I do not see how you can possibly encourage relationships and parenthood and still make comments like " Since the fall of Roe, the Republican Party has become actively hostile to women’s reproductive rights, pushing female voters left."
That statement is simply untrue.
Republicans are not hostile to reproductive rights for women, they are actively advocating for the rights of babies to be born.
Or she fails to mention that roughly 85% of Americans support some form of abortion with some limitations. The only hostility comes from the two extremes that believe in all or none. The abortion issue would be largely settled if the position of that 85% was being discussed instead of the extremes from both sides. But that wouldn't benefit those in charge.
To politicians and mainstream media, abortion is nothing more than something to divide us over and fundraise off of. Keep telling Americans that their neighbors are trying to take away their rights while the government actually takes away rights.
The author really proved her point by pissing off the right wing men by the end of the article. Her takes on Republicans were pure sexist hate, full stop.
Bingo! Thank you for beating me to the punch, the very point I wanted to make. I’ll add that it drives me crazy to see abortion advocacy described as “reproductive rights.” I don’t insist it be called killing babies, which is inflammatory and unhelpful when discussing this complex issue, but anyone using “reproductive rights” is signaling a calcified mind on the other side.
I object to this and other phrases, such as “health care,” partly because they’re benign euphemisms for what’s really going on: A woman wanting to abort a fetus whenever she chooses. It can be summed up as “my body, my choice.” Yet, hers isn’t the only body involved. A man, the sperm provider, is also involved. What if he desires to reproduce - or not? Not saying he should be able to compel or veto an abortion, but does he have no say in the matter, despite being responsible for child support if the woman chooses to have the baby? The fetus, especially if at the stage of extra-vitro viability, is also involved. (There might even be other interested parties - grandparents, for example, or a childless sister wishing to adopt.)
Furthermore, the “my body, my choice” mantra doesn’t apply in other circumstances. Female nurses of child-bearing age didn’t get to invoke it to decline Covid shots required by their employers. Female drivers don’t get to invoke it when pulled over after imbibing too much alcohol. Why should “my body, my choice” apply only to abortion, which also involves others besides the prospective mother?
I've actually not loved the widespread use of the term "healthcare," for just about the same reasons as you. I give it a bit of a pass just because if you're talking about medically-assisted abortion, the process or procedure would fall under the rubric of healthcare. But no, an abortion is in a different category from routine healthcare and we all know it. It definitely comes across as squirmy-wormy, and to what end? I don't think pro-choice advocates need to use "benign euphemisms," as you say, especially ones that smack of obfuscation like "healthcare," in order to make their case.
I don't, however, agree that "reproductive rights" is a euphemism for abortion because it encompasses all the ways in which a woman controls her fertility, including but not limited to safe, legal abortion.
As for "my body, my choice," I'm afraid it does come down to that. I don't mean "whenever she chooses" - which, incidentally, hasn't been allowed since Casey - and, while I don't want the government making arbitrary cutoffs, it seems that viability is a justifiable one, with exceptions for the life of the mother and serious fetal anomalies (as it is, these are the reasons for late-term abortions, anyway).
But, no, the father doesn't have a right to compel a woman to carry and birth his baby against her will. Nor does a parent or good-hearted sister or, simply, anyone at all. Just as no one has a right to compel a woman to end a pregnancy. Interested parties may implore and remonstrate with her, but in what just, humane world would anyone but the pregnant woman or girl get the final say? Please take a moment to imagine it.
Your analogies for other "my, body my choice" scenarios are inapt. Nobody, woman or otherwise, has a right to drive drunk and potentially kill fully independent, autonomous human beings. The nurses could have taken another job. I know that's not easy for them, but they weren't actually being forced to get the shot - do something to their body against their will - just to get the shot as long as they were working in a hospital or nursing home with seriously ill and fragile people. Employers in all sectors have a right to impose some policies on their workers. Eg. "my body, my choice" rightly doesn't mean you don't have to get your body out of bed and get to work on time, or that you can show up high (or refuse drug testing in certain professions), or eat your co-worker's food... the list goes on. These cases simply aren't equivalent and therefore don't undermine the "my body, my choice" argument for abortion rights.
“Reproductive rights,” while certainly covering a broader topic, is often used as a euphemism for abortion. And many abortion advocates do mean “whenever she chooses.” I appreciate your thoughtful reply, and agree with much of it.
Mark explicitly said he didn't think that a father should be able to compel the final decision. But he did raise the thorny question of what rights the father should have. I have a vague sense of "it should be more than just the right to beg the mother" but I couldn't tell you exactly how to answer that one. This is a secondary but really important difficult question.
Mark also raised the possibility that the fetus is on some level "involved." This in contrast to your language around "fully independent, autonomous human beings." To me, I think this is the crux of the debate, and why compromise in the middle is the only solution, as Almost Home mentioned above. At what point you think a fetus deserves "rights" (or not) really comes down to beliefs. It's not a question with a singular answer. But there does seem to be a rough answer that most Americans can agree on and would consider humane, and it would be nice to codify that and end the worst parts of this debate.
Sorry to jump in on your conversation :) - just my two cents.
I appreciate your two cents. And thanks for pointing out that Mark wasn’t suggesting a father should be able to make the final decision. I kind of blurred that.
I do empathize with men in this situation, and understand - and to some extent share - the feeling that they should have some sort of legal right they don’t currently have. As a potential grandmother, I can even wish for some right of my own. But, as you imply, the proper formula for such right doesn’t exist. I don’t think even giving someone a formal right to beg the mother works. There are too many factors to account for. How do you assure the “beggar” isn’t abusive, for example? Maybe you set up some kind of formal mediation process, but even if that were just, how is it workable at scale? How does it fit into the timeline of the pregnancy and potential abortion? What if the hearings are delayed or the schedule backed up, etc?
I’m just kind of spitballing here, obviously. But I find no way for anyone but the mother to have a compelling right in the decision at the end of the day. It’s unfortunate, but cold, hard reality - in a free society such as ours and would any of us want to live in the other kind? - mitigates against it.
It may be lamentable, but it’s a fact of life. Just like the fact that a father will never share the physical pain and risk of childbirth. Just as the man can always physically, if not financially (legally - though it’s done all the time), walk away. I’d love for there to be some policy that would make the man experience the same emotional weight - the profound immensity and fear - of growing a human being inside your body; the physical pain and damage; the cost to one’s individuality and dreams. The absolute foreverness of it.
Well, if in "reproductive rights" you're talking about other forms of birth control, excepting abortion, assertions that the Republican Party or anyone else - other than a very fringe, very small minority - are working to curtail those reproductive rights of women is gross hyperbole, to the point that it falls under the category of euphemism.
Convenience abortions are all abortions done because of the irresponsible behavior of adults that fail to use condoms or other real birth control methods. This does not include rape nor incest. Women would be very honorable in those situations to still take the baby to full term and birth to keep the child or to give it up for adoption. Those women are truly blessed to bring the child into this world, a miracle every single time. God Almighty will bless these special women for their entire life in many ways.
Abortion for convenience is pure murder of innocent human beings. Once done, the man may run away and woman will be permanently scarred for life with the knowledge and guilt that she killed her own child. The man that runs away will also know that he is guilty of killing his child and this will screw him up as well and harden his heart. Actual good loving women should avoid these hardened men like the bubonic plague until they confess their transgressions, ask for forgiveness, and turn a new page, and then help the girl or woman in real actionable ways. Many other times the man wishes for the child to be born and will take steps to protect the woman and the child with support or marriage. We used to call those shotgun marriages. They are totally honorable, legitimate, valid, and healthy as long as the man repents and chooses to live honorably. That man and that woman need council. Sometimes the woman takes the baby to full term and then gives it up for adoption for other reasons . They know and never forget that they brought a new human being to life. No matter the situations nor circumstances, they will know that they chose life for their baby. They will hold this closely to their heart until they die. This is how things used to be done in America. Our current American culture is a satanic death culture that rots out our very hearts and souls. Abortion is one of the central reasons why it is a death culture. Now folks wish to kill imperfect people with euthanasia. Eventually this ends with cannibalism.
Ours is an explicitly rights-based government. The question of clashing rights is how we determine laws. Every little rule and regulation we live under can be broken down that way. Eg. the responsibility to keep your sidewalks clear is the clash between the right of a homeowner to, say, sleep in versus the right of a neighbor to walk on a snow-free sidewalk.
Responsibilities as you’re thinking of them, I’m guessing, are philosophical not legal ideas: what do we owe to other human beings, living things, the planet, the future, etc.
I’m kind of talking out of my arse here. I’m not a lawyer or legal expert - or trained philosopher for that matter! Just thinking out loud, really. :)
Also, funny how "reproductive health care" does NOT ever seem to include supporting people to HAVE children. Only to avoid or terminate pregnancy. Almost like "reproductive health care" is hostile to the act of reproduction...🤔
Liberals are forever trying to pass laws that support people in having children. Conservatives are forever trying to block them. Eg. when a state refuses federal money to cover healthcare for poor people, you know it’s not serious about supporting people to HAVE children; it’s helping make abortion a better financial decision.
Not entirely true. Liberals are forever trying to pass laws that move responsibility for children from the parents and community to the state. There's very little regard for the complex process of supporting the family unit. Mostly it seems to be about rendering parents as superfluous as possible, by rendering the work of parenting as trivial/effortless as possible.
This could be viewed as trying to support people in having children. This could also be viewed as trying to sabotage parents and usurp the parental role.
Really depends on your perspective. Before I had kids, I was firmly in column A. After having raised a handful of kids (both mine biologically and bonus parent to neighbor kids), my perspective has shifted.
It's kind of creepy to be out playing with your kids at a park and a government employee comes to urge you to put them in free daycare. The first time it happened, my response is "We're good, but thank you for informing me about the resource." The sixth time my response leaned more towards "I can raise my own kids, please go away!"
Frankly NEITHER party seems very supportive of the economic and cultural changes that are required to stabilize birthrates at replacement level. There's too much money being made in the current model.
"Rights of babies to be born" is a truer statement of the Republican position. Though I do think it would be wiser and more in keeping with Republican's views on individual rights vs federal government edicts to let women decide for themselves what's best. If it's a sin, it's theirs to bear. Absent that, at least split the difference with a 15 or 16 week ban.
No, didn't you read the article? You can't have a nuanced or complicated view. Either you completely support abortion or you "are antagonistic towards reproductive rights"!
I don’t know what about all the state bans - like, say, 6 weeks in Texas enforced by vigilantes - isn't screaming “antagonistic to reproductive rights!” It’s worth noting that, after their initial glee and round of “it’s Christmas in forced-birther land!” legislation, Republicans are backing off ONLY because they’re now learning what all of us with a brain already knew: women want to make their own decisions and won’t vote for you when you treat them as breeders. Only the prospect of losing political power, not reasonableness or respect for women as autonomous beings has changed their tune.
Maybe some individuals feel that practicing birth control is better than killing the fetus or unborn child. You completely misunderstand where MOST conservatives align on this issue and it’s protecting rights of unborn children, not “forcing “ women to carry babies they seemingly don’t want and except in cases of rape or incest, willingly assented to the required sex without birth control that resulted in a pregnancy. You may not be old enough to remember, but I recall the “legal, safe, and rare” arguments from the early in this debate. Women have EVERY option to PREVENT breeding if they think that’s what having a child is.
I'm old enough to remember Hillary Clinton's "safe, legal, and rare" line. I agree with it 100% Do you not? If not, why recall it favorably? We should be doing everything we can to prevent unwanted pregnancies. How do we do that? First, we teach, teach, teach, teach, teach. We make birth control available everywhere and destigmatize it.
Eg. a friend of ours used to keep a big bowl of condoms by his door and encourage all his teen kids' friends' to take as many as they wanted. Sadly, I'm a little too uptight for that, though I have started keeping condoms in kitchen drawers and letting my teen kids' friends know they're welcome to take them. And I tell my sons *always* to have at least two condoms on them and NEVER ever ever - EVER! - make the girl ask them to use one. Condoms should be everywhere. And every teen should have an in-school clinic that provides supportive sexual healthcare and no-questions-asked birth control.
We're far from this model. Teens are embarrassed to buy condoms. Parents are uncomfortable with teens - boys and girls - having plenty of condoms or using systemic birth control. Parents think possession of birth control means their kid is having sex. No, they're just prepared.
Second, we need to make it economically and emotionally feasible for people to have more children. Parenting is too expensive and too isolating in America.
Still, women who don't want to be pregnant are going to get pregnant, and they need not to be forced by the government to carry that fetus to term.
"forced-birther land" is a good example of unhinged, extremist rhetoric. It deliberately invokes a Handmaid's Tale-like regime that is requiring women to have unprotected sex and then to keep any issue from that encounter under any circumstances. The vast majority of Americans support easily accessed birth control to prevent pregnancy, along with abortion rights in the first trimester but some restrictions on abortions for healthy unborn babies in the final trimester. It is absolutism on BOTH sides that keeps this issue a money-maker for politicians from both left and right.
And for the record, I agree that the six-week ban is too rigid--a woman may not even realize she is pregnant yet and I support the "day after pill" as it used to be called. "Plan B" now, I think.
