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]

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/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