the self---with its own absolution.
5
Q. How do you know if you are an over-educated, decadent elitist oblivious to the real concerns of everyday, working class people?
A. When you hold off on having kids because of “climate change” or an “unequal global economy,” worry about “reproducing under late-capitalism” and believe that these are normal sentiments shared by young people outside of Brooklyn and Portland.
I’ve never before read such a burrito of conflicting metanarratives. God help us.
8
Yep! Now if only we could get those other babies already here and thrown in cages at the border who will never see their parents again, and the millions of war orphaned and abandoned children in the world into loving homes. I am in my 70s and I said it elsewhere but if I was a young woman now, I would never have children, with the threat of climate change alone. I was pooh pooed by a few comments and others who said the same thing were chastised for being selfish for not populating the world as if it was a duty. I think they mean populated by whites. Of course here in the US there are even white kids who do not have homes or enough to eat and if they get cancer will have to die, thanks to the greed of corporations and the wealthy.
Other mainly white nations take much better care of their white children, but I digress. World wide there are plenty of orphaned brown and black babies to love and nurture first. They are stuck here no matter what happens to the climate or the economies of the nations. I say let us make it as good as we can for them, adopt them. I am white and will be quite glad when my race fades away thankyou very much. It is not that the white race is all bad, most whites in varying degrees are decent and caring and humane, but white sociopaths for what ever reason seem to wreak the worst havoc on our planet, but maybe I am biased.
12
The smartest thing and the best thing for the planet is to enjoy your life to it's fullest and don't breed any kids, period.
7
For a full understanding of fertility, one must consider more than economic and political factors.
A number of lifestyle factors affect fertility in women, in men, or in both. These include but are not limited to nutrition, weight, and exercise; physical and psychological stress; environmental and occupational exposures; substance and drug use and abuse; and medications (https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/infertility/conditioninfo/causes/lifestyle)
Reproduction is a quintessentially biological process, and hence all fertility analyses must consider the effects of biology (https://www.britannica.com/science/population-biology-and-anthropology/Biological-factors-affecting-human-fertility)
1
This writer is a typical well educated single woman with solid reasoning and a growing bank account. What she lacks until the last two paragraphs is feeling. She finally admits she'd like to preserve a bit of her ADN in a child. Am I the only one who finds this a bit weird? For me she is one of the reasons why families no longer exist.
4
Unfortunately you don't know if you should have children before you have them.
13
A decreasing population is not a bad thing on an overpopulated planet.
4
This is most interesting in light of what I have been noticing on television and even in newspaper comic strips ... On one show - Greys Anatomy, it is now 3 highly educated female doctors who have become pregnant --- ALL unplanned -- all unmarried - and in all cases, they have acted completely surprised at finding themselves pregnant. Seriously? I don't watch Will & Grace, but I gather that the Debra Messing character is also -- now pregnant - also a "surprise" and also "unplanned." Most recently, a female cop on Chicago PD now finds herself pregnant ... during a show involving a teen abducted, who had a child on account of being raped by her abductor - but who, of course, loves the child more than life itself ... resulting in the female cop (unmarried) canceling her - not specified, but probably an abortion appointment. Even in the comic strip For Better or for Worse, the 39 year old mother of 2 married to a dentist - has -- surprise! - become pregnant - How could THAT have happened? Propaganda???
7
This article gives me a belly laugh, like the folks who used to tell my husband and me that gay marriage was going to lead to a demographic collapse which would threaten the human race.
Yah, like that's ever gonna happen...
5
It has been show that quality of life is dependent on the educational level of women, not on the per capital income. A family with economic stability, combined with better hygiene, nutrition and education for fewer children, is better off for the future than one with one trying to feed and clothe many children near the brinks of health and good nutrition. Healthy children are in a better position to learn in school and succeed in adulthood. They are better positioned to support the parents socially and mentally in their elder years.
A country's resources are better used by fewer children who will live, thrive and contribute to the country's future.
3
All the women I know want children, but cannot find responsible men. The divorce ratea and child support compliance rates discourage women from taking on a responsibility that limits their career prospects and earning potentials.
7
Whatever are the psychological, economic or physiological reasons for the low rates of fertility in various countries, they slow down the global population growth. There are much too many people on Earth, and sending the older people irreversibly into interstellar space, as in a film of Marcello Mastroiani, would never work.
4
The very well recognized "Demographic Transition" model created by demographer Warren Thompson in the early twentieth century explains that with urbanization, industrialization, and advances in public health that ensure that most people survive to adulthood, birth rates decline. Parents recognize that it is no longer necessary to bear large numbers of children to work their farms, or to be sure that at least some will survive.
https://pages.uwc.edu/keith.montgomery/Demotrans/demtran.htm
8
As a (later in my life) mother my advice to those who wish to have a child but are afraid to contribute to overpopulation: spacing out generations is a good way to be a parent AND a responsible 'global' citizen. I know not everybody's body is the same, but having kids in your mid to late thirties is just fine.
The author worries about money and social security: while child-raising certainly is not free, your child needs your time and care most of all, money second. Some can change their jobs to flexible or home hours to avoid full-time babysitting. (And yes, the US society does not do enough to support new parents).
Since we live longer, we should work longer + get rid of the Social security cap + our old age nest egg should not be in much jeopardy.
4
As a married man with two daughters myself, I fully support their choices and will help them succeed best I can. It amazes me, however, that as women embrace all the choices that they demand, i.e., they can do anything that any man can do, they also are in selective denial about sexual dimorphism.
Sexual dimorphism means that females and males are equally important and therefore equally powerful in society, yet in general, they have important differences. These differences are so important that without them, no people would exist; our ancestor species would have died out many millions of years ago.
Yes, a close partnership is work. Marriage is a lot of work, but this is the best way to raise a child because every child benefits from having two parents, ideally a man and a women so the child has role models of both sexes.
I suspect the biggest barrier to fertility in the US isn't that we have terrible and very expensive health care, or poor policies supporting parenthood, but the politically-correct misandry the author clearly shows; she wants to have a child on her own because she believes that all men are awful close-up, and contemporary society makes that choice acceptable. Society also hides the fact that conceiving and raising a child without a partner is a very selfish thing for a woman to do because the child loses out. It is very expensive, though, which is why the author is writing about saving $200k first, and hence we have a fertility problem.
9
I appreciate the global perspective of this article. In reading it, I searched for a common thread. The strongest one that I could find was a correaltion between religious values and child birth. Notwithstanding concerns about capitalism, global warming, workplace polices, etc., the common denominator that I saw was the inverse realtionship between secularism and rates of childbirth. The United States example pointing to growth in communities with strong religious values defying the national trend spoke directly to this point. Traditional value systems that placed a primacy on the family are eroding and this is emerging as a serious long term factor impacting worldwide populations.
1
@George Why exactly is this bad? Fewer humans is better for the earth, and religiosity is a collection of toxic viral memes that makes people act against their own best interests in the name of propping up late-stage capitalism.
4
@outlander
I didn’t say it was “bad” I just pointed out that secularism appears to be a major consistency in the global observations of the author of this comprehensive analysis on some serious trends regarding the human population. Having said that, I do think your reply to me is a rather condescending dismissal of sincerely held beliefs of billions of people. Speaking for myself, I do believe that when religious belief systems adhere to the “golden rule” that humanity is better off in many respects, including reproductive issues.
2
She doesn't mention that fertility among couples in developed countries who want children is going down very likely caused by the pollution that is eliminating other species at a terrific rate. Undeveloped countries do not seem to have this problem where the problem of too many babies is eliminated in Malthusian fashion. Can the planet be protecting itself against the overpopulation and exploitation of its resources? We need less people if we are to survive as a species. It is a good thing if we are not reproducing ourselves for whatever reason, but it is better by choice than by starvation or lack of medical care. China would not have accomplished their economic miracle without stringent controls on birth. The rest of the underdeveloped world should take note. While the western way of individual choice seems preferable, over-procreation is still the planet's larger problem as populations double and triple, and natural resources are consumed at an irreplaceable rate.
1
Our problem right now is not too many, but too few of the type of people we need... youth. Well raised and educated youth are far and away our most valuable resource. They are vital to maintaining our social structures and the advancement of the technology we need and there are not enough of them. Just look at the numbers. Changing this formula to negative population growth and fewer people would be a vastly more complex task than some virtue-signaling childless folks seem to think it would be. It would require planning and cooperation far beyond what our government (especially currently) or any government in the world is capable of (though China probably comes the closest). I'm placing my bet on technology for our survival.
3
But is it not at least partially about a certain sort of selfishness vs selflessness? That's not to say those who do choose to have children don't sometimes do it out of selfishness and vice versa, but it seems at least from examples in this article that those who choose not to have children do it out of selfish reasons and those who do, do so for selfless ones.
I don't think this is necessarily a "bad" sort of selfish, and there may be a better word for it than "selfish", but if your parents chose not to have kids, you would not exist. Not everyone needs to have children, and I don't think either party should be shamed, but let's admit that those who do not have children are benefiting from those who do. These are not really two separate groups of people... everyone comes from parents.
One analogy that comes to mind is those who choose to serve in the military, police/fire, etc. vs those who do not.
4
Quite of often people "claim to desire" this or that, but then decide, when faced with the decision, that they want something else.
For centuries, perhaps millennia, humans have expanded and expanded. What is the problem? If we now contract, this is a good thing all around.
This is being discussed as a problem. I see it as simply a sea change.
5
Perhaps our collective cultures are still adapting the the availability of modern contraception. The reality that a woman can have a normal sex life and not have babies is relatively recent.
The first generation with access to modern contraception reacted like this: "Wow! I don't have to do what my ancestors did. OK, I'll take it".
Subsequent generations grew up in a world where it was available all along. Their reaction might be more like: "Of course I can choose to do it or not." Hence we have article like this one.
Culture takes awhile to adapt to new realities.
7
Some people on this thread comment that nothing is more fulfilling than having a child. Perhaps for them. I've never been able to wrap my head around this. I am fulfilled every day of my life by my profession, my friendships, hobbies, and marriage. Nothing is missing.
6
As an old-fashioned romantic, what fascinates me about this article is the lack of discussion about the critical role of romantic love in the reproductive process, the simple idea of two people desiring to have children as an outgrowth of their love and commitment to one another.
Shouldn't the focus of our efforts be on facilitating the ability of young people to meet and interact and then allowing nature to take its course?
Love, joy and commitment should come first, then all of the logistical child-rearing decisions, whatever they are, will come later in a loving environment.
As this article reflects, it is amazing how cold, empty and sterile our lives have become, when we can't even find the time for romantic love in our busy lives.
We are truly living in the Huxleyian Brave New World. Pardon me while I go and give my wife a hug and kiss.
5
@John M perhaps we as a society might provide a playing field not tilted in favor of the 1% nor winner-take all. We have banished equity as if it s a bad thing; the results are plain to see, as people hedge their bets as a single misstep can ruin a life’s prospect.
Underlying this article is the concept that we want to maintain our current population... climate change, overpopulation and the exhaustion of our natural resources would argue that this reduction is a need that will help us thrive in the future. If we remake our GDP-centric society into a wellness oriented one, the need to constantly feed the economic engine of production would change and we could see much better outcomes.
5
This is why we need more immigration, not less. Someone has to pay for our social security.
3
I’m a gay man somewhat, let us say, past his reproductive years; yet I was seduced by this brilliantly thoughtful, luxuriously imagined essay. Thanks to the author and the New York Times for reminding me of the value of early morning reading even when so many distractions creep in.
2
The planet cannot sustain millions more with climate change and resources being depleted. A few less humans is a good thing.
5
Findings in psychology suggest that ethics-based choices are often an illusion. People typically choose what's intuitively appealing, and rationalize it to external audiences (and to oneself!) post hoc. So if your gut tells you to have children, you talk about transcendence and standing up to the pressures of late capitalism, as does the author. If your gut tells you to forego children, you talk about being responsible to the planet that's overpopulated. These mental gymnastics are subconscious, such that most of us genuinely believe the "reasons" our brains manufactured *after* our gut made the choice. ... ... So... don't overthink. Life is not as simple as it seems. It is much simpler. :)
7
What is stopping people from having children?
Overpopulation
High cost of housing (do you want to raise a family in an apt)
Affording a home in a preferred school district or the financial means to pay for private school from 3 or 4 years old through college
High cost of living
High cost of a college education (looking at today's costs, what will it be in 18 years)
The state of the Country (mass shootings, drug epidemic, nationalism, police killing innocent black Americans, gross societal inequities)
Dissolving middle class
Dissolving quality of life
Inadequate health insurance to pay for the pre-natal visits, delivery and subsequent care
Financially choosing between having a children and being to support yourself and one day retire
5
Too few babies in a world with too many people? On a planet that hasn't the resources to provide 7 billion people an American middle class standard of living? In a world that is heating up to dangerous levels partly because there are too many of us burning up fossil fuels?
I don't think so.
7
The inherent contradictions in this article are incredible. The author claims capitalism and climate change are causing lower birth rates, yet the country that does more than any other to blunt the excesses of capitalism (Denmark) has a similar birthrate to the U.S. This seems like pretty compelling evidence that capitalism and its excesses are NOT in fact the causal factors for declining birth rates.
The author also argues climate change is also a cause of low birth rates, yet the countries supposedly most at risk from climate change (poor countries closer to the equator) have higher birth rates than wealthier countries. So this logic doesn't hold either.
This is another example of how nonsensical it is to claim that there is a single causal factor (wealth inequality and capitalism) for all of the world's problems without any real evidence.
Is it possible that young adults in wealthy countries have more opportunities in their lives and thus see more opportunity costs to having children during prime childbearing years? Nope, they must be oppressed by capitalists...
7
It's rare to find news worth celebrating in the NY Times Opinion section. Planet earth is being destroyed by human overpopulation and the greed of the rich. The sooner we get back to 2 billion humans the better the better for everyone.
9
Human overpopulation is the #1 problem in the world. Please, stop having children.
10
What thinking person would want to bring a child into this world with the future looking so dim?
11
Yes.
Yes.
Shouldn't this be called "The End of Rich White Babies"?
9
Whether to have children or not to have children is always partly a decision of two people based on communal political authority and responsibility for safe delivery of the birth to monitoring the safety of children from parental neglect and abuse. As in all human activity, there’s a bell curve to describe sexual vigor and fertility rates among couples. And some couples lose fertility early in life, others lose sexual interest at the same time. But the more a decision to have children is less about a wider social gain for specific groups — Mormons, racial nationalists, religious sects, empires — than it is a decision of the two partners, the more it is a selfish decision of individuals not to have children.
(Google the obsolete phrases: “Babies and Soldiers for the King” and “Babies and Soldiers for the Pope” to see how procreation has been a strategic weapon in the Ages of Imperialism, Colonialism, African Slavery, Scientific Racism, Ethnic Cleansing of Native American tribes, Nazi ideology, and Religious Wars.)
2
Save the Earth . . . don’t give birth!
8
Some people don't want kids. Even people who really want to have kids are afraid that they may not be able to afford them.
It takes a lot of confidence in the future—that there will be good-paying jobs, affordable quality education and child care, and opportunities to save for retirement—to take the plunge into parenting.
Want to raise the birth rate? Create a society in which young people who want to start families can feel confident that they can make it work financially.
5
As a boomer, I had two sons early in my 20s. I postponed my graduate school education until they were school-age, but managed it while working full time and taking care of a home and children. I wouldn't have missed the joy and even the pain of parenthood for anything.
I went into parenthood thinking about how to pay as we went, not how much we had saved up. It all worked out, though not exactly as expected, since my sons' father died when they still preschool.
Perhaps today's young people are overthinking parenthood. Yes, it requires more logistical thinking, but so does a pet.
6
Having fewer children will help the climate and environment recover from the devastation our ever increasing population has delivered
13
This article drips with New Yorkishness. If you really want kids, move to South Dakota, find a job and a husband and have at it. But there are too many people all ready.
5
There are 7 and a half billion people on the planet. That's far more than enough. Declining birth rates are a good thing. Keep it going folks. More sex, less reproduction.
8
Blame the phone!
1
Maybe if it wasn't so darn expensive to have & raise children more people would have them.
2
Frankly, this is a good piece of news. I would say this is something to celebrate. As Bryon Gysin said, 'man is a bad animal'.. And yeah, climate change thanks to the humans consuming/burning their way through the planet's resources. The earth is a closed system, folks.
8
It is easy to blame capitalism, climate change, and globalization for the low birthrate around the world. In fact, invention of birth control pills and breaking down of traditional family and value system are equally responsible. It's great that women have more freedom, rights, and opportunities, but children without family are like Thanksgiving dinner without company. You can't have the dinner by yourself. Traditional families were formed not only for societal reasons but also for practical ones; division of labor and responsibilities. Now we have become too selfish to care and sacrifice for our own children and loved ones. When you want all the material goodies, gadgets, and comfort for yourself, no money, time or energy are left for anyone, including your spouse and children. This is the the part of the story no one wants to talk about.
6
Anna Louie Sussman is out of her mind, apparently blind to the rapidly expanding chaos we humans have created. What would she have us do with the millions of parentless children, the millions of starving or food insecure children, and then there are millions of existential questions facing us that we as a species are unable to answer.
Not to mention the fact that we have passed the tipping point where we can promise our children a safe planet !
12
Overpopulation is one factor--maybe the biggest--in climate change and its destructive effects. What we need is a campaign that's the opposite of the one described in the article--a campaign that highlights the personal and humanitarian benefits of choosing to have fewer--or no--children. It won't lead to the eradication of humanity--there will always be those who reproduce--but it would, if successful, shrink the average carbon footprint and thus do the environment a favor.
9
There are a lot of other plausible answers to the good question this article asks.
1. The administrative burden of life has exploded for young, white-collar people, and it has a cost in terms of free time. Our parents did not have to deal with nearly the same amount of laws, regulations, and overall burden of running a household. The work week in many white-collar professions is 50-65 hours per week, including partial weekend time. That was unheard of 30 years ago, as far as I know.
2. A white-collar couple of childbearing age is typically living in an expensive city where the top marginal tax rate on income is 50% or greater. Our parents didn't pay close to this level of income tax (eg, the top federal marginal rate was 28% in 1987, and state taxes were far lower at that time).
3. Central banking decisions/dogma over the last 11 years have dramatically boosted asset prices without nearly the same effect on income. This has transferred a massive amount of wealth from income-generators to asset-owners, from the young to the old. The decision to have a child is inextricably linked to homeownership, and homeownership is far more difficult for a 30-something in SF or NYC today than it was for a 30something in a typical city in the '70s or '80s.
7
The 1)number of people and their 2)consumption rate are what determines a sustainable population on our one and only, limited Earth. One of our society's strongest values, however, is more, always more, and more of everything. This puts us in denial of limits.
