Posted on 07/22/2006 6:03:00 PM PDT by NYer
I hear you. I can put up with a lot of thing but you are right. Neat freaks are down right scary:')
The family structure will need to change. The nuclear family can't be sustained for much longer by many, many people. Look for a return to multi-generational extended families.
I just don't believe we are getting low on kids. Go to any Walmart during the day. They are full of pregnant women , with usually one or two in the baskets.
same with comedy
Our children kept our marriage together: whoever left had to take the kids and neither of us wanted them! LOL Honestly, I can't imagine life without them and now that they are adults (23 and 24 years old), we find them to be the kind of people we want to be around.
My husband and I used to joke about that too. It was "you take them. No I want to pay child support" :")
Hmmmmmm....I don't know if that's true. Seems to me like the feminist marching orders are being rejected wholesale.
A lot of it is very frightening. It's not just that so much of it is borderline pornographic. It's that so few of the kids show any evidence of interest in anything other than the deviant and sensational. Perhaps kids raised in decent homes do not maintain sites there. One hopes.
But what would life be without them?
After 40+ years my wife has not found hers.
What you are seeing are the parents, not the children. Children, for the most part, are a reflection of the way they are raised. The nanny state that we live in is partially to blame but the biggest blame lies on us as citizens, because we let this happen.
The second article was about the declining numbers of children in San Francisco schools. Once again, the question of why there aren't children in San Francisco wasn't addressed. The problem that the article discussed was how to avoid laying off teachers when they weren't needed anymore. According to what I can find, demographically, around 15% of San Francisco residents are 19 or under, whereas a sampling of other cities shows a 25-30% 19 or under demographic. The solution for the San Francisco Unified District was to close schools, but absorb all the faculty and staff into other facilities, so they wouldn't lose their jobs. In neither of the articles was there an indication that the absence of children itself was a matter for concern.
I married at 38. Waited for love. Wanting children was not a priority for me. No regrets.
Interesting that things began to change after the 70's. It wasn't called the "ME" generation for nothing.
It would be no life without them:') I enjoy my quiet time now that they are grown and am doing more "me things" but I would not have done it differently.
There was a segment on The OReilly Factor this past week about the declining rate of marriage in America. The two women guests danced around one of the biggest reasons. It was never mentioned and you will never see or hear it mentioned. It is a taboo subject.
Many men, my 22 year old son included, are afraid to get married and have children these days! Why? They are afraid of the family court system we have which is so biased toward women that father's basically have no rights at all! My son has seen what has happened to me (paying $900 child support per month for the next ten years), and I don't blame him or any of the young men out there for not wanting to have children. If no children, then why get married? It is too big of a negative outcome hanging over every man's head.
And, here in Ohio, they hand out alimony like it was beads at a Mardi Gras parade. The states WANT the 2% tax they collect on every dollar of child support and alimony paid. Ohio collected 2.1 BILLION in 2004, and 2% of that is over 40 million dollars. Yes, the state government corporations LOVE divorces - especially when children are involved. And all this doesn't count the Federal Incentive programs (Ohio got about 37 million of that 500 million dollar pie in 2004!). And then there are Federal matching funds that kick in. Believe me, it is a money making business that NO ONE on the mainstream media wants to touch with a ten foot pole!
This may come as a shock to you and others but life without them can be pretty nice.
I decided at around age 18 (really and this may not be unusual for males) that I didn't want children and followed through. Today, I'm an old man, financially secure, largely due to not having to pay for the support of children through the years, and especially their higher education costs, and content with my situation. My wife of 35 years, our beloved dogs, and I live in a nice house situated in 23 acres of woodland.
And you know what? I don't think that I missed a thing.
The bottom line is that a LOT of people just are not appropriate for having and raising children. Many reasons.
However, society needs "concepts" for people like that. Labels that people can wear proudly that say they are not part of the child and family part of society--that they have another role that does not involve marriage and children.
Not "old maid" or "otaku", but something respectful.
As example in China is the old tradition of the "Amah", a woman who is not going to get married and have children, who instead lives with a non-related family as a combination assistant and nursemaid. They pay her room, board and a stipend, and treat her like a "maiden aunt" living with them. Only some were lesbians, most were just "extra females" whose families could not afford dowry, but were not debased, like prostitutes.
People who are not part of marriage and children can then get out of the way of those that want marriage and children, instead of competing with them because they don't know what to do otherwise. It is frustrating for men and women who want to get married to date someone who doesn't, waiting for weeks or months before they mention it.
On top of everything else, a LOT of people who shouldn't get married with intent to have children want to, anyway. Often times they just can't stand the *stigma* of not being on the marriage/children track. And yet this programming often leads to disaster both for them, those they marry then divorce, and any children they make but didn't want.
Social systems like family, churches, doctors and counselors need to step in and encourage people they don't think should marry, *not* to. Such advice has been condemned for many years in our culture, and it shouldn't be. Romantic notions such as "love conquers all" have caused immense pain and suffering. Especially when you are young and dumb, you need advice on what works and what doesn't.
In past, even arranged marriages offered more stability than just "leaving it up to the kids." At least you would have *something* in common with your spouse, not just mutual lust.
We should be amazed that *anybody* can meet a mate and get happily married at all, just on their own. Would you tell a teenager to just take all his money, and spend some of it on a car without asking anybody, even a mechanic, about it?
In the US, except maybe in Utah run by the LDS church, are there any chaperoned social events where polite young men and women can meet, converse, socialize, and practice their manners with each other? Say from ages 16-25, if not all together.
And if they do get together, get married and want to have children, look how hard it is. Two entry level jobs and an apartment, it could take 10 years to get to the combined salary of $40k they would need to pay a mortgage on a house.
So there are social changes that are need both for non-children people and child-bearing people. Not more government, but new societal paradigms. To teach children that not everybody will or should have children themselves, and that there are other things to do in their lives if they don't have children. And also to make things as easy as possible for people who want children to have them, even to the point of subsidizing those that are really good at it.
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