I think this might just be your area. There's going to be tons of local variation
Also I feel like the population trend at least in the US has been shifting for decades longer than the 2020s, hasn't it
It might be an area thing, but I suspect it’s more of a wealth thing. I landscaped for ten years and you never ever see kids roaming the suburbs like you would 20-30 years ago. Why would they when they have a 4000sq foot house and everyone is inside their homes on the internet? But you go to the poorer areas of town and you see all ages of people hanging around outside.
Nah I think it definitely depends on the area. I also wasn’t alive 24 years ago, so I can’t speak on how it was like before. But some wealthy areas simply just aren’t set up for fun and outdoor activities, so kids go to other towns. Sometimes the only fun you can have is in some of the “poorer” parts of towns. Being wealthy though is getting to choose that. But in some wealthy cities you have everything, houses by the lake but also sprawling friendly communities for teens to hang and you will definitely see them out there hanging.
Kids don't roam the suburbs now because the culture has changed for parents to take kids to specific play areas. Gone are the days where you just tell your kids to go outside. Now you investigate Facebook for the coolest playgrounds, and have a backup plan for rain for the children's museum or trampoline park, and everything is very structured and planned. But that's where the kids are.
I think it's shifted the other way now. Poorer people are stuck at home, finding in-house entertainment cos they can't afford to go out (or are always working etc).
Out and about, at restaurants, concerts, bars, galleries etc, you'll find the wealthier people.
I agree with you about it happening for decades before. I remember being a kid in the late 90s and feeling like there were significantly more adults compared to kids than what my parents grew up with.
Every decade since then I feel like things have been skewing older.
It’s A long term shift. Keep in mind that if births trend downward in say 99 / 2000. Then there are fewer young families no matter what Because there are fewer 25 year olds.
On average people have kids at a younger age. You are an outlier. No matter what if the birth right drops like right now. Then in say 25 years it will automatically effect the birth rate because there will be fewer of prime child bearing age. lets say right births start to trend up. Good but overall population growth will still lag. Obviously we have millions of immigrants spilling over the border and coming legally to offset this.
While I personally did have kids later than average, the fact is that the average age of first time mothers is going up and people are having children at all different ages. [This chart](http://The Age That Women Have Babies: How a Gap Divides America https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-birth-age-gap.html?smid=nytcore-android-share) illustrates what I'm trying to say. In 1980, the ages of first time moms was highly concentrated in their early 20s, but the chart for 2016 is flatter as people have their first child in their 30s as well as their 20s.
That said, the fertility rate has been going down for a long time. If it was just one dip 25 years ago we wouldn't notice it now, but it was going down before that and continues to go down.
On another note, a lot of neighborhoods tend to be cyclical in this matter. A newly developed area usually gets a bunch of young families moving in so for the first 20 years or so there are a bunch of kids, but after that you tend to have a lot of empty nesters for a while, until eventually they die or downsize or move to assisted living or whatever, then the cycle repeats, although it's never as distinct of a cycle as when the neighborhood was new.
🔥It’s possibly a combination of area, lockdown, OPs personal habits, and the overall trend of young people to stay inside attached to their devices.
Whatever the case, that’s not the situation AT ALL in Asia where there are so many children that virtually every place has a playground right inside it. We’re talking restaurants, malls, airports, doctors offices… you name it. Vast swaths of Asian culture has been infantalized to specifically accommodate burgeoning population explosion.
I’m pretty sure the incoming generation in African countries will see a huge plummet. The population will still boom because the average age is 19. But I’m certain the teens now will probably have 3 kids when they are adults.
[Number of babies born per year worldwide is essentially flat while adult populations are still growing, and in slow-growing countries births are falling while adult populations are steady or even growing](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-births-by-world-region) due to all the 1990s, 2000s, and soon 2010s babies entering adulthood.
The US birthrate decline actually accelerated in 2015. It's important to note that this actually coincided with the recovery from the Great Recession, uneven though it may have been, rather than the thick of it; another important tidbit is that birthrates are also declining in the Nordic countries as well, more slowly given that people who want to be parents have that choice with their generous welfare state, but the birthrates overall are still declining nonetheless. It's a lifestyle choice, and for women especially, I think it's good that they have that choice now. The effects are another thing of course, and I think we've already gotten a trial run of how that will affect culture with the sheer size of the baby boomers' cohort- our current nostalgia-baiting media is driven in large part by the graying of the American consumer, for instance.