Jerry Brown national political future ended when he talked about limits in the1970s. Jimmy Carter was mocked for putting on a cardigan and turning down the thermostat in the White House. Martin Luther King denounced materialism as one of three evils destroying America.
This NYT Comments section reveals that many Americans have well-developed and thoughtful ideas on population, sustainability, and limits, and that this is in very sharpe contrast to US media's silence on these existential issues.
8
It's hard to know where to start criticism of this extremely myopically proposed argument, but one paragraph sticks out:
"Even so, many Danes find themselves contending with the spiritual maladies that accompany late capitalism even in wealthy, egalitarian countries. With their basic needs met and an abundance of opportunities at their fingertips, Danes instead must grapple with the promise and pressure of seemingly limitless freedom, which can combine to make children an afterthought, or an unwelcome intrusion on a life that offers rewards and satisfactions of a different kind — an engaging career, esoteric hobbies, exotic holidays."
Has the author studied any other times in history where fertility rates were high and looked at 'spiritual maladies' that went along with it? Perhaps she should study the dustbowl era in the United States, when poor farmers with large families watched their children starve. Or when poor children had to work in factories instead of going to school, thus leading to the first labor laws in the country.
To make the argument that having children is the only way to spiritual fulfillment is so blatantly sophomoric that it can't be taken seriously.
11
This powerful global trend is well documented in the 2019 book: Empty Planet; the Shock of Global Population Decline. The Canadian authors take a demographic approach and interview young women from around the world on factors that influence the reproductive decisions. They conclude, among other things, that urbanization and the education of women, along with better access to reproductive knowledge and technology are the primary drivers. This article is an important piece in helping us understand this global social phenomenon.
1
Thanks for another fine example of a lack of vision. Throughout history, countless societies have awaited crises before attempting to change course, only to find that, like a large ship at sea, the turn comes slowly and the iceberg is unyielding. Voluntary population control was abandoned in the seventies when the environmental movement built bridges to other social movements with distinct, and often conflicting agendas. With that compromise, the prospect of a soft landing to resolve the downside spinoffs of a large and insatiable population evaporated. But climate change will have its way, and no amount of blaming and shaming of technology, capitalism, corporatism, nationalism, post-colonialism and the like will change the fundamentals. It's about population.
7
My option was to have children with a job that allowed me to be there sufficiently for them but gave us all a substandard quality of life, or have a job that provided for a reasonable standard of living but took too many hours of working and commuting time to be the kind of on-site, hands-on parent any child deserves. It's a horrible choice and I know it is not unique to me.
3
Fertility shmertility. There are plenty of children who have no parents who can be adopted regardless what your gametes are or aren’t up to.
9
I see my own circumstances described in and between the lines of this article. Although I never saw myself as a parent, the economic and social circumstances of living my young adulthood here in my chosen city reinforced the decision not to have children—this would be back in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The author’s statement about our interdependence being foundational to the raising of children is important. Where she loses me is this sentimentalization of perpetuating her lost father’s genetic material through having a child herself. If we are to succeed in evolving a just, cooperative, and interdependent society in which we can pursue our most important freedoms—of expression, of movement—beyond “late-stage capitalism”, then we have to recognize that we are ALL family.
5
Have you forgotten that climate change is largely driven by overpopulation? Having children in a world with far too many is selfish and short-sighted.
6
Loosen up. Have more fun.
Kids help.
Really.
7
The future belongs to those who show up. If you are too conscientious to bring a child into the world because you can’t bear to bring a child into a world where the future is uncertain (as it always has been), then you are choosing to edit your genes for high intelligence and conscientiousness out of the population. Evolution in action.
3
Good piece, but only a passing mention of climate change. Children born today will experience a different planet by their 30s and 40s. The climate crisis is here and it is going to wreak havoc on all we think is stable in our societies. If you are intent on bringing a child into this world, and not considering such factors as climate, you are a destroyer.
3
I am 68 and have 3 siblings; none of us have children. When he was alive, my father complained that we were "selfish" by not giving him the grandchildren he and my mother wanted. But growing up in their household was, frankly, a miserable experience. He was brutal, selfish and mean (imagine a violent Donald Trump.) I think we all felt that having undergone what we did, we would simply live for ourselves and not procreate. My mother was loving but helpless. I am sorry that her DNA will end with our deaths. Do I miss having children or nieces and nephews? Not one bit.
10
How refreshing to read comments that are realistic and rational rather than propaganda for the next rung in the ladder of ‘what you’re supposed to do.’
Thanks everyone! More.of.this.please.
5
"encouraging Danes to make more babies while television news programs showed Syrian refugees trudging through Europe carried an inadvertent whiff of ugly nativism"
This is how it is in Japan, Hungary, Italy, and elsewhere. Foreigners - especially poor and dark-skinned ones - are unwanted. We live in a world that is grossly overpopulated, but some governments are offering inducements to their own citizens to have more children. Fortunately, most of these efforts are futile.
5
Babies are the last thing the world needs now. Let's feed, clothe and shelter the people who are already here.
7
This article could have had something to say on an interesting subject. However the author made no attempt to write that article. Instead we have an exercise in personal wisdom, for the most unsupported by data or anything else beyond very few random anecdotes.
This sort of thing happens all too frequently, but I think this one wins a prize for length. It’s actually amazing the author can go on for this long without trying to back up any conclusions. At least it’s in the opinion section.
4
Why is any reduction in the rate that we continue to overpopulate (and thus destroy) this planet always an occasion for angst and doomsaying? Instead, reduction in human fertility and birthrate should be celebrated and encouraged in all ways. At least stop breeding more peasants for our corporate overlords!
4
Two main reasons, for the western world at least.
Women have been brainwashed to believe mating, having and actually raising a child herself is the most egregious form of misogyny, they prefer to deny their biology.
Too many have swallowed the propaganda that the world will implode in twelve years so whats the point.
6
Why would any caring, rational human being bring children into this dying world? Climate change will preclude babies growing up into healthy, happy adults.
3
This is a good thing. The world is becoming overpopulated, having more than 2 children is irresponsible.
5
Maybe people aren't having children because the planet cannot sustain the level of population growth now under way.
4
This article is an intellectual shell game. It’s impossible to find the problem the author is writing about or her point.
Here’s what I got.
Is it a problem that some people don’t want to have children?
Well no of course not; except yes, because having children makes you more human (“interdependence”) and if you have meaning in your life already (religion) you wouldn’t be avoiding children to look for it.)
Is it a problem that some people want to have children (or more children) and don’t feel they can? Yes. Of course if they could they would have the same number of children anyway.
This could have economic impacts down the road but that’s not the point of the article.
The problem might be environment and climate change but that would mean writing a narrower article. (And would leave out the fact that some people *just aren’t choosing marriage and/or children.* Which of course is okay only it isn’t.)
I hope the NYT will try again on this topic. Who is having children? Who isn’t? And in our end-game world, what does that mean?
1
The worst thing you can do for 'our' economic system is--NOT have children.
The worst thing you can do for the planet, is to HAVE children.
For some, the solution is to force women to have children, to fuel our economy and serve as cannon fodder in our wars. Keep dancing as fast as you can.
Enough already. "Let be, be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream."
8
The greatest single threat to planet earth, global warming, and the whole environment is mindless growing reproduction at an exponential rate.
Population stability is our only hope because what else we do to save the environment it would otherwise be overwhelmed by the population explosion.
5
This is ridiculous. Whether or not a baby who is born today will live their full lifespan or whether human life will be extinguished first is an open question. Birthrates almost always fall when women get full control over their own bodies and their own livelihoods. Giving all women this is the very best chance human life has of enduring into the next century.
6
The various public demonstrations from Santiago, Chile to Ecuador to Johannesburg to Cairo to Baghdad to Barcelona to the Brexit debacle may offer an bull’s eye hint: It’s the economy, stupid! Income inequality has made it impossible to subsist, thanks to Neoliberal policies adopted by countries across the world. Neoliberalism claims that regulations are impediments to growth and development, therefore governments have been dismantling regulatory systems with the current results: billionaires galore, not by manufacturing “stuff”, but by speculating and stealing. When over 60% of people’s salaries go to rent, it leaves very little for anything else, much less to support a family.
IVF In European countries like Spain and Israel is close to nil. You don’t need 20,000 dollars. A few thousand for flights, an Airbnb in Barcelona and medical expenses should suffice.
1
It seems to me this article is not giving enough mention to the apparent shortage of men who would want to to create a family with (a partner and) children. If so many women are bearing children solo with donor sperm, then why THAT is... is the big question. My mother would say the answer is because you don't have to get married anymore in order to have sex, and she would probably be right.
3
You share dna with all living and non-living things in our universe. You do not reproduce yourself when you have a child just as you are not s reproduction of your parents, even if your nose is similar to your dad’s. We have to start seeing our interconnectedness. It’s imperative to the survival of life on our planet. Let go of your ego-driven desire to maintain your genes. They aren’t yours to begin with and they are shared by all of us. As the zen koan asks, what was your original face? What was your face before your mother was born?
5
Nonsense.
At last women get to decide what path to choose in life.
Selfishness comes to mind procreating on this planet. It has become a horrifying place to enjoy what once was pristine forests, clean oceans, pure air to breathe etc. Even tho lives were shorter eons ago at least the senses were blessed. Today there is nothing but sorrow in overconsumption just to keep the economy going. And thus creating more and more useless trash. Even if solutions are found for some of the travesties to animals and plants earth will never again be beautiful and bountiful.
5
Who can afford it anymore?
And thus, in "rich" nations, the obvious need to welcome immigrants from poorer ones.
3
“'I asked them, ‘Now, you know — you have gained a lot of information, a lot of knowledge. What are you going to change in your own personal lives?’ he said. He shook his head. “The answer was ‘Nothing.’ Nothing!'”
I admit that made me chuckle. Dr Ziebe seemed confused that the younger generation's points of view didn't line up with his, even after he explained (mansplained?) it to them.
Could it be possible that on a planet of over 7 billion humans, reproduction isn't a priority?
5
First, the author is not arguing whether or not she should want to have a baby. She is saying that she does want to have a baby. She then offers statistics to show that throughout the world people want to have more babies than they are having.
Next, a little basic Science: Yes, human children are an incredible hassle to bear and to rear. Which means that we as a species could not exist today unless human females had necessarily evolved to really, really, really want to have children.
So that those present day women who do not want to have children are the odd creatures who are living outside of Nature.
And to all those commenters who are so happy to be selfish individuals who didn't have children: How do you square that with your associated belief that it is selfish individualism which has destroyed the planet?
Speaking of which, a Mennonite family with five children is no doubt much less of a drain on the planet than a NYT reader living in a high end suburb, driving a Volvo or whatever, and taking their vacations to Italy and to Zanzibar.
And if the meaninglessness of postmodern life is your reason for being childless... Consider that any observer from any other time or culture would have pointed out that it is the very lack of family and children which is the root cause of postmodern meaninglessness.
7
@maureen f. Why is not having kids "selfish"? I've never understood that argument.
The other one I can answer: if a person makes a decision that harms others in a serious way in order to benefit themselves in a trivial way, that can be considered selfish. One example might be driving a gas-guzzling SUV they have no legitimate need for instead of a gas-sipping car that works just as well. This harms other people a lot (increased air pollution, faster global warming, greater risk of death for people in smaller cars if there's an accident.)
Obviously, for many people having children is profoundly meaningful--not like car-buying--so I wouldn't say having children is "selfish" even if overpopulation is a problem. But why is *not* having children "selfish"? What harm is caused to others if people decide to not have kids?
4
"the insidious discourse of population control"?
How about the RESPONSIBLE discourse of population control?
11
How many of the problems we face are because there are just too many of us. Please—stop having babies.
8
In a world that is grossly even obscenely overpopulated, and where billions live impoverished lives, what is to lament about lower birth rates?
7
Overpopulation is the reason -- all of the "others" are symptoms. Let it fall to 2 billion and people will start reproducing.
3
It's immoral to have children by anyone anywhere anymore.
We will be extinct by 2100 therefore people born today will face extinction, inevitably.
Therefore, to reduce those facing the end, don't have kids.
3
I ponder this article and wonder if the basic assumptions about reproducing and raising a family aren't somehow untenable.
Historically, children were conceived and raised in an extended family with a mother and father caring for the young. One adult in the family was tasked with caring intensively for the children while others earned the livlihood to support this.
The picture painted here is one of single women choosing to bear and raise a child without a partner or extended family and complaining because of the expense of paying outsiders to provide the traditional family environment.
If so many women wish to work and pay for child care - who is left to provide that care? At what price?
Who is left to deal with school authorities, city hall, housecleaning, cooking, transportation and all the other day to day things that a family needs to do?
It seems that "rugged individualism" has reduced our ability to partner or exist in small groups for the purpose of providing a family with the necessities of life and providing the adults with companionship and security. Every person for him or herself gets expensive and tiring very quickly.
No one wants women to become totally subservient, but somehow shared responsibility for a family's well being rests on supportive partnerships where all adults contribute to the group and in return reap its benefits.
7
It is a very big commitment. A big part is the money. Bigger house, more food, health care, often school where the schools are inadequate, saving for college.
Then there is the big change in relationships.From fun loving sexy partners to hard working stressed business team. Women turn lots of attention away from the man, the man feels stressed to provide.
Then there is the condition of the world, very depressing.
1
I never imagined ever having children, I’ve never had a relationship and then a pituitary tumor rendered me completely sterile and unable to ever father children. I have absolutely no regrets about this. For those who want to have children, how about it. But those who don’t, don’t make me feel guilty. Everyone is responsible for living their own life in the way they feel best. I cannot imagine bringing a child into a world that is about to burn from climate change and has wealth inequality not seen since just before heads rolled in the French Revolution.
7
The collapse of civilization explains the plunging birthrate. No one feels hopeful about future generations, not even the 1%. Blame may be assigned to some causes more than others, depending on each person's natural tendencies and upbringing: immigrants; consumerism; saving; spending; social safety nets; Muslims; Jews; the Rohingya; religion; atheism; socialism; women's rights; indigenous rights; gluten; cow's milk; vaccines; big pharma; genocide; authoritarianism; gerrymandering; social norms; the rule of law; profit sharing; Bernie; Hillary; Obama; Trump; the death penalty; affirmative action; the minimum wage. It all comes down to too many people exploiting the Earth and each other. Whatever purposes human societies have invented for themselves since the dawn of history have been destroyed, and with climate change there's no hope of restoring one.
3
Italy has low birth rate too. In my opinion is a good thing: we are 8 billions in a small planet, Italy has 60 millions people in a mountainous country. We are too much, we need to curb our insensate growth. We have lesser wars, famine and plague, so we make less babies. A good thing in the long run
11
I am in horror to read this piece of a narcissistic future-negative person and its following in the commentary. The world has never been a better place than today but these people do not realize and appreciate that world which has been created by their parents for us and especially for them. I would recommend suicide to these egoists so they ease the stress on the environment and stop blocking opportunities for the rest of us who carry the „burden“ of living and compromising in an actual relationship between man and women, and having children.
6
"The posters, part of a campaign funded by the city to remind young Danes of the quiet ticking of their biological clocks, were not universally appreciated. They drew criticism for equating women with breeding farm animals"
Nobody equated women with farm animals here; that's absolutely ridiculous.
"The timing, too, was clumsy: For some, encouraging Danes to make more babies while television news programs showed Syrian refugees trudging through Europe carried an inadvertent whiff of ugly nativism"
Has everyone lost their minds here? Reminding folks that waiting too long to start a family can sometimes lead to biological difficulties has nothing to do with refugees. What's next, 2+2=5?
5
The last paragraph of the article is stunning in its narcissism.The world population is approaching 8 billion, a number long thought to be environmentally unsustainable. Humanity comes at a materially high planetary cost. We our wrecking our planet through development and the production of waste, yet the author is reflecting on the immaterial gifts she received from a parent and yearning to preserve a little piece of the source.
I remember when military strategist Herman Kahn speculated about whether the survivors of a nuclear war would envy the dead. I wonder whether my young grandchildren will find themselves in a world in which the living envy the unborn.
8
Less babies? Good. Denmark will adapt. Our planet and its atmosphere are quickly losing the ability to adapt. The planet will be better off with less humans.
8
What does its say about grownup culture that TikTok is the fastest growing blah blah and that Baby Shark is a must see.
There is no more culture, no more intelligence, no more idealism except for Trump voters who believe in fake utopias.
However, the park outside my house used to be empty. Pick your picnic table. Now there are so many babies and children, as delightful as it is, I can't find a place to eat my charcoal ice cream cone.
1
Does our economic and social infrastructure serve us or do we serve it? Hey Alexa! What is the value of a human life?
Humans are the most destructive species on earth.
Humans colonize and decimate every piece of earth on which we live.
We do not need more humans, we need less humans.
Minimizing the number of humans on this earth benefits this earth and the remaining species on this earth.
Any choice that prevents the birth of humans benefits this earth and the remaining species on this earth.
7
why is anyone surprised by this? The human population has tripled in the last century, and a planet with 7.7 billion people is becoming increasingly less hospitable to humans. Unfortunately the birth rate in Africa continues to explode, and most the global fertility rate exceeds the death rate, meaning we could hit 9 billion people in the next fifty years.
In the US kids are for the rich. Everyone else is miserable.
5
Regarding student debt,
And from the federal reserve (2016):
Balance in 2016Q4 Number of Borrowers
$1 - $5,000 8,769,700
$5,000 - $10,000 7,554,100
$10,000 - $25,000 12,368,200
$25,000 - $50,000 8,483,600
$50,000 - $75,000 3,539,000
$75,000 - $100,000 1,503,800 (4% of borrowers)
$100,000 - $150,000 1,238,200 (3% of borrowers)
$150,000 - $200,000 554,500 (1% of borrowers)
$200,000+ 521,600 (1% of borrowers)
That is 28,700,000 borrowers under $25,000 or 64.4% of the total 44,500,000. A total of 8.6% of borrowers (1% of all Americans) owe $75,000 or more.
1
Maybe people in general and women in particular see that more people are not simply unnecessary but killing us all?
3
There is a brand new baby, Isabel Nola, in Manhattan! She is two days old. At least my nephew and his wife are procreating!
8
Malthus was correct - The earth is overpopulated. Nature will win. Falling birth rates may save us from ultimate extinction by global warming, drought, disease, warfare. Children have to be wise in their choice of parents.
5
Easy answer – who would want to bring a child into a world like this?
3
Money, Climate change & Relationships are difficult at best.
Interesting analysis. I never had children. I never had a desire to have children. I am glad that I never had children. It had very little to do with anything that this author writes about, though.
Anyone who is educated realizes that there are too many people on this planet. Our consumption will be the end of us. I see my neighbors who have two children consume more and more things. So much garbage!
