I'll preface by saying I've got no beef with the standard, traditional, nuclear setup. Young woman meets man of dreams, they have a beautiful wedding followed by a solid number of kids, live together in love and harmony for 70 years and get buried next to each other. Fantastic, good for them.

If that's what you want and it happens for you, great. But for a lot of people, it doesn't happen. And if they keep holding out for it, they might not get to have any children or the number of children they want.

I know for a fact that I would not have the 4 children that I'm lucky to have, if I waited for this perfect scenario to materialise. I also know tons of people who have kids in various non-standard arrangements, who otherwise would not have kids.

There is a lot of stigma still attached to it though, even in developed countries. And what for? Surely as a society we should cherish and nourish and celebrate every child. And whether that child has mum and dad, or mum and aunt, or two mums, or step parents, or friendly coparents, or donors, or whatever - shouldn't determine how we view and treat the child and their family.

It's becoming harder for many people to have and raise children. So if they have managed to find a way to do that, we should embrace it as a good thing.

Wondering if anyone has stats on this.

In my family tree, most women had relatively few children and all of them to one man. If that relationship breaks down, they did not go on to have more children with another partner.

On the other hand, the exact opposite with the men. Most men in my family tree had above average number of kids, due to having one or two in each of their marriages/relationships.

So, basically, the men kind of "hogged" the women's "reproductive slots", in a manner of speaking. This means that hypothetical other men missed out on having any kids, if my one grandpa took three women "off the market".

Ive seen the same in other families and wonder if it's part of a broader pattern.

What do you think motivates others the most often? For people who do want kids and especially more than average number of kids, which group of motivations is the strongest? The way I see it, all motivations can be grouped into one of three caregories:

1. For the wider society. Example, we need to have kids in order for humanity to continue and to maintain social order and healthy economy.

2. For the children themselves. Example, they get an opportunity to be born and experience all the wonders and challenges of life that we ourselves got to experience. Like our parents gave us care and nourishment, we have a responsibility to do so for our children.

3. For the parents ourselves. Example, we get the joy of loving and looking after another human being, being their guide and mentor in the world, spending time with them etc. Hoping someone will look after us when we're old. Complying with family or social expectations to have kids.

Curious to hear everyone's journeys to becoming a natalist - or otherwise to realising that you have always been one.

Since becoming pregnant with our fourth, I haven't encountered a single person who didn't respond with some sort of Wow!!! when learning that this is baby number 4. As in, wow that's a lot of kids!!!

And to me, it's not even THAT many kids.

I find this response sometimes amusing, but mainly sad actually.

What about others, how do people respond to your family sizes?

In the past, a tribe or town with no young people was doomed. This is why they had so many fertility goddesses, folk medicine and other methods to try to increase fertility.

A couple with no children was probably doomed to suffer little social support beyond just charity (specially for women), since children were expected to take care of them as the parents get old. Even having only one kid was a tragedy. The parents also felt they still had a purpose by caring for their grandkids while the parents worked. This system probably was around for 99% of humanity existing, even deep into agricultural and civilized life.

People in the past were very aware of how bad infertility was, and they would do anything from trying dangerous substances to marrying multiple wives, just to keep it going. The consequences of low fertility rates stayed in the tribe / town / family. There were no spare resources or incentive to care for bastards or orphans.

Fast forward, Modernity put a wall between society and natural reality. People don't need to know how to light fire or fish anymore to avoid starving, but food is still required, and we still rely on nature by proxy of institutions. Later, democracy and centralized states pooled resources, and technology made it easier to produce enough food, so we forgot the need for a working class. Even in recent decades we often dismiss blue collar workers and praise office jobs that, at the end, always rely on what those blue-collar workers do.

Our modern institutions still rely on a healthy population to keep the system, but now the tribe is the whole inter-connected civilization. We grew together thanks to globalism, and we will probably fall together at this rate. The solution? I don't think there is any, but maybe decoupling our families and communities from the falling ship may be the only way to save ourselves.