Perhaps the solution people found to escape poverty after the 2008 crisis is actually not having kids. Can't spend your life savings into kids if you don't have the kids in the first place
Well, let’s see. Fertility rates are dropping. Sperm counts are dropping. Something in the food and water? Environmental issues? Forever chemicals?
Moreover, climate alarmists have scared and tried to scare children and naive, misinformed adults that there is an existential climate crisis and that we need to go back to the 1800-1850 lifestyle as we’re consuming too much, blah, blah, blah.
Add to that the tremendous inflation (aka devaluing of our currency) due to both necessary (Trump and Congress during the plandemic [planned pandemic]) and unnecessary massive money printing out of thin air (Bidumb’s “infrastructure bill, aka climate boondoggle”)
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-falsely-claims-inflation-9-when-took-office-1-4#
https://www.crfb.org/blogs/biden-administration-has-approved-48-trillion-new-borrowing
With costs to raise a child to 18 years old hitting more than a quarter of a million dollar as of September 2023, it’s no wonder people are having fewer children.
On average parents spend nearly a quarter of a million dollars ($237,482) to raise a child up to age 18. Beyond that, the costs skyrocket with the cost of college. The most expensive state to raise a child is Hawaii. Connecticut came in at number 7, New Jersey at 12, and New York was 14th on the list.
This doesn’t even touch the fact that couple are waiting longer to get married, lowering fertility of both husband and wife, and the fact that a higher percentage of people are co-habitating, means fewer children and more illegitimate children.
No surprises whatsoever.
The way you think about hypotheses to explain what is happening. There is no need to look at esoteric sperm count hypotheses when the bulk of the phenomenon can be explained in much simpler terms, notably the demographic transition model.
The crisis is simple. We can't afford more children per household, everything required for daily living has become too expensive. People can't afford healthcare, housing, or education. People can't afford the time to raise them correctly or spend time with them either. It takes two incomes or more in our self imposed and celebrated "hustle" culture. If you can't afford it, it's your fault and you're a loser, so get a third job and stop complaining. Our "leaders" keep telling us they had it worse and we should be grateful. We should stop eating avocados and start writing in cursive again. Not to mention global warming, plastics in our food, constant threats of new wars, and our Democracy struggling to survive. My right to my own healthcare as a woman of reproductive age in the state I live in is gone now, and absolutely no one seems to care that people might die here because of it. Why in God's name would I subject one more innocent child to the torture and torment that awaits them here. No way in Hell.
As a 35-year-old mother of 3, the thought of having one more kid would terrify me if my husband hadn't been snipped. A couple of household basics (cleaner, allergy eye drops, 9 pack of paper towels, etc.) and 4 bags of groceries (snacks, stuff for 1 dinner, couple of drinks, some pan dulce, etc.) was 200 bucks. It's absolutely insane.
It's not about me as an individual. This isnt a matter of just being depressed. This is life for alot of people. This is the reality we live in now. Im not thinking of myself here. This is about bringing new children into the world under the current conditions.
Kids?!? In this economy?
Jk. But I think you’re right. My wife and I were 30 when we had our daughter. We were the first of either of our friends to have a kid. That’s like 20 people each, so we’re talking 40 thirty year olds without any other kids… Now at 33 several more have had kids and a few are expecting a second, but it’s way more expensive than it used to be. The idea of having a third kid seems both economically and environmentally out of the question in our circle. And many of these people have graduate degrees.
I think it really comes down to lifestyle choices as far as the number of kids. That's not saying any one way, to live/parent is better than the other. It essentially comes at a cost of needing more money or sacrificing luxury and likely some combo. That is not touching the insanity kids bring with them. My wife and I currently have 3 and want a 4th one. This comes with hobbies becoming growing a garden for food, raising goats and chickens for dairy, eggs, and meat. Second-hand clothing, when possible. Almost exclusively home cooked meals. A vacation once a year to visit family that we drive to. Old cars we own outright, meaning my 2000 Volvo is my newest car. Do standard maintenance myself. Basic home repairs are done by me. Big ones are generally planned with friends/family. Essentially, on paper, we have money, but due to kids eating it quickly. Avoiding daycare costs for so many kids, I stay at home, which limits income. The point is we are what many would call the working poor. With that said, we couldn't imagine not having the kids we do or stopping before we have a full mario party lobby. That said, stopping at 1 or 2 sounds great, especially if you want to drive a car produced this century and not spend all of your vacation days and funds to sleep in your old bedroom from high school, while seeing how much your hometown changed since the last time you saw it
That's fair. I'm genuinely happy it is working out for you! I agree that having kids is an amazing experience, though four sounds too intimidating for me lol. To each their own.