My experience is that children and family aren't always what they are reported to be. I see that they do provide some comfort for many people who don't want to be alone. Otherwise, I've come to believe that hormones are what drive most people to reproduce.
9
This article glosses over the pains of adjustment in matching low fertility countries like Denmark with the exploding populations in less-developed countries. By what processes will people move from poor countries to rich countries? Note that the U.S. (a country with a melting pot ethic) seems deeply concerned with a modest number of immigrants from Mexico. How would a small country like Denmark handle ten million African and Asian immigrants?
2
If you want to know why birth rates keep dropping, just read a bit more in the NYT and other such publications.
"We choose to be childless"
"Overpopulation is at crisis level"
"it smacks of nativism"
"How can I ever be a good parent?"
"I wish I had never been born"
"coffee shops clogged with baby strollers"
"window seat next to a screaming infant"
I think I've read versions of all of these lines in the last week. I'm seeing more instances here.
4
@Thollian , the nihilism is these comments is appalling. As another commenter pointed out, in reality life has never been better. This is even true for those in 3rd world countries, where lifespans are longer and education is more available than ever before.
Perhaps the affluence of us first worlders, and the absence of any perspective on what the realistic, as opposed to utopian, options for life are is what creates this pessimism and hopelessness.
6
I'm surprised the author never mentioned Paul Erlich's seminal book, The Population Bomb, Popdilation Control or Race to Oblivion? which I think influenced a generation. Also women's reproductive freedom starting with the pill. Not all women yearn to be mothers, just like not all women want to be lawyers or doctors, and I am delighted to be childless. Dogs actually fulfull that cuddling need just fine. I personally think the planet is better off with fewer humans destroying the planet.
6
I have a teenager. If I had it to do all over again.....I wouldn't.
5
This article is fundamentally nativist.
The global population has been rising and shows no sign of dipping. Yet, this article written with the mindset of a metaphorical ostrich with head stuck in sand.
It is good for the humanity and good for the planet that many many individuals are thinking of not reproducing. We should be thankful towards them.
8
Don't China and India each have a billion people? We have enough humans on this planet! With Climate Change there will be less inhabitable land. We need fewer humans in the world. Maybe all of these Countries don't need to survive. The lower birth rate is a good thing.
4
To paraphrase a song by Paul Simon: " The planet groans every time it registers another birth".
Is there more to be said?
6
I am thrilled to see that my advise to my millennial children, 'Have dogs; not children.' is being followed beyond my own children. Bravo!
5
We are animals, whether we are too homo sap-centric to admit it or not. We are an invasive, destrucitve species on the planet. We know many things that never get into conscious thought or language. This is one of them. If we were rational, we would all have 1 child and re-make the tribal groups that were extended families so our 1 child couild have siblings. Kids We are not rational. I look around today, and if I were at that time in my life, would not have more than one child. Big families were wonderful in some ways, and we big-familied ourselves to the edge of oblivion. Breathe the air, feel the heat, miss the wild places you barely knew, now bulldozed into min-ranches for old people with more money, and weatlh, than the young will ever see. But it does not seem to make anybody happy. We were all chasing a mechanical rabbit, so to speak.
5
“Parents say that ‘children are the most important thing in my life,’” Yes, and they better be, because if they are not, you're in big trouble (legally) most of the time. But not all of the time. Which brings us to the reality of this oft exclaimed and strained self-confirmation by parents. Look around you, and tic off the number of adults (45+) you know who claim their parents were inattentive, cold-ish, there but not present, left me to my own devices, always at work. The lists are long and plentiful if people are honest. Of course nowadays we have about 3 generations, where their parents were/are overbearing, too much involved, too hands-on, overprotective, over indulgent, over the top. A mix of early Boomer progeny. Tiger Moms and their male partners (is there a name for them?) who coddled, pampered and pushed- yet didn't do any better a job raising their kids then those of the Boomers; the WW2gen parents.
Now we're seeing a dawning realization that procreating is not in itself fulfilling. Not when having kids is usually accidental, and ill-timed in both the married and unmarried. To be fulfilling the "thing" usually involves a series of events leading to that crescendo. Not a forgotten pill or ignored condom, where the error is confirmed with a blue indicator stick.
Again, look around you, tic off the number of parents you know who went from satisfied childless to, "Oh, this is what we're doing now...okay, buckle up."
Fulfillment is not inherent to procreation.
5
Because climate change. And ecological catastrophe.
4
Madam Sussman is indeed facing a problem. She asks, what are you doing about accommodating my life, my interests, and my desires, and how are you going to pay for my long term commitments and responsibilities?
Yes, I know this is key in the present zeitgeist. "Make it happen for me at your expense, or else,"
Endlessly pointing to small, homogeneous European countries about their nanny state policies has by now passed its 'sell by' date. These wonderful nations also tried to annihilate the planet twice in the previous 100 years, and stole over $100 trillion from colonies over previous 200 years. So you will excuse me for not thinking of them as some kinds of models for defining our existence.
Unless you want to discuss how you are going to pay for the choices I want to make about very expensive, long term commitments and responsibilities.
No? This is just about me paying for you?
Not interested. Move to France or Denmark.
2
A different perspective.
Reread 'A Brave New World'. Huxley was a eugenicist. In his 1931 book, sex was divorced from reproduction. People were 'created' and born artificially in a lab.
The wealthy and powerful have talked for centuries of controlling the masses. For centuries they did - much of mankind lived as slaves or serfs. Only in the 1700's did you have widespread talk of individual rights and government serving the people.
One can argue that some are working very hard to reinstate the old order of things. Sperm counts and female infertility rates are rising. In another 50 years it may be impossible to conceive naturally. What happens then?
1
My mother told us " Don't have children" and four out of five of us listened. The other had one late in life and now feels trapped. I'm not judging anyone on this issue.
4
This was a compassionate and beautifully written article. I would like to add that countries that are highly exposed to population control rhetoric for other people, are susceptible to falling birthrates for themselves. Denmark has invested heavily in population control in Africa. The United States constantly espouses the idea black and brown women have too many kids, that children born to single mothers are a burden to society. Germany, China, and other low birthrate nations all have a history of singling out some populations as needing to be controlled. Ironically, even the women whom these societies idealize and would like to see reproduce, are profoundly affected by their own culture’s desire to curtail the undesirable.
3
The world is already overpopulated at over 7 billion people, we have climate-change deniers who turn an apathetic eye to changing realities, raising a family is expensive, and people are tapped out from the constant barrage of stimuli. People have aging parents to take care of, there are work demands, and other responsibilities, plus many communities are experiencing the fragmentation. Is it any wonder that things are changing?
4
It is nothing new to see fertility decline with increased affluence. The emperor Augustus spent his entire reign trying to encourage the Roman upper classes to have more children. He even made an example of the poet Ovid by banishing him to the far reaches of the Black Sea after he mocked pregnancy.
However, in addition to the typical factors described in this article, the current aversion to children may reflect a rational, sober appreciation of the dystopia that awaits them at the end of this century. As a recent article in the NYT underscored, climate change is accelerating much more rapidly than the worst-case scenarios of just a decade ago. It will get worse. Governments around the world will respond to the inevitable social unrest and conflict with the Orwellian surveillance state that already exists in China today. Strip away the panglossian arguments for having children, only the selfish -- who need a child for personal validation or (I've heard this) as old-age insurance -- bring a child into the world today.
6
Socioeconomic and environmental consideration aside, fewer people parenting may be a good thing. Many damaged humans have resulted from bad parenting. The dearth of psychological education compounds other challenges of raising healthy individuals. The reproductive imperative serves as a convenient excuse for our failure to provide education for emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and successful family systems. Until we do so, we will continue to raise emotionally impaired individuals who perpetuate or tolerate environmental degradation, war, poverty, pervasive violence, greed, and corruption.
4
I read article after article bemoaning the decrease in birthrate and how alarming it should be that the growth of the human population may be moderating. I ask myself, what is wrong with these people? Then it occurred to me that the people who author these articles must be somehow connected, through funding probably since that is how so much "research" is generated, with commercial interests that depend on continued population growth to peddle there products, services or ideas.
Similarly, I think the percentage of the population that are dimwits remains constant but as the total population increases the number of dimwits increases.
3
Sorry but perpetuating DNA is not moral nor smart considering the fact that humans destroy everything in sight. God's green earth is brown and reaching terminal extension of life. Best to stop human exitance through natural process of reproductive demise and old age.
9
My mother's comment on not having grandchildren:
"If you don't have them, then you do not have to worry about them."
5
@Padonna My mother says the same. She's relieved that my brother and I have not had children.
5
No one is claiming to want children - this is the actual point. The yolk is off for us women. Deal. With. It.
We are free. We can and will do what we want or don’t want. This is what the last 50 years of the movement towards autonomy has been leading us to. THANK YOU for those that came before us and made the choice accessible to all of us women.
11
Really, who would want to bring a child into our future road warrior climate changed world?
6
Seven billion plus people currently trample the earth. We should applaud the prospect of fewer people.
14
"Has modern life become hostile to reproduction?"
Yes.
11
Not to mention that the planet cannot support full employment for the ever-growing population.
9
The number of people living on the planet continues to grow (currently about 1%/year).
There is no profound shortage of children in the world. There does seem to be a shortage of parents who are willing and able to care for them.
Adoption of children who need parents should not be something seen as a last resort, but rather an option every adult who has the resources to care for children should consider as a human duty. An option that is inadequately supported by national and international organizations that profess to care about the children who will lead the world in the next generation.
9
People are marvellous at assigning meanings where there is none. The idea that parenting connects people “to something uniquely dignified, worthwhile and transcendent” is one of them. Parental desire, or the fear of missing out on it, is merely the evolution wanting people to reproduce. No more/less than any other fear or desire that drives us to preseve self, gain advantage, copulate and reproduce. Even the neighborhood ally cats do it and the pigeons scurrying scraps on Time Square do it.
If selfless devotion to other beings is what brings meaning to you, there are ways to satisfy that other than adding to 7 billion and burn down the earth faster. As for the economy, Mr. Yang and others say that robots will make up for the short fall in human headcounts, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
6
This article or watching grand kids: sorry grand kids are more important!
5
Sussman does a pretty good job of covering the waterfront on attitudes toward raising kids, at least from a white, upper-middle-class perspective. After attempting to sort of blame our US society's lack of support structures, which her Netherlands example had already debunked, she gets down to brass tacks -- individualism. This is largely a modernist construct also enabled by womens ability to support themselves without a spouse. Nothing wrong with that. But society hasn't created a model of how to handle that along with the traditional needs of a society to reproduce. That, along with birth control which makes pregnancy a "woman's problem, also enables men to be free of responsibility. The other sad thing I pick up from the comments is "hopelessness." When that becomes part of a generations psyche, how will that ultimately play out? Are we headed for nihlism? Then what? Working to have a family is a belief, a hope, that there is a future of possibilities.
3
I have been amazed by the intolerance of supposedly enlightened individuals when it comes to making a choice to not have children. Our high pressure workplace often conducts seminars for employees on "work life balance." Interestingly, these consist of nothing more than 3 speakers,-- one who has as a child age 1-6, another who has a child age 7-12, and a final one who has a child age 13-20. One time I was perhaps accidentally invited to be on one of these panels (I don't have kids by choice of both me and my longstanding partner) and I gave a balanced discussion on how purposely not having kids can contribute to work life balance (opportunities to travel, limit environmental impacts, expression of personal choice). I was never invited back, though the other panel members continue in these frequent sessions. The people who put together these sessions often talk of how much they honor diversity, but I suspect that choosing to not have kids is an aspect of diversity that still needs to be processed even in California.
7
It's been estimated that a sustainable population for this earth is somewhere between one and two billion people.
Maybe our ovaries are trying to tell us something.
6
In an otherwise enjoyable article, the author’s comment, “ it became clear I craved genetic continuity, however fictitious and tenuous it might be,” struck me as odd. Genetic continuity is anything but fictitious, it’s a powerful evolutionary force that calls us to reproduce even in a troubled world with a multitude of reasons not to. To think that it is fictitious or can simply be turned off without further thought is profoundly incorrect.
6
Family structure has long been defined by social living conditions. We have moved from the tribal structure of hunter-gatherers to clans and the extended families needed by agricultural societies, to the "nuclear family" shaped by industry to the destruction of even that by the low-wage, high cost demands of a world where organized labor has been crushed. Now multiple paychecks dependent of odd work schedules are required rendering parenting a luxury for the well off. Combine this with the bleak future bequeathed to us by polluting industries in control of public policy and the reasons, much less the time, cost and insecurity off child-rearing become increasingly problematic.
2
In addition to all that's mentioned here (and it IS a lot stacked against childbearing,) the big impact of the internet on pairing off is not mentioned. With all the choices dating apps and pornography gives to young men these days, many no linger feel the urgency to find a mate (other than momentary satisfaction.) It's true some women trawl the same sites for the same reason, but it's historically a male heavy preoccupation. Men know they can have children till the day they die, so choose to wait. With divorce rates as high as they are and women still shouldering the burden of caretaking & financing having children (whether a man's in the picture or not,) it's no wonder women too, are happy to wait. It's inequality on the grandest of scales; indeed the oldest inequity in human history. Certainly not one to be reversed any time soon.
7
There is something inherently hostile in the culture of the workplace to family and children. Depending on the nature of the business and, more frequently, the character of its leadership, any relationship outside of the company may be regarded as an unwelcome distraction from the objective of enriching the boss or the shareholders, particularly where women are concerned. With men, a family and children become hostages to guarantee loyalty or, at least, obedience if one is to remain employed.
Motherhood has ended promising careers. Fatherhood has created hostages to fortune. Ambition has been allowed to create career paths with no resting places along the way.
This is our fault, brought about by the fear of losing out if the word “No” were to be uttered in the presence of authority. We have made money the overriding value of our culture to the expense of life itself. A reassessment of what is truly important to us is in order.
5
Oh for God's sakes we have all of these environmental problems and lower fertility rates is the main cure for an overcrowded planet. We need to get the world's population down to about 3 billion and we might do it in the next several hundred years with lower fertility if global climate change does not do it for us by other and more catastrophic means. We can worry about sustainable human populations in 2300.
13
In the old days, people had large families. But the Grim Reaper would take a big share of them before they ever grew to reproducing age. And those who did survive often did not survive for long. Plagues, famines and wars took their share of lives.
But one plus of all of this was that only the strongest survived and reproduced. Strengthening the DNA of the population as a whole. Today, with modern medical advances, children that would die in infancy or early childhood now survive, themselves reproduce, and their "defective" genes enter the human gene pool to advance to later generations.
This is a quandary of human existence that has no satisfactory solution at this time. We can medically repair the effect of a bad inherited trait, but the bad genes remain in the "repaired" person.
9
It is no surprise that our environmental crimes, 2D addictions, and enabling of anti-community violence is affecting the birth rate. As subsidiaries of a wholly-owned marketing and sales apparatus, our appetites have exceeded the supplies of a finite earth, and the result is not pretty.
But shouldn't we focus on fixing the world we are busy destroying before we get busy populating it?
Not long ago, we had not yet overpopulated (let alone looted and destroyed) our beautiful hospitable earth.
Here are some of the numbers:
1800 - 1 billion
127 years to 1927 - 2 billion
33 years to 1960 - 3 billion
14 years to 1974 - 4 billion
13 years to 1987 - 5
Then it leveled off: 12 years another billion at 1999, 2011, and projected 2023, up to 8 billion
The even more disgusting idea I've seen from the "conservative" side is that we should have more white upper-echelon (based on wealth) babies. Sad and grotesque.
First fix the earth, and stop the toxic waste and dumping. Stop the profiteering at the top on the backs of people not paid a living wage with benefits. Then we will earned the right to complain that we've poisoned our habitat and it's a problem for making babies.
Enough!
7
The best news on our planet is declining birth rates. I hope I live long enough to see the third wold participate.
12
Overpopulation is at the root of every environmental problem on this planet. How many human beings can Earth support? How many? 8, 9, 10 trillion? How many people can this planet support? Zero population growth is ideal, but that will never happen. Human beings have no self-control, no self discipline, no compunction about adding weight to the carrying capacity the natural world provides humanity to sustain life. Producing children is a selfish endeavor with no thought about the environmental consequences of your behavior. What we face today is an Easter Island scenario. Do a little research and discover for yourself how Easter Island turned out.
8
In my opinion there are already ten times the number of humans on this planet that the Earth can sustainably support.
10
I’m all for people making the fertility choices that suit them - I have three children, so for better or worse, my wife and I have contributed positively to global population growth - but trying to manipulate fertility rates through social engineering is IMO always a mistake. The tendency of birth rates to decline in tandem with increasing economic development has been a welcome brake on global climate change. Is it really good idea to increase the rate of population growth in Western Europe or Japan or the USA when every baby born there will consume orders of magnitude more fossil fuel than babies born in the developing world?
If Denmark is hurting for kids to fill its schools and young workers to fill its factories and fast food restaurants, all it has to do is let more people in from elsewhere.
(BTW, last year I met a couple of Danish Iraqi men [Iraqi Danish?] We had all three turned down the wrong ski trail and wound up on the wrong, completely abandoned side of the mountain. They led me cross-country back to their lodge and gave me a ride back to the main lifts. They identified themselves first of all as Danish, and it was only as we talked further that I understood they were of Muslim, Arab backgrounds. If Denmark has a problem with that, then Denmark has a bigger problem than low birth rates.)
10
The Mormon / Hasidic / Mennonite groups mentioned that buck the trend by having a lot of children have a few things in common: repression of women, emphasis on religious education, closed off communities, and in many cases, extreme poverty. It doesn't sound like a great "alternative value system", more like a "medieval value system".
16
The world has an overpopulation of Humans. This is one of the major reasons for climate change.
More people, more cars, more 4 legged animals to feed them, more gas guzzling jet skis, boats, airplanes, lawn mowers, snowmobiles, more factories, more other things that people think they need which cause pollution of air, water, and land.
And more babies that are going to live in this undesirable overpopulated world.
10
As far as I'm concerned, to willingly bring a child to life, so the child can live in THESE times, where the political (and actual!) climate is hot and heating up further fast, is to abuse the child.
On the upside, they CAN be taught to never, EVER vote for anyone like the loser when they hit that age, so they'd cancel out one of the Republicans who are all-but-guaranteed both to vote and to have and indoctrinate their own kids. *shrugs*
1
When women control their own bodies, they choose to have fewer babies. They don't owe this author, or anyone, explanations or apologies.
This is not an excellent article.
10
I feel the need to point out that these “alternative values communities with higher birth rates”, one example was Hasidism, those values are ‘severely stunting a girl’s education, marrying her very young like right at 18, sometimes to a much older man, and the use of birth control being frowned upon or only used after consulting an authority figure in the community- likely only approved after the couple already had several children.’ so that might explain the higher birth rates there.
