I’m not sold on the argument against Vance here. What more does financial incentive communicate to a society than “this is a good thing to do”. I mean, why do you think everyone wants to get on Medicaid? Bc it’s a good, reliable insurance, especially when you’re old. Okay so you have to be in abject poverty (or feign abject poverty) to get on it, but it’s worth it. So… tax breaks for having a kid? That’ll be a yes.
yes: to make childcare free, to make K-12 educational institution not a comfort zones. develop trade and academic learning accessible without borrowing toward multi-years straggle with debt. Clue: throwing money at schools does not make them better. Hete to give this example, but in Soviet Union the school system had better education than K-12 here with much more demanding and better rewarding system
Laster’s comment doesn’t quite hit the mark, but they aren’t wrong. This argument may work for a proportion of those for whom that’s a core value, but Pakaluk’s point is right: it probably goes deeper and I’d argue has more to do with a culture that promotes narcissism and self-indulgence. Children require massive sacrifice and perhaps the view that they aren’t worth any long-term gains down the road, from a personal investment perspective.
Exactly. The piece of this that is not being discussed is: Why are so many men such losers that women would rather live with just their cats then marry them?
What an insane topic. I like some things the Free Press has done, but with this current crop of meaningless articles, reading it seems pointless now. I'm done.
I still feel like I’ve never really seen a proper, in depth explanation of just how population decline will hurt us. I think the pension issue is fairly self-evident, but besides that issue I need more depth of explanation here.
I’m not taking sides either way on the issue, only saying that it’s very complex and needs a lot more well thought out research.
In the long run, population becomes an inverted pyramid, where you have many elderly and fewer young people on the bottom, depending on them not just for tax, but also infrastructure and care work to keep the economy going. After awhile, there’s just not enough healthy younger people to do the support of jobs, especially as people age out and move up in the workforce. You have to have regenerative growth to keep the forest alive.
I watched a really good movie this weekend, 'Plan 75' about a fictious program in Japan that paid old people to let the state kill them. There were so many old people, and so few kids, that the government advertised the plan to make it easy for the elderly to go to a state facility and be painless sent packing. So many in Japan have no kids so at age 75, they are desperately lonely and can be talked into dying for the good of everyone else. We're not quite there, but its not realistic to think that a society of mostly old people will be happy. And, a state death is better than what is happening and I suspect will happen further which is the murder of the weak and vulnerable elderly. A few years ago, there was a serial murderer in Dallas that would smother old women and steal their jewelry, and he got away with it for years because the police didn't investigate the sudden death of old people. It was only when the families loudly complained that the police looked closer and saw the pattern. All of this is the consequence of fewer and fewer kids. No kids equals no future, full stop. Very few women can't have kids, but many of them don't. They really aren't thinking about what 75 and childless is going to look like. It might look like a world in which you'd be happy to have the state end your painful loneliness.
Who doesn't want babies? Some of the most intelligent and accomplished women out there; women who can actually afford to raise them, but, for the most part, find them inconvenient. Yet it is precisely those women, and their presumably equally accomplished male partners, who should be passing along their genes to the next generation. Society loses out when his doesn't happen.
Who does want babies? Gay couples! Those who are disinclined to procreate in the normal way somehow are out their seeking surrogates (not always easy for male couples) or sperm donors (super easy for lesbians). I've wondered, purely from a scientific viewpoint, if the reason there are people who are attracted to those of the same sex, perhaps it is, from an evolutionary aspect, because there is an advantage to those individuals not reproducing (and can only do so now because of technology). Of course, one could argue the same thing about infertile heterosexual couples, the difference being that straight couples, on mating, have a reasonable expectation they will be capable of naturally having offspring, whereas gay couples can have no such expectation.
Just a thought. Eagerly anticipating counter arguments.
I know my own kids only plan to have one or two children at the most because they simply can't afford to establish homes and begin their families for several more years when they will be in their thirties.
You only have to take a cursory look into our foster-care industry to see that having babies is not the cure. Having babies with the willingness, sense of self-sacrifice, and centered goal of raising babies into full functional, caring, and rational adults is the cure.
I'm very uneasy at the idea that we can improve society by monetizing baby-making. It's a cheap trick (not cheap/inexpensive, but cheap/tawdry) that on balance would result in nasty unintended consequences much more than positive results.