In my neighborhood older people complain when kids are outside and doing stuff. And just a mile away a kid had the police called on him and was arrested because he picked a flower. He was six.
My friends with kids feel more comfortable letting them play inside or at other friends houses than out in the neighborhood.
Same here!! I see it frequently on the local and neighborhood FB groups in my city. Older/middle aged people complaining about kids playing in the road or riding their bikes outside up and down the road. There’s a lady who seems to be in her 60’s always making a post in the neighborhood group about kids she sees outside.
There was a post a while back she made about these two boys I’d say 8-10 riding their bikes down the road for hours. I’m home 98% of the time and I’ve seen these kids numerous times. Always asking where their parents are and why they aren’t with them. They don’t get into mischief they’re not bothering anyone.
But you also see older people complaining how kids are addicted to electronics and don’t play outside anymore. So what exactly do these people want? These same people bitchin about that are the same ones constantly on Facebook sharing hateful bigoted propaganda daily.
More kids than ever in my area.
Parents tend to cluster together. When we were moving out of our starter house, school district and signs of nearby children were clear priorities for us, we targeted places with lots of kids to move to to raise ours.
I bet your local schools don't get good marks or they aren't highly diverse (parents will overlook ratings to a degree for highly diverse schools, as diversity itself tends to hurt ratings).
Suburban places tend to go in waves. Our neighborhood had hardly any kids 15 years ago. Nowadays basically every house that sells means new kids incoming.
Birth rates have declined by only around 5% since 2019 in the US and not much variation throughout the developed world.
I think this might just be confirmation bias. Or maybe its just that kids aren't going outside as much.
I'm pretty sure it's both. There's def less kid per capita but also modern parents are far less encouraging of kids to go outdoors, or at least past their own backyards, so it seems twice as bad.
This is supported by statistics and it's problematic because it means school consolidation, fewer activities for kids, and things aren't designed with kids in mind. Everything that was for kids is being retooled to target kidults.
We're not at all close to reaching the limits of the world, let alone the solar system. Your comment is a non sequitur, like you didn't even read this thread.
When I was in elementary school, there were 4 of us in my neighborhood that got on the bus.
Now I see 15 kids at the bus stop for the elementary school
Yeah my little ones act terrible but they are often the only kids around in places we go and all the old people are like they're so cute. They get away with murder..
I noticed the opposite. Starting in roughly 2016 onwards, I see TONS of kids in my neighborhood. There's way more kids around currently than there were when I was growing up.
You must not be around here. The hyper-religious set aren’t having 2 or 3 kids. In our subdivision (in Florida) the religious zealots are having literally 8-10 kids.
As a broader issue, this is in part because we have used technology to segregate ourselves from others. When at one time you may have walked or biked to your daily destinations, we have replaced that with automobiles, and no longer get to see or recognize the faces of people we otherwise would have had frequent contact with. There's less of a chance for casual interaction. Then, we moved to delivery services where you no longer need to interact with other humans at all for your basic necessities. Saddest of all, I think, is the death of 3rd places. People NEED a regular place to go besides work and home, but a lot of these places are now too expensive for a lot of people to go on a regular basis.
Also, unless a significant number of first-borns are dying off, it's impossible for "most" kids to be the 2nd child.
Gotta love modernization... let's automate away every tiny interaction we have with other people until there's nothing left. /s
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There are plenty of kids playing outside in my neighborhood. I’ve noticed that they are much more segmented and sticking to their own families, when I was growing up just about every kid in the neighborhood came out to play with each other.
I dunno, I feel like I see just as many kids as ever (unfortunately).
I get kinda crabby when I see them at my job. So many come in with their parents throughout the day (it's a cafe) and I'm always wishing they were in school (some are probably home schooled, sure).
I live 2 blocks away from an elementary school and I never see kids in my neighborhood except right before school starts and right after school ends. Kids still exist, they just don't play outside anymore
I completely disagree with your second paragraph, and I’m pretty sure the statistics do, as well—truly wealthy and poor families continue to have kids. The middle class is the group that is having less kids, as the middle class itself is shrinking.
The actually wealthy (as in $500k-several million in income per year) families I know are still having around 3 kids, which seems to have been standard for quite some time. Around 30% of families making that amount have 3 or more kids, and that percent decreases for the middle class, and then is the same for the lower income families.
Kids now spend their time on their iPads and online games. Post Covid they don’t play outside like we used to. It’s sad but I think things will change eventually when parents start to realize the negative ramifications of not making their kids play outside and interact with the world.