10
...and this is a problem because? the earth is breaking under the weight of humans. fewer people should be a goal.
9
Why would I want to bring children into a world of disinformation, inequality, corporate greed, gun violence, hate, and climate change?
8
This is not a world that loves children. One only has to watch the news to see them being bombed, sex trafficked, neglected, torn from their parents arms, and made sick by pollutants and diseases, while religious leadership of all sorts concerns itself with women's sex lives and fetuses. Let's concern ourselves with conditions under which the world's children are living *now*. And craving "genetic continuity"? Good grief! The only good reason to have a child is that you desperately want to parent one. With all that that entails. Despite the hellish problems of the world, it's a supremely satisfying experience.
4
Parenting is often regarded as a "selfless" act. Yet, in an increasingly overburdened planet, having children (especially in First World countries) is one of the most selfish things a pair of humans can do...
6
I applaud the writer for understanding that for those that want children, thinking about how to build a holistic society that meets people's needs--including the need to feel the species of humans will survive--is vital. We do need to reduce the human population, but as Sussman points out, cruelty is not the way to do it. I also wonder how much this feeds into the fears of white supremacists.
Humans are not an endangered species.
5
I have 2 grown children. They are my best friends. I'm glad that my wife and I had them. I'm glad I had a wife to help raise them.
7
We need to reduce the world's human population especially in affluent product consuming countries as one important way to stave off the catastrophic effects of global warming. Countries which have low birth rates can replenish their populations by opening their doors to millions of refuges and economic immigrants. There is absolutely no shortage of people in the world.
6
In an unintended way, it seems that capitalism has evolved into the greatest contraceptive of all.
7
The world over population is slowly strangling the life out of the planet.
This writers inclination to not have children is intellectually sound.
Her nagging emotional motivation to save eggs and have children is a throw back to her genetic makeup.
As an American she would be wise to follow her own research and advice and not have children.
If she has the eggs fertilized she would be wise to also follow her research and have them in another country like Denmark, Sweden, or Norway.
I’m sorry she couldn’t find her lost watch!
2
Declining birthrates and in some "advanced" nations like the US, declining longevity. What's there to live for? Who needs more peas-in-the-pod corps?
2
If falling birthrates help to destabilize late capitalism, that's a double positive: fewer people and less exploitation. Oh, and a healthier planet; triple play!
6
Would it be a bad thing if the worlds population went down..especially in wealthy nations?
5
Throughout time, people have faced dire challenges (environmental, economic, social) that have caused birth rates to ebb and flow. I think what is different today (past 50 years) is the degree of the those challenges (particularly economics and climate change) and our ability to adapt lifestyles in response.
This website link has some really interesting information regarding the "habitable planet". https://www.learner.org/courses/envsci/unit/text.php?unit=5&secNum=1
Climate change is going to lead to incredible migration from infertile and flooded areas. Where will these millions of people go? Clearly, there is no benefit to families of 6 nd 7 kids in the poor areas of the world. They will suffer the most. Here in the richer countries, we are already below reproduction rates that will keep our populations from growing. We will need to add migrants or see our countries shrink. The future does not encourage large family size.
3
As a parent of many kids, might I suggest that you can have it all — just not all at once. I love fishing. I didn’t fish for years until, guess what, the kids were old enough to learn. Now we fish all the time. I say “we”, but it’s really “they”. I’m there, but they’re young, so I mainly supervise, and tutor (and keep the peace). Of course, it isn’t nearly as much “fun” as going on my own. It’s actually a lot of work. But it is far more satisfying, interesting, and worthwhile. Eventually, they won’t need me anymore! You know what? That sounds awful. But we’ll adapt. Same with sports, reading, etc. People should do what they want, but humans have been making and raising babies for hundreds of thousands of years. You know how to do it, and as a lifelong adventure, you can’t beat it.
5
Father of an only child here. Our beautiful daughter was enough for us. Why not encourage immigration to wealthy and underpopulated places from countries where families still have children?
4
Less people is a good thing, and does it really matter who ends up winning the baby race? It doesn't matter to me... I also think family planning should be a worldwide effort and would solve a lot of our pollution, infrastructure, global warming issues, animal extinction issues, job/ food shortages, landfill issues just to name a few. Simple birth control.
6
For all the people who claim not having children is good for the environment, I have this to ask: if people who care about the planet don't have children, who do you think will inherit the Earth?
2
@John The rich. They're well on their way.
1
I will not bring a child into the world where people like Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump control vast amounts of power over the toxic waste dump the Baby Boomers left us.
The world's population will be reduced. We can do it ourselves, or we can let disease, war, and famine do it for us. I have little doubt that the worst will happen; at this point I can only hope I'm dead when it does.
3
Excellent article and insight into parenthood for today's world. I am concerned about the long-term outlook for our planet and for my children and grandchildren. However, humans are adaptable, and I hope that future adaptations can properly address our environmental and resource inadequacies and assure that we continue as a species.
Having children is a sacrifice, but one that is worth it overall. The most rewarding and happiest part of my life was being a parent of little ones and watching all the possibilities in the world light up in their eyes. I say, " Go for it" and enjoy the experience. Do not spend the rest of your life regretting not having children.
4
Thoughtful questions in this article but there is an even more important question: Why should the nations of an overpopulated earth, dying of human abuse, encourage an increase in population? The conditions described in this article, it can be argued, arise from overpopulation--such as rising inequality in the mean struggle for the resources we need to live.
5
The answer is easy and obvious: economic insecurity. People don’t trust that they can fully provide for their children anymore. Everything costs so much anymore while wages remain stagnant. Both parents have to work so you have to have childcare and all other attendant costs. If even one parent loses their job the family is destitute. Few people have any real savings to fall back on because they can never get ahead. Even relatively high income earners can’t trust that they’ll stay in that position. Only the truly wealthy are secure and cared for anymore in our system.
2
Hmm...Double Income (no time). Preschool, daycare, au pairs. Camps. College. Carpools. Two arms. Limited resources in a modern world: choices must be made, and the more children you have seems to require limiting the opportunities of all.
3
You think discourse about population control is “insidious”? We have already far outstripped the earth’s carrying capacity. We are driving countless species to extinction. If there is a way forward for humanity, it will involve vastly decreased numbers. It would be nice if that happened gradually and by choice but I’m afraid it’s too late. Humans are adaptable, we hear—and we will adapt (at least for a while) by the weak and unlucky dying by the millions. Fun times for the kids.
10
The End of Babies? Hopefully. The human species fails the smell test. Work for the preservation of the other species on earth. They have all the positive attributes the humans do not. The planet has a future,without humans.
8
Try the rising costs associated with having children and declining real income for most Americans.
4
Re the 'gap' (in developed countries) between desired vs actual #'s of children, recall the numerous (and often huge) gaps between pre-election polls vs actual election outcomes (from Dewey-Truman through Clinton-Trump) -> people lie to pollsters (and to themselves) about their intentions. Were I to choose (again) in today's world, for the sake of the unborn, no way would I opt for children: the world has no good future; and many others feel the same (but don't say so out loud). Good piece however with lots to consider.
1
We are living in a world that has become a Red Queen's Race: you have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are. If you want to understand why people may not be getting around to having children, one reason that has to be looked at is the rise of inequality.
Upward mobility is becoming static; one reason for having children is the expectation that they will have a better life than you do. That's increasingly unlikely for so many reasons in addition to the economic ones.
Given the growing failure of our political systems to address the challenges facing us as species, it's possible to speculate that the failure to have children is, at some level, a recognition that we are in real trouble and are headed for a world where trying to raise children will be an exercise in futility.
The final episode of the TV show "Dinosaurs" is looking strangely prescient. Greed and short-term thinking led to their extinction. We have yet to show we can do better.
https://youtu.be/k9b9aoINXzk
Homo sapiens are one of the few species to inhabit a globe spanning ecological system. The system is at a breaking point, and it is pushing back. This is not good or bad, it's simply ecological equilibrium in action.
5
The personal touch in the last few paragraphs of this excellent piece was appreciated.
The author might be criticized (here in the comments) for those sentiments betraying the same narcissism or selfishness that the she herself has traditionally been skeptical of.
Out of sensitivity to friends without kids (i.e. my not wanting to be a pompous jerk), I normally only relay this anecdote to other parents: Five years ago, when we were a few months into parenthood, a family friend and parent of one grown kid greeted me at her home and asked, “So how does it feel to have joined the human race?“
I would never have considered the notion on my own, but it made sense when she said it.
There are, of course, plenty of people who should not be parents, but I believe a majority us (in larger numbers than are reproducing today) are cut out for it. And rise to it.
Most of are here, reading this newspaper and contemplating bigger things, thanks to someone joining the human race.
5
Why is a birth rate below replacement level viewed as a bad thing? The only way in which it causes problems is in the economy and tax system, and those can be adjusted for the new normal. We do not need to be on a march to 10 billion population. Having global population decline a bit would actually be a good thing.
5
Some of us just plain don't like children. Period. On top of that, there are too many effects of social engineering to even presume one can raise a child without the Internet and Disneyfication intruding. If I had a daughter who was princess and Barbie obsessed, I would want to re-home her.
7
"Denmark’s fertility rate has been below replacement level — that is, the level needed to maintain a stable population — for decades."
With almost 9 Billion human beings residing on the planet, displacing almost all other species on that same planet, I would think we would be celebrating countries who recognize that population growth is not sustainable.
Kudo's to Denmark. Somebody can see reality in that country.
The very last thing the closed environment called earth needs is more home sapiens.
5
This is fantastic news! This planet simply cannot sustain more people. We need population reduction, and we ought not worry about a lack of people. The stable condition of this planet is about one billion people. We currently have eight times that number and the earth is literally dying.
9
The answer is not money if it were Danes would have a higher birth rate than poor countries. The reality is that having and rearing children falls on females. Raising children is hard and though gratifying is not expansive. The more educated, free and having the power to choose reduces the desire to have children.
2
The article does not go into the biological issues, such as the 50% decrease in male sperm count over the last 40 years (see articles such as in The Atlantic, below). Although there may well be a matter of individual choices involved, our very “human” environment, full of pollutants including artificial lighting, drugs, plastics and pesticides, clearly have a role to play in making it harder to have babies even if we want to. Unfortunately it is not always up to individuals, and I would like to read more about the troubling systemic issues limiting our options so that we can also address them.
https://www.google.fr/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/572794/)
1
Making more people isn't the answer. Making more "citizens" is about politics and power, not what's best for the planet as a whole. There are far too many people on the planet as it is. We are killing ourselves as we pollute our air and water, kill forests to plant crops, and obliterate nature.
I chose not to have children, and I worry about my siblings' children who are now having children of their own. What kind of a world are they being brought into? Plastics in our water supply (and in all of our bodies), few fish in the ocean, dying bees, disappearing birds, industries that profit off the destruction of forests that provide animals with natural habitats and the world with oxygen. Open land seen as an opportunity to mine and build on instead of something to preserve. We have to stop. Make fewer people.
7
I’m sorry but this essay started out well but then wandered and waffled. By her own account, the happiest and most privileged among us, the Danes, are as lackluster fertility wise as Americans. It makes more sense to think of the reduced birthrate as the product of idealistic materialism, corporatism, and the bourgeoise obsession with control, planning and safety .
You and you and you and I are going to die. You and I want to feel truly alive and connected to life before we die. To taste anew what we felt when we were innocent children. Small warm bodies and the regularity and struggles of child rearing. If you feel something like that then you probably need to have a kid. If not, you probably don’t.
2
What a fantastic piece of writing.
I believe we are subtly "nudged" by realizing, as we look around, that we don't need more people. We are so overpopulated everywhere. And in poorer countries resources are so dear that avoiding procreation is, frankly, an economic and psychologic relief from more daily stress of simply getting by. In richer countries we can indulge ourselves by not having to indulge time in child rearing. Selfish? Not at all. The never born are not inconvenienced. And so, in turn, neither are we. Cold, but true. Again, we just don't need them all.
3
Now age 69 I decided age 16 to never have my own children
No regret
I married a widow with 6 year old
That child, now 49 and I are very close and my chosen family
I disowned my actual family
I fear for my Draft Age grandchildren
4
It's a topic that needs thoughtful consideration. So many factors at play so this is a good opener.
Lower birth rates will not mean fewer people, or even an end to population growth.
We still average more than two biological offspring per person.
2
You don't mention the an obvious reason for declining birthrates. Climate change may well make the world virtually uninhabitable. You want your children to live in such a world? In any case, declining birthrates in the rich countries is very good news. Climate refugees will have places to go and the rich should welcome the new work force.
1
"But Denmark’s fertility rate, at 1.7 births per woman, is roughly on par with that of the United States. A reproductive malaise has settled over this otherwise happy land "
Maybe that's *why* they're happy! Ever think of that?
6
at the end of the day, there are far too many people on the planet; your realization is fine; but let's have our growth past individualism extend to growth past nativism and nationalism and accept the already living into our communities and our hearts, however far they may have traveled to get there and no matter their color, religion, or sexual orientation.
3
It astounds me that some believe lack of reproduction is a problem. Are we willing to destroy the planet in order to support unrealistic social welfare systems? Humanity is a Ponzi scheme, pure and simple, relying on more and more people to support previous generations. Where will it end?
3
By the way, would this author and others writing and talking about not having children please use the term childfree instead of childless?
Childless implies a deficiency by not having children.
Childfree implies the active decision to not have children as in exercising free will.
2
Dropping fertility rates are a good thing.
The human race is in zero danger of dying out due to not having enough babies.
However, each successive generation is going to get a less fertile, less supportive planet unless we undergo significant population reduction. Humans consume more resources than the planet can provide. The best case scenarios for reducing percapita environmental footprint of the wealthiest two billion will not come close to covering the increased percapita resource consumption of the bottom 5 billion.
Instead of asking ”whats wrong with Denmark”. We should be asking how to encourage responsible family planning that doesn’t contribute to over extraction of the planets resources.
With regards to reducing the uneven burden that women bear in procreation, Denmark abd Sweden give good examples of how to improve all citizens access to having children.
3
The writer seems to be living on a different planet - certainly not the planet with a stark overpopulation problem. A planet with a human population soon approaching 9 Billion. Humans are reproducing at an unsustainable rate - stripping the earth of its finite natural resources and causing the mass extinction of countless species. We are setting ourselves up for an eventual devastating population crash through climate destruction, loss of arable land, loss of potable water, increasing wars caused by worldwide social and political instability, desperate mass immigration and global epidemics. Meanwhile the writer moans over a drop in the US birth rate? Either Sussman is not from this planet or she is not living in the real world.
5
Considering the fact that human overpopulation of the planet is probably the single greatest contributor to global warming, this author might try to think a bit beyond her sentimental myopia and consider the benefits of a declining world population.
Nice to have kids, and also nice to have a viable planet they can live on. So if you want to have one, consider adopting. There are plenty who need a parent.
6
Why reproduce and create more serfs--read that as consumers, UBI-recipients, workers with declining opportunities or whatever--for a global economic system devolving back to feudalism.
4
Yet another attempt to shame people (particularly women) who don't want children.
Now it's 'capitalist individualism' to blame. Years ago, it was 'evil feminists' who wanted women to have the same workplace opportunities as men.
How about we learn to adjust, as every society before us has, to demographic shifts and changing values? We're at one of the first points in history when women have unprecedented rights and freedom, and I'm dumbfounded that someone is alleging we are now too free.
4
The most intelligent woman I know didn't have any babies until she and some friends put together a 'child raising co-op' where several couples got together, bought a large property and had their babies all at once.
The single couple family is the hard way to do it. I'll bet the the difficulty frightens away many prospective parents. It takes a village.
The conclusion implies that adoption isn't enough. Why is that? I have two adopted children and I can say with certainty that it is enought. Love trumps DNA.
4
This was an exceptionally provocative article, but looking toward the 2020 election, two other core issues inextricably intertwined with the author’s opinions, that weren’t really covered, will most likely decide the election: abortion and homosexuality. For a man nearing 82 years, I don’t expect to be taken seriously; in fact, I’ve almost gotten used to being ignored, or even harshly criticized, however, the upcoming election is too important for even me to not try to get women to vote for woman, or at least a man who doesn’t incessantly use lacerating speech against women and try to dictate policies crippling them. He’s a misogynist, but women voted for him in the last election, perhaps because they could not break out from the way they’ve always been treated.
Now, here’s the hard part, politically – don’t make abortion and homosexuality the only answers to this misogyny or he will win again. Simply, it’s not abortion only – it’s the woman’s right to choose, even if it isn’t abortion. Fully accepting homosexuality doesn’t stop homophobia, it’s welcoming that the couples have the right to find their mate, gay or straight, that will curb hatred.
Anna Louise Sussman article can be a great motivator in getting more people to make the right choices in 2020.
It's very difficult to raise a child without much of a community. The saying 'It takes a village' is so true. I don't know how I could do it alone, I've leaned so hard on my husband, family and neighbors for support with my two young children, for physical and emotional help. What if you live in San Francisco and your family is in Denver? Who even knows their neighbors these days? It may be that the dissolution of the physical village is as much to blame as anything. The kind of moral support required by a sleepless new parent is more than social media can provide.
1
As a parent of five children, four who are in their twenties, I see they do not have the same values as we did. Only one is dating and the others do not even care to date. They seem to be only interested on the online world and their lives revolve around the computer. They hardly care about the outside world in their neighborhood. They are pajama bound all day on their computers if they are not at work. Having a child is the furthest thing on their mind as is trying to find a relationship so it seems.
That being said, I'm not ready to be a grandparent either. I feel like I'm still raising my twenty something year-olds. And even furthermore, aren't we an overpopulated world? Maybe this is a good thing for our society, being able to take care of the children we are ready for.
2
Interesting to see that most of the commenters who deride this article have no children. To them I would say, you have no idea what you're missing. There's a reason people transform their lives after children. It's not because of a sense of duty or societal pressures. It's because there's nothing that comes close to being as fulfilling as having a child. Nothing.
355
@Mike, although I thoroughly agree with you, having accidentally stumbled into childbirth at age thirty-nine, and realizing that, not only do I love it, but I'm pretty good at it, parenting isn't something that should be recommended. I'd say if someone doesn't feel the urge to parent, don't. Just don't.
227
@Mike I don't think most of those without children are commenting out of ridicule or derision but rather looking compassionately and with clear eyes at the current stateof our world - where species go extinct every day and refugees are on the rise from lack of water and rising seas.
As Jonas Salk said "Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors." But one can be an ancestor and have no biological children. And indeed with our current escalating environmental crisis, it is looking more responsible not to procreate. There are plenty of children who need care. One can volunteer at a school or rec center or homeless shelter. One can foster or adopt children. One can help with nieces and nephews. All of these are fulfilling as well as necessary. And if one has no biological children, one can do that more freely.