In fact, I had an abortion in college and have never regretted it. I made a stupid decision with boy I thought I was in love with and was in no position to raise a child.
I agree with everything you say here except that "forced-birth" is unhinged, extremist language. I feel like it's the most objectively accurate language. "Pro-life" and "pro-abortion" are the misnomers. Pro-choice advocates are as pro-life as anyone, we just have a different take on what that means.Nobody's pro-abortion.
How can you think forced-birth isn't a thing in the context of 14 states having already enacted near total bans?* With several more seeking such restrictions. To me, this does smack of The Handmaid's Tale. I also had an abortion in college and am so grateful I could. I think you, like so many women, can imagine the terror of finding out you're pregnant and knowing you can't do anything about it. It's a sort of horrified, panicked nauseated feeling. Bu the way, it's not just the pregnancy and the resulting baby (oh, like it's easy to just give a baby up for adoption, tra la la) that are scary, it's all the things that can and do happen to your body during the process. I've had four babies and I can tell you, imposing against her will the kind of pain and permanent damage I suffered on any woman - especially a minor! - is unconscionable.
By the way, what makes you think millions of good young women don't make bad snap decisions just like you did? Especially in the context of extreme pressure from men - maybe a boyfriend or spouse whom they love - coupled with the horniness of one's child-bearing years, and perhaps a booze-fuzzy mind? Who are we to say a woman should be punished for the things we - fine, generally responsible people as we are - also did? Maybe if we're also going to make her partner, for the concurring bad decision, push a walnut through his urethera (sometimes he might get lucky and it'll just be a peanut, but sometimes it might be a big ol' chestnut - it's a wonderful wheel of fortune!). Maybe too, we can rip her partner's perineum all the way through his sphincter so he can never control his farts again. Let's see: Scarring. Stretch marks. Urinary incontinence. Scars. Saggy ligaments. Vericose veins. Hemorrhoids. Fistulas. Anal prolapse. (I know I'm missing some.) If - along with death - these were things a guy had to risk with every pregnancy, please tell me they'd be fighting to make ending a pregnancy illegal.
Generally, most folks consider bans against killing another personin cold blood as clearly within the government's purview.
I don't see why the killer should get a pass because she's a woman and it's her child. Would it also be cool if the father had the right to kill his child,as long as it was done within, say, the first month ex utero?
At what point does a baby become a fully formed person? If a baby is wanted, it can be considered at the point of viability which has changed in the last 50 years. Do we consider the baby a fully formed person because of its location (in the womb or out), or because of its level of development, its size?
A system is not "fully formed" until it is capable of performing its normal functions. Therefore, since the reproductive subsystem of those systems called "persons" is not capable of performing its normal function until puberty, a person is not fully formed until then, "from a medical perspective". Am I missing something here? Something such as sanity, for example?
Incidentally, and probably not coincidentally, neither the OED nor Merriam-Webster share your supposed definition.
OED: "a young human being or animal before birth, after the organs have started to develop: "
Merriam-Webster: "an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind
specifically : a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth "
It seems the salient bits are: organ development has begun and it's not born yet. Merriam-Webster also pretty much directly contradicts your supposed definition, in that they further add "after attaining the basic structural plan."
But probably the most daistingishing feature of the term "fetus" (latin for "offspring") is that it's not an embyo, but it's also not born yet. Which covers rather a lot of ground. And which prompted my question about ex-utero killing.
“Person” is also not a medical/scientific term. Some may argue “personhood” from a philosophical position because the debate about whether the embryo/fetus/etc is human has been settled. So the goal was moved to “person.” Thus instead of a human having certain rights, the argument is that rights shouldn’t be granted until “personhood” is established. Unfortunately, that provides for more arbitrary lines to be drawn bc we refuse to accept scientific/medical reality.
It's not been clarified, though,whether Republicans twirl their mustaches whilst plotting their efforts to control women. I guess there is still plenty to write about them.
I can testify that conservative Christian men love women intensely. They also support reproduction and hope and pray our wives will conceive and bear many children. We love our children and everyone else’s children. All the women in our church are sisters in Christ and we love them too.
As long as abortion advocates can convince women that the fetus is not a real person, abortions will continue, guilt free, like removing cancer from the body. That's why they won't require ultrasounds. Everything is about alleviating any possible guilt or responsibility to the life they are carrying.
The irony is that less than a half of the anti-abortion activists are women. Maybe because they understand the complexity and issues of pregnancy? Would it make sense to listen to them before forcing the victims of rape to carry the baby of the rapist to term? Where is the responsibility of the father in this case? Would he he be legally required to take full custody and financial responsibility of the baby born of the rape? That would be fair, but I don't see those laws in place.
I used to believe as you do...that rape or incest should be an exception. Then I considered why I opposed abortion. It's the taking of a human life. If that's the case, then why should the child be killed because of the circumstances of its conception? There are other options..adoption, more widely available mental health support, etc.
Amen, Melody! And may I add that there is never any robust discussion about the reality that an abortion does not make the trauma of rape go away? One could argue (and I do mean that a good faith argument can be made on both sides) that an abortion exacerbates the situation, especially since there is so much anecdotal evidence that carrying the baby to birth brings “beauty from ashes.”
Healing from horrible experiences is NEVER easily and quickly done. I know well-meaning abortion advocates are not touting it as a “wonderful, happy” solution, but it concerns me that in the rhetoric we fall prey to the misguided idea that an abortion is an “easy” “solution” to the child conceived in rape or even for the hardships endured from a pregnancy we know will end in that child’s death.
Lord, have mercy on us who are at war with our bodies and our children!
It would be appropriate if the rapists or the male who committs incest receives the same punishment as the child he creates. If the child is aborted, he should suffer the same death sentence. Why does the innocent get a more harsh life, termination, sentence than the perp?
Interesting point. I'd never thought of that. The opposite argument, in evolutionary terms, is that you'd be rewarding rapist behavior by allowing the rapist to pass on his genes.
I guess we now get into the discussion of nature vs nurture. But if rape and incest are such terrible actions, and they are, then the punishment needs to match the crime. For children rapists, that happens a lot in prison.
The real irony is that the anti-abortion absolutists motivate the pro-abortion zealots. A compromise would result in fewer abortions but neither side wants anything but total victory. For every state that outlaws abortion, two states will make it available with no limits whatever.
I doubt there will be a state that makes absolutely no limits on abortion, they just leave it to the doctors to decide, which may leave the door open for possible excesses for the mid-term abortions. But our entire politics is going the same antagonistic way. Zealots on the right demand immigration bans, so zealots on the left establish sanctuary cities. I consider myself center-left, but I think it is fair that the governors from the South started sending migrants to the sanctuary cities, to spread the pain.
In states like New York, Illinois and California, a woman who wants an abortion can find a doctor to legally perform it regardless of how far along her pregnancy is. Regarding immigration, one reason people want to come to the US is because we have always believed in the rule of law. I'm all for legal immigration but believe allowing unlimited illegal immigrantion undermines the rule of law. It is unfair to make those wauting in line pass medical screenings and be vaccinated while allowing those who enter illegally to both effectively jump the line and skip those requirements.
The Free Press has a mainstream sensationalist tendency when talking about abortion. It’s across their pieces, from Anna to Nellie. It’s disappointing but I don’t know that there’s an alternative to support yet.
Women should never wish to kill their children. It will mess up their lives forever. Women should love their children. God Almighty’s greatest gift to men, is their wives, not their mistresses. I love my wife intensely. 44 years is not enough. I need another 44 years now. I wish to be Methuselah now to make love to my wife for another 800 years. Alas, that is no longer possible now. No worries now. King Jesus will take both of us home now, very soon. We will live forever together, with Jesus Christ in heaven for eternity as brother and sister then. No worries at all. This sounds like heaven to me.
Teaching women to hate men is part of the communist playbook. When no one starts families, then they are atomized and easily ruled by The State. Only two generations ago, before late stage feminism took over, the TFR of South Korea and America was above 3.
Now birth rates across the developed world have plummeted and everyone is worse off for it. The data shows that young liberal women have the most mental health issues and antidepressant usage of any demographic. Keep scrolling through tiktoks about hating men, surely that will help... Chairman Xi thanks you for weakening the CCP's competition.
How about teaching women to hate their babies by framing abortion as “healthcare” instead of what it is - terminating life. The pro-“choice” slant of FP is getting old. Advocating abortion….thats also a CCP special, albeit one they are now desperately walking back. Not sure the democrats will ever walk it back.
I’m not an opponent of first trimester abortion, but when access to abortion is termed “reproductive health” or “women’s health” it’s just obvious gaslighting. Terminating a pregnancy is the opposite of reproductive health, so being forthright that the debate is about abortion, and definitely not reproducing, then that might engender some higher degree of trust. But when someone starts bullshitting me so unashamedly with language, it’s likely to trigger a reassessment as to whether I’ve been conned and to what degree.
Progressive white women ruin every demographic they "help." They marched in 2020 until they brought back segregation. They policed Covid compliance until censorship returned and people were having fistfights on airplanes. Having wrecked those things they turned their attention to the trans community which they successfully blew up as well. Now (in between marching for terrorists,) they have their sights set on marriage and children. We were better off when the suburban moms were involved in pyramid schemes and selling essential oils.
The author and most foreign reporters don't understand that the issue with the birth rate in Korea is not about feminism but more about the economic and other social issues that exist.
I think this is sensationalism; any half-decent research will show that the 4B movement is incredibly fringe and not representative of women's values. Are there differences in political views between the sexes? Yes, but young people are not talking about politics in everyday life as they do in the US.
They have high birth rates in many African states, and they are worse off for it. I think the key component is not communist thinking, but the opposite, which is freedom for women to have the same rights and responsibilities as men have. Which means not staying home and taking care of the kids basically for free.
I would venture to say that most men want kids for legacy. I’ve never met a man who’s going to give up his career to stay at home for 15 years and raise a family. That’s not what men do. And now women are taking a page out of the men’s playbook.
I have a 25 year-old daughter who said she doesn’t want kids. Maybe just because she’s in her 20s she doesn’t want kids. But she wants to be self-sufficient and be able to take care of herself and rise in her newfound career. She does not have a desire to stay at home mom. She relishes her newfound freedom. Communism is about not having freedom to choose. This is the complete opposite.
Well, my son-in-law (32 years old) is staying home with his new daughter, while my own daughter is back at work. I don't know if he'll be home for 15 years, but he's home now and seems to be OK with it. Things have definitely changed since I was young years ago.
I spent a lot of time as a kid (female) in rural Georgia. We were always having family reunions. I remember sitting under a tree just watching everything. The women were running around after kids, setting large outdoor tables, bringing food, cleaning up and generally working the whole time. The men were sitting around yammering about nothing, playing horseshoes (it was the 60s) and generally relaxing. I remember thinking “I don’t want to do all the work, I want to hang out and be waited on.” I think that was where I decided I never wanted children. It was a good decision for me.
That scene you describe does not have to define you. I have a more fair partnership with my husband than most avowed feminists I know, who live what you describe. I am glad you don't regret not having children. For me it's been my life's greatest blessing.
The men didn't work for a living? They didn't go off and earn a paycheck? Interesting. Wonder what the women were getting out of this? Seems like a bad deal.
Of course, the men worked. The scene I mentioned was at a family reunion, which was held on the weekend. But since you asked, this was in the 60s. Men didn't work outside their jobs. They went to work, came home, put their feet up and got waited on. And that was that. As my mother used to say, "A man works from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done."
I was very career oriented in my youth, postponed marriage until 31, but coming from a large family wanted more than 2 kids. Married a professional like myself. Our religion is important to us.
We have 4 kids, people questioned a bit after we had the first 2 -healthy girl and boy- and some couldn’t believe we had a 4th. I was able to work part time during early years (yes a hit to my career, but I’d gladly do it again).
To your point about men staying home. My husband had a hard time being a professional and a dad; in our profession 50-60 hr weeks and night time work is common. So he became a stay at home dad. Worked well for us, and when the youngest was in high school he started back to work, sticking with part time for his sanity.
Just letting you know there are stay at home dads out there who are thriving!
Thank you for your reply. I wonder since the story is about South Korea, if the men in South Korea are willing to give up their careers and stay at home? I don’t think that’s the case in more of a male dominated society. I think it’s possible that someone, or a man might stay home and take care of the kids. But for the most part, I think men are going to be career driven, and now that women are also career driven, I think my theory explains why the birth rate is sinking.
Sure there’s a few progressive Dad’s who will want to be Mr. Mom. But that also requires the woman to be making a very high salary so one person can stay at home. I’m not sure if the majority of men are going to want to reverse roles and go back to a 50s style single-family earner family with a dad at home.
Let's not monetize everything in life, if you choose to have children you are responsible for that choice. Since the Pill women have had the ability to choose not to have children and to work. They also have the ability to choose not to get married. They also have the ability to have children and work. Women have many choices and they can make them, but they also need to understand the consequences of their choices and that they are responsible for them.
Children require care. They don't pay their caretakers in money. SOMEONE has to take care of the kids.
In the first 3 years from fertilization, men and women CAN'T have the same rights and responsibilities regarding the child. This is the reality of being a mammal. Men can't gestate, give birth, or nurse.