Hot take but I think it’s cruel and a new misogyny that some women are forgoing motherhood simply bc we have no social or economic safety nets or support throughout this process. If a woman dedicates her life to having and raising children, she should not feel pressured to going back to work to help their family afford to live. She should also not have to worry about retirement. what women go through should be treated as a job, compensated as such, and given a pension.

Yes men need to continue to step up and support women in this time. They need to be held accountable to stay loyal dedicated work hard for their families. But even so we don’t live in a time where things are as affordable on one salary. It’s also a lot to put the weight of all of this just on one man. Idk what the answer is- whether it’s more government support, healing communities so that inter generational living/care is possible again, or what. But either way we need to brainstorm ideas.

The next feminist movement needs to be about this. Like women and mothers need to take to the streets and demand that motherhood be treated with the respect it deserves, that women need to be looked out for, helped, and protected at all costs should they undertake the task of bearing and raising children. It is our human right to have our own children and build our own families and it is utter bullshit that we have so many hurdles in doing so.

Ps. Not to mention dating sucks! Especially for young women. Our time gets wasted when looking for a partner. The culture around dating is awful. For both men and women. But it screws women over more for sure. So that’s a whole other conversation. But it’s relevant.

Not saying if I'm for or against these ideas, or what political party would even consider enforcing these, but...

Would you be for a national ban on all of the above?

Ok, that is a very cryptic title, but I blanked on a more descriptive one, so forgive me. I'm also going to say this up front: I'm not making a judgement call on any of this. I'm just describing observations. For sake of brevity, let's not get bogged down in what, exactly is Conservative vs Liberal or Traditional vs Progressive. We all have a general idea of what is meant, even if we might disagree about the particulars.

Consider the following:

Low Population Density, Conservative/Traditional Values, and High*er* Fertility are all positively correlated.

High Population Density, Liberal/Progressive Values, and Low*er* Fertility are all positively correlated.

In addition to those sets of variables, there's also the average age of a population, which seems to be correlated in a peculiar way (with a higher age aligning with low population density and conservative/traditional values, but also not really aligning with higher fertility for obvious biological reasons).

Now, given that lower fertility will necessarily lead directly to lower population density and an older average age (absent external factors that reduce life expectancy, which cannot be taken for granted, admittedly), it would seem that this would likely result in a population that is more conservative and traditional. Between that and lower population density, it would then conceivably result in a higher fertility rate. This would eventually result in higher population density, which brings us back to where we are now, more or less.

Put more succinctly:

Dense and Liberal -> Lower Fertility -> Sparse and Conservative -> Higher Fertility -> Dense and Liberal -> etc

Obviously, this takes an extremely long time to play out, and the average age of the population puts an idiosyncratic twist on the matter - a population with a low life expectancy will presumably swing back and forth more quickly, as the elderly population is less ballast in either direction. A larger elderly population will do what it can to maintain the values of that elderly population for longer (insert generic gripe about how the Boomers just won't go quietly away here).

Similarly, an increasingly old population is likely to be more rural, since urbanization and old age do seem to be negatively correlated (which could be as simple as the elderly living with family in the suburbs and/or retirement communities usually being located in the suburbs).

TLDR: in economics, people often say that the cure to high prices is high prices. Well, perhaps the cure to low fertility is low fertility.

5 weeks from now getting snipped. Fathered 6 children w/ ex-wife and current wife; 3 each.

I’m sad that I won’t be making any more babies but there are simply not enough monetary and personnel resources to support additional children in my family unit.

It saddens me to see so many of my people afraid or unwilling to have children. I understand that fear better than anybody but come on man be courageous, be brave. Do the hard thing and do it unapologetically.

It’s nice to see pro-natalist rhetoric espoused by Trump & co. Hopefully we’ll see all the pro-natalist rhetoric translate into actual policy.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on TFR and here’s my unsolicited opinion. The decision to have a child is deeply personal and the reasons vary widely from individual to individual. Therefore, there can never be a one-size-fits-all solution to a multi-faceted problem. A declining TFR is a death-by-a-thousand-cuts type of thing.

Anti-natalism is self-harm. Believe in yourself and fulfill your biological imperative. You can do it, the future is counting on you.