177
@Mike I know exactly what I'm missing. I missing the wonderful experience of being stuck in a job I despise but must stay in "because of the children."
205
Thanks to the author for her thorough and thoughtful investigation and for her bravery in putting her own story into the mix. Even as a commenter, I have not wanted to tell my own story on this very personal topic.
I think the author is spot-on with the idea that values have shifted big time, for the middle class all around the world, and that the new mores are getting the education, getting the job, making money and traveling and buying things. Having children is no longer valued or a priority, but rather they are seen as a roadblock. I think this outlook sums up how many young middle class people feel nowadays, my own two daughters included. Who knew this would be the outcome when we Boomers raised our kids in the free to be me, consumeristic and secular culture of the last century? This century is just the same, even more so, with the added awfulness of that pervasive feeling of doom regarding the welfare of the planet. Hate to be so pessimistic, but there it is!
3
What is stopping us?
Money, that's what. There was a time when I could support my stay-at-home wife and young child, and even save a little, on a warehouse stock-clerk's income. That was 55 years ago, but those days are gone forever. It's impossible for most families to make it without two incomes, and a lot of debt. Given the high cost of living, especially the astronomical costs of medical care and education, having children is a luxury.
3
We are probably way above the carrying capacity of the planet. Shrinking our population and learning to have an economy that can exist without growth will be critical for the survival of our species and the planet. We can do that the easy way with smaller families, or the hard way through war and starvation.
3
It’s a no brainer really. In hunting gathering and subsistence agriculture cultures, children were a necessity. They added to the pool of labor at an early age. Also as they worked alongside their parents they learned the necessary survival skills. Now children are a pure economic burden. They contribute almost nothing to family survival and most economic skills are taught to them by a series of teachers. Multi generation families, the type that really helps human bonding are an endangered species. The family is now a unit of economic consumption and no longer a unit of economic production. So there is less economic or social satisfaction in having a large family. And as far as human population needing to be decreased? That’s long overdue. Common sense says the earth at some point will limit it.
8
We live in a finite world, and capitalism is distributing our finite resources away from young people. However, achieving a lower birth rate without resorting to coercion is reason for celebration.
3
I appreciate the article, and having children is a delicate issue which is always personal.
However, the repeated blaming of "late capitalism" is weak and simplistic. The world s is always where it is, and concerns are very real around climate change, safety, water etc. But facts show that life in OECD countries today is better than at any time in history. Our expectations have risen dramatically. That's good, because we can do much better. But we all lose sight of how good we have it, materially.
If I do not want to have children because I fear a future in which climate change will destroy us, that is my right. 50 years ago, my reason would have been guaranteed nuclear annihilation. 30 years prior was the Great Depression or a world in which the Holocaust happened.
For millennia (and today in many places), people have been (are) having children when much more tangible, widespread and intense problems have been assured (semi-starvation, constant warfare, likely childhood mortality, slavery, subjugation of women, etc.). They knew full well what life would be like for their children, but had them anyway (voluntarily or involuntarily).
Our very prosperity has created new realities and pressures. But humans still pursue their own happiness in the confines of the choices that are available. For much of human history, that meant having lots of kids. Now, other goals and priorities and possibilities have arisen. But we are still making the choices.
2
The world is grossly over-populated with Homo sapiens. This is the root cause of the environmental destruction leading to a dead planet. It is also the cause of a social system that elevates a few wealthy males over a mass of poor that must exploit every inch of Earth in order to perpetuate continuous growth and mass existence. It is better to have globally planned population size for this planet. Birth control hurts no living thing. An ideal world population for Homo sapiens is probably about 100 million people.
3
I am so glad I never particularly wanted kids; this article lays bare the harsh, painful choices and acute anxiety faced by those who do. It's pretty awful.
1
Certainly one of the more illuminating essays on the topic. Perhaps I'm too far down the trail of solastalgia, as I can no longer perceive any good from having a child. All of the reasons elucidated here by Ms. Sussman are contributors, but I've also come to believe as a thoroughly secular person that original sin is a real thing. What abomination of a creature would wantonly destroy its own home? Us, apparently.
There is nothing more noble on an individual human level than choosing not to reproduce. It is the only viable way to begin to ask for forgiveness from Mother Nature -- a forgiveness which we decidedly do not deserve.
Attaching a dollar figure to the experience of parenting has resulted in childrearing as an expression of wealth. Having 3 or more kids in NYC is the ultimate narcissistic status symbol and trend of the entitled.
2
All you really need to do in order to understand why having 2.5 kids is exceptionally ignorant is visit a high-poverty elementary school the day kids go back after Christmas break. The level of hunger these kids display will break your heart.
I am 37 and I intend to adopt kids because I think it is ultimately selfish to keep adding people to this planet when so many kids are hungry and when so many have parents who are addicted to drugs and cannot take care of them. Some schools have more foster kids than kids who live with parents or relatives. We can’t keep overlooking this. Oh, but we will. The gap between the haves and the have nots continues to expand.
But there *are* people putting their perfect families together — many — the selfish, spoiled people (such as my brother and SIL who are having a third child even though they already expect my parents to help them financially and drop whatever they’re doing to babysit). My mom was retired from teaching, and she went back to work part-time simply to have an excuse not to be a full time babysitter because my brother is the type who just shows up unannounced expecting a babysitter so he can go hunting. The sexism makes me livid but I digress...
Do they care about climate change? No. Do they care about the millions of needy children in this country? No. We are living in what I call the “Me Decade on Steroids” where the main ones churning out kids are immature, spoiled, and feel the need to keep up with the Facebook Joneses.
6
Keep saving your money because you will definitely need it to raise a potential child and/or likely need it to pay for your own caretaking in your old age, in our graying country's future. Anti-immigration folks need to understand that these younger hardworking, family oriented folks from south, east and west of the border will be the ones you call when you've fallen and can't get up. The days of daughters and sons willingly, dutifully caring for sick and aging family members is fading fast for reasons that require a separate discussion.
2
All these reasons that the author gives as to why people are having fewer children just points to how risk adverse we have become. Yes having children is a challenge, but what is life without challenges. Challenge is built into the human condition. If we are gong to seek perfection before plunging into life, nothing of value will ever be accomplished. To paraphrase a traditional Jewish approach to life: knowing that your actions may not result in the desired good does not absolve you from its pursuit ( “justice, justice shall you pursue.”)
1
I have two amazing kids. My husband and I both have to work full time to make ends meet. We struggled with secondary infertility and paid thousands of dollars to have our second child. I will always be sad we did not have a third child. But there is just no way we could afford it. So it all comes down to the almighty dollar- money is the reason my family is not as big as I had wanted.
1
As someone who works in clean energy (solar and building and system retrofits), I think it is incredibly insensitive to tell women it is bad for the planet to have kids. It is a"modern" way to discriminate against women; especially hard to hear coming from fellow feminists. Some people have an innate desire for children and shouldn't be shamed for that because the entire population has made poor choices regarding the long-term care of our planet. In my experience most people who say they aren't having kids for the good of the planet don't really want kids anyway.
I'm in my mid-30s and my husband and I are expecting our first baby in June. We have employer sponsored health insurance and access to good care, and are within an hour of both of our families. There is only one decent daycare near us that takes infants, and there is a long waiting list that I would have had to sign up for before getting pregnant (which was impossible because it didn't happen right away), and it is $200/week (this is in a rural community in a rural state, not a rich big city). I just found out that even with our decent health insurance our delivery costs are going to be $5,000, not including all the prenatal stuff beforehand. Yes, even with the *minimal* things the ACA requires be covered. When the insurance company told me I started crying. And I still have student loans (I work in nonprofit). Even for those who truly want a child and are in the "right" position, US policies make it SO HARD.
7
@Maine Girl
I agree it is wrong to suggest that people not fall in love and want to have children.
But those children will have a hard time (as will you, you're young enough) if we don't get together and solve our multiple environmental problems. This is a steep uphill climb.
Having a child will make this more important to you.
Good luck!
2
It takes a special kind of thinking to recognize the selfishness of the Me Generation and then turn it into a screed against the very system that enables that selfishness. They don't want to interrupt their comfortable and fun lives to take on the responsibility of raising children; fine, that's a choice -- an uninformed and narcissistic choice, but their choice. And the problem, according to the author, is that capitalism has been so successful at providing the opportunity to make that choice that it needs to be discarded and replaced with -- maybe some less effective system at allocating resources that will require these me, me, me folks to follow a different path? Like I said, very strange thinking process.
2
Environmental toxins, costs, climate future. Why would a responsible adult want to bring a child into that?
6
Don't have kids if you don't want to, but let's bust a few myths here.
"Sacrifice"—There are things you have to do, but they're not sacrifices. If your mate has a bad evening, you may "sacrifice" your enjoyment to try to help, but you don't scream, "Oh, God, the sacrifices I make!" If you care about the other person, you WANT to do what helps them thrive.
Money—Don't get nuts about this. Day care was the hardest cost for me, but the rest is flexible. (So what if you have to share a one-bedroom with your kid for a number of years?)
Genetics—in the long run, you'll forget all about this. (I'm an adoptive mom.) Having a kid involves so much more, for so many years.
Really, you don't need perfection.
I went to Japan to look for work in the 2008 recession and didn't find any. My kid missed a few months of fourth grade. OH WHAT A HORRIBLE MOM! But she's 18 now, and that many-months span of living there is one of the highlights of our life together.
Be creative. Find a way. Teach your kids what's to be learned from life, not just books. I'm an adoptive single mom. I had a pile of money when I started out to have a kid, but sickness and recession took it all. But it's been just fine in child-rearing terms. Life is an adventure, and no matter how well you think you've planned it out, stuff happens.
Love and improvisation are necessities. Perfection isn't.
8
If I were in the ether, not yet a human soul, I wouldn't want to come to this planet of unbridled capitalism. Capitalism is slavery for those who are capitalized upon, unless we have fair, living wages, reproductive support through health care and child care, quality affordable education. Degrading our environment the way way have proves we don't value life. Why would anyone want to bring life into a place that doesn't value it???
4
The astonishing thing is that in an age of contraception, having children is as popular as it is. Children are a heavy financial burden, they require huge amounts of time and attention, and are often difficult. I never envy the mother or father of a screaming child in a store, the mother jostling to carry a double stroller onto and off of a subway, or a kicking and screaming child into a car seat, or lugging a sleeping 6-year-old home from a play date. My wife and I always look at each other and say, “don’t you want one of those?” And with people paying off college loans into their fifties, preschools that cost $50,000 a year, Republicans wanting to destroy public education, medical insurance that costs $13-14k per child per year, dental costs of up to $7,000 per child per year, the skyrocketing costs of family sized housing, you have to be in the $250,000 and up bracket to raise a middle class child. Even corporate executives and movie stars worth many millions have been caught bribing their children’s way into prestigious colleges. This does not make raising a child to adulthood look like a doable thing for a twenty or thirty something with hundreds of thousands of dollars of college debt of their own.
Then there is one’s own genetic pool to consider. I have addiction, depression, in my gene pool; others have cancer genes, and other lurking troubles they may not relish the idea of passing on.
5
The world has always had reasons not to bring a child into it. The author demonstrates that people are not worried about the human race going extinct. People worry about their own bloodlines going extinct.
2
This is exquisite writing. In an article about reproduction, you've given me (a gay man in his late twenties) much to mull over as I evaluate my career, my dating life, and my path to late adulthood. Lately I've felt this yearning that I can best liken to a mix of loneliness and the realization that I'm not working towards anything tangible. It's never occurred to me that a lack of interdependent living, be it through a relationship, a dependent, or a general sense of community, is now starting to wear through the veneer of a comfortable career and lifestyle that I've worked hard to obtain. I look forward to exploring that realization further.
3
"The first step is renouncing the individualism celebrated by capitalism and recognizing the interdependence that is essential for long-term survival."
Darwin never said "Survival of the fittest.", he actually spoke about 'survival of which fits'. By which he meant, the species that can best work together to overcome the obstacles in their path has the best long term chance for survival. Too bad humanity is too stupid, selfish, and atavistic to make that actually occur.
Looking at the way the world has been going for the past century it's clear we - as a species - are not long for this world. By 2050 the population will be 10 billion'ish. We can't even look after the majority of on this rock right now. Many believe we've already entered an extinction level event that will increase exponentially over the next three decades to the point that the planet's ecosystems experience a complete cascade failure resulting in a Malthusian crisis and WWIII over the last remaining resources.
Even if those things weren't looming over us like the sword of Damocles - and they are - the economic inequality - increasingly getting worse everywhere - would preclude the majority of people from having children - or more than one or two - anyway. And, at the end of the day, there's simply way too many people - and too many on the way. The global population must be savagely curtailed if all life, not just humanity, is to survive.
3
Well written article addressing many good points. But ultimately we are headed toward destruction of our civilization because we are not doing enough to address climate change. I think we need to view all our decisions through that lense. Will our decisions help that challenging situation? Adding more children to this dire situation where we already have billions more than the planet can sustainably maintain would not be a helpful decision. I am glad that a growing number are choosing not to have children.
6
People don't have children in times of economic and political uncertainty.
That's while birth rates drop during economic downturns and during political changes. Russia saw a massive drop in births when the Soviet Union fell.
The problem is that economic uncertainty is the norm today. You can't depend on any employer lasting for the length of your career. Even if they last, your position might not. No matter how good you are at what you do you, you can get laid off.
Inflation is far outpacing wages. Two incomes are a necessity for raising a family now. A working class job that once supported a family will leave one person homeless today.
7
Smartphones and other features of modern life have made people more self-centered, which is reflected in declining birthrates.
Right now, some people should be making a baby instead of reading this.
2
Whatever it is, keep at it. We need to reduce this planet's burden voluntarily, before the planet reduces it for us.
I made my choice long ago: vasectomy. No regrets.
7
How does having 1.7 babies instead of the desired 2.3 equate to "The END of Babies?" Sounds like disingenuous hyperbole and a fabricated crisis to me. If anything, as many commenters have pointed out already, the crisis is overpopulation. Yet Sussman gaslights a "discourse on population" as "insidious?"
11
Declining fertility rates are not only occurring in the West and East Asia. A 2018 study showed that fertility rates in the Middle East have dramatically declined in the past 30 years.
https://marciainhorn.com/wp-content/uploads/Inhorn_published.pdf
1
Some excellent points in this article by a potential mother, really enjoyed it. And yet, something seemed lacking. The perspective of the fathers, and not just potential ones.
4
The number one reason in this country for fewer babies can be summed up in one word: Obamacare.
The ACA required HC plans, all HC plans, to offer women's contraception with no co pay.
With better access to contraception, we have fewer pregnancies.
You know what else we have fewer of? Abortions, which are at half the level they were in 2006 and at the lowest level since the pre-Roe era.
No sticking medical devices up a woman's privates to make her watch; no blowing up abortion clinics; no TRAP laws; no harassing frightened women seeking clinical care, no shooting dead doctors.
Just sane, rational health care policy.
Thanks, President Obama.
5
When I was in my early teens I realized I had no desire to ever bear children. I thought then, and still do, that the urge to make babies was a choice that far too few people deliberated very well, if at all. The writing has been on the wall regarding overpopulation for decades. I am glad to now find increasing social acceptance of those who are happily and consciously childfree.
And, to be perfectly honest, there's no better cure for any strange parenting desires that might arise than to have to deal with modern parents of young children. I hate: giant strollers barging through crowded supermarket aisles, toddler walking lessons on subway stairs during rush hour, the expectation that I should pick up the toy every time Johnny throws it onto the floor, that I shoulder the burden at work for mom/dad because they have to leave early to pick up the kid, and that I should tolerate bad behavior because they think their kid is cute. The entitlement and lack of awareness you see in parents these days absolutely reeks.
8
That's simple. THE COST!
3
That's simple. THE COST!
1
Overpopulation is the world's biggest problem. It used to be a good thing to have children. Now it's not. Thankfully some people are adjusting their values in line with global concerns. Unfortunately many people are still living and breeding as if it's 1800.
10
@SL
~1800 the first 1 billion people were recorded. It took all of history to get there. It took 123 years to add the next billion. It now takes ~12 years. There is no shortage of babies. As Edward abbey said, "we have an extravagant over supply of humans". One the planet cannot afford much longer.
3
Might could be that population growth has poisoned our planet to the point where we can no longer safely live here.
7
I find it interesting that the author of this piece never talks about how realistic it is to believe she can extend her fertility by freezing her eggs. Numerous articles, including in the NY Times show that women who freeze their eggs often discover they are no longer viable when they decide they are ready to become mothers.
4
A brilliant and moving essay. I will recommend it to my students (in BBA/MBA classes). Did Ms Sussman recover the gold watch?
The world’s population is increasing. So hand wringing that in some places it is not seems odd. Humans as a whole are outstripping the resources all creatures depend upon. Even if global warming is solved, we may simply run out of food and water. Why is a huge crash of population preferable to smaller family size?
11
Before reading this article I thought the answer for America's declining birthrate was to make it easier for younger people to have a family, through lower/free tuition, healthcare, child care subsidies. I still think we should help younger people, but I also see that they are right to not want to bring children into an already over crowded world. Perhaps some of the money we want to spend on making parenting more attractive would be better spent on making early retirement easier. That would clear the way for more young people to have better employment opportunities at an earlier age, allowing them to save up for a future they want. We seem to be going in the wrong direction on both ends, forcing people to work longer and later in life at the same time we are allowing young people to be saddled with debt they have no hope of paying off with stagnant wages and poor job stability.
3
Thank you to this article for reminding me how much I love and cherished my family. Reproduction is instinctual and natural and can bring untold amounts of love into your life. I so appreciate spending time with my adult siblings today and watching my children grow. Is it worth it that I’ll never achieve great career success or set foot on all seven continents? A thousand times YES!!!
3
We worry about climate change, exhaustion of natural resources, and a host of other things. As the billions of people on this earth continue to expand in number, and their standard of living improves, these pressures on our planet grow worse.
The planet earth can probably reasonably accommodate and support around 3 billion people. We have more than twice that number, and it is growing. Economies have always been like Ponzi schemes, requiring ever growing populations to keep growing. The old and infirm depend on the younger and vigorous to help fund their entitlements. Ultimately, if you believe in Malthus, this will eventually hit a brick wall.
So the problem is not too few people. Its too many.
12
"it became clear I craved genetic continuity, however fictitious and tenuous it might be. I recognized then something precious and inexplicable in this yearning, and glimpsed how devastating it might be to be unable to realize it. For the first time, I felt justified in my impulse to preserve some little piece of me that, in some way, contained a little piece of him, which one day might live again."
