Dr. Oz wants us to make more babies. But a country that refuses to protect women shouldn't be surprised when women hesitate to raise children inside it.
You have absolutely nailed it, says a 75 year old who has watched the slow degradation of the place of women in the physical, economic, moral and ethical spheres of our society, post the rise of women’s rights in the 1970’s and 80’s. The people who gripe the most about a low birth rate have no standing—they are the same ones who sweep Epstein’s damnable network under the rug, push a porn lifestyle as a model for “successful young men on the rise” and wonder where loving partners have gone. That they haven’t already connected the dots between the lack of regard and support that women / families need and the lack of babies reveals both their shallow thinking and their empty ethics.
Agree totally! Those of us who are seniors have witnessed the ascendancy of women holding positions of authority, and now young women are being subjected to aggressive misogyny and harassment in all areas of society . I remember as a young wife and mother when I decided to pursue going back to college and earned an RN degree. I had to shuffle childcare and study time as well as clinical rotations throughout the SoCal area hospitals , commuting in major traffic. For a short time I was eligible for LA County childcare assistance, but Ronnie Raygun and his war on public assistance and education cut most funding for programs. The old “trickle down “ economics hit me personally. Thankfully I was able to call on a number of family members to help with watching my children after school and ended up with a 35 year nursing career. I more than paid up the initial investment from my fellow taxpayers for those programs, paying taxes, taking care of my patients and interacting with their family and friends in very difficult circumstances. Young women need to wake up and get ready to fight for their right to self determination or a true Handmaids Tale society of brainwashed minions will be the future.
One of the BEST articles I've read in a long time! I'm more thankful each day that I chose not to have children. I enjoy children, I'm just terrified at the future they're going to inherit in this country.
This essay is magnificent! Thank you for saying what we know to be true. This regime hates women. Those who support it hate women. Anyone who talks about taking away our equality hates women. The maga mega church pastor is a freak. Nick Fuentes is a woman-hating freak. They can all go to hell. Yes, you clearly and absolutely nailed the truth. Dr. Oz is an asshole. They all are. You did a wonderful thing With your excellent essay.
Doesn't Dr. Oz have a daughter? I remember watching her on a food program before Covid hit. Makes me wonder what is wrong with these dads!!(Greed over family I guess).
Excellent article and as a woman of the Boomer generation, I concur with those of my generation who had to wait for credit cards and other privileges that were only previously afforded to men. The family structure that helped me raise my kids and have a career, as has been said, is largely gone today. I was lucky enough to have very good parents and a very good husband.
I know of several GenX adults who are struggling to make ends meet, even with their parents' help. (None of them spend their money on nail and hair salons or designer clothes either). The MAGA people in our neighborhood who don't understand this are CHILDLESS couples and are both working. (Which is ironic) The stress and anxiety for many of these young people is extremely high, and as you stated, the federal government is NOT citizen/family friendly, (unless you are a billionaire).
This Regime cannot collapse fast enough for me and many of my friends!
One thing that hasn't been addressed is more and more women are suffering from endometriosis and PCOS making motherhood doubtful. Pair with that men with lower sperms counts becoming more of the norm, than the exception. In vitro fertilization isn't an option for most--way too expensive and comes with side effects. Some reptiles, snakes, and even a few fish do not reproduce when the outlook for survival isn't good. Perhaps, nature is helping make this decision.
Excellent points. I’d considered similar thoughts when writing this and decided not to layer in potential medical complexity, as it’s not my area of expertise. But it’s 100% part of the story—as is the catastrophic state of dating.
I posted this as my initial comment to this post. I’m posting it again, hoping that you’ll see it: 👇🏼
This is another extremely important underlying “causative” issue that has a significant and cumulative impact on lower birth rates. But it has been sidelined by the trump administration for political reasons.
“The Trump administration has actively sidelined the environmental and health impacts of plastics in its policymaking, despite growing global research linking plastic additives to declining global birthrates and millions of premature births.
“Instead, federal policies have focused on prioritizing industrial expansion, deregulation, and addressing declining population growth through traditional pronatalist approaches rather than resolving environmental toxicity.”