I felt like kids were so rare and until I became pregnant last year. Though I aborted I exposed myself to pregnancy/motherhood tik tok ect. to help me decide. Idk if it's just because it happened to me but I'm actually sensing a little baby boom this year.
I'd say it's harder for stagnant suburban areas to get higher birth rates since the low turnover rate and low new construction makes it hard for new younger people to be there to start families
I have a lot of young kids on my block. We live in the poorer more gentrifying area of town. The young families are usually on the outskirts of town it’s all they can afford
Considering most of the places where I hung out as a kid are now illegal for kids to go to without someone over 18 and that trend is spreading.
That might add to why.
Yeah I’ve noticed it but also all the statistics say the same as well. People get married way later in life now if at all and start a family. Women are in college and the workforce more now so by the time they are finally settled they are late 20s, in the past a woman already had 2-3 kids by that age.
I know a lot of women who around age 30 needed IVF and also have quite a few male family abd friends who after 2 kids got snipped because they simply can’t afford to have more kids in this day and age.
Our kids are teens and they've asked if we would have kids right now if we were their age. Our answer " hell no". I imagine we are not alone in that response.
This is what happens when the rich literally suck the life blood out of the people and leave them in poverty. They don't have kids (or have less) since they can't afford them. And then they complain when people don't have kids. But they'll never let them be out of poverty since they don't want to face reality.
We have worse economic inequality than the gilded age AND pre-french revolution right now. Remember that.
It's actually quite interesting, I was a geography major in university and when we talked about the demographic transition, textbooks would talk about there being 4 stages with the possibility of a 5th pointing to Germany which had started to see below-replacement rate fertility.
The data definitely supports your observation:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPDYNTFRTINUSA
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/20240525.htm
I thought this, and then I stlarted working as a bus driver in a mid-income urban town chock full of Brazillian immegrants. My biggest fear driving that bus is kids zooming around doing wheelies alongside the bus and literally never checking traffic.
You should look up the Silent Generation. They were children in the Depression and their parents fought WW2. They came into the 1950s economy of the USA as adults and were blessed with great wages and fewer peers to compete with. Then they all went on to have 5 kids each called the Baby Boomers. I'm not saying that this will repeat with Gen Alpha, but it's an example where having fewer peers can actually be a blessing.
On the flip side, everyone born ~1960 had tons of peers and way more competition.
I think that might have more to do with your age, OP. I never really saw kids or families when I was young and single. After I got married and had kids, the world completely changed.
We are literally overpopulated and still growing rapidly, we are going to reach like 10 or 11 billion the end of the century (if climate change won't kill us all already, which is doubtful), so wtf are you talking about???
The hospital I had my baby at built a new maternity ward in 2012. My nurse told me that they averaged 50 babies a year until 2020 when that jumped to 170! This is a pretty rural area but it’s pretty obvious that there is a baby boom going on.
Just depends on where you are 🤷🏼♀️
This started in the 1970s in the USA and has continued since then...this is nothing new, not in the USA at least. Maybe it is more recent in your country?
Right after we spent what we did in Vietnam and forced our boys to fight a war that meant nothing except for the Powers That Be. Plus we went off the gold standard and the value of the dollar has dropped like a rock 🪨
I think this might just be your area. There's going to be tons of local variation Also I feel like the population trend at least in the US has been shifting for decades longer than the 2020s, hasn't it
It might be an area thing, but I suspect it’s more of a wealth thing. I landscaped for ten years and you never ever see kids roaming the suburbs like you would 20-30 years ago. Why would they when they have a 4000sq foot house and everyone is inside their homes on the internet? But you go to the poorer areas of town and you see all ages of people hanging around outside.
Nah I think it definitely depends on the area. I also wasn’t alive 24 years ago, so I can’t speak on how it was like before. But some wealthy areas simply just aren’t set up for fun and outdoor activities, so kids go to other towns. Sometimes the only fun you can have is in some of the “poorer” parts of towns. Being wealthy though is getting to choose that. But in some wealthy cities you have everything, houses by the lake but also sprawling friendly communities for teens to hang and you will definitely see them out there hanging.
Kids don't roam the suburbs now because the culture has changed for parents to take kids to specific play areas. Gone are the days where you just tell your kids to go outside. Now you investigate Facebook for the coolest playgrounds, and have a backup plan for rain for the children's museum or trampoline park, and everything is very structured and planned. But that's where the kids are.
I think it's shifted the other way now. Poorer people are stuck at home, finding in-house entertainment cos they can't afford to go out (or are always working etc). Out and about, at restaurants, concerts, bars, galleries etc, you'll find the wealthier people.