So there it is. Funny, you waited until the last sentence to drop the pretense, but it was bound to come out. This entire article is an attempt to rationalize your own narcissism.
14
As a woman of 49, I have wanted children all my life, but all the men I met were either too poor to start a family, had kids and wanted no more, or were too rotten to have a family. The love of my life had a vasectomy, although he would have been an amazing father. All my girlfriends are in the same situation, childless in their 50s. The only one with child, is a single mother and got pregnant against the dad's will (she cheated her way into pregnancy).
Men these days want sex with as many partners as possible, and the culture of moral relativism has destroyed good values, which are still prevalent in more economically backward societies, where having a family is a vital support system. Unlimmited online porn and unlimitted dating sites make families obsolete -- and hard to maintai unless the woman looks away many indignities.
2
Why no mention of antinatalism? There is a growing philosophical/ethical movement that strongly believes creating a new life is creating/forcing unnecessary suffering unto another being. They believe to prevent suffering, simply refrain from procreating. Not being born never hurt anyone, literally. For some reason though, the parent's and society's agenda to have kids for whatever X reason is more important than preventing the child from suffering. If no one is born, no one NEEDS happiness in the first place, so that argument is a red herring. By preventing birth, you are preventing suffering which is good. The opposite idea, that you are preventing positive experiences matters not unless there is an ACTUAL person to be deprived of that happiness. Thus the antinatalist conclusion makes sense- no one suffers and no actual person loses out. Win/Win. I am not sure why people don't see that logic. Perhaps social cues and the initial counterintuitive nature of the reasoning. But it is indeed sound if one reflects on it.
4
Maybe in Denmark this is an issue, but not in the US. The zero population growth concept I grew up with has been replaced by many couples I know having at least 3 if not more children. I think urging more procreation is simply irresponsible from a global perspective, especially given the fact that we have done little or nothing to deal with climate change. Adoption and fostering children is a much more responsible way to build a family.
13
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that nature is interfering with human reproduction because there are too many of us living amongst one another. Just as disease spreads in overcrowded conditions, so does infertility.
8
In the U.S., workforce policies are downright hostile to pregnant mothers, quality day care is prohibitively expensive and "okay" day care costly, schools are poor-quality and supports for women and single parents raising young children virtually nonexistent beyond their own families. Other first-world countries offer better supports, but my guess is that parents have a gut-level reluctance to bring more children into a world that's already horrendously overpopulated. Perhaps human life (beyond that just in the womb) will become more valuable if the global birth rate falls. In the meantime, if you want women to have children, don't punish them at every level--financially, emotionally, physical, in terms of employment prospects, and with daunting logictics to find daycare and navigate spotty schools and the possibility of limited access to healthcare for yourself and your children. We've done everything possible to make pregnancy, childbirth and raising children as much of a miserable gauntlet as possible. And people are surprised that women are having fewer children?
570
@Katz
We should have tax and work policies that help women/families to have 1-2 kids at most. Human over population is the leading cause of most of hu,Antilles problems, especially environmental. After that there should be negative consequences. As part of this, birth control and family planning should be free and universally available. World wide, every day, 15,000 kids under 5 die of largely preventable causes. Every kid should be planned for, loved and affordable.
28
@Katz
Yet, as the article points out, in countries with favorable government and social policies regarding pregnancy and family (child rearing) issues, the situation is the same or more pronounced. That does not mean we should not continue to pursue such policies here though.
26
@Katz
This is happenening all over the rich world, not just the USA. It is unlikely that such policies are a big factor.
9
"Something is stopping us from creating the families we claim to desire. But what?"
Common sense, under the circumstances.
16
This piece is really about it's author's personal values and wishes instead of being about a problem with the world, although she tries very hard to prove that she is right. We are much better off with less people. So is the earth.
673
Well said. I agree completely. This is a good thing that is happening. Having children is actually an incredibly selfish undertaking.
46
@Hope "fewer" people. To be better off with "less" people is to have creatures who are in some way "lesser" than people (slaves?) or to be simply "less people" meaning "minus" people altogether. I know it is a far too common grammatical error that few care about anymore, but the difference is profound.
15
@Hope
Why not save the children that already exist; aren’t they all “our's”?
25
Lovely essay. Still, the bottom line for me remains: the last thing this poor world needs is population increase ! Hats off to those who abstain from childbearing and find other productive, life-fulfilling things to do. And for those with child-rearing yearnings, there's a so-much-superior alternative: how about pitching in to help care for the numberless uncared-for children already among us ?
12
Nowhere is human overpopulation mentioned, but we are.
There is no problem here. Infertility and people not having babies is a great thing as there are simply too many people already. Not producing people who do not exist is a great thing, an answer to our huge overpopulation problem. We have been degrading ecosystems in our excessive growth and need to stop having kids until we drive our population to a sustainable level, well below 2 billion.
Humans and our livestock account for 90% of mammalian biomass or an order of magnitude greater than all other mammals on this planet (.06 Gtons-carbon compared to .007 Gtons-carbon, see "The biomass distribution on Earth"
by Yinon M. Bar-On, Rob Phillips, and Ron Milo), fish populations are half today what they were in the 1970s. insect, mammal and bird populations are in decline, and plant extinctions are 500x what they were prior to the Industrial revolution.
So, lets' stop this selfish concern over procreation and allow other animals the space to live. They have the same rights that we claim because we consider ourselves moral and that includes the right to life and habitat. We are THE problem and we need to stop considering having kids a good thing because it's not.
10
Globally, the reproductive rate the planet greatly exceeds the replacement rate; the population of our world is growing, and overall earth's problem is likely overpopulation, not a worldwide failure to reproduce.
The issue then is who is having children; I would imagine there is a shift from childbirth in economically well off countries to child birth is economically less well off countries.
There are many who wish to immigrate to America, as well as to Western European countries like Denmark. Sustaining a population is really not an issue.
An important question, as discussed in this article, is whether economic and cultural forces in American society are discouraging couples from having children, until too late they realize it is too late. Having and raising children in the US today is expensive and very much entails a substantial loss of freedom. For most of us who have chosen to raise children the extraordinary rewards far exceed the costs.
We should try to have a society in which people are comfortable making the choice to raise a family, and in which the financial risks and the loss of personal freedom do not dissuade the young. For many, having children is the right choice. Others may choose not to. Both paths should be available.
1
It's a beautiful piece, and I'm grateful to the Times for having given it the large visibility it deserves.
I don't fault the author AT ALL for mixing the personal and the "universal," but serious issues require serious study/studies; anecdotal evidence often misleads.
The author lays the blame at the feet of "late capitalism," and that's certainly plausible. But in that she focuses on a relatively prosperous & nurturing society (Denmark), that argument immediately becomes suspect.
Similarly, fears about climate change and income inequality are tempting - and might even prove to be significant - but I suspect the author is young(-ish) and maybe she should have done something simple like check the birth rate in 1925, 1930, 1935. I'll admit that I haven't, because I don't know how. But asking the right questions (beyond "Why is the birth rate low in many different societies?") would seem to be essential.
My point on the latter is that there has ALWAYS been uncertainty... and income inequality. One can emphasize the latter, and it certainly DOES make the decision to start or enlarge a family more complex, but one can also point to most people's ability to provide a better life for one's kids as a strong force in the opposite direction.
Maybe, it's largely as simple as one of the points the author raises - "we're wired" to have large families when things like high infant mortality make that rational. Prosperity - however precarious & uncertain - is a powerful contraceptive!
The best hope for the planet is educating women--everywhere--and ensuring they have reproductive choice.
638
@Robert Bott Another best hope for the planet is to educate men everywhere to take responsibility for their own reproductive choices. Too few men seem to understand the connection between having sex and getting a woman pregnant, and from getting a woman pregnant to having a child who must be supported financially, socially, and emotionally. If a man wants to have sex, but does not want to financially, socially or emotionally support his child, then he needs to get a vasectomy.
66
@Jackie with the wealth of birth control options available, you claim the only responsible option for men is a vasectomy? That’s really extreme. Sterilization is definitely not the right choice for a lot of people. I didn’t want kids until my mid twenties.
3
@Robert Bott
Another hope are lots of guys who have had vasectomies.
6
“ I am skeptical, even critical, of the inherent narcissism of preserving one’s own genetic material when there are already so many children without parents.” - yup. When I was in Jr. High watching nematodes devour all the food in the Petri dish and then die - it was a profound lesson. Then, in Algebra class - we learned about exponential growth. That was in the 50’s back when the world had about 2.5B people, now we have 7.5B, approaching 9B by the time I shuffle off to ‘buffalo’. I made a choice to adopt. Then - all the factors described in the article conspired against that plan - poor relationships, career(s), etc. My roots are Danish - they came in the 1800’s after the Danes overpopulated their country and suffered famine in part due to the same factors that drove my other ancestors from Ireland. They were farmers, Great, Great Grampa popped out 13 kids, which was the norm then, and brought them all here. Mass migrations now from climate and political upheavals will continue to change populations in ways I can’t imagine. I don’t see a decline in birth rate as a bad thing. I just hope we don’t live thru another plague event to even out the populations. However, given how we are trashing our environment, life can’t go on as it has thus far.
7
Ms. Sussman argues that we should "renounce" individualism. I'm all for that. But you cannot "renounce" individualism without renouncing capitalism. Start with that.
1
Population may be down in Scandinavia but it is not down, worldwide. The planet continues to grow by 82 million people a year, after counting all deaths. Those 82 million people affect everyone, no matter where you are-they need resources like air, water, food, that are globally sourced. A slower population growth is a good thing for the planet.
838
@CJ
Negative population growth is not only more desirable but in the end will be the only way we can save ourselves, other species and the planet.
51
@CJ Even that 82 million a year is slowing. Get it to 50 million and the population will half in a century. A world of 4 billion would be far more stable and healthy than one of 9 billion.
26
@GUANNA
Work the numbers for me. If the world is gaining a net 50 million, as you say, per year, how does the overall population fall?
15
I’ve been reading these types of pieces for years now and also recall an episode of Oprah back when she had a regular talk show. The show advised women to think very hard about prioritizing career and other goals before having children as doing so might jeopardize the ability to have one.
The articles and show frustrated me to no end because I feel they always ignored a critical issue that was the sole reason for my not having a child until I was almost 40: the lack of a suitable partner. I like to think of myself as an emotionally healthy, smart woman. I pined for a marriage and kids throughout my 30s, and thus dated many men, but found few with whom I believed I’d have a healthy and fulfilling marriage. I imagine that some of them were, but luck would have it that they didn’t see that in me.
Luckily, I eventually did meet that man, but I remain frustrated with articles that suggest we should “go it alone,” freeze our eggs (which I also looked into), or worse - settle, just because the clock is ticking.
6
The author negates her whole family-of-man approach to this topic when she equates family and parenthood to "genetic continuity" and biologic reproduction. Perhaps a goal should be added - to take care of the population that already exists through extended family, adoption and community engagement.
6
Ms. Sussman, many others, in their commentaries here, have detailed why it's very likely a good thing that our fertility has been reduced, in that it may be the only way to save our limited-resource planet. and I won't bother repeating them here.
But, as an adoptive parent, I will take a bit of issue with your cravings for genetic continuity.
Considering what my and my spouse's genetics involve, it's probably a very good thing that we adopted our now 21-year old son (who seems to have a lot fewer health issues than we do).
Moreover, we consider what we did a mitzvah--we were able to give him a much better life than he would have had otherwise had in a foster family or orphanage. And it made sense to use resources on someone who was already here anyway.
I know a lot of people who seem to crave "making one of their own". But the idea that I would love my son any less because he's not the product of our gametes is as anathema as the idea that the world could use a few more billions.
If you really need to raise a child, as opposed to "birth" a child, there are plenty of them who need you. (And it'll probably cost less overall than those egg freezings and fertility treatments besides.)
926
@Glenn Ribotsky
The fact that you adopted is admirable. But most people have children to see what the author so poignantly called genetic continuity. This is pretty much how I feel - if I am going to spend $1.5m (or whatever huge number it is estimated to bring a child to 18) and give up my carefree existence and hobbies, I would only do it for genetic continuity. I want to look at them and see myself. I would like to see my glimpses of my grandparents' and my parents' traits, I want to tell them stories of the line they come from, I want them to be blood. I will not make enormous sacrifices that parenting involves for anything less than that. This is why people would rather drop $100K+ on IVFs and stick themselves with needles than adopt.
33
@Glenn Ribotsky As an adopted child, THANK YOU! That swerve into "passing on genes" did not sit well with me either. Much more meaningful than the shape of nose or height, my parents passed on their traditions, way of life and, yes, sense of humor. I have their traits, because they raised me, and their stories are my stories. Their line is my line, and it has nothing to do with "blood".
204
@Glenn Ribotsky
Adoptive mom here. I agree.
The conception-and-birth part of it turns out to be unnecessary, a very small part of the long experience we term "having children."
My daughter is 18 now, and we joke about her having "inherited" her sense of humor from me.
For most of us, I think, the desire to have children is genetically hardwired. However, the genetic tie means very little in the experience.
It's the investment (in time, care, and attention) that ends up forming the love bond.
113
The countries with negative replacement statistics can use the refugees and immigrants migrating from war, crime, economic opportunities etc. to fill in the employment holes.
Seems like a re-balancing of the population is available, but we have no political will to get it done.
3
This article promotes the bias that people--especially women--cannot be truly happy without having children. As a 64-year-old woman who's been happily married all her adult life, I assure you that they can. There is a huge number of personally rewarding and often, socially beneficial professions that women can follow. It also aids personal and marital happiness to have more money, more free time, more freedom in how to live life. Being childfree does not mean being lonely. There are many adults with whom other adults can make friends. For those who want to be around children, some find satisfaction from spending time with nieces and nephews, others may become teachers, etc. My husband and I have been very happy. Our respective siblings--both childfree--have been happy. Our many childfree friends have been happy. There is no emptiness in my life. The planet is already grossly overpopulated. All those climate change refugees need places to live and their number will keep increasing. Humanity is in no danger of extinction from lowering reproduction rates. On the contrary.
980
@Frances Grimble 100% agree. And thank you for writing this.
Kind people without children need to speak up more - I’m really not sure people realize how happy we all are since collectively it seems we defer to being polite and letting people believe all the stereotypes about us since it often seems to make them feel better.
Why make them feel bad with the truth that we feel great without kids?
It’s important to let younger people who are doubting themselves know that you can be a good person and not want kids. Thank you.
238
@Frances Grimble
I agree with you completely. And I'm thrilled that it's becoming more socially acceptable to be childfree. I had a huge amount of pressure to have children when I was young (my husband had zero). I'm 47 and glad things are changing.
156
@Frances Grimble I agree with you, too, through and through. Never marrying has been one of the best decisions of my life. I’ve loved the freedom of having incredible, awesome careers and live in many places. Whatever I want, whenever I want it since college - over 40 years. And I’ve been, and still am, much, much happier than married women I’ve known.
103
There are 7.7 billion people living on our planet. We are feeling (and creating) more pressures from overpopulation than underpopulation. We are rapidly destroying the habitat of thousands of other species as our own population expands. This author should not be casting shade on folks who decide--for whatever reason--not to have children.
1277
@Diane
I agree, and point out the following:
(1) countries where birth rates are very low still have a very high negative ecological impact because of their unsustainable lifestyles, production, and consumption practices
(2) even as fertility rates shrink around the world, unfortunately, these unsustainable practices are spreading, exported as 'desirable' cultural and economic lifestyles: buy more, consume more, discard more.
(3) rising incomes lead to environmentally worse, rather than better, lifestyles. People get not only education, jobs, and health care, but also stress, pollution, and 'lifestyle' diseases
(4) because of globalization, some countries have outsize impacts on faraway places - e.g. China's appetite for shark fins, ivory, tiger and bear parts, etc are fueling global poaching and environmental devastation.
This earth is no place to bring a child into.
183
@Diane she literally did not argue against people not having children, she defends them at multiple points. Instead she is charting an interesting way in which the desire (or no desire) for childen, the health of our planet, and capitalism interact and how reproductive justice is a framework to guide us forward.
44
@Diane I completely agree. No one is addressing the real underlying problem: that we are choking on overpopulation. "Growth" is taken as a given, and it is disastrous. This madness must stop.
53
In one word, the answer to the headline is often "Selfishness"
With all the fun things to do, many couples consider the changes they'd need to make in their 'me first' lifestyles and decide that they do not want to have children. This attitude is more prevalent in larger cities where the couples think that moving to a larger, more expensive apartment or condominium, in order to start a family, is their only option. They deride 'suburban' life and the lifestyle changes that it might bring, not realizing that change can bring its own rewards. Talk to a soccer mom with four or more children and ask if she'd do it again. Most often the answer is a resounding YES! Parenthood brings a feeling of accomplishment second to few in any world, including the one in which we live. If you don't believe me, ask your parents.
2
@Vivian The "selfishness" that you mention is better applied to those who have children. Creating children is, as the author admits, a "narcissistic" indulgence. While I have no general problem with anyone seeking personal satisfaction, creating another human to do so is rather irresponsible given the sate of our overpopulated planet.
2
@Vivian
Having children to raise as you see fit is also Selfishness. Unless you are raising children for a purpose such as sacrificing their lives on a battlefield for their country, or running into burning buildings to save fellow humans and dying in the attempt, etc. -- acts of selflessness -- you are doing so to please only yourself.
1
Ms. Sussman views a lot of ground from a birds' eye view. My experience informs me that by the time a woman feels she can "choose" to gestate a child, she is both consciously and unconsciously programmed in her deliberations. Ms. Sussman refers to Mormonism, Hasidic Judaism and Mennonite religion/culture as "alternative values systems." These systems and others, for instance, the Irish Roman Catholicism practiced in my old neighborhood are anything but "alternative" for girls raised in them from infancy. And, in many systems, authoritarian patriarchal thought is the norm. Such religions function, for life, as mind-control and shame inducing cults in which women oppress each other much as the Maoist Communist Chinese "block grandmothers" oppressed their married female neighbors when they dropped by to ensure menstrual cycles were on schedule. Sussman quotes a black feminist as saying, “White America is now feeling the effects of neoliberalism capitalism that the rest of America has always felt.” I am not sure who "the rest of America" might be, still, slavery and worker oppression both fed traditional male dominated capitalism's unquenchable desire for free or cheap labor to feed the top. Women and their children have been and still are seen as dependents burdens on the system. Women suffer a psychic toll when they, their fertility and their children are seen as commodities or luxuries. More about that needs to be discussed.