Also -
This plastic waste problem is a PRIMARY, TREAT-THE-CAUSE issue that MUST be addressed and resolved. Otherwise, if left unchecked, birth rates - and fetal abnormalities - with continue to decline:
Large quantities of plastics that are betterdumped in the oceans is an increasing threat to ocean life that in turn impacts everything else.
“If plastic waste and its chemical byproducts remain unaddressed, scientific evidence suggests that reproductive health complications and developmental abnormalities are likely to continue escalating.
“Microplastics and chemical additives (such as bisphenols and phthalates) cross the placenta and accumulate in fetal tissues. These pollutants act as endocrine disruptors, and their unaddressed accumulation is linked to several ongoing trends:
“Decreased Fertility and Birth Rates: Chemical exposure is associated with declining sperm quality, reduced testosterone, and disrupted ovarian function, which can lead to lowered overall birth rates.
“Fetal Growth Restrictions: Studies in the National Center for Biotechnology Information show that microplastics in the placenta correlate directly with reduced birth weights, altered gestational ages, and poor organ development.
“Congenital and Developmental Abnormalities: In utero exposure to plastic-associated chemicals has been linked to hormonal imbalances that can cause genital malformations (such as undescended testes in baby boys) and abnormal fetal tissue development.”
I’m pretty “right wing” on a lot of things. Against abortion and divorce for example, but would also be considered “trad” at least until recently I guess. Before that movement got highjacked like everything else, it was pretty niche and mostly catholics and conservative intellectual protestants and used to focus its energy on distributism as an economic theory, and pursuing virtue and being a good example as a social one, particularly for men, who had to be really self sacrificing and take care of their wives and lead them, and to do that you have to be the sort of man that people want to follow. I have noticed since maga grifters and redpillers weaseled into this narrative space that it is becoming pretty much exactly as you say. That said, there are a ton of good ideas for fixing a lot of this stuff from the older era and adherents to it, including how to combat the maga grifters and redpillers and weasels and stuff. You can’t beat them with feminism and sympathy for people who arent affirmed for their 2slgbtqiaap+ lifestyles. Both of those movements have gotten waaay over their skis as far as a lot of the general public is concerned and adherents to those ideologies dont appreciate just how much ground they have gained. Acting like maoists upon gaining it isnt doing anyone any favors, it’s just snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Criticizing the redpillers and grifters from that front is the one place that they are actually fairly competent—not the loonytoons examples you gave who make andrew tate look like a moderate, but the andrew tates of the world. If you confront those schmucks on their utter lack of most virtues, you can deflate their sails pretty easily, and then they lose followers. My guess is that you’ll probably hate this response but I hope you and other readers consider it before we get to a situation where all the formerly completely absurd handwringing about society turning into something like the handmaid’s tale starts looking a lot less absurd. Arguing with them and polemics against them isnt for the people already on your side, it’s for everyone else. Sorry to best this into a comment that it is only somewhat related to—I was originally going to comment on how much the other side also cares about that topic, but then I thought, no the type of people youre talking about dont, and theyre a particularly nasty group that causes me and many others no end of consternation.
I feel like I lived in the golden age of the 1990’s where midwifery was newly covered by insurance/medicaid (before it wasn’t …again) I have this picture from my first pregnancy that I now cherish more than I could have imagined I would , in it one of my midwifes is sitting in my tiny long cabin home where she’s attached an IV bag from the low ceiling into me after I experienced an awful several day stomach bug…that pregnancy was 100% covered. By my next pregnancy, we were post collage, working ‘real’ jobs , not making a ton w/typical work insurance via the small liberal arts collage we were both working at, choosing midwifery care cost a flat $500….7 + mo of regular care, home visits. It was amazing, absolutely amazing and professional care (back by a local hospital & OB’s if any potential issues came up during delivery) I did end up having to transfer for that second delivery to a birthing suite b/c of what ended up not being a real issue but still …. Only $500. We’ve stopped supporting woman’s health at every turn, the midwifery clinic in my town was forced to close even though their infant mortality rate was something like 2 in 30 years. My son was the 500th baby delivered by the senior midwife we were lucky enough to have on schedule the day of his birth. My oldest, a daughter, is 26 and it pains me she might not have access to women focused care.