The problem here is equating WORTH with rights and responsibilities. The sexes absolutely have the same worth. However, the only way to have the same rights and responsibilities is to eliminate both reproduction and physical labor. Once you get out of office work, sexual dimorphism becomes significant.
Sometimes reality doesn't align with theory.
The sexes can and should have roughly equivalent rights and responsibilities. In most times and cultures, they have. Any gross inequalities create an unstable culture that eventually (over a century or two) corrects.
But being the SAME isn't possible for any mammals who give live birth. We're mammals. We're sexually dimorphic. Start there.
Yuri — and then add in teaching men to hate women by addicting them to misogynistic podcasts and violent pornography, which they try to imitate in their relationships and then blame women for not wanting to date them.
I always thought that one of the most important things that Orwell got right in 1984 is that under collectivism/totalitarianism, sex between consenting adults is form of rebellion.
I would say that’s the one thing he got completely wrong. South Korea is far from a totalitarian or collectivist society. It’s a male dominated society to be sure, but aren’t all communist totalitarian societies male dominated? So no, I’m not convinced he was right. However, let me know if I’m missing something? If so, I’ll acknowledge it.
Continued expansive contagion of gender dysphoria coupled with this more intense man-hating feminism will create a highly predictable economic catastrophe far worse (and far sooner) than any imagined climate crisis. As the birth rate continues to plummet even more severely, there will be fewer and fewer workers to create products and a slowing or reversing GDP with which to fund any proportionately inflating elderly support programs and societal safety nets.
This will be worsened by the fact we have a range of young people, obviously older than those yet to be born -- or not born -- that have been damaged by the pandemic with speech pathologies, learning disabilities, unnecessary germaphobia, misunderstanding of science (especially biology), and economic ignorance.
If I had my life to do over again, one of the many changes I would make would be to have more children. My three sons bring me more joy and satisfaction than any job or personal accomplishment. But in the period, when I was dating women who could have kids, we were saturated with doom messaging about 'unwanted pregnancy,' and 'unplanned pregnancy,' and 'teen pregnancy,' all of which was synonymous with failure. Culturally, we've extended the 'exploring years' right through the period when we are at the age to have children, and there were no messages, not even from our parents, that indicated it was a great idea, and good for us, to be parents, and no one told me how much fun my kids were going to be. Thankfully, nature's call overrode those messages and I recklessly became the father to three amazing boys who are the finest people I know.
When my husband and I married, we thought we wanted 3 ish. Then we had one and fell so madly in love that we said we’d have 4. Then we had a second and we said, “okay 5.” But the time the 3rd was born, the limit no longer existed. I’m pregnant with our sixth and we are loving it. (That’s doesn’t mean there aren’t hard part of parenthood, but that those hard parts are more completely worth it than anything I’ve every known).
I feel the same way about my two daughters. Because my girls are swimming in water where marriage and parenting are celebrated and valued, I hope we’re imparting that they are critical elements of meaningful adult life. But, just to make sure :), I occasionally say out loud that getting married to their Dad was the best decision I ever made and that I love being a Mom.
Love it Tom! Kids are the best. If I met my wife younger than 38, we’d have 5 kids instead of 3. Marriage and kids should be celebrated because this is what makes life awesome! Yes it’s hard as hell but so much more comes back to you, me and others who put in the work.
You’re a great dad with wonderful attitude! Thanks for your comments.
Thank you, Tom! I had two girls, and I wish I had two boys or at least two other children. It would be fun to have big family reunions. It would remind me of my childhood, where, I don’t know, I guess we may have a 20 kids running around creating havoc and fun for the adults. Good times.
Every house in my neighborhood when I was growing up had at least two kids. On the weekends and summers, we ran wild and the only peace the adults would have was when we were outside. My mom was pretty good about letting me inside if it was storming, but some of my friends were just locked out and told to go play. We learned to take care of ourselves, and negotiate our own conflicts.
Yes. This is my one big regret as a gen X woman raised in a secular and cynical culture, that I bought into the constant narratives of negativity and caution around pregnancy and family building. I only have one daughter and now I understand the enormous privilege and joy and terror and beauty and responsibility and reward of being an imperfect parent in a crazy world. I wish I had five or six! I wish I had embraced that type of challenge instead of thinking I needed to “be smart” and protect myself from it. Anyway. I do wish I had been the recipient of more honest and hopeful messaging when I was young, or that I had been possessed of the wisdom to seek it.
"...the Republican Party has become actively hostile to women’s reproductive rights, pushing female voters left."
Funny how this piece ends with several paragraphs of anti Republican rhetoric but nothing to balance it concerning the Democrats. I guess the Dems aren't part of the problem? Anna, please step out of your bubble!
Gen Z women becoming vastly more liberal - several times over in % change - than men are becoming conservative.
Honestly it should probably be worse - between TicTok, the Women's Studies department, mainstream media, and a lack of integrated social spaces I don't know where a Gen Z woman would possibly hear a countervailing opinion
It's the economy! Wake up! No young person who isn't privileged wants to risk the life altering expenses of having a child. This has little to do with politics and everything to do with the risks of being a single parent.
I like the sentiment in the last paragraph. Yet the three previous paragraphs excellently illustrate the problem. In those, the author's word choice, message and conclusion show absolute faith in the rightness of the current feminist position -- without much exploration of the value that could be found in considering the positions bluntly presented by her male peer group.
Gaetz is an ass but what is inherently wrong with his strategy if one wants to win the numbers game that is an election? The Dems do exactly the same calculations to court the cohort of the population that will vote for them.
Watters is an abrasive comedian, but same answer as to Gaetz plus Watter's blunt prescription for men to find women to marry also points to a solution to the birthrate problem, the sexual polarization of society and will force the men, and the women, to moderate their extreme views if they are to be successful. Is that a problem?
Lastly, I would suggest that the polling on marital rape is more based in definition than her interpretation would imply. Too many men are wary of what was bad sex last night turning into rape the next morning. How often that actually happens is up for debate, but it has happened often enough that men are wary of the perceived risk from a regretful woman.
If we don't want 'women and men to become sworn enemies' the BOTH sides have to listen to the other, not just the men accepting what it is the feminist women want to say.
Precisely. “Reproductive rights” is always a tell. And of course, the “right” in question is not to reproduce but to abort. Control the language — control the narrative.
Jesse Watters is a very likable, colorful and effective host for Fox. His "blunt prescription," as you describe it, was his brand of wry humor and obviously not to be taken literally. These tongue-in-cheek comments, always said with a coy smile and a twinkle in his eye, are part of his style and part of the reason why he has such a large following.
Funny the concern is the supposed “misogyny” of the GOP… meanwhile nothing about the normalized misandry found in college classrooms (which rivals - and likely surpasses - the antisemitism found in college classrooms & is likely contributing to the massive gender gap in higher education).
This is a really important point. If it's non-stop talk about "the patriarchy," then not only are boys and men discriminated against, but girls and women are trained to view them as the enemy.
While the article highlighted how differently celibate men and women are treated by popular culture, it missed the bigger issue.
Indeed. I'd argue that the Democratic Party is more hostile to men than the Republican Party is toward women. Democrats treat men as the primary source of society's problems. They also ignore or downplay issues facing men and boys, such as poorer education outcomes, higher rates of suicide, lower life expectancy, unique forms of discrimination, and fewer parental rights.
OMG.........talking about cherry picking and ignoring context. Any discussion comparing South Korea fertility to the US needs to start with the demographic charts sitting side by side. Then you would notice the differences which incidentally didn't start recently, but literally 3-4 generations ago. Korea never had a baby boomer generation like the USA. Their demography went from a pyramid (healthy demographics) in 1960 to starting to turn into a diamond by 1980. The diamond indicates smaller amounts of younger folks (most importantly young women). Currently their biggest group of women are 50-60 years old and it falls off significantly from that age group down. In 10-15 years it will resemble an upside down pyramid. The USA basically from age 60 down was a straight line until 10-15 years ago when total women started to decrease. The reason isn't some female strike on marriage and children, but a successful campaign against teenage pregnancy that finally took hold around 2005-2010 (use of condoms seems to be the reason). Call it unintended consequences of public policy aimed at doing good.
Then the survey she uses (hyperlinked to an article) to point out male misogyny is one from a "progressive lobbying firm" which doesn't publish (at least I couldn't find it) its polling and a quick look tells us it is a marketing piece to get progressive politicians business. The article hyperlinked also spends time trying to generalize from facts like males do the vast majority of the serial killings and murders to the average male's behavior. The numbers they come out with are so far astray from what the publicly transparent polling numbers are it is impossible to take it seriously.
Finally it prioritizes a minor issue, that of career women putting their career above marriage and having children or some pretend trend of female strike from marriage and motherhood here in the USA. This causes later marriages (or no marriage) and as a result more childless women and fewer births with this small subset of women. I will add that our reduction of Mexican immigrants (both legal and illegal) who were for the most part young, ambitious and family oriented has also played a small part in our current fertility rate (actually a higher part than the aforementioned career women).
This is a classic piece of propaganda..................free from any discussion generated from real data.
General Rule - if someone from the Atlantic (other than Connor Friedersdorf) is publishing here then get ready for some hack bullshit. The author basically admits this is a re-hash of her 2023 Atlantic article that also examined this issue with zero introspection.
Speaking of public policy, it's worth mentioning that the South Korean government in the 1970s became alarmed at rapid population growth, and worked to curtail it. They actively discouraged young people from having large families, and prior to the mid-1980s was a dictatorship (or near-dictatorship) so the imposition of such policies was very difficult to oppose.
Ironically, of course, the policy worked or at least, a coincidental drop in childbirths occurred. Now they are in a panic over the country's population freefall.
A nearly identical thing occurred in mainland China with the One Child policy of 1979-2015, that was enforced with thuggish brutality, e.g. arresting women and forcibly aborting their pregnancies, forcible sterilization, prison sentences etc. Until they noticed the population tanking, and now they're gone in full reverse. Too late, though.
"Finally it prioritizes a minor issue, that of career women putting their career above marriage and having children or some pretend trend of female strike from marriage and motherhood here in the USA. This causes later marriages (or no marriage) and as a result more childless women and fewer births with this small subset of women."
I think delayed family formation is actually the biggest cause of the decrease in fertility (at least in the US). Part of that is from people putting career first, but I think another large part is it just takes so long for a couple to get financially stable AND into their own home.
I married my wife when I was 27 and her 25. We both refused to have kids in an apartment. It took us 5 years before we could save up enough to get into a house (we had move into my parents for house for a couple of years to even make it possible). Now I'm 32, we started trying a year or two later, had a couple of miscarriages, finally didn't have our first till I was probably 37. Had our second when I was 40. Now we are getting to old for kids, rates of more miscarriages of birth defects start sky rocketing. If we had started earlier we quite possibly would have had more.
One thing I would like to point out about "studies" and "surveys" mentioned in published articles is that "studies" usually don't say what the newswriter says it does (remember the "study" about a woman being more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to get married after age 40?), AND "surveys" can be manipulated to tilt a certain way depending on the way questions are asked.
Taking a line from Ted Lasso, “be curious, not judgmental.” I truly believe when people take the time to truly get to know another person and their journey in life, it knocks down walls and brings people together. My friends, we are all closer than we think to getting along. It doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything (who does) but it takes a little work to sincerely talk with someone, put in the effort. It’s worth it! THIS IS HIW WE BRING SOCIETY BACK TOGETHER!
My friends, I challenge you to try this! Start with this sincere question, “I’m curious, can you help me understand…….” and just listen.
That’s funny you mentioned that Sally!!!!! I’m just finishing his book, “How to Know a Person,” which was given as a gift to me. One of the best books I’ve ever read.
I’m really not sure whether people classify Brooks as a conservative, liberal or moderate (I didn’t want to know before reading it) but I believe the content in this book is something we can all read and learn from.
Absolutely! I confess I haven’t read it yet but have listened to several interviews with him discussing it and my husband has ordered the book. So much for all of us to “chew on”! So glad you could fully appreciate the reference!
There is a single percentage point difference between men and women who are pro-life. Pretending that pro-life versus pro-choice debate is about men versus women is ridiculous left-wing framing.
I had a similar thought, inspired by that hoary old article by Garrett Hardin, "Tragedy of the Commons." Runaway population growth was the big worry at the time and, in casting about for a solution to the problem, Hardin insisted an appeal to conscience would be self-defeating.
He wrote: "People vary. Confronted with appeals to limit breeding, some people will undoubtedly respond to the plea more than others. Those who have more children will produce a larger fraction of the next generation than those with more susceptible consciences. The differences will be accumulated, generation by generation."
He then quotes Darwin's grandson, Charles Galton Darwin: "It may well be that it would take hundreds of generations for the progenitive instinct to develop in this way, but if it should do so, nature would have taken her revenge, and the variety Homo contracipiens would become extinct and would be replaced by Homo progenitivus."
The doom and gloom of this and other articles of its ilk likes to spin a “we’re doomed, we’re in danger if we don’t change course” mentality and plays into the worst of this kind of rhetoric.
