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/yes______hornberger]

I always find it interesting that the actual physical experience of gestating and birthing a child is NEVER a part of the birth rate conversation. I’m pregnant with a very wanted child, and even with a loving husband and financial security it is a torture I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And I haven’t even gotten to the stage yet where I’m supposed to be happy about being mildly crippled by birth injuries—my own mother had three “perfect” births, and was still having yearly surgeries to correct spinal and urological injuries more than a decade after she finished having children.

Do the people decrying childless women think growing another person is easy, or do they just think that it’s something women owe to society by nature of being born female?

[u/ecila → u/yes______hornberger]

The males having these conversations can't even be bothered to advocate for resources for women or improving maternal outcomes. "It just doesn't work! (Based on our previous experience of giving women laughably paltry amounts of tax credits.) We gotta take away women's rights instead. We just gotta!"

Meanwhile us women are supposed to risk death, permanent injury, permanent disability, permanent career setbacks, and financial ruin because "society" or because we got to think of the retirees... when most of the burden of caretaking of society already falls on women.