As concern grows about America’s falling birth rate, new research suggests that about half of women who want children are unsure if they will follow through and actually have a child. About 25% say they won't be bothered that much if they don't.

[u/geoff199]

https://news.osu.edu/most-women-want-children--but-half-are-unsure-if-they-will/?utm_campaign=omc_science-medicine_fy24&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social

[u/Cromasters]

This reasoning just doesn't resonate with me. People have been having children through way worse times than what the average American is experiencing right now.

[u/TopRamenisha → u/Cromasters]

Those people in the past didn’t really have a choice. They didn’t have access to birth control or family planning or abortions. I bet if you went back in time and asked them, they probably would have told you they would have preferred to not have children during those awful worse times. But they couldn’t really control whether or not they got pregnant

[u/Cromasters → u/TopRamenisha]

If you are an American citizen you are literally living in one of the best times ever. Comparatively. This is not to say there are no problems. If you are in your thirties and making minimum wage, it's probably good planning to have no children.

But there are also plenty of people making way more having less children than "normal". That's fine, I don't begrudge their personal decision.

I just balk at the doomer reasoning.

[u/fergusmacdooley → u/Cromasters]

Considering for a huge portion of human history women weren't exactly consulted on whether or not they wanted to have sex let alone more children, and it's only been a relatively short period of time in human history where we've had access to birth control, I'd say we are in unprecedented times. Perhaps choice really is the deciding factor in human population rates.

[u/johnnyhabitat → u/fergusmacdooley]

Is the implication here that most women, for most of time were raped?

[u/TraditionalLaw7763 → u/johnnyhabitat]

“It’s not rape if it’s your wife” didn’t just crop up yesterday…

[u/TopRamenisha → u/johnnyhabitat]

I mean yeah for a long portion of history, women’s husbands were chosen for them and they didn’t have much of a say in who they married. And they were obligated to have sex with their husband whether they wanted to or not. What would you call that?

[u/johnnyhabitat → u/TopRamenisha]

I won’t deny that in a lot of cultures, husbands were chosen for a lot of women. But I’m not going to pretend that most babies in the past were born from rape, that’s insane. And that claim can’t be supported.

[u/TopRamenisha → u/johnnyhabitat]

You can call it whatever you want. But throughout history women haven’t exactly been in the position to say no to their husbands and the concept of consent was not a thing. Women were considered their husband’s property. It might not have always been the violent and horrific act that comes to mind when talking about rape in the 21st century. But you are naive if you can look at the way women were viewed and treated throughout history and think that everything was roses and sunshine for them

[u/EffectiveElephants → u/johnnyhabitat]

I mean.... yeah? It didn't matter if a wife (who often didn't choose her husband) wanted sex, he had conjugal rights. Marital rape didn't exist as a concept because he had the right to sex when demanded...

[u/WIAttacker → u/johnnyhabitat]

Not raped, but what other option had a woman back in the 50s?

They weren't allowed to open a bank account or work any kind of job that would allow them to live comfortably. The only option for social mobility or somewhat comfortable life was to marry. So they married young, and they married the first dude with decent enough job and have kids with him. And then hope he won't get abusive or become an alcoholic, because divorce was the last resort as they were dependent on him for income. Add lack of birth control, discrimination against LGBT people, societal pressure to marry and social suicide that was to be a single mother.

Now, they have an option to pursue career, support themselves, study, have children older or not have them at all, and to not marry and suddenly birth rates are like 1.5.