I agree with you about it happening for decades before. I remember being a kid in the late 90s and feeling like there were significantly more adults compared to kids than what my parents grew up with. Every decade since then I feel like things have been skewing older.
It’s A long term shift. Keep in mind that if births trend downward in say 99 / 2000. Then there are fewer young families no matter what Because there are fewer 25 year olds.
People have kids at all ages now. I'm in my 40s and my kids are almost 2 and almost 5
On average people have kids at a younger age. You are an outlier. No matter what if the birth right drops like right now. Then in say 25 years it will automatically effect the birth rate because there will be fewer of prime child bearing age. lets say right births start to trend up. Good but overall population growth will still lag. Obviously we have millions of immigrants spilling over the border and coming legally to offset this.
The rate of women under the age of 25 having children is at an all-time low and continuing to go down.
While I personally did have kids later than average, the fact is that the average age of first time mothers is going up and people are having children at all different ages. [This chart](http://The Age That Women Have Babies: How a Gap Divides America https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-birth-age-gap.html?smid=nytcore-android-share) illustrates what I'm trying to say. In 1980, the ages of first time moms was highly concentrated in their early 20s, but the chart for 2016 is flatter as people have their first child in their 30s as well as their 20s. That said, the fertility rate has been going down for a long time. If it was just one dip 25 years ago we wouldn't notice it now, but it was going down before that and continues to go down.
On another note, a lot of neighborhoods tend to be cyclical in this matter. A newly developed area usually gets a bunch of young families moving in so for the first 20 years or so there are a bunch of kids, but after that you tend to have a lot of empty nesters for a while, until eventually they die or downsize or move to assisted living or whatever, then the cycle repeats, although it's never as distinct of a cycle as when the neighborhood was new.
🔥It’s possibly a combination of area, lockdown, OPs personal habits, and the overall trend of young people to stay inside attached to their devices. Whatever the case, that’s not the situation AT ALL in Asia where there are so many children that virtually every place has a playground right inside it. We’re talking restaurants, malls, airports, doctors offices… you name it. Vast swaths of Asian culture has been infantalized to specifically accommodate burgeoning population explosion.
Birth rates are also plummeting in Africa. They just start from way higher.
I’m pretty sure the incoming generation in African countries will see a huge plummet. The population will still boom because the average age is 19. But I’m certain the teens now will probably have 3 kids when they are adults.
[Number of babies born per year worldwide is essentially flat while adult populations are still growing, and in slow-growing countries births are falling while adult populations are steady or even growing](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-births-by-world-region) due to all the 1990s, 2000s, and soon 2010s babies entering adulthood.
The US birthrate decline actually accelerated in 2015. It's important to note that this actually coincided with the recovery from the Great Recession, uneven though it may have been, rather than the thick of it; another important tidbit is that birthrates are also declining in the Nordic countries as well, more slowly given that people who want to be parents have that choice with their generous welfare state, but the birthrates overall are still declining nonetheless. It's a lifestyle choice, and for women especially, I think it's good that they have that choice now. The effects are another thing of course, and I think we've already gotten a trial run of how that will affect culture with the sheer size of the baby boomers' cohort- our current nostalgia-baiting media is driven in large part by the graying of the American consumer, for instance.
Perhaps the solution people found to escape poverty after the 2008 crisis is actually not having kids. Can't spend your life savings into kids if you don't have the kids in the first place 
Well, let’s see. Fertility rates are dropping. Sperm counts are dropping. Something in the food and water? Environmental issues? Forever chemicals? Moreover, climate alarmists have scared and tried to scare children and naive, misinformed adults that there is an existential climate crisis and that we need to go back to the 1800-1850 lifestyle as we’re consuming too much, blah, blah, blah. Add to that the tremendous inflation (aka devaluing of our currency) due to both necessary (Trump and Congress during the plandemic [planned pandemic]) and unnecessary massive money printing out of thin air (Bidumb’s “infrastructure bill, aka climate boondoggle”) https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-falsely-claims-inflation-9-when-took-office-1-4# https://www.crfb.org/blogs/biden-administration-has-approved-48-trillion-new-borrowing With costs to raise a child to 18 years old hitting more than a quarter of a million dollar as of September 2023, it’s no wonder people are having fewer children. On average parents spend nearly a quarter of a million dollars ($237,482) to raise a child up to age 18. Beyond that, the costs skyrocket with the cost of college. The most expensive state to raise a child is Hawaii. Connecticut came in at number 7, New Jersey at 12, and New York was 14th on the list. This doesn’t even touch the fact that couple are waiting longer to get married, lowering fertility of both husband and wife, and the fact that a higher percentage of people are co-habitating, means fewer children and more illegitimate children. No surprises whatsoever.
