Birthrate Is Lowest in a Century

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/28/us/28birth.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss ^

[Blue Ink]

There’s a huge number of highly educated, upper and middle-class women who were sold the progressive junk science that they could work their way up to CEO, then have children in their late thirties and forties.

Manifestly not true. And now it’s too late. The good news is the generation coming up has figured it out.

[1951Boomer]

Your comments remind me of something my grandmother, born in 1903, told me when I was a young mother. She said that when she was young, people “were just getting started if they had ‘only’ four children.” She was from a family of nine children, which was absolutely typical in those days. My other grandmother was also from a family of at least nine kids. It’s amazing (but actually quite predictable, I guess) how the mixture of birth control and a bad economy has totally changed the construct of the American family.

However, I was one of six. I had four, and my siblings have four to six children each. It’s been a miracle and it probably would never work out on paper, but somehow all my siblings’children thrived; most were homeschooled, and ALL are a blessing to others. They’re lawyers, doctors, and in other “helping” professions.

[goat granny]

I did my part. Had 5 and those 5 gave me 13 grandchildren...some of you freepers are falling down on the job...now I will run and hide....:O)

[erod]

I’m a twenty-something and I want to have kids, I want to have a family and a wife. But in this current economic climate I am not too keen on doing that, first I got to get a job, then I got to get out of debt. And with this gay-muslim-Kenyan-Commie in power I see nothing good happening in the next 2 years.

[wardaddy]

i don’t buy it

white gen x and y just ain’t baby having

those critter classes that don’t marry are the ones having kids

and ROP folks

[wardaddy]

folks had kids like rabbits in poorer times....this article is just a canard

[Hodar]

Thank you for that post ... food for thought.

I do love it when I get a post such as yours, instead of an emotional flame. Again, thanks for the well thought out, well reasoned and factual response, with sources!

I blindly accepted the Freakonomics theory; because it made sense. Now I’ll have more data to make a decision on, and more data is ALWAYS a good thing!!