Given time and self reflection, a lot of these sentiments tend to mature and dissolve, because people easily become swept up in their feelings about the next new “it” thing of whatever the current zeitgeist is and realize the fault in this line of thinking. For those that don’t, it’s called regret and learning to live with the consequences. Plenty of folks can and probably will find relationships later in life even if they don’t have kids, or have fewer than they expected. The percentages sound large, but what was the sample size and where were they polling—urban, suburban, rural? How chronically online are some of these folks, and how much of their perception is altered by it? Can we get the standard deviation or did the author fail to really deep dive into how the stats were compiled?
Pointing the finger at one party can be helpful but overall it fails to take into account how much these sentiments are simply further escalations of one group overreacting to one another in a “anything you can do I can do better” type of retaliation. Some people will double down, and others will grow up and out of it, do a reassessment of their values, and make an about face. I had two friends, 35, both get married happily in the last 6 months. One is expecting and the other is trying.
All true, but the demographic and behavioral trends described are real, have been consistently trending for decades, and are quite literally insurmountable in some countries. Korea and China are hostile to mass immigration—much more so than the US. Their fertility rates are very low and falling. Their demographic pyramid is now a rectangle and soon will become an inverted pyramid in which there will be fewer young people working than older retirees. That will place massive burden on the social security net finances and consequently on young people for material survival, which will further disincentivize them to have kids. The unprecedented aspect of this kind of pattern is that the world has literally never seen it outside of wartime and plagues. Sure, individuals can simply choose to have kids later in life, but as population level trends, when the sexes begin to disengage from activities and behaviors that sustain population replenishment, it will have devastating consequences on society. If you’re one of those countries with an inverting demographic pyramid, your only solution is to open the borders and promote mass immigration, but this comes with huge challenges. Short of that, you literally begin to fade away. Chinas population is projected to decline by 1/3 by 2100. Unlike so many things advertised as simply math, that projection is literally simple math. Korea is in the same boat. Unless they allow massive amounts of immigration, start cloning themselves, or embrace cybernetic or Matrix-style people farming, they’re doomed. We in the west seem committed to destroying ourselves, and the insidious Cold War between the sexes in our younger generations is maybe the most worrying social contagion going.
Mass immigration won't be viable for long either. EVERY developed country is below replacement rate, AND rates are rapidly falling in countries that are developing them. That means global population will stabilize and then decrease.
Stable population is good, but rapid decreases will be a huge problem
You're proving the point by highlighting 35-year-olds who are just getting started with children as they enter into their maximum-risk final years of fertility.
I've known women in their mid forties still talking about having kids. Do they think they want to raise teenagers in their 60s?
Well, myself and the other two women are Catholic, and were waiting till marriage, along with other Christian values, that weeded out a lot of men. Some of us wait a very long time to find the right person, and not for the above reasons listed in that article. They were quite aware of their age, and one of them hadn't been asked out on a date in at least two years prior to meeting her husband, and certainly not for lack of going to social events. She was hardly, if ever approached.
Those of us who've had to wait later would have preferred it earlier, but weren't interested compromising values to get used and slept-with and play pretend-house. There are extenuating factors that you may not be considering that impacts each person or group differently.
Great points!! I dated from my early 20s to 39 (so emotionally draining!) when I finally found my wife who was 34. I wanted to find a woman who wanted kids, raise them Catholic and value other things that were important to me. It took a while.
Like you said I wish it was earlier - I’m 58 with a 12 year old daughter - but I’m blessed and wouldn’t change a thing.
I pray for my family, friends, and others who are alone, trying to find that right person.
Wait a year. As a female friend with three daughters once said, "Thirteen is a curse from God." The good news is that they grow out of it. Our teen daughter almost drove my wife crazy. Now she's a wonderful 30-something mother. My friend's three daughters also turned out fine.
in my experience, pursuing men does not work. She herself is also a little shy and introverted. eventually, it all worked out, her husband is also introverted, and they’re quite happy.
I tend to agree that the “doom and gloom” is not helpful. However, do you not think some of those cultural trends and attitudes (JPII’s “The Culture of Death) mentioned in the article had an impact on the realities of finding suitable people to date and marry?
I’d have to read JP II’s writings on the culture of death, but I think I know what you’re talking about. I think as a whole it’s a multifactor problem, and it’s not just the polarization and tribalism of politics. A large part of it is going to be the culture of death, the pushing of consequence free sex and birth control, shifting social attitudes, delaying of adolescence, not teaching people to take responsibility, certainly not unhealthy ways, a redefinition of healthy masculinity and femininity, a decline in religious belief across all age groups that teaches codes of conduct, values, and mores. The fact that American culture really is heavily, narcissistic, from which I’m drawing from the book “the culture of narcissism”. My problem with the above article is not just the doom and gloom, but that it is only approaching it from one broad perspective, and maybe articles like that only can do just that.
Exactly!! I think you and I are “kindred spirits” as Anne of Green Gables would say. You are getting at another important idea that seems lost in most discussions: not JUST, as you stated so well, how there are a multiplicity of factors but ALSO how all these cultural issues are tied together and even flow from one another!
Well, that's my wife and I. We were married (first marriage for both of us) in our early 40s. I'm now 62 with two teenagers. I would have preferred (and would recommend) to start a family a decade earlier, and if that had worked out I'd probably have more than two, but finding the right partner isn't something you can just will. That said, there are advantages and disadvantages to every age. We're much more financially settled; it wasn't hard financially for my wife to stay home and homeschool (for many other homeschoolers, the financial challenges are substantial, though they'd say it's worth it).
I really appreciate your comment because it proves the point that there’s a lot more nuance to finding a partner than people often realize. For some people it’s due to illness, sometimes they have severe family or mental health challenges that prevent them in one way or another from being available in the dating pool because they need time to heal, other times it’s just because the timing is just wrong. I’ve had several friends who had to go through long periods of not dating simply because they weren’t being asked out. And I’ve seen people who very happily find love in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. Some of us sadly are not going to have children, and that is a real reality, either because we physically can’t for one reason or another, or we age out of it. But that doesn’t mean that people cannot find happiness and joy in a relationship later in their life. I’m really glad that you and your wife found each other and you have two beautiful children.
Not so sure the 35-40 something’s will have a happy sudden about face and find marriage and family. I am 69 and found the difficulty in meeting people and forming new friendships began in earnest in my late 30s. In my day, many men were already married by that time or they were looking to have a child and I didn’t want a child. I rarely met anybody randomly because I worked alone and spent eight hours a day alone in a room doing work. As we atomize the workplace in favor of laptop commuting, I think people are going to find it harder and harder to make new friends later — Much less life partners and families.
to an extent, I think that’s always been true. Certainly from my mom‘s recollections of things when she has related her dating experiences in her 30s. To be fair, it does get harder to make friends as we get older, and some of that might be people already have established friendships, or part of it may be that their personalities are fairly set, and they find it difficult to be more adaptive to other different personalities than their own. I think it’s important to have friends who range in age across the lifespan, and also to find people who have similar interests by going out into the world.
In 1977, I quit my teaching position in order to start a movement to work for equality, while still maintaining the male-female balance upon which the survival of all species depends.
Feminists had hijacked the value of “equality” and created a misandrist movement which promoted new sexist stereotypes and new forms of sex discrimination, and while destroying male-female balance and increasing anger and resentment between men and women. Feminism is politically and financially profitable, but fatal for our civilization.
I see more and more signs that my warnings of the past 47 years were accurate.
I think you're mischaracterizing Watter's comment. I didn't see his statement, but I know that in the past polling has shown married women are as Republican leaning as men,, but unmarried women that need the state to do what men do for married women break hard for the Democrats.
Brilliant insight from Jessica Vaughn @JessicaVaughn
"Unmarried women almost always vote for liberals precisely because of their emotional distress. They simply cannot be ok in the meat grinder of a world that requires them to play games designed for men with competitive traits they not only lack, but were designed to do the opposite function of men, which is to nurture and beautify. Putting square pegs in round holes was of course going to make women psychotics. 80% of unmarried women in the west will always vote to take the wealth of those who have it and demand the state give it to them. Marriage negated this compulsion back when there was a suitable man for every suitable woman, and everyone was suitable for someone. You could be below average and still buy a house and afford the basics. Marriage offering a safety net to women predisposed to be dependents their entire lives could never scale open borders, and the internet giving global women direct access to American men. Whole societal model is now broken. Liberalism flipped to some authoritarian leftism where the patients run the asylum. Why do too few know when to recognize their choices have failed them? Modern leftism is mostly asking anyone to come take care of all the failures of the individual in the current model of reality we occupy. They want the state to create a new reality. Is it working? Revolution is a Frankenstein creation, at present."
Love the comment from JMF and that he worked Ted Lasso into this. Good work sir.
Also, I swear this will be a temporary problem. People with the ideology don’t reproduce. It will die off with time.
I keep saying we’re witnessing the evolution of the human race in real time. Before all that was needed to ensure reproduction was a sex drive. It was either life long celibacy or have a baby at some point. Birth control changed that. Now people don’t just have to chose to have sex they have to chose to have kids. If there is any genetic commonality between those who choose to have kids then those genes will become more prevalent overtime aka we evolve.
Although if politicians simply incentivized people to have kids that would change. What if having kids meant you didn’t pay income tax for 18 years? Boom! Kids. Probably for the wrong reasons but kids none the less. Although maybe we would evolve to be more greedy at that point…. My mind is spiraling here.
"Although if politicians simply incentivized people to have kids that would change."
Nations have tried to incentivize having kids. Some even outright paying the people. Nothing so far has really moved the needle. Of course I'm sure there is some number that will do the trick. But not a number that a government can afford. After all the government needs the vast majority of people to form families and have kids.
Having kids is on a long term trend where marriage and children are pushed back until later in life. Average age of marriage has gone up 4 years since the Boomer generation and average age of women's first birth mimics this. What we see is dramatic drop off in fertility among 15-19 year olds (72%) and 20-24 year olds (43%) along with fertility increases in 30-34 +22%, 35-39 +67% and 40+ increasing 132%. Since biology dictates that younger women are more fertile and time of fertility is obviously more for younger women we have an overall small decrease in fertility. Combined with lowering immigration of young women (both legal and illegal) from Mexico (we had a mini baby boom 20 years ago among hispanics) we have our current 1.8 fertility rate. These trends are mostly long standing and are not some critical mass leading to a S Korea (or China/Europe/Japan) demographic bomb. And as we watch Generation Z we see some hope for reversing that delay of child rearing albeit without the benefit of marriage. Generation X is the real culprit here. The Millennials started the return to replacement level fertility (thanks to medical technology) and Generation Z might be continuing that reversal although in different forms. If we could figure out our immigration issue we would be fine. We will never go back to those pre-pill days where certain religions were pumping out children at a prodigious rate (my Catholic wife is #10 of 10 siblings).
I do not see how you can possibly encourage relationships and parenthood and still make comments like " Since the fall of Roe, the Republican Party has become actively hostile to women’s reproductive rights, pushing female voters left."
That statement is simply untrue.
Republicans are not hostile to reproductive rights for women, they are actively advocating for the rights of babies to be born.
(edited for typo)
Or she fails to mention that roughly 85% of Americans support some form of abortion with some limitations. The only hostility comes from the two extremes that believe in all or none. The abortion issue would be largely settled if the position of that 85% was being discussed instead of the extremes from both sides. But that wouldn't benefit those in charge.
To politicians and mainstream media, abortion is nothing more than something to divide us over and fundraise off of. Keep telling Americans that their neighbors are trying to take away their rights while the government actually takes away rights.
Alas, nuanced/measured coverage of issues doesn’t get clicks or ratings.
Nor does it drive political contributions.
I almost left a similar comment.
The author really proved her point by pissing off the right wing men by the end of the article. Her takes on Republicans were pure sexist hate, full stop.
Bingo! Thank you for beating me to the punch, the very point I wanted to make. I’ll add that it drives me crazy to see abortion advocacy described as “reproductive rights.” I don’t insist it be called killing babies, which is inflammatory and unhelpful when discussing this complex issue, but anyone using “reproductive rights” is signaling a calcified mind on the other side.
How so? It seems pretty accurate to me: the right of women to control their own reproduction, with or without the help of a medical practitioner.
I object to this and other phrases, such as “health care,” partly because they’re benign euphemisms for what’s really going on: A woman wanting to abort a fetus whenever she chooses. It can be summed up as “my body, my choice.” Yet, hers isn’t the only body involved. A man, the sperm provider, is also involved. What if he desires to reproduce - or not? Not saying he should be able to compel or veto an abortion, but does he have no say in the matter, despite being responsible for child support if the woman chooses to have the baby? The fetus, especially if at the stage of extra-vitro viability, is also involved. (There might even be other interested parties - grandparents, for example, or a childless sister wishing to adopt.)
Furthermore, the “my body, my choice” mantra doesn’t apply in other circumstances. Female nurses of child-bearing age didn’t get to invoke it to decline Covid shots required by their employers. Female drivers don’t get to invoke it when pulled over after imbibing too much alcohol. Why should “my body, my choice” apply only to abortion, which also involves others besides the prospective mother?
I've actually not loved the widespread use of the term "healthcare," for just about the same reasons as you. I give it a bit of a pass just because if you're talking about medically-assisted abortion, the process or procedure would fall under the rubric of healthcare. But no, an abortion is in a different category from routine healthcare and we all know it. It definitely comes across as squirmy-wormy, and to what end? I don't think pro-choice advocates need to use "benign euphemisms," as you say, especially ones that smack of obfuscation like "healthcare," in order to make their case.
