What Future Without Children?

[JimG]

Robert Royal comments on youth and the future.

"Yes, adolescents and young adults represent the immediate future. Still, if they don’t start having children in greater numbers than the generation or two before them, “the future” is going to hit a demographic wall. And not all that far in “the future.”

"How can you talk about marriage, family, and sexuality and not mention the most salient tool of destruction wielded against them all: contraception? Most bishops and even the pope himself avoid the subject as much as possible – for the obvious reason that it automatically puts you at odds with one of the deepest beliefs in the modern world: the right to childless sex.

“The West may be too far gone to avoid demographic suicide. But maybe the Church – in a Synod about the “future” – should at least be reminding people that, without children, the future they’re projecting will be very short indeed. And we won’t like the world we’ll inhabit when it’s over.”

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2018/10/12/what-future-without-children/

 

[Cruciferi]

My neighborhood has 1/8 the number of kids that my parents remembered encountering 40 years prior. There weren’t many people to hangout with. The local Parish school closed due to declining enrollment too…

 

[Lee1]

There are also financial and lifestyle pressures behind contraception. It’s a deep problem.

I had four, I’m done.

 

[QwertyGirl]

I don’t think we have to worry about the species dying out anytime soon. Or over the long-term.

 

[Chicken_Pigeon]

More young people aren’t even dating at all. A lot of us don’t even know how to date

Bokbok

 

[Convert3]

I don’t know. We’ve had three grandchildren over the past 18 months. Looking at the young people in our parish, I think there is a baby boom in progress.

 

[JimG]

More young people aren’t even dating at all. A lot of us don’t even know how to date

An interesting observation. Marriage and babies seem to have fallen out of favor. On the other hand, I have a half dozen nieces and nephews who started out adulthood by merely cohabiting with their significant others. After the first child arrived, they began marrying as a sort of afterthought. Just called up their parents one day and said, “Oh by the way, Jane and I got married last Friday.”

 

[Chicken_Pigeon]

We are all raised on Facebook and tinder and we don’t know how to date properly because a lot of us are the product of divorces and watching reality television

Bokbok

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

It really depends on where you live.

It also really depends on where you are in life.

My grandparents had 5 kids with a 10 year span. They have 10 grandkids born between 1982-1995 and 5 more between 96 and 2002.

My parents have 4 kids with a 5 year span. Very shortly they will have 7 grandkids 4 and under.

 

[JimG]

I don’t think we have too worry about the species dying out anytime soon. Or over the long-term.

I hope we won’t go extinct. But declining fertility rates can lead to and are leading to worrisome population declines in a lot of places in Europe. For example, Spain:

"When Spanish business consultant Alejandro Macarrón started crunching the numbers behind Spain’s changing demographics, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “I was astonished,” said Macarrón. “We have provinces in Spain where for every baby born, more than two people die. And the ratio is moving closer to one to three.”

Europe needs many more babies to avert a population disaster | Population | The Guardian

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

More young people aren’t even dating at all. A lot of us don’t even know how to date

Bokbok

Dating/courting/“love” based marriage is a relatively new phenomenon compared to most of history…really it’s only in the past couple hundred years or so…

 

[Chicken_Pigeon]

Right but less young people are getting romantically involved at all or just going from one night stand to another empty relationship. This generation will have the lowest rate of people getting married in at least 100 years. Many will never marry and many who marry will never have children.

Bokbok

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

I don’t think we have too worry about the species dying out anytime soon. Or over the long-term

The worry seems to be economic and tangentially, a supply of potential conscripts. Most systems (capitalism, empires, socialism, etc) require exponential growth or at least never ending growth.

More young people aren’t even dating at all. A lot of us don’t even know how to date

Not sure I blame them. The risk/reward is gradually skewing. Ask any woman about their online dating experiences. Ask guys about the hostility they often sense.

 

[Chicken_Pigeon]

I don’t think it’s that. I don’t think many young people possess the skills to date or ask someone out. Everyone is socially stifled it seems

Bokbok

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

Right but less young people are getting romantically involved at all or just going from one night stand to another empty relationship. This generation will have the lowest rate of people getting married in at least 100 years. Many will never marry and many who marry will never have children.

Bokbok

Yeah, I don’t think this period in time has more claim to general debauchery than others when you look at what occurred closely. Noble families would either marry off children else hold their entire brood hostage until one got married off. Woman in poverty were often considered unmarriageable but babies still got made somehow

 

[Chicken_Pigeon]

I don’t blame debauchery. I blame how everyone is glued to some kind of screen and we’ve all collectively lost something in terms of social interactions. We can just avoid being social by using our phones. Young people dont have courage to ask out others face to face. Things have changed and I don’t think it’s for the better

Bokbok

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

I don’t think it’s that. I don’t think many young people possess the skills to date or ask someone out. Everyone is socially stifled it seems

Bokbok

I think this tends to be a bit of a deception. I mean, look at the hipster type towns in Seattle or other popular places. Young people have no issues being social when it’s on their terms. They are just not the quaint niceities of the 1960’s.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

I don’t blame debauchery. I blame how everyone is glued to some kind of screen and we’ve all collectively lost something in terms of social interactions. We can just avoid being social by using our phones. Young people dont have courage to ask out others face to face. Things have changed and I don’t think it’s for the better

Bokbok

Yeah no.

Phones do change the dynamic. But having worked in an office of 20-30yo’s I can tell you that I worked with at least 200-300 of them who had no trouble being “Social” in their own way. They tend to be fiercely loyal but gregariously open. Love a good beer, tend to value niche things.

Even working with today’s teens and college students–yes phones make it different but in many ways, they are likely to use them in more creative ways. “Head’s UP” is an app that is a party game and one of the most popular purchases.

 

[Chicken_Pigeon]

The overall trend is less people getting married and if they do get married they get married later and barely have children if they do decide to have them. More teenagers are virgins than ever and I suspect it’s not by choice given how many are leaving their faiths and how many are either atheist, agnostic, or none

Bokbok

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

Also, keep in mind that dating with the goal of marriage could be tricky if still in college or establishing a career. In essence, the prime fertility ages occur when one is less likely to be in a stable phase of life.