I swear if I read one more MGTOW post (not here, obviously), I’m going to lose my mind. Why have people given up on relationships? Or at least it seems that way (maybe this just me being chronically online). Literally will see dudes on instagram, youtube, reddit all say how men should never get married, men should never have children. Like imagine if that was the general consensus lol. And I’m only using men as an example, I know it takes two to tango.

Why can’t our culture start encouraging love, relationships, and commitment again? Literally I don’t think any other relationship or experience is greater than romantic love, except the love of a parent for their child. Or if someone does want a relationship, I feel like they’re discouraged in pursuing one. “Just focus on your hobbies and friends” or “stop looking and just let it happen if it does”.

Maybe this is a rant idk

President Trump promised during his campaign that he would support insurance or even the state paying for IVF. He is famous for saying a thing and doing another, yet this position is not conservative or liberal, since actually both parties support a stable sustainable birth rate. Countries from all the political spectrum are suffering lower birth rates.

Advantages

• People live longer and healthier now, generally speaking, so they may have babies later in life.
• More babies being born probably means more tax income in the future to keep retirement and government benefits.
• More babies being born also benefits the younger generation that will not be crushed politically and socially by older generations. They can raise with people their age, get married people their age, etc.
• Stable populations can help to establish stable and circular economies. Not all population growth is good for the economy, but so far no population decline has been positive for the economy either.
• Older people are generally more economically stable, which is good for raising a kid.

Disadvantages

• Health complications for the mom. Geriatric pregnancies are often riskier.
• Health risks for the baby. Autism goes up by the age of the parents.
• The cost may be too much for the benefits.
• It may be too little too late.
• People who are not having kids may have other reasons still into their old ages.

I've heard many different studies, articles, pep-talks, and a ton of other shite that is tossed around like a beanbag to my question. Lot's of different answers, people responding, and a hell of a lot of arguments. As someone who is somewhat interested in Natalism Vs Antinatlism, why has Antinatalism seemingly won?

All birth control does is give you the choice. It doesn't affect your desire nor ability to have children. Many countries have easily available contraceptives yet above-replacement birth rates.

People stop having kids when they aren't able to afford them. That's the fundamental reason. All other reasons emerge from this one.

Edit: So what I'm taking away from these comments is that the default outcome of having sex is having children, but birth control offers an alternative route: not having the child. So in a society without birth control, it'll always be forced to have a high birth rate (an oversimplification, but you get the point). Societies with birth control can either have high or low birth rates. They can still have high birth rates. They're just not forced to have them. They aren't forced to have low birth rates either. What I'm trying to say here is that birth control offers a choice, not an explanation for either route. If a society has low birth rates, that's because of some other factor unrelated to birth control. And the evidence for this is that there are nations with easy access to birth control, yet decent birth rates.

I found a curious statistic. Female doctors have a TFR of about 2.3. The TFR for all women with doctorate or professional degrees is 1.5. Why the huge disparity? Is there a lesson to be learned here?

I think it's quite sad that one of the common stories I hear on anti-natalist and childfree forums are complaints about siblings who have kids "begging" the childless to help them take care of their kids. These complaints are along the lines of "my entitled sister asked me to babysit her kids" and "my deadbeat brother can't afford college for his kids."

I find this attitude not only sad, but also self-harming. If you have a brother or sister who has kids, they have done you a service by giving you a niece or nephew, someone who connects you with the future, at no cost to your body, your time, or your finances. I think childless people should be thrilled when a sibling has kids because the sibling has essentially made a big sacrifice to do something that benefits them (the childfree uncle/aunt), and should want to contribute financially and time-wise to the raising of their nieces or nephews. When you reach old age, a nephew or niece is probably the only young person around who is going to be available to help take care of you. Why not give your nieces and nephews some happy memories of you?

We constantly complain about how hard it is to raise kids today. Yet, there are more adults around per kid than ever. We need to promote a society where the childless want to help raise kids who aren't theirs, especially if those kids are close relations (nieces, nephews, younger cousins, etc.)

It's a testament to western/American selfishness and pathological individuality that childree people do so little to help their family members when those family members have kids.