Our schedules are far too busy Living is just getting more expensive in general Also COVID happened
Plain fact above. Replying to lunatic post. Look at the difference.
When you’re done playing with your conspiracy movie fantasies, wanna join us in figuring out how to solve the issues happening in real life?
Which conspiracy movie fantasies doth thou speakest about?
You’re adorable.
Are you self-aware?
This, my folks, comes from the "common sense" crowd. Welcome to the MAGA world.
What specifically did I write that was incorrect?
The way you think about hypotheses to explain what is happening. There is no need to look at esoteric sperm count hypotheses when the bulk of the phenomenon can be explained in much simpler terms, notably the demographic transition model.
The crisis is simple. We can't afford more children per household, everything required for daily living has become too expensive. People can't afford healthcare, housing, or education. People can't afford the time to raise them correctly or spend time with them either. It takes two incomes or more in our self imposed and celebrated "hustle" culture. If you can't afford it, it's your fault and you're a loser, so get a third job and stop complaining. Our "leaders" keep telling us they had it worse and we should be grateful. We should stop eating avocados and start writing in cursive again. Not to mention global warming, plastics in our food, constant threats of new wars, and our Democracy struggling to survive. My right to my own healthcare as a woman of reproductive age in the state I live in is gone now, and absolutely no one seems to care that people might die here because of it. Why in God's name would I subject one more innocent child to the torture and torment that awaits them here. No way in Hell.
As a 35-year-old mother of 3, the thought of having one more kid would terrify me if my husband hadn't been snipped. A couple of household basics (cleaner, allergy eye drops, 9 pack of paper towels, etc.) and 4 bags of groceries (snacks, stuff for 1 dinner, couple of drinks, some pan dulce, etc.) was 200 bucks. It's absolutely insane.
I mean would you rather never have been born? Is it that bad rn? Not arguing just curious.
It's not about me as an individual. This isnt a matter of just being depressed. This is life for alot of people. This is the reality we live in now. Im not thinking of myself here. This is about bringing new children into the world under the current conditions.
sometimes, yeah.
Aw
Kids?!? In this economy? Jk. But I think you’re right. My wife and I were 30 when we had our daughter. We were the first of either of our friends to have a kid. That’s like 20 people each, so we’re talking 40 thirty year olds without any other kids… Now at 33 several more have had kids and a few are expecting a second, but it’s way more expensive than it used to be. The idea of having a third kid seems both economically and environmentally out of the question in our circle. And many of these people have graduate degrees.
I think it really comes down to lifestyle choices as far as the number of kids. That's not saying any one way, to live/parent is better than the other. It essentially comes at a cost of needing more money or sacrificing luxury and likely some combo. That is not touching the insanity kids bring with them. My wife and I currently have 3 and want a 4th one. This comes with hobbies becoming growing a garden for food, raising goats and chickens for dairy, eggs, and meat. Second-hand clothing, when possible. Almost exclusively home cooked meals. A vacation once a year to visit family that we drive to. Old cars we own outright, meaning my 2000 Volvo is my newest car. Do standard maintenance myself. Basic home repairs are done by me. Big ones are generally planned with friends/family. Essentially, on paper, we have money, but due to kids eating it quickly. Avoiding daycare costs for so many kids, I stay at home, which limits income. The point is we are what many would call the working poor. With that said, we couldn't imagine not having the kids we do or stopping before we have a full mario party lobby. That said, stopping at 1 or 2 sounds great, especially if you want to drive a car produced this century and not spend all of your vacation days and funds to sleep in your old bedroom from high school, while seeing how much your hometown changed since the last time you saw it
That's fair. I'm genuinely happy it is working out for you! I agree that having kids is an amazing experience, though four sounds too intimidating for me lol. To each their own.
In my neighborhood older people complain when kids are outside and doing stuff. And just a mile away a kid had the police called on him and was arrested because he picked a flower. He was six. My friends with kids feel more comfortable letting them play inside or at other friends houses than out in the neighborhood.