I don't, however, agree that "reproductive rights" is a euphemism for abortion because it encompasses all the ways in which a woman controls her fertility, including but not limited to safe, legal abortion.
As for "my body, my choice," I'm afraid it does come down to that. I don't mean "whenever she chooses" - which, incidentally, hasn't been allowed since Casey - and, while I don't want the government making arbitrary cutoffs, it seems that viability is a justifiable one, with exceptions for the life of the mother and serious fetal anomalies (as it is, these are the reasons for late-term abortions, anyway).
But, no, the father doesn't have a right to compel a woman to carry and birth his baby against her will. Nor does a parent or good-hearted sister or, simply, anyone at all. Just as no one has a right to compel a woman to end a pregnancy. Interested parties may implore and remonstrate with her, but in what just, humane world would anyone but the pregnant woman or girl get the final say? Please take a moment to imagine it.
Your analogies for other "my, body my choice" scenarios are inapt. Nobody, woman or otherwise, has a right to drive drunk and potentially kill fully independent, autonomous human beings. The nurses could have taken another job. I know that's not easy for them, but they weren't actually being forced to get the shot - do something to their body against their will - just to get the shot as long as they were working in a hospital or nursing home with seriously ill and fragile people. Employers in all sectors have a right to impose some policies on their workers. Eg. "my body, my choice" rightly doesn't mean you don't have to get your body out of bed and get to work on time, or that you can show up high (or refuse drug testing in certain professions), or eat your co-worker's food... the list goes on. These cases simply aren't equivalent and therefore don't undermine the "my body, my choice" argument for abortion rights.
“Reproductive rights,” while certainly covering a broader topic, is often used as a euphemism for abortion. And many abortion advocates do mean “whenever she chooses.” I appreciate your thoughtful reply, and agree with much of it.
Mark explicitly said he didn't think that a father should be able to compel the final decision. But he did raise the thorny question of what rights the father should have. I have a vague sense of "it should be more than just the right to beg the mother" but I couldn't tell you exactly how to answer that one. This is a secondary but really important difficult question.
Mark also raised the possibility that the fetus is on some level "involved." This in contrast to your language around "fully independent, autonomous human beings." To me, I think this is the crux of the debate, and why compromise in the middle is the only solution, as Almost Home mentioned above. At what point you think a fetus deserves "rights" (or not) really comes down to beliefs. It's not a question with a singular answer. But there does seem to be a rough answer that most Americans can agree on and would consider humane, and it would be nice to codify that and end the worst parts of this debate.
Sorry to jump in on your conversation :) - just my two cents.
I appreciate your two cents. And thanks for pointing out that Mark wasn’t suggesting a father should be able to make the final decision. I kind of blurred that.
I do empathize with men in this situation, and understand - and to some extent share - the feeling that they should have some sort of legal right they don’t currently have. As a potential grandmother, I can even wish for some right of my own. But, as you imply, the proper formula for such right doesn’t exist. I don’t think even giving someone a formal right to beg the mother works. There are too many factors to account for. How do you assure the “beggar” isn’t abusive, for example? Maybe you set up some kind of formal mediation process, but even if that were just, how is it workable at scale? How does it fit into the timeline of the pregnancy and potential abortion? What if the hearings are delayed or the schedule backed up, etc?
I’m just kind of spitballing here, obviously. But I find no way for anyone but the mother to have a compelling right in the decision at the end of the day. It’s unfortunate, but cold, hard reality - in a free society such as ours and would any of us want to live in the other kind? - mitigates against it.
It may be lamentable, but it’s a fact of life. Just like the fact that a father will never share the physical pain and risk of childbirth. Just as the man can always physically, if not financially (legally - though it’s done all the time), walk away. I’d love for there to be some policy that would make the man experience the same emotional weight - the profound immensity and fear - of growing a human being inside your body; the physical pain and damage; the cost to one’s individuality and dreams. The absolute foreverness of it.
Well, if in "reproductive rights" you're talking about other forms of birth control, excepting abortion, assertions that the Republican Party or anyone else - other than a very fringe, very small minority - are working to curtail those reproductive rights of women is gross hyperbole, to the point that it falls under the category of euphemism.
Abortions for convenience are murder.
How do you define convenience?
"oops, i didn't protect myself during intercourse, and now is not an ideal time for me to fall pregnant."
We're not talking about statistically rare occurrence (rape,...), but in lack of a better term "contraceptive abortion"
Convenience abortions are all abortions done because of the irresponsible behavior of adults that fail to use condoms or other real birth control methods. This does not include rape nor incest. Women would be very honorable in those situations to still take the baby to full term and birth to keep the child or to give it up for adoption. Those women are truly blessed to bring the child into this world, a miracle every single time. God Almighty will bless these special women for their entire life in many ways.
Abortion for convenience is pure murder of innocent human beings. Once done, the man may run away and woman will be permanently scarred for life with the knowledge and guilt that she killed her own child. The man that runs away will also know that he is guilty of killing his child and this will screw him up as well and harden his heart. Actual good loving women should avoid these hardened men like the bubonic plague until they confess their transgressions, ask for forgiveness, and turn a new page, and then help the girl or woman in real actionable ways. Many other times the man wishes for the child to be born and will take steps to protect the woman and the child with support or marriage. We used to call those shotgun marriages. They are totally honorable, legitimate, valid, and healthy as long as the man repents and chooses to live honorably. That man and that woman need council. Sometimes the woman takes the baby to full term and then gives it up for adoption for other reasons . They know and never forget that they brought a new human being to life. No matter the situations nor circumstances, they will know that they chose life for their baby. They will hold this closely to their heart until they die. This is how things used to be done in America. Our current American culture is a satanic death culture that rots out our very hearts and souls. Abortion is one of the central reasons why it is a death culture. Now folks wish to kill imperfect people with euthanasia. Eventually this ends with cannibalism.
It is self-evident that are ways to manage reproduction other than abortion, or have you forgotten about birth control?
Also why is everything couched in terms of rights? How about responsibilities!
Ours is an explicitly rights-based government. The question of clashing rights is how we determine laws. Every little rule and regulation we live under can be broken down that way. Eg. the responsibility to keep your sidewalks clear is the clash between the right of a homeowner to, say, sleep in versus the right of a neighbor to walk on a snow-free sidewalk.
Responsibilities as you’re thinking of them, I’m guessing, are philosophical not legal ideas: what do we owe to other human beings, living things, the planet, the future, etc.
I’m kind of talking out of my arse here. I’m not a lawyer or legal expert - or trained philosopher for that matter! Just thinking out loud, really. :)
Also, funny how "reproductive health care" does NOT ever seem to include supporting people to HAVE children. Only to avoid or terminate pregnancy. Almost like "reproductive health care" is hostile to the act of reproduction...🤔
Liberals are forever trying to pass laws that support people in having children. Conservatives are forever trying to block them. Eg. when a state refuses federal money to cover healthcare for poor people, you know it’s not serious about supporting people to HAVE children; it’s helping make abortion a better financial decision.
Not entirely true. Liberals are forever trying to pass laws that move responsibility for children from the parents and community to the state. There's very little regard for the complex process of supporting the family unit. Mostly it seems to be about rendering parents as superfluous as possible, by rendering the work of parenting as trivial/effortless as possible.
This could be viewed as trying to support people in having children. This could also be viewed as trying to sabotage parents and usurp the parental role.
Really depends on your perspective. Before I had kids, I was firmly in column A. After having raised a handful of kids (both mine biologically and bonus parent to neighbor kids), my perspective has shifted.
It's kind of creepy to be out playing with your kids at a park and a government employee comes to urge you to put them in free daycare. The first time it happened, my response is "We're good, but thank you for informing me about the resource." The sixth time my response leaned more towards "I can raise my own kids, please go away!"
Frankly NEITHER party seems very supportive of the economic and cultural changes that are required to stabilize birthrates at replacement level. There's too much money being made in the current model.
It is similar to "gender affirming care".
They can't help themselves, their biases are so deeply engrained that they don't even realize they do it, sort of like blinking.
"Rights of babies to be born" is a truer statement of the Republican position. Though I do think it would be wiser and more in keeping with Republican's views on individual rights vs federal government edicts to let women decide for themselves what's best. If it's a sin, it's theirs to bear. Absent that, at least split the difference with a 15 or 16 week ban.
I agree with you that Republicans have to be pragmatic (15 week ban) or risk losing elections over this one issue.
No, didn't you read the article? You can't have a nuanced or complicated view. Either you completely support abortion or you "are antagonistic towards reproductive rights"!
I don’t know what about all the state bans - like, say, 6 weeks in Texas enforced by vigilantes - isn't screaming “antagonistic to reproductive rights!” It’s worth noting that, after their initial glee and round of “it’s Christmas in forced-birther land!” legislation, Republicans are backing off ONLY because they’re now learning what all of us with a brain already knew: women want to make their own decisions and won’t vote for you when you treat them as breeders. Only the prospect of losing political power, not reasonableness or respect for women as autonomous beings has changed their tune.
Maybe some individuals feel that practicing birth control is better than killing the fetus or unborn child. You completely misunderstand where MOST conservatives align on this issue and it’s protecting rights of unborn children, not “forcing “ women to carry babies they seemingly don’t want and except in cases of rape or incest, willingly assented to the required sex without birth control that resulted in a pregnancy. You may not be old enough to remember, but I recall the “legal, safe, and rare” arguments from the early in this debate. Women have EVERY option to PREVENT breeding if they think that’s what having a child is.
I'm old enough to remember Hillary Clinton's "safe, legal, and rare" line. I agree with it 100% Do you not? If not, why recall it favorably? We should be doing everything we can to prevent unwanted pregnancies. How do we do that? First, we teach, teach, teach, teach, teach. We make birth control available everywhere and destigmatize it.
Eg. a friend of ours used to keep a big bowl of condoms by his door and encourage all his teen kids' friends' to take as many as they wanted. Sadly, I'm a little too uptight for that, though I have started keeping condoms in kitchen drawers and letting my teen kids' friends know they're welcome to take them. And I tell my sons *always* to have at least two condoms on them and NEVER ever ever - EVER! - make the girl ask them to use one. Condoms should be everywhere. And every teen should have an in-school clinic that provides supportive sexual healthcare and no-questions-asked birth control.
We're far from this model. Teens are embarrassed to buy condoms. Parents are uncomfortable with teens - boys and girls - having plenty of condoms or using systemic birth control. Parents think possession of birth control means their kid is having sex. No, they're just prepared.
Second, we need to make it economically and emotionally feasible for people to have more children. Parenting is too expensive and too isolating in America.
Still, women who don't want to be pregnant are going to get pregnant, and they need not to be forced by the government to carry that fetus to term.
"forced-birther land" is a good example of unhinged, extremist rhetoric. It deliberately invokes a Handmaid's Tale-like regime that is requiring women to have unprotected sex and then to keep any issue from that encounter under any circumstances. The vast majority of Americans support easily accessed birth control to prevent pregnancy, along with abortion rights in the first trimester but some restrictions on abortions for healthy unborn babies in the final trimester. It is absolutism on BOTH sides that keeps this issue a money-maker for politicians from both left and right.
And for the record, I agree that the six-week ban is too rigid--a woman may not even realize she is pregnant yet and I support the "day after pill" as it used to be called. "Plan B" now, I think.
In fact, I had an abortion in college and have never regretted it. I made a stupid decision with boy I thought I was in love with and was in no position to raise a child.
I agree with everything you say here except that "forced-birth" is unhinged, extremist language. I feel like it's the most objectively accurate language. "Pro-life" and "pro-abortion" are the misnomers. Pro-choice advocates are as pro-life as anyone, we just have a different take on what that means.Nobody's pro-abortion.
How can you think forced-birth isn't a thing in the context of 14 states having already enacted near total bans?* With several more seeking such restrictions. To me, this does smack of The Handmaid's Tale. I also had an abortion in college and am so grateful I could. I think you, like so many women, can imagine the terror of finding out you're pregnant and knowing you can't do anything about it. It's a sort of horrified, panicked nauseated feeling. Bu the way, it's not just the pregnancy and the resulting baby (oh, like it's easy to just give a baby up for adoption, tra la la) that are scary, it's all the things that can and do happen to your body during the process. I've had four babies and I can tell you, imposing against her will the kind of pain and permanent damage I suffered on any woman - especially a minor! - is unconscionable.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html
By the way, what makes you think millions of good young women don't make bad snap decisions just like you did? Especially in the context of extreme pressure from men - maybe a boyfriend or spouse whom they love - coupled with the horniness of one's child-bearing years, and perhaps a booze-fuzzy mind? Who are we to say a woman should be punished for the things we - fine, generally responsible people as we are - also did? Maybe if we're also going to make her partner, for the concurring bad decision, push a walnut through his urethera (sometimes he might get lucky and it'll just be a peanut, but sometimes it might be a big ol' chestnut - it's a wonderful wheel of fortune!). Maybe too, we can rip her partner's perineum all the way through his sphincter so he can never control his farts again. Let's see: Scarring. Stretch marks. Urinary incontinence. Scars. Saggy ligaments. Vericose veins. Hemorrhoids. Fistulas. Anal prolapse. (I know I'm missing some.) If - along with death - these were things a guy had to risk with every pregnancy, please tell me they'd be fighting to make ending a pregnancy illegal.