The change in why people aren't having kids is the tell. It's gone from "can't afford them" (which is a policy issue) to "don't want them" (which is a values issue). I can think of nothing that captures the current political moment in the United States better than that.
Having skin in the game, so to speak, and a focus on community - and legacy - is how civilizations exist - or don't. It's that simple. Families - whether biological, adopted, step, created, or inherited - give people a purpose, a history, and legacy.
The reason why the cat ladies are hissing is that Vance struck a nerve. Not only about their individual values and priorities, but the country's.
One doesn't need kids or biological kids to be a powerful, positive force in the world. We see this all the time with individuals who abstain from having children but who somehow seem to give of themselves to many others. For some, knowing that your decisions and choices will affect future generations is also an important barometer for using common sense.
But we're in a moment of maximal "me-ness" and selfishness that's some mixture of Marxist, nihilist, and, yes, Satanic (if we understand Satanism in its self-worship level of meaning).
You don't maintain a country or a civilization unless you are willing to continue it by having kids and raising families. We can make policy choices that make that easier but the values part of it is what's really on the ballot this year.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s about the priority of values, not as much about ability or capacity.
I’d take it a step further and say as well that it’s also a maturity issue. You can’t have babies if you’re always insisting on being and living like a child.
A shrinking birth rate is not a U.S. problem alone. Every country in the world where women have some level of choice and can obtain reliable birth control is facing the same issue. But there is reason to believe that human population now exceeds a sustainable level. For our survival it's probably a good thing there are brakes on the birth rate.
The attacks on JD Vance have nothing to do with his feelings about childless politicians. It is yet another case of the regime media relentlessly attacking politicians who threaten the Dems. It’s nothing more than a propaganda campaign to discredit political opponents.
I’m not sold on the argument against Vance here. What more does financial incentive communicate to a society than “this is a good thing to do”. I mean, why do you think everyone wants to get on Medicaid? Bc it’s a good, reliable insurance, especially when you’re old. Okay so you have to be in abject poverty (or feign abject poverty) to get on it, but it’s worth it. So… tax breaks for having a kid? That’ll be a yes.
If these women would just spend some of their cat raising and white savioring efforts on birthing / adopting a child and raising the child…
yes: to make childcare free, to make K-12 educational institution not a comfort zones. develop trade and academic learning accessible without borrowing toward multi-years straggle with debt. Clue: throwing money at schools does not make them better. Hete to give this example, but in Soviet Union the school system had better education than K-12 here with much more demanding and better rewarding system
I would think one of the worst ways a politician would want to make a woman want a child is to deny her the right not to have one.
Laster’s comment doesn’t quite hit the mark, but they aren’t wrong. This argument may work for a proportion of those for whom that’s a core value, but Pakaluk’s point is right: it probably goes deeper and I’d argue has more to do with a culture that promotes narcissism and self-indulgence. Children require massive sacrifice and perhaps the view that they aren’t worth any long-term gains down the road, from a personal investment perspective.
Nice try. An article about reproduction and you confuse it with the opposite of reproduction. Funny how language can come back and bite you.
But also funny how it can work for you as well.
There are many women who would gladly have children if they could find a partner who would commit to them and their child.
Exactly. The piece of this that is not being discussed is: Why are so many men such losers that women would rather live with just their cats then marry them?
What an insane topic. I like some things the Free Press has done, but with this current crop of meaningless articles, reading it seems pointless now. I'm done.
I still feel like I’ve never really seen a proper, in depth explanation of just how population decline will hurt us. I think the pension issue is fairly self-evident, but besides that issue I need more depth of explanation here.
I’m not taking sides either way on the issue, only saying that it’s very complex and needs a lot more well thought out research.
In the long run, population becomes an inverted pyramid, where you have many elderly and fewer young people on the bottom, depending on them not just for tax, but also infrastructure and care work to keep the economy going. After awhile, there’s just not enough healthy younger people to do the support of jobs, especially as people age out and move up in the workforce. You have to have regenerative growth to keep the forest alive.
