Discontent #14 food, energy, transport, cost of living, society etc

[OatMatchaLatte]

Women can’t be forced to have children if they don’t want them, I don’t know how it can be incentivised. I’m childfree by choice for a variety of reasons, none of which are financially motivated.

Add to this, lone parent families are maligned, and by loan parents, I mean women who are raising children alone. You can’t make a man stick around, and often you wouldn’t want said man to stick around because they’re awful, yet it’s the woman that is blamed and looked down upon.

Even if you’re the perfect nuclear family, nothing is guaranteed.

 

[GlaGlam]

For millennia, people were having children because they were the retirement plan - they were to look after and provide for the aging parents. They were also exploited from quite a young age. Women were also exploited in the household without any compensation. The hard truth is that if there is no financial incentive and no societal (religious, cultural) pressure to have children, people will have fewer children. It’s actually true not only for humans - if you take any group of living organisms and put in into secure conditions with unlimited access to food, the fertility rates go down.

That's definitely not true about any living organisms in secure conditions with unlimited food making the fertility rates going down. Look at rabbits, pigeons, rats, mice, seagull and so many others.
Not true for many young human-beings with insecure housing, insecure work and often struggling to feed themselves being common.
We've been desperate for children for 12 years (ever since married) but we've been forced to move when landlords decided to sell, been through periods of unemployment and still don't feel any more secure today.
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Women can’t be forced to have children if they don’t want them, I don’t know how it can be incentivised. I’m childfree by choice for a variety of reasons, none of which are financially motivated.

Add to this, lone parent families are maligned, and by loan parents, I mean women who are raising children alone. You can’t make a man stick around, and often you wouldn’t want said man to stick around because they’re awful, yet it’s the woman that is blamed and looked down upon.

Even if you’re the perfect nuclear family, nothing is guaranteed.

Agree that it's the woman that's blamed!
For many childfree is a choice and nothing in the world will change that. But if we had a house that provided some security and we weren't just getting by most months that would make all the difference.

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

I'm nodding at all the most liked comments on youtube videos about the falling birthrate. It's going to be an absolute disaster. Those in power could do something to help but it's being pretty much ignored and left to play out.

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Hot take: the reason why people have less children is not "because magically people stop having children when they stop dying", but that our lifestyle is incompatible with having children. When women were incorportated in the work force, work hours should have been reduced proportionally. We are working more for less, we don't even have time for ourselves, much less for taking care of our children, and most of the basics like home and health has been sequestred for a small portion of the population to live of a chunk of other people's work. Get down to 4 hours of work for both parents to make a living and you will see how suddenly people start having children, because what's needed to nurture children is spending time.


It’s almost as if overworking and being underpaid is making people less interested in having children.


“The wolves are upset, the sheep won’t reproduce”


The effect of an aging population is felt very strongly in Greece. For years our politicians have mostly catered to retirees and government employees and that's been enough to get them elected. But the burden of the system has been felt by the younger generation who, for the most part, have just left the country, leaving even fewer people to support the aging population. It's negative feedback loop at this point.


As a teenager, I always imagined that by age 30 I would've married, owned a house and had all the children I was going have. I turn 30 in 8 days. Haven't done any of those things. I've been with my partner for 7 & a half years. If it was up to us, we would've done all of it already, but neither of us see those things as achievable goals for our near future. Housing is way too expensive and wages are too low. Why have kids when we can't afford to feed them or house them? Much less have the time to raise them since we both work full time just to survive. And without all of that, marriage just seems so pointless... As much as we wish we could start a family, we have no incentive to do so


I just turned 40 this year. I can say without a shadow of a doubt. That we millennials are not having children because of the greed and inequality in the world. We want what our parents had but cannot achieve this with children. Our leaders and parents asked us to be the future and gave us impassable mountains to climb. Greed is killing the human race.