Generally, most folks consider bans against killing another personin cold blood as clearly within the government's purview.
I don't see why the killer should get a pass because she's a woman and it's her child. Would it also be cool if the father had the right to kill his child,as long as it was done within, say, the first month ex utero?
From a medical perspective, a fetus is not a fully formed person.
At what point does a baby become a fully formed person? If a baby is wanted, it can be considered at the point of viability which has changed in the last 50 years. Do we consider the baby a fully formed person because of its location (in the womb or out), or because of its level of development, its size?
Oh? What does "fully formed" mean?
A system is not "fully formed" until it is capable of performing its normal functions. Therefore, since the reproductive subsystem of those systems called "persons" is not capable of performing its normal function until puberty, a person is not fully formed until then, "from a medical perspective". Am I missing something here? Something such as sanity, for example?
This argument about “fully formed” is inhumane.
Life begins at conception.
Incidentally, and probably not coincidentally, neither the OED nor Merriam-Webster share your supposed definition.
OED: "a young human being or animal before birth, after the organs have started to develop: "
Merriam-Webster: "an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind
specifically : a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth "
It seems the salient bits are: organ development has begun and it's not born yet. Merriam-Webster also pretty much directly contradicts your supposed definition, in that they further add "after attaining the basic structural plan."
But probably the most daistingishing feature of the term "fetus" (latin for "offspring") is that it's not an embyo, but it's also not born yet. Which covers rather a lot of ground. And which prompted my question about ex-utero killing.
“Person” is also not a medical/scientific term. Some may argue “personhood” from a philosophical position because the debate about whether the embryo/fetus/etc is human has been settled. So the goal was moved to “person.” Thus instead of a human having certain rights, the argument is that rights shouldn’t be granted until “personhood” is established. Unfortunately, that provides for more arbitrary lines to be drawn bc we refuse to accept scientific/medical reality.
That directly contradicts what the Holy Scriptures say. Medical science is just beginning to understand the human body and how it works.
Each individual is fully human with a soul made in the image of God. This happens at conception when the sperm fertilizes the egg.
What you know about medical science could be writ on the head of a pin and still leave room for 49 angels.
More like 10,000 angels. 👼
No, didn't you read the article? Republicans are antagonistic towards reproductive rights!
You forgot the over-arching motivation: they hate women.
It's not been clarified, though,whether Republicans twirl their mustaches whilst plotting their efforts to control women. I guess there is still plenty to write about them.
I can testify that conservative Christian men love women intensely. They also support reproduction and hope and pray our wives will conceive and bear many children. We love our children and everyone else’s children. All the women in our church are sisters in Christ and we love them too.
Who hates women? Republicans? The Free Press? Pro aborts?
It’s not about whether or not it should be allowed, it’s about who has to pay for it.
Thank you. That statement almost made my head explode. I just don’t get it.
As long as abortion advocates can convince women that the fetus is not a real person, abortions will continue, guilt free, like removing cancer from the body. That's why they won't require ultrasounds. Everything is about alleviating any possible guilt or responsibility to the life they are carrying.
The irony is that less than a half of the anti-abortion activists are women. Maybe because they understand the complexity and issues of pregnancy? Would it make sense to listen to them before forcing the victims of rape to carry the baby of the rapist to term? Where is the responsibility of the father in this case? Would he he be legally required to take full custody and financial responsibility of the baby born of the rape? That would be fair, but I don't see those laws in place.
I used to believe as you do...that rape or incest should be an exception. Then I considered why I opposed abortion. It's the taking of a human life. If that's the case, then why should the child be killed because of the circumstances of its conception? There are other options..adoption, more widely available mental health support, etc.
Amen, Melody! And may I add that there is never any robust discussion about the reality that an abortion does not make the trauma of rape go away? One could argue (and I do mean that a good faith argument can be made on both sides) that an abortion exacerbates the situation, especially since there is so much anecdotal evidence that carrying the baby to birth brings “beauty from ashes.”
Healing from horrible experiences is NEVER easily and quickly done. I know well-meaning abortion advocates are not touting it as a “wonderful, happy” solution, but it concerns me that in the rhetoric we fall prey to the misguided idea that an abortion is an “easy” “solution” to the child conceived in rape or even for the hardships endured from a pregnancy we know will end in that child’s death.
Lord, have mercy on us who are at war with our bodies and our children!
It would be appropriate if the rapists or the male who committs incest receives the same punishment as the child he creates. If the child is aborted, he should suffer the same death sentence. Why does the innocent get a more harsh life, termination, sentence than the perp?
Interesting point. I'd never thought of that. The opposite argument, in evolutionary terms, is that you'd be rewarding rapist behavior by allowing the rapist to pass on his genes.
I guess we now get into the discussion of nature vs nurture. But if rape and incest are such terrible actions, and they are, then the punishment needs to match the crime. For children rapists, that happens a lot in prison.
The real irony is that the anti-abortion absolutists motivate the pro-abortion zealots. A compromise would result in fewer abortions but neither side wants anything but total victory. For every state that outlaws abortion, two states will make it available with no limits whatever.
I doubt there will be a state that makes absolutely no limits on abortion, they just leave it to the doctors to decide, which may leave the door open for possible excesses for the mid-term abortions. But our entire politics is going the same antagonistic way. Zealots on the right demand immigration bans, so zealots on the left establish sanctuary cities. I consider myself center-left, but I think it is fair that the governors from the South started sending migrants to the sanctuary cities, to spread the pain.
In states like New York, Illinois and California, a woman who wants an abortion can find a doctor to legally perform it regardless of how far along her pregnancy is. Regarding immigration, one reason people want to come to the US is because we have always believed in the rule of law. I'm all for legal immigration but believe allowing unlimited illegal immigrantion undermines the rule of law. It is unfair to make those wauting in line pass medical screenings and be vaccinated while allowing those who enter illegally to both effectively jump the line and skip those requirements.
RvW is straight, unvarnished genocide.
Specifically for Black Americans.
Yeah, nobody seems to want to talk about this.
I talk about it. Blacks are 13% of our population and around 37% of the abortions. 20 million American children snuffed out.
The Free Press has a mainstream sensationalist tendency when talking about abortion. It’s across their pieces, from Anna to Nellie. It’s disappointing but I don’t know that there’s an alternative to support yet.
Thank you. That was my first thought
The strongest and most vocal pro-life supporters are women after all. This author doesn't seem to be living in reality.
Women should never wish to kill their children. It will mess up their lives forever. Women should love their children. God Almighty’s greatest gift to men, is their wives, not their mistresses. I love my wife intensely. 44 years is not enough. I need another 44 years now. I wish to be Methuselah now to make love to my wife for another 800 years. Alas, that is no longer possible now. No worries now. King Jesus will take both of us home now, very soon. We will live forever together, with Jesus Christ in heaven for eternity as brother and sister then. No worries at all. This sounds like heaven to me.
Teaching women to hate men is part of the communist playbook. When no one starts families, then they are atomized and easily ruled by The State. Only two generations ago, before late stage feminism took over, the TFR of South Korea and America was above 3.
Now birth rates across the developed world have plummeted and everyone is worse off for it. The data shows that young liberal women have the most mental health issues and antidepressant usage of any demographic. Keep scrolling through tiktoks about hating men, surely that will help... Chairman Xi thanks you for weakening the CCP's competition.
How about teaching women to hate their babies by framing abortion as “healthcare” instead of what it is - terminating life. The pro-“choice” slant of FP is getting old. Advocating abortion….thats also a CCP special, albeit one they are now desperately walking back. Not sure the democrats will ever walk it back.
I’m not an opponent of first trimester abortion, but when access to abortion is termed “reproductive health” or “women’s health” it’s just obvious gaslighting. Terminating a pregnancy is the opposite of reproductive health, so being forthright that the debate is about abortion, and definitely not reproducing, then that might engender some higher degree of trust. But when someone starts bullshitting me so unashamedly with language, it’s likely to trigger a reassessment as to whether I’ve been conned and to what degree.
Ditto framing any restriction on abortion as banning abortion.
Progressive white women ruin every demographic they "help." They marched in 2020 until they brought back segregation. They policed Covid compliance until censorship returned and people were having fistfights on airplanes. Having wrecked those things they turned their attention to the trans community which they successfully blew up as well. Now (in between marching for terrorists,) they have their sights set on marriage and children. We were better off when the suburban moms were involved in pyramid schemes and selling essential oils.
The author and most foreign reporters don't understand that the issue with the birth rate in Korea is not about feminism but more about the economic and other social issues that exist.
I would love to know more - perhaps you could write something for the FP?
I think this is sensationalism; any half-decent research will show that the 4B movement is incredibly fringe and not representative of women's values. Are there differences in political views between the sexes? Yes, but young people are not talking about politics in everyday life as they do in the US.
They have high birth rates in many African states, and they are worse off for it. I think the key component is not communist thinking, but the opposite, which is freedom for women to have the same rights and responsibilities as men have. Which means not staying home and taking care of the kids basically for free.
I would venture to say that most men want kids for legacy. I’ve never met a man who’s going to give up his career to stay at home for 15 years and raise a family. That’s not what men do. And now women are taking a page out of the men’s playbook.
I have a 25 year-old daughter who said she doesn’t want kids. Maybe just because she’s in her 20s she doesn’t want kids. But she wants to be self-sufficient and be able to take care of herself and rise in her newfound career. She does not have a desire to stay at home mom. She relishes her newfound freedom. Communism is about not having freedom to choose. This is the complete opposite.
Well, my son-in-law (32 years old) is staying home with his new daughter, while my own daughter is back at work. I don't know if he'll be home for 15 years, but he's home now and seems to be OK with it. Things have definitely changed since I was young years ago.
I spent a lot of time as a kid (female) in rural Georgia. We were always having family reunions. I remember sitting under a tree just watching everything. The women were running around after kids, setting large outdoor tables, bringing food, cleaning up and generally working the whole time. The men were sitting around yammering about nothing, playing horseshoes (it was the 60s) and generally relaxing. I remember thinking “I don’t want to do all the work, I want to hang out and be waited on.” I think that was where I decided I never wanted children. It was a good decision for me.
That scene you describe does not have to define you. I have a more fair partnership with my husband than most avowed feminists I know, who live what you describe. I am glad you don't regret not having children. For me it's been my life's greatest blessing.
Were there other times when the reverse was true? Times when the men were working and the women relaxing?
Let me think . . . hmmmm . . . no.
The men didn't work for a living? They didn't go off and earn a paycheck? Interesting. Wonder what the women were getting out of this? Seems like a bad deal.
Of course, the men worked. The scene I mentioned was at a family reunion, which was held on the weekend. But since you asked, this was in the 60s. Men didn't work outside their jobs. They went to work, came home, put their feet up and got waited on. And that was that. As my mother used to say, "A man works from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done."
EXACTLY!
I was very career oriented in my youth, postponed marriage until 31, but coming from a large family wanted more than 2 kids. Married a professional like myself. Our religion is important to us.
We have 4 kids, people questioned a bit after we had the first 2 -healthy girl and boy- and some couldn’t believe we had a 4th. I was able to work part time during early years (yes a hit to my career, but I’d gladly do it again).
To your point about men staying home. My husband had a hard time being a professional and a dad; in our profession 50-60 hr weeks and night time work is common. So he became a stay at home dad. Worked well for us, and when the youngest was in high school he started back to work, sticking with part time for his sanity.
Just letting you know there are stay at home dads out there who are thriving!
Thank you for your reply. I wonder since the story is about South Korea, if the men in South Korea are willing to give up their careers and stay at home? I don’t think that’s the case in more of a male dominated society. I think it’s possible that someone, or a man might stay home and take care of the kids. But for the most part, I think men are going to be career driven, and now that women are also career driven, I think my theory explains why the birth rate is sinking.
Sure there’s a few progressive Dad’s who will want to be Mr. Mom. But that also requires the woman to be making a very high salary so one person can stay at home. I’m not sure if the majority of men are going to want to reverse roles and go back to a 50s style single-family earner family with a dad at home.
Let's not monetize everything in life, if you choose to have children you are responsible for that choice. Since the Pill women have had the ability to choose not to have children and to work. They also have the ability to choose not to get married. They also have the ability to have children and work. Women have many choices and they can make them, but they also need to understand the consequences of their choices and that they are responsible for them.
Children require care. They don't pay their caretakers in money. SOMEONE has to take care of the kids.
In the first 3 years from fertilization, men and women CAN'T have the same rights and responsibilities regarding the child. This is the reality of being a mammal. Men can't gestate, give birth, or nurse.
The problem here is equating WORTH with rights and responsibilities. The sexes absolutely have the same worth. However, the only way to have the same rights and responsibilities is to eliminate both reproduction and physical labor. Once you get out of office work, sexual dimorphism becomes significant.
Sometimes reality doesn't align with theory.