2
i enjoyed this essay for its breadth of research and colorful narrative. but anyone interested in the general topic might find "Empty Planet" by Bricker & Ibbitson highly useful.
the author omits the real significance of "late capitalism." capitalism, as announced by adam smith and endorsed by all mainstream economists ever since, depends on population growth. the "new jobs created" figure published every month is fundamentally a metric of profit growth potential. no population increase means, ceteris paribus, no new profits.
chiding the term "population" as “profoundly objectifying and dehumanizing” is, i suppose, true; but it also ignores the fact that climate change and environmental destruction will have profoundly dehumanizing effects, and that economists don't deal with humans, they objectify everything in terms of economic value.
it's remarkable, given the facts in this essay and in the book cited, that you hear nothing about a "zero growth" planet -- much less a declining population -- from contemporary economists. why not? aren't they the far seeing, recession predicting profession?
i don't really care about whether a software engineer or a journalist have kids or not. "yearning" is not something interesting to me. i point out that we still have not accepted the malthusian fact that population cannot grow forever -- and what that means to economic theory, capitalist profit seeking, a sustainable economy, and our consumerist views of the meaning of life.
4
When automation of the work force took all the jobs away, the greedy rich didn't need us to reproduce for their slave work force any longer. Now we are a liability to them. And if we don't understand that greed at the top means the death of us all, including the planet, then we deserve this completely avoidable fate we have put ourselves into.
3
Like with so many comments I fully agree with the benefits to our world of having fewer babies. From an economic perspective I doubt the notion that we need ever more young people to support the old as our productivity is so high and if anything jobs will be easier to come by if there are relatively fewer working age people. But this article is still enlightening and supremely interesting in how it weaves together culture and the economics of child-rearing. The most instructive example I feel is the Danish one given that a society has relatively optimized conditions for child-rearing and yet men and women simply choose to having fewer babies. Fun article
7
Guilty as charged. Love my one kiddo but also love my jealous legal mistress too. My Mother didn't raise me to breed, she raised me to have a satisfying life, including a life of the mind. Very interesting that the American cultural enclaves that still produce large families still view women as second class. I have had both Orthodox and Mormon colleagues and those ladies are made of steel because their communities are horrible to them
2
Human overpopulation is the root cause of so many of our world problems that threaten our long term survival as a species. We, and most, if not all, of Earth's species need far less people, not more.
7
Where do you guys get this stuff? End of babies?! The planet gains a net 82 million plus extra people every year. That's two full californias worth. There are over 7.8 billion now and every day there are more humans alive than on any other day in all of history. We aren't projected to even level off, if we don't destroy the planet first, until we hit 11-12 billion. The US grows by 2-3 million per year more than the populations of 20 states. Maybe the author can explain to the rest of us why the falling birth rate nations are the most desirable, stable, democratic, prosperous countries on earth and the exploding populations of the 3rd world (most of whom are rediculously over populated) are all trying to get there? Virtually every problem humanity faces, especially environmental, can be traced to human over population. We should be so lucky to have an end of babies for awhile
9
Anna Louie Sussman: "Something is stopping me from creating the family I claim to desire. But what? I keep asking my therapist."
what an extraordinary article. i am going to ask my teen boys to read it. wow.
2
I have never considered it appropriate to bring a new life into a world as horrible as the one we live in today. Having children in today's world is one of the most selfish acts I can imagine. I can't think of how much contempt I would have to have for my potential child to introduce him or her to the polluted, hellish dump we have turned the planet into. War, famine, pestilence, greed, torture, atrocity all around us. I refuse to subject a child who hasn't asked for it to be brought into this living hell. I did fine for the first few billion years of reality as a non-incarnated void and I'm sure I'll be fine for the next trillion in a similar state.
8
@Ted that's certainly one way of looking at it.
When i look into my parents' eyes as they talk to me, I always know, they did the right thing by having us. So, as far as they go, it's one of the best things that happened to them.
As far as myself and my siblings go, our world, it ain't so bad. Let alone if you compare it with worlds past.
1
@Ted
And yet, the world you despise, this is kind of the world that mankind on some level has always lived in.
Those people thrived in spite of not having ads telling them something different.
1
@Ted, War, famine, pestilence, greed, torture, atrocity have ALWAYS been all around. You exist because none of your ancestors let that stop them.
One thing I appreciate about this article, in addition to its breadth and detailed research, is it did not do what other similar articles did by blaming out-of-touch boomers for forcing childbearing on pragmatic millennials who see it as irrational and almost immoral to bring children into a suboptimal world.
As a millennial myself, I really do not identify with the “ok boomer” trend. My own parents were not blind to the social forces of capitalistic society. When I was about to enter college, they belatedly apologized for forcing me to only focus on work and studies, and advised me to find a hard working and successful boy in college I could settle down with once it was over. My grandparents reacted to this by telling me that babies could wait until at least my post-doc, because I would have more free time then. Funny advice to a 17 year old, but I still remember it twelve years later.
4
Given that the average number of children that people say they want is more than two, I'd wager that part of what's stopping them from following through on that is simply the reality of caring for their first or second child.
And I say that as a very happy parent of four. Big families can be wonderful, but they are not for everybody. Nor do they need to be.
1
It surprises me that this author pays so little attention to the condition of most women before effective contraception became available.
All widespread religions are patriarchal and teach that the man is rightfully king of his household, and his wife (or wives) must submit to his desires and whims and have plenty of children (preferably sons) to establish his virility and authority and to “carry on his name.” This author bemoans the general decline of religious faith and allegiance because she wants more babies born by unnamed, unknown ladies around the world. She apparently approves the situation,
and the “productivity,” of women who are subject to orthodox religious regimes.
Good grief!
Before The Pill and other effective means of contraception became available, and acceptable, it was very difficult for women to sidestep pregnancy if they engaged in sex.
My husband grew up in a strictly Catholic family. His mother had eight children, his Aunt Martha had twelve. Aunt Martha once told me, over cocktails, that she’d had many children because she didn’t want to go to hell. The Catholic Church denounced (and denounces) contraception as a sin.
I recommend this writer travel back in time to the 1950s, before the Pill, before (yeah) Women’s Lib. And try to have sex. See how she likes it.
6
I blame the insta-celebrity culture that says we can all be the Kardashians next week combined with the dating apps that seem to offer greener grass with every no-commitment encounter. Every relationship seems like "settling" it seems. I feel for the writer's pain because the answer is not to solve global warming but to find a mate. The economic costs the writer enumerates are cut in half if there are two of you to share the burden. If you're willing to move to the suburbs, find a good public school, one of you takes a job with benefits even if it's "boring" or lower paid. I feel bad that the current culture makes that so hard. And the waiting so long makes it all harder and much more expensive.
1
@Helgu
And you believe that it's reasonable to work at a boring and/or low-paid job in order to "share the burden" of parenthood? Seriously?
1
I would like to offer to any young people who hear the incessant advice: Have kids, or you'll regret it later. Well, maybe you will, but I've never met anyone who does. I'm older, and every day I thank my younger self for not listening to that noise. Life can be wonderful without kids, and if you have them and wish you hadn't, it can be a living hell. Choose wisely, and make lots of friends. (They're often better than kids anyway).
6
Here in Switzerland nobody has to be reminded to have kids. They are everywhere, constantly underfoot.
Why is that?
Because in Switzerland there is an overall feeling of well-being. This society takes care of its own and it shows everywhere. You can work for 25 years in a bakery, retire with a pension and have a meaningful retirement. Nobody ever goes broke from health care bills.
That is why people have families here even though the world is going to hell.
9
@Plennie Wingo The current fertility rate for Switzerland in 2019 is 1.539 births per woman.
4
@Plennie Wingo
As with most of the world, fertility in Switzerland is lower among highly educated women than among the uneducated. All studies show this.
2
A very comprehensive article. But I point out, perhaps biological controls on species unknown to us, exists. When survival is difficult more offspring are produced. Some species produce thousands of fertilized eggs and have only two or three survive to reproduce. Once basic needs, food , water etc are filled, the need to reproduce numerous offspring is lowered. After China limited child bearing,whee here were more males born than females, and allowed more children per couple, more females were produced than males making the ration closer to 50/50. I believe there are biological factors affecting populations that we do not quite yet comprehend. Thanks for a comprehensive article based on fact and history.
The earth is overpopulated. Its that simple.
Whatever the nitpicky little reasons and justifications, and so forth and so on, many of our problems would recede to a manageable level with half the people we have now. I do not know why this is not more discussed - Kudos to all who limit their families. If we mange to get through all the other calamities threatening us, the world could be the spacious paradise of our dreams.
8
@laurie I think the spectrum has two ends. On the one end, as you point out, having many children (say more than 3) is a burden on women and contributes to our dangerous overuse of the earth's resources. Studies show, over and over, that men everywhere want more children than women do. We can easily imagine why.
On the other end, as Sussman's article points out, many people who, if not burdened by the structural and cultural factors she mentions, would like to fulfill themselves by having one or two, and late capitalism has made that horribly difficult.
So "limiting our families" to one or two is a choice that takes burdens off women (and less so for men in our unequal society) is a responsible choice. But living in a situation where people find it difficult to have those one or two children is a tragic outcome.
1
@Steve
How is having children fulfilling. I've never seen a convincing argument for this notion.
1
I have 2 children and have raised them in a traditional 2 parent home with a good income. My mate is mature and stable. Being parents has given our life love and meaning. We attend church and have active faith lives. However if I were a young person today I would not have children. I don't see a bright future for our planet. I see our capitalist consumer mad societies are killing the planet while it poisons us all. Both of my children have had medical conditions that can be linked to exposure to chemicals used in farming and modern living. They are ok for now after very expensive and terrifying medical care.
With the people like Trump in office and the GOP in power, mass gun deaths, selfishness, bigotry, denial of care to our shared ecologies; why the hell consign others to live through the death of the planet? What I do foresee is my children and their peers struggling to repair the damage prior generations have done. When will they have time and optimism for families of their own? What we sow, we shall reap.
8
The title "The End of Babies" hit a cord because I think one of life's greatest joys is being around babies. Whether they are yours or not. The challenges are balanced by the fascination of experiencing the rapid growing and learning and seeing the world again, through their eyes. If there is any hope for the future it can be found in taking care of babies and helping them along the way.
4
As a woman with two grown children and a longing for a grandchild, I look at all the facts and figures, almost exclusively from people that have no children. Sure, we can list all the reasons we shouldn't propagate and feel justified comparing that decision with recycling! But raising my children--adults now-- has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. I didn't really find my heart until they became part of it.
4
Maybe it's just ok for women to now say "I don't want children" and they're not chastised or ostracized for their decision. If a woman said that 40 years ago she would have been called crazy. If she says it now, most people nod their head and agree.
9
@Jen
It all depends on where you live and who you ask.
This was an interesting article. However, I hope that this article will be followed by positive stories about people who choose not to have children and those people who adopt or care for children in other ways. Just because a person chooses or is unable to have a biological child does not mean that they do not care about those issues that affect the health and well-being of people in their community or in the world. Some use their time and money to support important regional and global causes that improve the lives of everyone around them. Others choose not to have children because they instead become the primary caretaker for elderly parents or children of other family members whose parents are no longer able to care for them due to illness, addiction, or other trauma. When we care for one another, we are in fact caring for someone else's child regardless of their age. We are all part of the human family.
8
Dear Anna,
First, thanks for taking this arduous and difficult inquiry. At 56, I am filled with wonderment of the gifts I have received ( not sure if deserved): of great parents and good genes, of the company of my grandparents, of decent schools and colleges, scholarships and citizenship ( in still, the greatest country to pursue happiness). But these gifts pale in comparison to the greatest gift of all, that of a spouse that intuitively sought children, had them, raised them (with some support from me) and to this day is the base rock upon which our family of 5 is built. I am also consumed by finding a way to share this good fortune- in stirring the right dialogue and thought among the young to: find love early, have children, invite grandparents to share the load, and build a holistic life together. Your essay spurs me on to put these exhortations to paper. The best outcome of such a life, is to witness the best I see in our three children, who are adults now, and have grown into happy, loving and socially productive. Isn’t that what a society is designed to produce? Again, your article made my day.
4
Women:
Insemination old school is not so often the physical pleasure and cinch that men would like to believe, would like women to believe; new kinds can be torture. Old school infrequently a financial burden; new kinds, as she reports, financially crippling.
Pregnancy remains pretty much old school and physically runs from discomfort to torture. Costs run from reasonable to breath-taking.
Childbirth physically ditto, though starting from pain at 5-8. Ditto costs.
Babies? Hardhardhardhardhard.
Men:
Insemination almost always a pleasure and a cinch. Sometimes costly.
Pregnancy from effortless through mood-swing jokes to strap-on bellies.
Childbirth from effortless to Lamaze coaching.
Babies? A bit less than half hardhardhardhard if he's highly evolved. Costly if he sticks around or pays his support.
Women have known forever that they're the parent of last resort and that it's always a chore.
Many--still hardly all--privileged first-world women have lately achieved the agency to act on all of this; in Denmark, for example. And they're choosing to remain childless for a lengthy time being or even forever?
Underprivileged third-world women? Underprivileged third-world men?
Here’s a solution. Move to Wyoming where the cost-of-living is low, there is no crowding, there are multiple recreational outlets and the cost of a college education is among the very lowest in the country
5
@George Arnold and no culture.
2
Well written and fantastic insight. My friends are in their early 30s and most are childless, some became parents by accident, the few that entered parenthood willingly have stuck to 1 child. There’s so much pressure to work hard to progress in our careers, finding time to maintain relationships, exercise, eat well, travel, keep up with friends and family who live around the world is hard enough. Thinking about having children on top of all this simply feels impossible. I used to think that it’s just a feature of 21st century life. The writer has done well to think deeply about this issue and point to then underlying causes. Writing about her personal journey added a depth of humanity that made this piece of writing even better.
6
@Baguette one could argue that it is selfish and irresponsible to bring children into a world beset by climate change and its predictable horrible consequences.
2
The human population on our planet is several times earth's carrying capacity. Those who understand this are making decisions that can, over time, reduce the earth's population to a sustainable level. Unfortunately, we've run out of time. We're already seeing the devasting results of over-population in the mid-east and Africa. Unrestrained capitalism continues to eat away at the very foundations of our planetary life support system around the world. Even though my children and grandchildren are the greatest joys in my life, I could not start a family today. I laud the sacrifice of those who decide to forego children.
13
I think the reason is much simpler and more disturbing. People have grown to dislike children.
Children are seen as a burden and an obstacle in the way of personal gratification.
8
Living in a world where we continue to be powerless to resolve the critical threats we face it the issue.
Cost of childcare, the staggering impact of a minimum wage, no access to clean water, food deserts, poverty, lack of healthcare, loss of green space, crime, drugs, poor educational systems, corruption, and on and on. I'm sorry but I do not even see a concensus emerging that will be needed to begin to address any of these 'threats' to our world.
We need a new movement. As a successful senior, I have enough experience to know the game is rigged and that our problems will only grow. I am naturally an optimist but this is different. I don't have the answer.
A thought I have for us as seniors is to come up with a new Earth Day 'tradition' where all seniors that are ready, commit their remaining funds to help people, animals, and the earth and then leave this earth. It could help. It just isn't a job for one person.
6
@Bob
Great letter. As a senior I have a bit of time left. Grandparents find time and energy for their grandchildren. I would like to add that committing time, besides money, will enrich the lives of the giver and the vulnerable in communities we have not previously engaged, (provided we realize as you said we "don't have the answer" to those problems).
1
"[I]t became clear I craved genetic continuity, however fictitious and tenuous it might be. I recognized then something precious and inexplicable in this yearning, and glimpsed how devastating it might be to be unable to realize it."
Yeah, that's a romanticized racism that we should all seek to overcome if we're to become a kinder species. As the author notes, plenty of kids desperately need care already. Why ignore them? (I mean "racism" here in a traditional biological context, e.g., some typical gene combos are better than others.) Pass on your ideas and kindness instead!
Honestly I do not understand the natalist urgency of this article. We absolutely do need to improve social welfare, but where is the moral urgency to promote babies? Climate change has been a far more compelling and urgent problem to me, ever since I was a teenager learning the science in the early '90s. I decided not to have kids then, looooong before I decided to work too much for my career, which is indeed structured around the same moral urgency. Admittedly this was probably an unusual decision back then, but I hear this kind of concern for the larger world more and more often. We should encourage it!
Small note about pollution contributing to the decision not to have children: China has worse pollution than a generation ago, but the U.S. absolutely does not. Is misperception so strong?
10
@Scientist This is so much better than the article itself. I kept thinking that she would make at least one compelling point to support her thesis, but no. All of the points she used to argue against waiting to have children are so very much more valid for arguing for waiting or not having them at all.
4
We are too many on this planet and we've made a real mess of things. I find myself hoping my children do not have children.
8
The decision to forgo having children is a valid one. Equally valid is the decision to have children and raise them to make a positive difference in the world.
10
Kudos for writing an article which mixes the personal with the societal, the Western perspective with the non-Western, and a good grasp of the modern sociological trends of late capitalism as they pertain to relationships and parenting.
The neo-liberal economic model, to paraphrase Greta Thunberg, was always a fairy tale of perpetual growth. The promise of the '80's and '90's was that international organzations like the WTO, regional trade blocs like NAFTA and the EU, and multinational corporations would erase the barriers to the flow of trade, knowlege, finance, and people, and that by lowering protectionist barriers, developing and undeveloped nations would be able to raise their standard of living to the Western level, with America as the ultimate model.
This was always a lie--what it actually led to was capital flight, the movement of industrial production to nations with few environmental or worker protections ("a race to the bottom"), crony capitalism, huge megacities with pollution and shantytowns in the undeveloped world, etc. In the '90s the prevailing statistic was that America consumed 25% of the worlds' goods with only 3% of its population--how could that mentality possibly be sustainable if it was adopted by the rest of the world?
We are now facing the consequences of that unbridled growth and false ideology--from China, to the USA, to Denmark. And as the writer points out, it's not just about childcare or health insurance. But I see these trends as positive.
4
There is too much negativity about the future, for one; rather than seeing children as the solution to the problems we face, rather than seeing all the good that is constantly happening, we are buried in negative media messages. That, and the horrible influence of feminism, which utterly fails to see the importance of women in children's lives as mothers, as wives to husbands. When only uneducated peoples have high birth rates, the entire population gets dumbed down, and that is the worst thing for our future. Finally, the narrow-minded notion that it is more important to concentrate family wealth in one child or two than to have more and let them make their own way.
10
@Joshmo
Feminism was never against children or motherhood and isn't now. Feminists opposed mandatory maternity and motherhood, but have also always at the same time taken the lead in fighting child labor, against infant mortality, for better maternal and child health care, for better schools, and for much more.
And your idea that high birth rates among "the uneducated" will result in the "dumb[ing] down" of the population is an equally old idea rooted in eugenics and racism. It led to sterilization of hundreds of thousands and has long been used to try to force more privileged white, Protestant women to have more children and simultaneously prevent poor immigrant, Latina, Native American, black families from having children.
