Please turn off the TV

fez said:
As others have said, cost, time and energy to have kids has made it less attractive and the people having a lot of the kids are the last people you want to have them. An ageing and declining population that wants to suck up more and more wealth and an economy that relies on an ever expanding population to pay for the maintenance of the country and its ageing population. Never a good combination.

We don't hate children in this country but we don't encourage the right people to be having children and we don't support parents who want to contribute to society and raise good kids.
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We don't hate kids, we just believe in eugenics?
 
I have two kids, one 15 and one 3. We need to be reducing births not increasing it. Population world wide is spiralling out of control.

Childcare is also a major problem so people plain and simple do not have kids because of the cost. Both our parents live abroad so we have to make do ourselves and it is a real struggle till they start going to nursery. All my hobbies etc have basically been put on hold for the past 18 months but our youngest starts 30 hours (It was only 15 hours with our first so at least that is an improvement!) of Nursery a week in January so will get back to some kind of normality!

Saying all that having kids and raising them is the single most satisfying thing you could ever do as a human being so a couple of years of hard graft is worth the results :).
 
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LabR@t said:
www.telegraph.co.uk

Child-free by choice: The birth rate crisis gripping the West

With increasing numbers of women rejecting motherhood, governments are left scrambling to try and encourage a baby boom
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk

Turn off the pc or TV and get jiggy the nation expects.
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Love this quote to get the parents worked up:

We’ve made parenting very hard these days,” he says. “It’s treated like a research project: you have to read all these books, not feed them this, do feed them that. Parenting anxiety is a real reason people don’t have kids. They think parenting is really hard.”
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See, I knew parenting wasn't hard :cry: :cry:

cheesyboy said:
Britain, as a country, ******* hates kids. Just an awful attitude towards young people. You don't see it elsewhere.
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Give over. Kids are considered the centre of the World just now and have been for about 20-25 years.

I see huge numbers of parents who try so hard to be their kid's mate rather than their parent. They are fawned over and held aloft like the scene reminiscent of the start of the Lion King.


Whats happened now is that there is so much involved with making them all feel "special", it has resulted in a lot of them thinking they are their own lead star in the blockbuster that is their life and everyone else is a support act.... Why would you want kids to steal your light while you "live your best life"

/Breathe... I got a little carried away there :cry:
 
adam cool dude said:
I have two kids, one 15 and one 3. We need to be reducing births not increasing it. Population world wide is spiralling out of control.

Childcare is also a major problem so people plain and simple do not have kids because of the cost. Both our parents live abroad so we have to make do ourselves and it is a real struggle till they start going to nursery. All my hobbies etc have basically been put on hold for the past 18 months but our youngest starts 30 hours (It was only 15 hours with our first so at least that is an improvement!) of Nursery a week in January so will get back to some kind of normality!

Saying all that having kids and raising them is the single most satisfying thing you could ever do as a human being so a couple of years of hard graft is worth the results :).
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Is childcare costs the issue, or that our generation now expects both parents to work and not have one look after the child?

Oh no, poor you - you had to stop your hobbies for 18 months because of your children? Devasating. Those damn peskie kids taking over our lives!!!!

Births 100% need to increase, population is spiralling out of control - but certianly not up (or at least not by British)
 
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Begbie said:
Is childcare costs the issue, or that our generation now expects both parents to work and not have one look after the child?

Births 100% need to increase, population is spiralling out of control - but certianly not up (or at least not by British)
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Yes we both work full time but if you want to maintain a decent quality of life it is needed now. My partner could work part time and I do more hours but it is finding the work to do that. Statuary maternity is also one of the worst in Europe IIRC. Luckily my partner had quite a good deal but even then it was only 9 months pay. She went back after a year. Sweden you get 3 years!

The government need to do more to help the parents. Work place creche's just do not exist anymore and a lot of stuff is banned now. (Lorry drivers for example could take their kids out with them but now it is banned due to H&S madness). Our daughter is nearly 16 and is more than capable of looking after our 3 year old yet she cannot pick him up from nursery again due to silly laws. Yet if she was a teenage mother it wouldn't be an issue.
 
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Only in the financial position to even consider it now at 36. I'd have to meet a girl and be with her for a couple or years at least, I wouldn't want to deal with geriatric pregnancy so I'd need to be finding a girl who's about 25, but I'm fat and I'd need a couple of years to sort that out to attract a 25 year old girl, so she'd be 25 and I'd be approaching 40, the math just doesn't work out, it's too late. And that's basically ignoring that 25 year old girls are idiots and I'm not remotely interested.
 