The sexes can and should have roughly equivalent rights and responsibilities. In most times and cultures, they have. Any gross inequalities create an unstable culture that eventually (over a century or two) corrects.
But being the SAME isn't possible for any mammals who give live birth. We're mammals. We're sexually dimorphic. Start there.
But it cannot be the SAME.
Maybe she doesn't want kids because she doesn't want to risk financial ruin?
Yuri — and then add in teaching men to hate women by addicting them to misogynistic podcasts and violent pornography, which they try to imitate in their relationships and then blame women for not wanting to date them.
Part of that fall is more effective birth control, is it not?
I always thought that one of the most important things that Orwell got right in 1984 is that under collectivism/totalitarianism, sex between consenting adults is form of rebellion.
I would say that’s the one thing he got completely wrong. South Korea is far from a totalitarian or collectivist society. It’s a male dominated society to be sure, but aren’t all communist totalitarian societies male dominated? So no, I’m not convinced he was right. However, let me know if I’m missing something? If so, I’ll acknowledge it.
Continued expansive contagion of gender dysphoria coupled with this more intense man-hating feminism will create a highly predictable economic catastrophe far worse (and far sooner) than any imagined climate crisis. As the birth rate continues to plummet even more severely, there will be fewer and fewer workers to create products and a slowing or reversing GDP with which to fund any proportionately inflating elderly support programs and societal safety nets.
This will be worsened by the fact we have a range of young people, obviously older than those yet to be born -- or not born -- that have been damaged by the pandemic with speech pathologies, learning disabilities, unnecessary germaphobia, misunderstanding of science (especially biology), and economic ignorance.
If I had my life to do over again, one of the many changes I would make would be to have more children. My three sons bring me more joy and satisfaction than any job or personal accomplishment. But in the period, when I was dating women who could have kids, we were saturated with doom messaging about 'unwanted pregnancy,' and 'unplanned pregnancy,' and 'teen pregnancy,' all of which was synonymous with failure. Culturally, we've extended the 'exploring years' right through the period when we are at the age to have children, and there were no messages, not even from our parents, that indicated it was a great idea, and good for us, to be parents, and no one told me how much fun my kids were going to be. Thankfully, nature's call overrode those messages and I recklessly became the father to three amazing boys who are the finest people I know.
Yes! My mother always said to have one more than you think you want.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Psalms 127:4
When my husband and I married, we thought we wanted 3 ish. Then we had one and fell so madly in love that we said we’d have 4. Then we had a second and we said, “okay 5.” But the time the 3rd was born, the limit no longer existed. I’m pregnant with our sixth and we are loving it. (That’s doesn’t mean there aren’t hard part of parenthood, but that those hard parts are more completely worth it than anything I’ve every known).
Me too! Wish I had had twice as many (I had 2).
I feel the same way about my two daughters. Because my girls are swimming in water where marriage and parenting are celebrated and valued, I hope we’re imparting that they are critical elements of meaningful adult life. But, just to make sure :), I occasionally say out loud that getting married to their Dad was the best decision I ever made and that I love being a Mom.
And I tell them to have more than two kids, too!
Love it Tom! Kids are the best. If I met my wife younger than 38, we’d have 5 kids instead of 3. Marriage and kids should be celebrated because this is what makes life awesome! Yes it’s hard as hell but so much more comes back to you, me and others who put in the work.
You’re a great dad with wonderful attitude! Thanks for your comments.
I've told anyone that will listen, including my sons, that they gave more than they took. They are still giving way more than they take.
Thank you, Tom! I had two girls, and I wish I had two boys or at least two other children. It would be fun to have big family reunions. It would remind me of my childhood, where, I don’t know, I guess we may have a 20 kids running around creating havoc and fun for the adults. Good times.
Every house in my neighborhood when I was growing up had at least two kids. On the weekends and summers, we ran wild and the only peace the adults would have was when we were outside. My mom was pretty good about letting me inside if it was storming, but some of my friends were just locked out and told to go play. We learned to take care of ourselves, and negotiate our own conflicts.
Yup. Had two. Wish I had had three. :(
Me too.
Me, uh, three. But three is not as many as I'd personally prefer.
Yes. This is my one big regret as a gen X woman raised in a secular and cynical culture, that I bought into the constant narratives of negativity and caution around pregnancy and family building. I only have one daughter and now I understand the enormous privilege and joy and terror and beauty and responsibility and reward of being an imperfect parent in a crazy world. I wish I had five or six! I wish I had embraced that type of challenge instead of thinking I needed to “be smart” and protect myself from it. Anyway. I do wish I had been the recipient of more honest and hopeful messaging when I was young, or that I had been possessed of the wisdom to seek it.
"...the Republican Party has become actively hostile to women’s reproductive rights, pushing female voters left."
Funny how this piece ends with several paragraphs of anti Republican rhetoric but nothing to balance it concerning the Democrats. I guess the Dems aren't part of the problem? Anna, please step out of your bubble!
Gen Z women becoming vastly more liberal - several times over in % change - than men are becoming conservative.
Honestly it should probably be worse - between TicTok, the Women's Studies department, mainstream media, and a lack of integrated social spaces I don't know where a Gen Z woman would possibly hear a countervailing opinion
It's the economy! Wake up! No young person who isn't privileged wants to risk the life altering expenses of having a child. This has little to do with politics and everything to do with the risks of being a single parent.
I like the sentiment in the last paragraph. Yet the three previous paragraphs excellently illustrate the problem. In those, the author's word choice, message and conclusion show absolute faith in the rightness of the current feminist position -- without much exploration of the value that could be found in considering the positions bluntly presented by her male peer group.
Gaetz is an ass but what is inherently wrong with his strategy if one wants to win the numbers game that is an election? The Dems do exactly the same calculations to court the cohort of the population that will vote for them.
Watters is an abrasive comedian, but same answer as to Gaetz plus Watter's blunt prescription for men to find women to marry also points to a solution to the birthrate problem, the sexual polarization of society and will force the men, and the women, to moderate their extreme views if they are to be successful. Is that a problem?
Lastly, I would suggest that the polling on marital rape is more based in definition than her interpretation would imply. Too many men are wary of what was bad sex last night turning into rape the next morning. How often that actually happens is up for debate, but it has happened often enough that men are wary of the perceived risk from a regretful woman.
If we don't want 'women and men to become sworn enemies' the BOTH sides have to listen to the other, not just the men accepting what it is the feminist women want to say.
Precisely. “Reproductive rights” is always a tell. And of course, the “right” in question is not to reproduce but to abort. Control the language — control the narrative.
I respond now by asking them what reproductive rights men have.
That gets spicy real quick
The rigjt to Choose Wisely which is exactly the same for women.
Jesse Watters is a very likable, colorful and effective host for Fox. His "blunt prescription," as you describe it, was his brand of wry humor and obviously not to be taken literally. These tongue-in-cheek comments, always said with a coy smile and a twinkle in his eye, are part of his style and part of the reason why he has such a large following.
That "40 percent of Republicans say hooray for marital rape!" figure triggered my BS meter, so I checked the link.
Which was to Jill Filipovic, this generation's Andrea Dworkin.
Let's see the next articles that Ms. Sussman produces, but this is not an encouraging start for her.
Funny the concern is the supposed “misogyny” of the GOP… meanwhile nothing about the normalized misandry found in college classrooms (which rivals - and likely surpasses - the antisemitism found in college classrooms & is likely contributing to the massive gender gap in higher education).
This is a really important point. If it's non-stop talk about "the patriarchy," then not only are boys and men discriminated against, but girls and women are trained to view them as the enemy.
While the article highlighted how differently celibate men and women are treated by popular culture, it missed the bigger issue.
Indeed. I'd argue that the Democratic Party is more hostile to men than the Republican Party is toward women. Democrats treat men as the primary source of society's problems. They also ignore or downplay issues facing men and boys, such as poorer education outcomes, higher rates of suicide, lower life expectancy, unique forms of discrimination, and fewer parental rights.
Yeah the GOP hasn't spent thirty years incessantly talking about "toxic femininity".
The first rule of Toxic Femininity is that you do not talk about toxic femininity.
"You know who holds power in society by who you are not allowed to criticize."
OMG.........talking about cherry picking and ignoring context. Any discussion comparing South Korea fertility to the US needs to start with the demographic charts sitting side by side. Then you would notice the differences which incidentally didn't start recently, but literally 3-4 generations ago. Korea never had a baby boomer generation like the USA. Their demography went from a pyramid (healthy demographics) in 1960 to starting to turn into a diamond by 1980. The diamond indicates smaller amounts of younger folks (most importantly young women). Currently their biggest group of women are 50-60 years old and it falls off significantly from that age group down. In 10-15 years it will resemble an upside down pyramid. The USA basically from age 60 down was a straight line until 10-15 years ago when total women started to decrease. The reason isn't some female strike on marriage and children, but a successful campaign against teenage pregnancy that finally took hold around 2005-2010 (use of condoms seems to be the reason). Call it unintended consequences of public policy aimed at doing good.
Then the survey she uses (hyperlinked to an article) to point out male misogyny is one from a "progressive lobbying firm" which doesn't publish (at least I couldn't find it) its polling and a quick look tells us it is a marketing piece to get progressive politicians business. The article hyperlinked also spends time trying to generalize from facts like males do the vast majority of the serial killings and murders to the average male's behavior. The numbers they come out with are so far astray from what the publicly transparent polling numbers are it is impossible to take it seriously.
Finally it prioritizes a minor issue, that of career women putting their career above marriage and having children or some pretend trend of female strike from marriage and motherhood here in the USA. This causes later marriages (or no marriage) and as a result more childless women and fewer births with this small subset of women. I will add that our reduction of Mexican immigrants (both legal and illegal) who were for the most part young, ambitious and family oriented has also played a small part in our current fertility rate (actually a higher part than the aforementioned career women).
This is a classic piece of propaganda..................free from any discussion generated from real data.
General Rule - if someone from the Atlantic (other than Connor Friedersdorf) is publishing here then get ready for some hack bullshit. The author basically admits this is a re-hash of her 2023 Atlantic article that also examined this issue with zero introspection.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/south-korea-fertility-rate-misogyny-feminism/673435/
I love this rag, but every 3rd guest article is someone serving up leftovers nobody should want
Speaking of public policy, it's worth mentioning that the South Korean government in the 1970s became alarmed at rapid population growth, and worked to curtail it. They actively discouraged young people from having large families, and prior to the mid-1980s was a dictatorship (or near-dictatorship) so the imposition of such policies was very difficult to oppose.
Ironically, of course, the policy worked or at least, a coincidental drop in childbirths occurred. Now they are in a panic over the country's population freefall.
A nearly identical thing occurred in mainland China with the One Child policy of 1979-2015, that was enforced with thuggish brutality, e.g. arresting women and forcibly aborting their pregnancies, forcible sterilization, prison sentences etc. Until they noticed the population tanking, and now they're gone in full reverse. Too late, though.
Thank you for taking the time to analyze the data and disseminating it for us.
"Finally it prioritizes a minor issue, that of career women putting their career above marriage and having children or some pretend trend of female strike from marriage and motherhood here in the USA. This causes later marriages (or no marriage) and as a result more childless women and fewer births with this small subset of women."
I think delayed family formation is actually the biggest cause of the decrease in fertility (at least in the US). Part of that is from people putting career first, but I think another large part is it just takes so long for a couple to get financially stable AND into their own home.
I married my wife when I was 27 and her 25. We both refused to have kids in an apartment. It took us 5 years before we could save up enough to get into a house (we had move into my parents for house for a couple of years to even make it possible). Now I'm 32, we started trying a year or two later, had a couple of miscarriages, finally didn't have our first till I was probably 37. Had our second when I was 40. Now we are getting to old for kids, rates of more miscarriages of birth defects start sky rocketing. If we had started earlier we quite possibly would have had more.
I think there are a LOT of other cases like this.
One thing I would like to point out about "studies" and "surveys" mentioned in published articles is that "studies" usually don't say what the newswriter says it does (remember the "study" about a woman being more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to get married after age 40?), AND "surveys" can be manipulated to tilt a certain way depending on the way questions are asked.
Taking a line from Ted Lasso, “be curious, not judgmental.” I truly believe when people take the time to truly get to know another person and their journey in life, it knocks down walls and brings people together. My friends, we are all closer than we think to getting along. It doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything (who does) but it takes a little work to sincerely talk with someone, put in the effort. It’s worth it! THIS IS HIW WE BRING SOCIETY BACK TOGETHER!
My friends, I challenge you to try this! Start with this sincere question, “I’m curious, can you help me understand…….” and just listen.
My husband and I do not agree politically on some stuff. Shockingly enough, we are not headed for divorce.
Hear! Hear! Thank you!
Very David Brooks-ian philosophy there!
That’s funny you mentioned that Sally!!!!! I’m just finishing his book, “How to Know a Person,” which was given as a gift to me. One of the best books I’ve ever read.
I’m really not sure whether people classify Brooks as a conservative, liberal or moderate (I didn’t want to know before reading it) but I believe the content in this book is something we can all read and learn from.
Absolutely! I confess I haven’t read it yet but have listened to several interviews with him discussing it and my husband has ordered the book. So much for all of us to “chew on”! So glad you could fully appreciate the reference!
