I feel like 96% of things that 1 in 4 millennials and Gen Z-ers won’t do is due to finances.
“Raising a child costs money” is an complete unsupportable situation for any society and represents completely indefensible failure.
We have a complex and frankly fragile system of family members who care for one another’s kids and maintain specific work schedules so that one grownup is always available in my family, that we built from scratch (not really from a cultural background where this is the norm, it’s out of necessity) and it’s frankly the only way my family has been able to support any children.
I’m genuinely not sure how a person pays for rent/mortgage, utilities, gas and food while also paying the kinds of prices that childcare costs in even low COL areas of the US.
The only happy parents I know have family who regularly watch their kids, including overnight stays. The kids love it because they spend time with more family, and my friends love it because it means they still have time to work and do things for themselves outside of childcare. I frankly don’t know how the average atomized American family copes with raising children.
I frankly don’t know how the average atomized American family copes with raising children.
Apparently they are coping very poorly, as per recent surveys:
“After breaking out responses from people with children under age 18, the APA reported that 48 percent of those parents and caregivers describe themselves as completely overwhelmed.”
“The parent-specific breakdown also found that 41 percent said most days they “were so stressed they couldn’t function” — double the number reported by non-parents — while 42 per cent said they were so stressed they felt numb.”
I am also unsure if the world is ending. The last generation of humans may already be alive. They may already be adults with college degrees. Mad Max is fine to watch on screen, but would be a horrifying reality to live in.
I do not want to subject people to the upcoming WW3.
Humanity is going to survive, perhaps in small isolated pockets that never reach the potential capitalism squandered.
That being said, if I were to have a kid I’d be taking on the burden of finding a way to set them up for a good life. I don’t see a good life in near to mid term future for anyone not extremely lucky in birth circumstance.
The last generation of humans may already be alive
Would you mind elaborating?
The end of human civilization may be occurring within our lifetime. So children born today may be fighting in wars over water or killed in nuclear attacks twenty years from now. They may not be able to survive these events. Meaning, they won’t have children of their own.
If the damage is severe enough, the human population might bottleneck to where we won’t have enough genetic diversity to repopulate the earth. Sort of like how cheetahs are going extinct because they’re all born with the same genetic disorder and there aren’t any cheetahs without it.
I hate being reminded that it costs money to go to the hospital and get your baby delivered in the US. Yeah it’s super expensive having a kid but i didn’t have to pay $10k+ to have it removed from my partner
All “healthcare” executives should experience their skin being flayed from their bodies
It’s a fee for allowing the mother to hold her baby because that’s how fucked up our society is
I think you can renegotiate the bill and do really low monthly payments if you end up in that situation
Tho now that you mention it I don’t think Ive ever noticed my credit score being affected much by the medical bills I never payed