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throwaway4372 said:
Only in the financial position to even consider it now at 36. I'd have to meet a girl and be with her for a couple or years at least, I wouldn't want to deal with geriatric pregnancy so I'd need to be finding a girl who's about 25, but I'm fat and I'd need a couple of years to sort that out to attract a 25 year old girl, so she'd be 25 and I'd be approaching 40, the math just doesn't work out, it's too late.
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Ask @Roar87 for some tips, he's an alpha male that the rest of us aspire to, and he'll bare-knuckle anyone who disagrees.
 
throwaway4372 said:
Only in the financial position to even consider it now at 36. I'd have to meet a girl and be with her for a couple or years at least, I wouldn't want to deal with geriatric pregnancy so I'd need to be finding a girl who's about 25, but I'm fat and I'd need a couple of years to sort that out to attract a 25 year old girl, so she'd be 25 and I'd be approaching 40, the math just doesn't work out, it's too late. And that's basically ignoring that 25 year old girls are idiots and I'm not remotely interested.
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I'm 37.gf is 30.

But our mortgage is too high.
If we had had kids a year ago.. Would I have been able to afford to pay my erc?
Would I be stuck on a 6pc mortgage with childcare costs etc etc?


Even when you're in a good position, cost of housing is a massive risk to throw in an optional massive cost of kids.


Just so many things work against you. If you don't really want/need to have kids. There is little appeal.
 
413x said:
I'm 37.gf is 30.

But our mortgage is too high.
If we had had kids a year ago.. Would I have been able to afford to pay my erc?
Would I be stuck on a 6pc mortgage with childcare costs etc etc?


Even when you're in a good position, cost of housing is a massive risk to throw in an optional massive cost of kids.


Just so many things work against you. If you don't really want/need to have kids. There is little appeal.
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So you will just give it all back to the government when you end up in a care home because you have no kids to look after you in old age. :D Materialistic items are worthless in the grand scheme of things. Children from your own loins are priceless but that is just me.
 
This was talked about since GCSE geography in 1998.. Its hardly surprising.
The west is doomed. China is next. All hail our mandarin overlords!
 
adam cool dude said:
So you will just give it all back to the government when you end up in a care home because you have no kids to look after you in old age. :D Materialistic items are worthless in the grand scheme of things. Children from your own loins are priceless but that is just me.
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Probably won't have any left by time paid for care.

But any left will go to charity
 
LabR@t said:
After 5 I had the snip, it's up to you youngun's

Someone needs to pay for your pension and NHS.
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But we need to pay for the expensive mortgages/rent, your pension triple lock (which we probably won't get), our food prices, the heating. We probably won't have an NHS either.

If boomers are always critising millennials etc for avocadosa nd Netflix. How can we have have kids?

Won't someone think of the children!
 
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Who'd have thought all those single mothers with seven kids will turn out to be the saviours of the nation.
 
413x said:
No kids for me and the gf.

Main reason is time/commitment


But for me there's a huge list
-freedom
I'm only just on my feet at late 30s, got house etc just want to have holidays and live a bit now

-time
My hobbies are not kid friendly. If weather is good on the day I want to go out on bike/kayak. This can easily write off a day. Just can't do that with kids.

-cost
Cost of living is horrendous, adding kids just makes that so so much harder

-risk of birth defects
Its life changing. Got a few step siblings who have to deal with this

-environment
both impact of having kids damaging the environment
The future of the environment, what will kids now inherit in terms of state of the planet

- my Anxiety/depression
This runs deep in the family, sometimes I just have spells where I really struggle. Don't want to throw the responsibility of kids into the mix


I feel lucky I don't actually want kids. Because I think I'd be a terrible parent. And that's the worst thing. Seeing kids with bad parents. It's so sad.


More people just don't want kids now vs past. But cost of living is stopping people have them who do want them. My sister may well get bitten by this. She wants them. But wants to be on the property ladder before. Look where that is now.



Token gestures like a few thousand is not going to persuade anyone to have kids who doesn't. Maybe more free child care, support will for those who want but can't afford them. But I don't see any other option but immigration to realistically plug the demographic time bomb.


I'd go so far to say I see no positives for myself personally to have kids. None.
It would be easy to think I hate kids. But I really don't. They just do not fit my life style, my position in life, and I have no paternal instinct either.
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You'll be wanting somebody elses kids to wipe your arse when your old though...
 
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