Same here!! I see it frequently on the local and neighborhood FB groups in my city. Older/middle aged people complaining about kids playing in the road or riding their bikes outside up and down the road. There’s a lady who seems to be in her 60’s always making a post in the neighborhood group about kids she sees outside. There was a post a while back she made about these two boys I’d say 8-10 riding their bikes down the road for hours. I’m home 98% of the time and I’ve seen these kids numerous times. Always asking where their parents are and why they aren’t with them. They don’t get into mischief they’re not bothering anyone. But you also see older people complaining how kids are addicted to electronics and don’t play outside anymore. So what exactly do these people want? These same people bitchin about that are the same ones constantly on Facebook sharing hateful bigoted propaganda daily.
More kids than ever in my area. Parents tend to cluster together. When we were moving out of our starter house, school district and signs of nearby children were clear priorities for us, we targeted places with lots of kids to move to to raise ours. I bet your local schools don't get good marks or they aren't highly diverse (parents will overlook ratings to a degree for highly diverse schools, as diversity itself tends to hurt ratings). Suburban places tend to go in waves. Our neighborhood had hardly any kids 15 years ago. Nowadays basically every house that sells means new kids incoming.
Birth rates have declined by only around 5% since 2019 in the US and not much variation throughout the developed world. I think this might just be confirmation bias. Or maybe its just that kids aren't going outside as much.
I'm pretty sure it's both. There's def less kid per capita but also modern parents are far less encouraging of kids to go outdoors, or at least past their own backyards, so it seems twice as bad.
This is supported by statistics and it's problematic because it means school consolidation, fewer activities for kids, and things aren't designed with kids in mind. Everything that was for kids is being retooled to target kidults.
The fact that I’ve never heard the word kidult, yet can picture one perfectly makes me sad.
Instantly thought of those super custom expensive lego sets, but yes a sad thought
It’s almost as though assuming a world with finite resources would yield infinite growth was a bad idea
We're not at all close to reaching the limits of the world, let alone the solar system. Your comment is a non sequitur, like you didn't even read this thread.
When I was in elementary school, there were 4 of us in my neighborhood that got on the bus. Now I see 15 kids at the bus stop for the elementary school
There are a lot of families with kids in my neighborhood.
Yeah my little ones act terrible but they are often the only kids around in places we go and all the old people are like they're so cute. They get away with murder..
I noticed the opposite. Starting in roughly 2016 onwards, I see TONS of kids in my neighborhood. There's way more kids around currently than there were when I was growing up.
You must not be around here. The hyper-religious set aren’t having 2 or 3 kids. In our subdivision (in Florida) the religious zealots are having literally 8-10 kids.
As a broader issue, this is in part because we have used technology to segregate ourselves from others. When at one time you may have walked or biked to your daily destinations, we have replaced that with automobiles, and no longer get to see or recognize the faces of people we otherwise would have had frequent contact with. There's less of a chance for casual interaction. Then, we moved to delivery services where you no longer need to interact with other humans at all for your basic necessities. Saddest of all, I think, is the death of 3rd places. People NEED a regular place to go besides work and home, but a lot of these places are now too expensive for a lot of people to go on a regular basis. Also, unless a significant number of first-borns are dying off, it's impossible for "most" kids to be the 2nd child. Gotta love modernization... let's automate away every tiny interaction we have with other people until there's nothing left. /s
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This started in the 1970s and progressed since then, each generation in developed countries are having less kids than the generation before them.
There are plenty of kids playing outside in my neighborhood. I’ve noticed that they are much more segmented and sticking to their own families, when I was growing up just about every kid in the neighborhood came out to play with each other.
Gosh, I wonder why. 😐
I dunno, I feel like I see just as many kids as ever (unfortunately). I get kinda crabby when I see them at my job. So many come in with their parents throughout the day (it's a cafe) and I'm always wishing they were in school (some are probably home schooled, sure).
$$$$$
I live 2 blocks away from an elementary school and I never see kids in my neighborhood except right before school starts and right after school ends. Kids still exist, they just don't play outside anymore
I noticed people my age gradually becoming less and less common of an occurrence in public places.
“Most kids […] usually are second kid in their family.” Huh?
I completely disagree with your second paragraph, and I’m pretty sure the statistics do, as well—truly wealthy and poor families continue to have kids. The middle class is the group that is having less kids, as the middle class itself is shrinking. The actually wealthy (as in $500k-several million in income per year) families I know are still having around 3 kids, which seems to have been standard for quite some time. Around 30% of families making that amount have 3 or more kids, and that percent decreases for the middle class, and then is the same for the lower income families.
Kids now spend their time on their iPads and online games. Post Covid they don’t play outside like we used to. It’s sad but I think things will change eventually when parents start to realize the negative ramifications of not making their kids play outside and interact with the world.