4
@Joshmo
There's an old aphorism you'd be wise to absorb into your consciousness:
"Biology isn't destiny".
3
"Something is stopping us from creating the families we claim to desire."
I think that the most important word here is "Claim".
We claim, but we do not really want the hassle, so we make maybe a kid per couple - and to be honest, I am not sure that it really is that bad.
Most of them kids are going to be unemployed anyway...
7
I agree overall with the article.
I'm in my mid thirties. When I was younger, my parents told me to get a good education, get a good job, work hard, and you will have a good life including family and kids. (They also thought it was great I was single... until my 30s when they retired and now wanted grandkids.) So I got a graduate degree and am working to move up in my career. My employment is unstable. I move once every 1-2 years and keep applying for a permanent post to no avail. My rent one year was over $2000. I don't know where I will live tomorrow, which makes dating impossible. I considered changing careers, but I don't think that will change the core instability or working all the time.
I tried dating in my late 20s. Apparently I'm expected to be 6'0" on dating apps. I socialized a lot. Most women were too into their careers to bother with relationships and kids, or to have a real personality beyond work. Some explicitly do not want kids. It seemed no one was interested in me, and honestly the feeling was mutual and it was about much more than just me personally.
I can take a hint.
Note that I used to want a relationship and kids. I'm not motivated by environmentalism. I'm just stuck. It's not clear to me even how I would meet someone or have the time or money to raise kids.
17
@James
Please show me all these women who don't want kids. I have the EXACT opposite problem.
2
@John The women I am talking about are a very particular type of women who have Ph.D.s, are hardcore feminist, and are particularly career driven. I wouldn't go as far as to say that all of them didn't want to have kids. Some of them probably do. But it was a common enough occurrence for women to say they definitely do not want kids to be notable.
It has occurred to me that it could be the social circles I run in and that I'm just not meeting the right type of women. Of course, I'm not sure where to meet the right type of women.
Please show me all these women who do want kids.
To clarify, please show me all these smart, sensible, normal women who I can have a conversation with and who want to have kids.
1
Our first-world ethos has become "Be Afraid. Consume."
These imperatives have been conveyed in many forms, both subtle and deafening. (Nearly) all contemporary media and enterprises have - perhaps unconsciously - hit upon these messages as the key to holding an audience and milking them.
It has become increasingly difficult for young couples to find the gumption to start a family with these memes ringing in their ears. No one wants to bring an innocent into a truly dangerous and uncertain world.
Yet, this world has always been truly dangerous and uncertain, hence the divine admonitions: "Be Not Afraid;" "Be Fruitful And Multiply."
10
@Hugo Furst
Yes the world has always been dangerous especially for women. They were given no choice but to risk unwanted pregnancy dwith sex.
Surprise! With the advent of birth control, we can have recreational sex without pregnancy!
Women like birth control, they like reproductive freedom and many like demanding careers with no room for childcare. We see how exhausting a child can be and that working women still do more housework and childcare.
The Genie is out of the bottle and women aren’t going back.
3
Why do people who have kids imply that the rest of us simply can't understand the joy that comes with having children? For heaven's sake we were kids and probably come from families with siblings. Yes, we understand the nice parts, but we also understand the negative parts, particularly the one that over-population is rapidly killing the planet.
27
Historically, the size of a family was regarded as a measure of wealth, power and survivability.
Not too long ago when we lived in an agrarian world, it was very people intensive. So, the bigger the family you had the more land you could cultivate and control all of which was possible and economically feasible with the free labor of children. But then mechanization reduced the need for large farm families. On the other end of life, a large family provided security, food and care.
So, for many millennia, the size of a family was a gauge of prosperity and power. That is no more. Almost all the social benefits of large families are now generally provided by the state through various social insurance schemes even to the extreme of cradle to grave care in some places.
So, in many developed countries, we no longer need to have children but have them because we want them. And what that means is that in view of the economic and personal limitations discussed in this article, the better off couples (and individuals) will have the means to have children without sacrificing. The consequences of that are yet to be fully realized.
8
Thank goodness for population decline. I am not one a Malthusian, nor do I advocate for intentional lower birth rates. But that is what happens when women become educated and choose to have control over their bodies.
I would guess that for every person who wants children but can't have them - or can't see a way to raise them well - there is another who has had a child (or more children than she wanted) because of pressure from society, pressure from a spouse, lack of access to birth control, or lack of any other perceived option, and regretted it. I have had conversations with many such women (and men). What is sadder? Someone who longs for children, or someone who has had them and regrets it? A toss-up, I'd say.
Are we so tribal and so protective of our own genes that the decline of population in one country or one ethnic group is considered tragic?
The human race needs to slow down. The wealthy countries bang on about declining birth rates; the poor countries are literally starving for aerable land and food.
Planned immigration - partly "skilled labor," but partly just plain humanitarian immigration, is part of the solution. As is an acceptance of the human condition, which is tragic. And I can think of far greater tragedies - starvation, constant war, having to work at menial labor until your body gives up on you, living in servitude - than not being able to have children.
20
Why? Environmental degradation and climate change. It may already be too late.
10
What a tangled rationale to explain the writer’s apparently guilt-laden personal choice. Parenthood has always been hard, contraception unavailable, economies requiring human labor demanding too often that women indeed become child-bearing machines. Yes, the concept of growth needs to be radically redefined - and so does the value of population replacement. Having children is not the only. Noble, moral choice.
10
Perhaps the problem is not 'late capitalism' but rather the last generation's child rearing techniques which may have diluted 'courage & grit' in our younger people. My wife and I married at 22 when we were less than poor: no money, no jobs, loaded with college debt but having plenty of social capital. We viewed the future as an adventure and building a life together from scratch a joy. These days it seems like young people have to have it 'all together' before they marry and have children. But a flourishing fulfilling life includes meeting the challenges , inevitable disappointments and failures all along the way. Today at we at 70 we find ourselves more than financially comfortable surrounded by our children and their children. Relaxing under 'fig & vine' ....a summer picnic table laden with simple food surrounded by couple of generations of family and the happy sounds of little ones zipping around . The journey has produced a flourishing life but it didn't come easy.
12
@John Mark Evans
It was easier for our generation. We could be artists, for example, with lower-level jobs that paid for cheap apartments in big cities that I, at least, can no longer afford. We had faith in the future-- of this country and the world. We had no memory of a Great Depression or a Great War to remind us of hard times. I feel for the younger generation and what they have to live with now.
16
Perhaps the problem is not 'late capitalism' but rather the last generation's child rearing techniques which may have diluted 'courage & grit' in our younger people. My wife and I married at 22 when we were less than poor: no money, no jobs, loaded with college debt but having plenty of social capital. We viewed the future as an adventure and building a life together from scratch a joy. These days it seems like young people have to have it 'all together' before they marry and have children. But a flourishing fulfilling life includes meeting the challenges , inevitable disappointments and failures all along the way. Today at we at 70 we find ourselves more than financially comfortable surrounded by our children and their children. Relaxing under 'fig & vine' ....a summer picnic table laden with simple food surrounded by couple of generations of family and the happy sounds of little ones zipping around . The journey has produced a flourishing life but it didn't come easy.
3
@John Mark Evans I feel as if you didn't really listen to what the writer was saying. The exorbitant cost of living in modern America makes your sentimental "salad days" nearly impossible for young citizens today. The relative costs of housing, food, child care were MUCH smaller 50 years ago than they are today. I guarantee that the things that didn't come easy to you come even harder today. And that it'll be even harder for them to reach the economic comforts you now enjoy.
11
I am deliberately choosing not to have my own children because of the burden increased population places on our planet. Our planet is overpopulated in ways it has never been, and climate change results partly from that. So many of our conversations about climate change do not include population control, and while I understand it is a dicey subject, I think we have to begin to openly value having fewer people on the planet as part of the effort to tip the resources scale (the way I see the scale: the earth has plenty of resources but they are poorly distributed across too many people for quality of life to be high for much of the population). For many women, pregnancy is absolutely a part of life they feel very strongly about experiencing, and I truly think that's fine, but since I do not feel strongly about experiencing pregnancy, if I choose motherhood, it will be through adoption. I recycle, I turn my lights off when I leave a room, and I will adopt, all for the same reasons.
14
I have two children, 27 and 30, and from what I have observed, fear is also a factor. When I was their age, nuclear armageddon was what we feared and couldn't control. I recall "duck and cover" drills in elementary school and even full school evacuation practice in October, 1963. At least there were people in charge who could still say, "Not today."
Now, children begin active shooter drills in elementary school. No one passes any legislation limiting access to guns. Students have to ask, "Does anyone care about our safety?"
Students are skipping school, marching, and waving signs trying to draw the attention of adults to the hazards of the climate crisis. In the US they have political leaders who steadfastly ignore the prospect. They have to ask, "What kind of a world will I line in in ten years; what kind of a world will my child live in in thirty years?"
One can look to the future as it presents itself today and reasonably ask, "Do I want to bring a child into this world and what it will be?" Intense fear for the generation that follows might inhibit the desire to begin having children.
17
When I was 40 and childless, a new, first time father of about my age told me, "I decided that there must be more to life than just going out to another fabulous restaurant." Raising my 3 children has been a challenge physically, emotionally, and financially, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. The love that you give and you get is what it's all about. You can't put a price tag on it. If you choose to not have kids, more power to you. I too would like to be less tired and have more time to travel. But if you are considering having kids, don't let all of the reasons not to get in the way. Just go for it, and find a way to make it work. I should add that having raised children in the US and the Netherlands, family-friendly policies help. Yes especially to high quality affordable childcare! It's a life-saver.
21
Evolution in action, I'd say - the "I want to experience the world first, have my career first", etc. crowd reproduce more slowly or not at all. Couple that with the "I don't have enough resources to reproduce" crowd, and we seem to have a mild to moderate population crash in the making.
Fortunately, this seems to be happening at a time when a mild to moderate population crash might be a good thing. Humans need to deal with the realities accompanying our joy at the discovery of fossil energy, which look to pose a major, if not insurmountable challenge over the remainder of the century.
1
This essay appalls me. In what sense — other than the mythical, esoteric or quasi-philosophical ones the author desperately delineates — is having children a responsible or ethical choice? Can Ms. Sussman name a global problem that would not be ameliorated by a reduction in population growth? She wants to freeze her eggs and protect her genetic future — fine. But why go to such elaborate lengths to justify what is arguably the least revolutionary or novel impulse a person of privilege could indulge in?
The choice not to reproduce and to reduce the global legacy created by humans is the only defensible choice — and one too few are resolute enough to make. Those that do should be applauded. The human population, sadly, will continue to grow, with or without Ms. Sussman's unnecessary reinforcement.
11
A focus on career success, a focus on individual 'happiness' in the here and now, and the ability to control pregnancy combine to produce fewer children. An additional factor is true awareness of the 'burden' that childbearing and rearing represents, physically, emotionally and financially.
Society must REWARD parents for childbearing and rearing if population replacement is valued.
7
This piece is very rich w/ ideas and even the author’s own autobiographical information. Her aim is to detail the anxiety and self-obsession of our time. The piece seems complete, except that it’s missing two words: LOVE and MARRIAGE. The two are supposed to have something to do with each other. Ideally, you combine the two and you get a baby. The Cynicism of our times has resulted in such disrespect for traditional roles that we can’t even see that babies come naturally from love and marriage. This will probably seem annoying to most millennials, but I explicitly ask my sons to respect that order: love, then marriage, then babies. However in my heart, I will love them all anyway even if they break tradition. I would forever love my grandchildren and my children and their spouses. They will be my blessed family. That’s how we can make society better, by having loving families.
9
@Gloria I so appreciate our points about love and marriage being missing from this article, though for thousands of years marriage had nothing to do with love. It was a financial requirement because women could not own anything, so needed a man to literally survive AND achieve the only accomplishment possible: having a child. I do look forward to the author’s future article on dating in modern capitalism.
8
@Gloria
Traditional roles once were that men had several wives; that women gave birth to as many babies as her mate could come up with; that women did not work outside of the home; that women died in childbirth without anyone raising a fuss about it all; that love often never came into it; that there could be no love (or marriage) between two women or two men. Tradition also never considered such things as artificial insemination so that a woman might "get a baby" without having to go the love and marriage at all.
1
1. In Europe, South Korea, & the United States- it is culturally acceptable to have few or no children and quite frankly this is great for woman.
2. Articles citing the reasons about the destruction of the middle class in the United States frequently cite Child Care Costs, Student Loan Debt, Health care costs, and Housing costs. The first two are directly tied to children, the other two are related to increasing the size of the household.
3. The idea that we need more people, so as to support the excess amount of people already on the planet - will fast track us to extinction - (see Global Warming).
11
I live in a city where large families are commonplace Day care is affordable and extended family helps. Average family seems 2 parents and 4 to 8 kids. Extra cash for luxuries are scare but medical care and education are inexpensive . Kids share their bedroom with same sex siblings .
Not marrying and having children is an option few choose. Most people are happy with their life
4
Less babies is a good thing. This tired old planet is much over populated and could use a break from the destructive habits of the humans that don't care about Nature even though we all depend on Mother Nature to exist.
The best way to accomplish this would be to charge an excise tax on having more than one child instead of giving parents a tax break.
15
We do not really have a "climate crisis". It is the symptom of the actual crisis, overpopulation. This planet cannot sustain the population we have now. Our economic system, based on perpetual growth, is not sustainable either. We need to come to grips with that if we intend to survive as a species. Globally we need human reproductive rates to be below the "sustainable" level until our population reaches a level were it can be sustained and offer quality of life for ALL living things.
24
@John Warnock We have both. Even with one third of our current population, which would likely be considered "sustainable" from a food and water standpoint, we could still cause a severe climate crisis with imprudent use of resources and fossil fuel consumption.
2
I always knew I wanted children. I also contemplated doing it as a single parent, and then married recklessly at 34 with the intent to have a child immediately. I had my 1st at 35, the 2nd at 38. But I also feared my selfishness. I feared the world I was bringing life into because of my desire to have a child.
So far neither of my children seem eager to have children of their own, and if that is their choice I am fine with it. This world is becoming more and more scary. Even more so than when I considered having my children and wondered if I should.
9
One particular change that parents have to deal with today is that social media has brought out the microscope on parenting and child rearing. Most people at work resent it if someone is constantly looking over their shoulder to see how they are doing their job. Well today many are letting social media play the same role. The family unit used to be more discreet and contained. A family had a select limited number of groups and individuals as part of their regular social interactions and sharing. Smaller but stronger.
On top of that there is a fixed number of hours to one's day and social media pac man's a lot of them. Add in work and taking care of household chores in and out and woops no time for Charlie.
5
Countries that fret over low birth rates are showing short sided reasoning. Every modern problem is partially caused by requiring us to do more with less. Less people create less pollution, period.
It’s the same truncated reasoning that equates an increasing GDP with increasing national well being. .....while separate articles tell us to buy less to waste less.
And this is basic unadorned capitalism exposed.
10
@Susan But you can't overlook a crucial problem - the older generations have to be supported financially by the younger generations - in the US, that is the way Social Security and Medicare are paid for, for example. As we create smaller younger generations we can't forget that we are increasing the financial burden on each and every member of that younger generation to pay for their parents and grandparents. At some point we will cripple them - we are seeing the beginnings of it now, are we not?
1
From the article last week on climate Change the Number 1 recommendation I is lower population. Women intuitively know this, if we would of had our repo rights respected longer maybe we wouldn’t have 8 billion people and now keep a moderate pace of population growth. But as usual we were repressed and now the consequences. I’m glad I adopted have no regrets to give the kids who are here already a chance.
18
as many comments suggest and the article ignores ~ perhaps a reduction in population is not a bad thing. It could even be seen as evolutionary. Many species reduce their numbers when the population is too crowded. We face a population crisis worldwide. Bemoaning the idea that we aren't continuing to blanket the planet with our footprints when our numbers have doubled and trebled in only a few generations strikes me as narrow. I agree with many of your points but lets resolve the social, economic and environmental issues you speak of before increasing our flock.
29
I suspect our modern egocentric view, rather than a shared tribal commonality, is the primary factor reducing our reproductive rate. We are not prepared to sacrifice the one for the many. We have the luxury of this behavior in our present "golden" age of relative peace and prosperity but may lose this option soon.
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Again, it appears the Danes have a prescient view of the future and the human role in it.
Over population is the greatest threat the world has, as any thinking person will agree, not too many trees or fish. It goes far beyond Denmark and China. My recent visits to Hanoi, HoChiMinh City and Bangkok have confirmed that.
Of the population in Niger, 70% are below the age of 25, in the US its about 32%. There is no way with with automation and AI that there will be able to employ all of them, hence the flood of immigrants to someplace other than where they are which simply moves the problem with them.
When my first child was born 63 years ago, I received two pieces in the mail that remain in my memory. one from the Catholic Diocese stating that "it is mans duty on earth to help populate heaven with saints", the other from planned Parenthood stating that "the primary cause of slums is overpopulation", that the ability for a wage earner to support 1 or 2 children fails with 8 or 9.
The glut in workers drives wages down as the Corporations follow the cheapest labor markets leaving unemployment behind.
Basic anatomy and physiology, known as birth control, should be taught in primary schools, especially to girls, so they can make informed decisions about their well being.
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The paradigm of needing replacement births needs a good hard revision. So do all the surrounding financial and economic assumptions around growth as a measure of success. I keep asking Krugman...
People will make meaningful whatever it is that they have to work with. It seems to be our nature. If your life were on a farm with kids, something in that becomes meaningful. If you are in school, same concept, different meaningfulness.
In the most severe of my disabled states, I knit for charity. Not for the praise, or religious boost, but because it allows me to use my compromised abilities to help someone else. Fully-able, I would be doing something very different. It would still involve helping others or giving back, because that's what I've come to care about. You work with what you have.
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Years ago, I sat in an anthropology class on Human Reproduction. One of the professors had studied patterns in Ireland for several years. There, it was typical for people to marry later, thus shorten their reproductive years. I remember learning that in populations that are experiencing a lack of resources (food, water, shelter), birth rates dropped. It doesn't take long to realize that this is where we are, now. We are running out of time. The concern is palpable. I had my children in my thirties and I do worry about the kind of future they will have. Is theirs that last generation? And if they choose to have children, what kind of lives will they have? The fear is very real.
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@Marmylady I was quite upset in my 30s by not being able to find someone with which to have a family. Now at the start of my 50s, given our current circumstances, I've come to see this as possibly a blessing. I'm not sure Billy Bob is going to give up his monster truck (or his overnight delivery, or his fresh-squeezed orange juice in January) before things get really ugly.
Good luck.
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