Content warning - discussing having kids (I know it can be a sensitive subject, have been there myself so solidarity )

I’m one and done and constantly get asked about it so think about this often. SO many people ask about when I’m having the next one it’s insane, literally never babes! It’s hard enough having one and I couldn’t agree more that the world isn’t accommodating enough for children or mothers to make you want to endure that uphill struggle of multiples? The village it takes is long gone in our society. I know child focused/attachment/gentle parenting is nothing new but struggle to see how it’s scalable now without at least one parent leaving the workforce tbh not saying it can’t be done but it’s not a challenge I want to endure!

The modern world also feels like a minefield to navigate as a parent - from mobile phones, Snapchat, grooming, hyper consumerism, tweens wanting skincare, etc etc. I know every generation has its thing but it just feels like the world is increasingly hostile to nice wholesome child development?

This isn’t even getting into the financials lol which are just ridiculous for both parents and the child when they are of age!

 

[Mamacita]

Women can’t be forced to have children if they don’t want them, I don’t know how it can be incentivised. I’m childfree by choice for a variety of reasons, none of which are financially motivated.

Add to this, lone parent families are maligned, and by loan parents, I mean women who are raising children alone. You can’t make a man stick around, and often you wouldn’t want said man to stick around because they’re awful, yet it’s the woman that is blamed and looked down upon.

Even if you’re the perfect nuclear family, nothing is guaranteed.

There's definitely more choice now not to have children and it's becoming more acceptable ( though I know there are loads of people who think it's crazy not to want them). But there are also a lot of people who would have had them if they could afford it. While for me there are other factors at play in not really wanting to have children, costs of childcare for example are a massive factor and could potentially sway me into having kids if it was more affordable to have them. I don't see incentivising it as trying to convince those who don't want children at all.

 

[GlaGlam]

There's definitely more choice now not to have children and it's becoming more acceptable ( though I know there are loads of people who think it's crazy not to want them). But there are also a lot of people who would have had them if they could afford it. While for me there are other factors at play in not really wanting to have children, costs of childcare for example are a massive factor and could potentially sway me into having kids if it was more affordable to have them. I don't see incentivising it as trying to convince those who don't want children at all.

I also don't think incentivising is the right word. It's about merely making having children possibly for average earners. Social housing and affordable childcare would help so many. Average earners have to get into poverty to start a family and it doesn't fair to bring children up in that.

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

Apparently mortgage rates are due to increase again, I know a few of us here fixed tail end of last year when there was speculation over maybe holding out for a decrease in 2024, so personally relieved we’re in a 5 year fix as (imo!) the prognosis for the next 2 years odd feels like more of the same. Obvs that’s complete speculation, and obvs it could carry on for the full 5 year term too, just glad to not feel like I’ve made a mistake (at least for now lol).

 

[Multi-21]

Our fixed rate runs out in 2026, the current follow on rate is 8%. I can’t imagine what it’ll be when we actually get there

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

Our fixed rate runs out in 2026, the current follow on rate is 8%. I can’t imagine what it’ll be when we actually get there

That follow on rate isn’t a projection on where the market will be if that’s what’s worrying you! It’s always really high and for most people/circumstances it’d be silly to stay on it. No one knows where the market will be in the next x years, but personally believe rates ~5% will be the long term norm now, hopefully we’re all lucky enough to fix at the lower points of that new norm!

 

[Folkevermore]

Our fixed rate runs out in 2026, the current follow on rate is 8%. I can’t imagine what it’ll be when we actually get there

The standard variable is always much higher than a new fixed term. Current fixes are around 5%

 

[Falkor]

My 1.78% 5-year fix runs out in December and I am really not looking forward to seeing what we end up on Just relieved we're near the end of it and will 'only' have about £76k left owing at that point.

 

[Louby@21]

We are lucky we had a low mortgage ( big deposit) and can overpay it a bit. Which while not financially sound to some we are keen to have the house as ours for the security aspect as we bought older. We are still in a fix till october 27 luckily. I’ve already tested at higher rates than ours @ 4/5% and payments won’t be too bad as it will be lower amount.

It’s still tit. While we get crappy pay rises as inflation is more stable EVERYTHING seems to be still increasing in price