You will LOVE the book. Now that I’m done I’m going back and highlighting the key points. I plan to reference it often.
Enjoy!
Yay! Thank you!
All these years and some are still waiting for that Kumbaya moment.
There is a single percentage point difference between men and women who are pro-life. Pretending that pro-life versus pro-choice debate is about men versus women is ridiculous left-wing framing.
So, according to a study at the university of tik tok all the women who hate men are removing themselves from the gene pool?
Ok then, carry on ladies.
I had a similar thought, inspired by that hoary old article by Garrett Hardin, "Tragedy of the Commons." Runaway population growth was the big worry at the time and, in casting about for a solution to the problem, Hardin insisted an appeal to conscience would be self-defeating.
He wrote: "People vary. Confronted with appeals to limit breeding, some people will undoubtedly respond to the plea more than others. Those who have more children will produce a larger fraction of the next generation than those with more susceptible consciences. The differences will be accumulated, generation by generation."
He then quotes Darwin's grandson, Charles Galton Darwin: "It may well be that it would take hundreds of generations for the progenitive instinct to develop in this way, but if it should do so, nature would have taken her revenge, and the variety Homo contracipiens would become extinct and would be replaced by Homo progenitivus."
The doom and gloom of this and other articles of its ilk likes to spin a “we’re doomed, we’re in danger if we don’t change course” mentality and plays into the worst of this kind of rhetoric.
Given time and self reflection, a lot of these sentiments tend to mature and dissolve, because people easily become swept up in their feelings about the next new “it” thing of whatever the current zeitgeist is and realize the fault in this line of thinking. For those that don’t, it’s called regret and learning to live with the consequences. Plenty of folks can and probably will find relationships later in life even if they don’t have kids, or have fewer than they expected. The percentages sound large, but what was the sample size and where were they polling—urban, suburban, rural? How chronically online are some of these folks, and how much of their perception is altered by it? Can we get the standard deviation or did the author fail to really deep dive into how the stats were compiled?
Pointing the finger at one party can be helpful but overall it fails to take into account how much these sentiments are simply further escalations of one group overreacting to one another in a “anything you can do I can do better” type of retaliation. Some people will double down, and others will grow up and out of it, do a reassessment of their values, and make an about face. I had two friends, 35, both get married happily in the last 6 months. One is expecting and the other is trying.
Have some patience and chill your bits.
All true, but the demographic and behavioral trends described are real, have been consistently trending for decades, and are quite literally insurmountable in some countries. Korea and China are hostile to mass immigration—much more so than the US. Their fertility rates are very low and falling. Their demographic pyramid is now a rectangle and soon will become an inverted pyramid in which there will be fewer young people working than older retirees. That will place massive burden on the social security net finances and consequently on young people for material survival, which will further disincentivize them to have kids. The unprecedented aspect of this kind of pattern is that the world has literally never seen it outside of wartime and plagues. Sure, individuals can simply choose to have kids later in life, but as population level trends, when the sexes begin to disengage from activities and behaviors that sustain population replenishment, it will have devastating consequences on society. If you’re one of those countries with an inverting demographic pyramid, your only solution is to open the borders and promote mass immigration, but this comes with huge challenges. Short of that, you literally begin to fade away. Chinas population is projected to decline by 1/3 by 2100. Unlike so many things advertised as simply math, that projection is literally simple math. Korea is in the same boat. Unless they allow massive amounts of immigration, start cloning themselves, or embrace cybernetic or Matrix-style people farming, they’re doomed. We in the west seem committed to destroying ourselves, and the insidious Cold War between the sexes in our younger generations is maybe the most worrying social contagion going.
We do seem bent on self destruction. That is what puzzles me the most.
Mass immigration won't be viable for long either. EVERY developed country is below replacement rate, AND rates are rapidly falling in countries that are developing them. That means global population will stabilize and then decrease.
Stable population is good, but rapid decreases will be a huge problem
You're proving the point by highlighting 35-year-olds who are just getting started with children as they enter into their maximum-risk final years of fertility.
I've known women in their mid forties still talking about having kids. Do they think they want to raise teenagers in their 60s?
Well, myself and the other two women are Catholic, and were waiting till marriage, along with other Christian values, that weeded out a lot of men. Some of us wait a very long time to find the right person, and not for the above reasons listed in that article. They were quite aware of their age, and one of them hadn't been asked out on a date in at least two years prior to meeting her husband, and certainly not for lack of going to social events. She was hardly, if ever approached.
Those of us who've had to wait later would have preferred it earlier, but weren't interested compromising values to get used and slept-with and play pretend-house. There are extenuating factors that you may not be considering that impacts each person or group differently.
Great points!! I dated from my early 20s to 39 (so emotionally draining!) when I finally found my wife who was 34. I wanted to find a woman who wanted kids, raise them Catholic and value other things that were important to me. It took a while.
Like you said I wish it was earlier - I’m 58 with a 12 year old daughter - but I’m blessed and wouldn’t change a thing.
I pray for my family, friends, and others who are alone, trying to find that right person.
Have a great day Rachael!!!
Wait a year. As a female friend with three daughters once said, "Thirteen is a curse from God." The good news is that they grow out of it. Our teen daughter almost drove my wife crazy. Now she's a wonderful 30-something mother. My friend's three daughters also turned out fine.
It’s no fun being a teenage girl, either. I thank God my parents didn’t strangle me during those years. They would have been well within their rights.
"she was hardly, if ever approached."
Why wait to be approached?
in my experience, pursuing men does not work. She herself is also a little shy and introverted. eventually, it all worked out, her husband is also introverted, and they’re quite happy.
Good on you, Rachel!
I tend to agree that the “doom and gloom” is not helpful. However, do you not think some of those cultural trends and attitudes (JPII’s “The Culture of Death) mentioned in the article had an impact on the realities of finding suitable people to date and marry?
I’d have to read JP II’s writings on the culture of death, but I think I know what you’re talking about. I think as a whole it’s a multifactor problem, and it’s not just the polarization and tribalism of politics. A large part of it is going to be the culture of death, the pushing of consequence free sex and birth control, shifting social attitudes, delaying of adolescence, not teaching people to take responsibility, certainly not unhealthy ways, a redefinition of healthy masculinity and femininity, a decline in religious belief across all age groups that teaches codes of conduct, values, and mores. The fact that American culture really is heavily, narcissistic, from which I’m drawing from the book “the culture of narcissism”. My problem with the above article is not just the doom and gloom, but that it is only approaching it from one broad perspective, and maybe articles like that only can do just that.
Exactly!! I think you and I are “kindred spirits” as Anne of Green Gables would say. You are getting at another important idea that seems lost in most discussions: not JUST, as you stated so well, how there are a multiplicity of factors but ALSO how all these cultural issues are tied together and even flow from one another!
Well, that's my wife and I. We were married (first marriage for both of us) in our early 40s. I'm now 62 with two teenagers. I would have preferred (and would recommend) to start a family a decade earlier, and if that had worked out I'd probably have more than two, but finding the right partner isn't something you can just will. That said, there are advantages and disadvantages to every age. We're much more financially settled; it wasn't hard financially for my wife to stay home and homeschool (for many other homeschoolers, the financial challenges are substantial, though they'd say it's worth it).
I really appreciate your comment because it proves the point that there’s a lot more nuance to finding a partner than people often realize. For some people it’s due to illness, sometimes they have severe family or mental health challenges that prevent them in one way or another from being available in the dating pool because they need time to heal, other times it’s just because the timing is just wrong. I’ve had several friends who had to go through long periods of not dating simply because they weren’t being asked out. And I’ve seen people who very happily find love in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. Some of us sadly are not going to have children, and that is a real reality, either because we physically can’t for one reason or another, or we age out of it. But that doesn’t mean that people cannot find happiness and joy in a relationship later in their life. I’m really glad that you and your wife found each other and you have two beautiful children.
I am 64 with an 18 and 20 yo. I love them to pieces but I would not recommend waiting as long as I did.
Nobody wants to raise teenagers at any age but it comes with the territory.
Dunno, I really like the whole boarding school idea.
Not so sure the 35-40 something’s will have a happy sudden about face and find marriage and family. I am 69 and found the difficulty in meeting people and forming new friendships began in earnest in my late 30s. In my day, many men were already married by that time or they were looking to have a child and I didn’t want a child. I rarely met anybody randomly because I worked alone and spent eight hours a day alone in a room doing work. As we atomize the workplace in favor of laptop commuting, I think people are going to find it harder and harder to make new friends later — Much less life partners and families.
to an extent, I think that’s always been true. Certainly from my mom‘s recollections of things when she has related her dating experiences in her 30s. To be fair, it does get harder to make friends as we get older, and some of that might be people already have established friendships, or part of it may be that their personalities are fairly set, and they find it difficult to be more adaptive to other different personalities than their own. I think it’s important to have friends who range in age across the lifespan, and also to find people who have similar interests by going out into the world.
You ask too many questions! You will be booted! 😁
me? Never.
In 1977, I quit my teaching position in order to start a movement to work for equality, while still maintaining the male-female balance upon which the survival of all species depends.
Feminists had hijacked the value of “equality” and created a misandrist movement which promoted new sexist stereotypes and new forms of sex discrimination, and while destroying male-female balance and increasing anger and resentment between men and women. Feminism is politically and financially profitable, but fatal for our civilization.
I see more and more signs that my warnings of the past 47 years were accurate.
Anti-abortion is not universally about being anti-reproductive rights. For many conservatives, it’s about the babies’ right to live and be born.
I understand that some people say it’s the same thing… IT’S NOT. A woman’s right to kill her child vs. the baby’s right to live.
Most conservatives have NO PROBLEM with contraception. We do have a problem with killing babies.
I think you're mischaracterizing Watter's comment. I didn't see his statement, but I know that in the past polling has shown married women are as Republican leaning as men,, but unmarried women that need the state to do what men do for married women break hard for the Democrats.
Brilliant insight from Jessica Vaughn @JessicaVaughn
"Unmarried women almost always vote for liberals precisely because of their emotional distress. They simply cannot be ok in the meat grinder of a world that requires them to play games designed for men with competitive traits they not only lack, but were designed to do the opposite function of men, which is to nurture and beautify. Putting square pegs in round holes was of course going to make women psychotics. 80% of unmarried women in the west will always vote to take the wealth of those who have it and demand the state give it to them. Marriage negated this compulsion back when there was a suitable man for every suitable woman, and everyone was suitable for someone. You could be below average and still buy a house and afford the basics. Marriage offering a safety net to women predisposed to be dependents their entire lives could never scale open borders, and the internet giving global women direct access to American men. Whole societal model is now broken. Liberalism flipped to some authoritarian leftism where the patients run the asylum. Why do too few know when to recognize their choices have failed them? Modern leftism is mostly asking anyone to come take care of all the failures of the individual in the current model of reality we occupy. They want the state to create a new reality. Is it working? Revolution is a Frankenstein creation, at present."
Love the comment from JMF and that he worked Ted Lasso into this. Good work sir.
Also, I swear this will be a temporary problem. People with the ideology don’t reproduce. It will die off with time.
I keep saying we’re witnessing the evolution of the human race in real time. Before all that was needed to ensure reproduction was a sex drive. It was either life long celibacy or have a baby at some point. Birth control changed that. Now people don’t just have to chose to have sex they have to chose to have kids. If there is any genetic commonality between those who choose to have kids then those genes will become more prevalent overtime aka we evolve.
Although if politicians simply incentivized people to have kids that would change. What if having kids meant you didn’t pay income tax for 18 years? Boom! Kids. Probably for the wrong reasons but kids none the less. Although maybe we would evolve to be more greedy at that point…. My mind is spiraling here.
Someone help me. ;)
If we keep educating into the ideology, it doesn’t matter if these people die off.
Check with China. No financial incentives seem to work there.
"Although if politicians simply incentivized people to have kids that would change."
Nations have tried to incentivize having kids. Some even outright paying the people. Nothing so far has really moved the needle. Of course I'm sure there is some number that will do the trick. But not a number that a government can afford. After all the government needs the vast majority of people to form families and have kids.
Having kids is on a long term trend where marriage and children are pushed back until later in life. Average age of marriage has gone up 4 years since the Boomer generation and average age of women's first birth mimics this. What we see is dramatic drop off in fertility among 15-19 year olds (72%) and 20-24 year olds (43%) along with fertility increases in 30-34 +22%, 35-39 +67% and 40+ increasing 132%. Since biology dictates that younger women are more fertile and time of fertility is obviously more for younger women we have an overall small decrease in fertility. Combined with lowering immigration of young women (both legal and illegal) from Mexico (we had a mini baby boom 20 years ago among hispanics) we have our current 1.8 fertility rate. These trends are mostly long standing and are not some critical mass leading to a S Korea (or China/Europe/Japan) demographic bomb. And as we watch Generation Z we see some hope for reversing that delay of child rearing albeit without the benefit of marriage. Generation X is the real culprit here. The Millennials started the return to replacement level fertility (thanks to medical technology) and Generation Z might be continuing that reversal although in different forms. If we could figure out our immigration issue we would be fine. We will never go back to those pre-pill days where certain religions were pumping out children at a prodigious rate (my Catholic wife is #10 of 10 siblings).