I watched a really good movie this weekend, 'Plan 75' about a fictious program in Japan that paid old people to let the state kill them. There were so many old people, and so few kids, that the government advertised the plan to make it easy for the elderly to go to a state facility and be painless sent packing. So many in Japan have no kids so at age 75, they are desperately lonely and can be talked into dying for the good of everyone else. We're not quite there, but its not realistic to think that a society of mostly old people will be happy. And, a state death is better than what is happening and I suspect will happen further which is the murder of the weak and vulnerable elderly. A few years ago, there was a serial murderer in Dallas that would smother old women and steal their jewelry, and he got away with it for years because the police didn't investigate the sudden death of old people. It was only when the families loudly complained that the police looked closer and saw the pattern. All of this is the consequence of fewer and fewer kids. No kids equals no future, full stop. Very few women can't have kids, but many of them don't. They really aren't thinking about what 75 and childless is going to look like. It might look like a world in which you'd be happy to have the state end your painful loneliness.
Who doesn't want babies? Some of the most intelligent and accomplished women out there; women who can actually afford to raise them, but, for the most part, find them inconvenient. Yet it is precisely those women, and their presumably equally accomplished male partners, who should be passing along their genes to the next generation. Society loses out when his doesn't happen.
Who does want babies? Gay couples! Those who are disinclined to procreate in the normal way somehow are out their seeking surrogates (not always easy for male couples) or sperm donors (super easy for lesbians). I've wondered, purely from a scientific viewpoint, if the reason there are people who are attracted to those of the same sex, perhaps it is, from an evolutionary aspect, because there is an advantage to those individuals not reproducing (and can only do so now because of technology). Of course, one could argue the same thing about infertile heterosexual couples, the difference being that straight couples, on mating, have a reasonable expectation they will be capable of naturally having offspring, whereas gay couples can have no such expectation.
Just a thought. Eagerly anticipating counter arguments.
I know my own kids only plan to have one or two children at the most because they simply can't afford to establish homes and begin their families for several more years when they will be in their thirties.
You only have to take a cursory look into our foster-care industry to see that having babies is not the cure. Having babies with the willingness, sense of self-sacrifice, and centered goal of raising babies into full functional, caring, and rational adults is the cure.
I'm very uneasy at the idea that we can improve society by monetizing baby-making. It's a cheap trick (not cheap/inexpensive, but cheap/tawdry) that on balance would result in nasty unintended consequences much more than positive results.
The change in why people aren't having kids is the tell. It's gone from "can't afford them" (which is a policy issue) to "don't want them" (which is a values issue). I can think of nothing that captures the current political moment in the United States better than that.
Having skin in the game, so to speak, and a focus on community - and legacy - is how civilizations exist - or don't. It's that simple. Families - whether biological, adopted, step, created, or inherited - give people a purpose, a history, and legacy.
The reason why the cat ladies are hissing is that Vance struck a nerve. Not only about their individual values and priorities, but the country's.
One doesn't need kids or biological kids to be a powerful, positive force in the world. We see this all the time with individuals who abstain from having children but who somehow seem to give of themselves to many others. For some, knowing that your decisions and choices will affect future generations is also an important barometer for using common sense.
But we're in a moment of maximal "me-ness" and selfishness that's some mixture of Marxist, nihilist, and, yes, Satanic (if we understand Satanism in its self-worship level of meaning).
You don't maintain a country or a civilization unless you are willing to continue it by having kids and raising families. We can make policy choices that make that easier but the values part of it is what's really on the ballot this year.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s about the priority of values, not as much about ability or capacity.
I’d take it a step further and say as well that it’s also a maturity issue. You can’t have babies if you’re always insisting on being and living like a child.
Well said!
I think you can make people want babies. Babies are cute. But can you make people want pimply teenagers?
Nobody wants pimply teenagers! That's why G-d made dermatologists.
A shrinking birth rate is not a U.S. problem alone. Every country in the world where women have some level of choice and can obtain reliable birth control is facing the same issue. But there is reason to believe that human population now exceeds a sustainable level. For our survival it's probably a good thing there are brakes on the birth rate.
We are dealing with an upside down pyramid with the older generations (including me) rest at the top.
Anything that encourages further child births is a plus.
The attacks on JD Vance have nothing to do with his feelings about childless politicians. It is yet another case of the regime media relentlessly attacking politicians who threaten the Dems. It’s nothing more than a propaganda campaign to discredit political opponents.