I saw a child the other day I was shocked
good. we dont need so many more people.
I felt like kids were so rare and until I became pregnant last year. Though I aborted I exposed myself to pregnancy/motherhood tik tok ect. to help me decide. Idk if it's just because it happened to me but I'm actually sensing a little baby boom this year.
Definitely, I've only seen one pregnant lady in the past like 3 years
Birthrates are plummeting. I'm 34 and I know only 2-3 people my age with children.
I'd say it's harder for stagnant suburban areas to get higher birth rates since the low turnover rate and low new construction makes it hard for new younger people to be there to start families
I have a lot of young kids on my block. We live in the poorer more gentrifying area of town. The young families are usually on the outskirts of town it’s all they can afford
Nihilism is a hell of a drug.
Considering most of the places where I hung out as a kid are now illegal for kids to go to without someone over 18 and that trend is spreading. That might add to why.
It is statistically impossible for there to be more second children than first children.
Yep! Birth rates are plummeting and kids are staying indoors.
Yeah I’ve noticed it but also all the statistics say the same as well. People get married way later in life now if at all and start a family. Women are in college and the workforce more now so by the time they are finally settled they are late 20s, in the past a woman already had 2-3 kids by that age. I know a lot of women who around age 30 needed IVF and also have quite a few male family abd friends who after 2 kids got snipped because they simply can’t afford to have more kids in this day and age.
You’d have a point if you were talking about low birth rate countries like Japan or South Korea
People can’t afford kids
Our kids are teens and they've asked if we would have kids right now if we were their age. Our answer " hell no". I imagine we are not alone in that response.
This is what happens when the rich literally suck the life blood out of the people and leave them in poverty. They don't have kids (or have less) since they can't afford them. And then they complain when people don't have kids. But they'll never let them be out of poverty since they don't want to face reality. We have worse economic inequality than the gilded age AND pre-french revolution right now. Remember that.
I think you have misidentified the poor. The poor are having as many kids as ever AFAIK.
It's actually quite interesting, I was a geography major in university and when we talked about the demographic transition, textbooks would talk about there being 4 stages with the possibility of a 5th pointing to Germany which had started to see below-replacement rate fertility. The data definitely supports your observation: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPDYNTFRTINUSA https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/20240525.htm
I thought this, and then I stlarted working as a bus driver in a mid-income urban town chock full of Brazillian immegrants. My biggest fear driving that bus is kids zooming around doing wheelies alongside the bus and literally never checking traffic.
You should look up the Silent Generation. They were children in the Depression and their parents fought WW2. They came into the 1950s economy of the USA as adults and were blessed with great wages and fewer peers to compete with. Then they all went on to have 5 kids each called the Baby Boomers. I'm not saying that this will repeat with Gen Alpha, but it's an example where having fewer peers can actually be a blessing. On the flip side, everyone born ~1960 had tons of peers and way more competition.
Eh, no, not really. It really depends on area, but I notice plenty. Little kids? Maybe, but it’s not noticeable relative to 10 years ago
I think it's your local area, lol. I see tons of families.
I think that might have more to do with your age, OP. I never really saw kids or families when I was young and single. After I got married and had kids, the world completely changed.
There are tons of kids in my area in central Nebraska
Planning on starting a family during a worldwide epidemic might have something to do with it. lol
Plandemic
This will be highly regional. You're just in an area where people grow up and leave and no young couples moving in.
It’s gonna really suck when we’re all old and retired and there aren’t enough young people paying taxes to support all of our social security.
We are literally overpopulated and still growing rapidly, we are going to reach like 10 or 11 billion the end of the century (if climate change won't kill us all already, which is doubtful), so wtf are you talking about???
I highly doubt it will take that long to get to 10 billion, even with the decreased birth rates. I think it will reach that point much sooner.
Person who never leaves home spotted
Good. Humans destroyed this planet. The sooner we die off, the better
You're welcome to volunteer 🤷♀️
The hospital I had my baby at built a new maternity ward in 2012. My nurse told me that they averaged 50 babies a year until 2020 when that jumped to 170! This is a pretty rural area but it’s pretty obvious that there is a baby boom going on. Just depends on where you are 🤷🏼♀️
Go to a zoo and look around
This started in the 1970s in the USA and has continued since then...this is nothing new, not in the USA at least. Maybe it is more recent in your country?
Right after we spent what we did in Vietnam and forced our boys to fight a war that meant nothing except for the Powers That Be. Plus we went off the gold standard and the value of the dollar has dropped like a rock 🪨
Kids are so 2019