In states where abortion has been banned the legislators voting for those bans have overwhelmingly been white Republican men. These white Republican men expect the women they force to carry unwanted prregnancies to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps with one hand while changing diapers with the other. And should these new mothers ask for help with healthcare, childcare, nutrition and education, these white Republican men have a name with which to further stigmatize them: welfare queen. They claim to be pro-life but they stop caring about the lives of mother and baby the moment they are wheeled out of the delivery room.
Republicans have never cared about “prolife”. All they care about is winning elections and creating wealth for themselves. They will conspire with religious leaders who can harvest votes for them. The country is full of ignorant, gullible, fools who believe their lies.
With their evisceration of USAID they have shown themselves to be anti-life when those lives are dark-skinned people in what they call "shithole countries."
This reminds me of a display in the small town where I lived in East Tennessee for a few years: an anti-abortion grouping of crosses depicting the unborn who had been “murdered.”
I often pictured myself sneaking into it under cover of darkness to attach sign on several that said “gay” and “trans” “disabled” etc. With a poster that asked “do you still care about these?”
I’m not glad for the miscarriages I had, but at least they were in the 80’s when I could get care, and not now!
These people only want one particular type of babies to be born. And who wants to live in their world?
Excellent essay! You knocked this one out of the park. I would add to everything you wrote, the USA and the World has become overpopulated. I know the arguments for needing others to support an aging population, we do need to find an answer for that while also working to reduce our burden on the planet. I say this mostly because the planet's ability to feed all of us and provide water has been greatly diminished and in some areas been depleted beyond any ability to recover. For a long time I've likened the human species to a cancer on the planet as we (seem) to reproduce without any limits.
I once told a colleague that people need to practice birth control. She responded angrily that all of her grandchildren & great grandchildren pay taxes. I told her they also use resources & create trash & use products that contribute to pollution. We never achieved a “meeting of our minds”.
People need to be informed about how population increases, as well as scientific & technological advances, such as AI, impact this planet with its finite resources.
For instance, I don’t think people realize the water on earth is all the water there will ever be. It is continuously used, disposed, filtered (either by nature or by man) & reused. Land is also finite. If it is increasingly paved over or polluted by unregulated industries & careless people, its ability to filter groundwater will diminish. Industrial scale farming of plants & livestock also deplete the soil which results in less nutritious food products & less healthy humans.
The more people on Earth, the more demand for resources, the sooner the planet will be unable to meet demands.
We can pretend this isn’t so. We can pretend it’s a long way off. We can ignore all the warning signs, but doing so won’t stop the inevitable.
This is in accord with the thinking credited to the Iroquois that one should make their decisions considering the impact not just the in the present, but looking Seven Generations into the Future. I would say to your friend that yes you should consider your grand and great grand kids, BUT that means making sure what you do today will not be bringing harm to them in their lifetimes. If we do not look into the future to see the impacts of our decisions now much of what we do is of a purely selfish nature. —one digression here . . . whether her grands and great grands pay taxes or not is irrelevant . . . none of this is about taxes—
I read “The Population Bomb” by Dr Paul Erlich way back in 1966-67. I asked my good old family Dr to tie my tubes, I’d had 1 child & had already decided I wouldn’t have any more. He refused at the time, telling me the usual paternalistic phrases; “you’re too young (20) you might change your mind, what if a future husband wants to have a baby, it’s people like you (white, educated) who need to have more babies.”
So it seems, the white, male, supremacist, attitude really hasn’t changed all that much. I’m 75 now & horrified at what I’m seeing.
What I find especially galling is how all of this is couched in control of what a woman does with their own body! That someone else’s views count more than the actual person whose body it is.
"People aren’t hesitating because they’re selfish. They’re hesitating because the ground beneath them no longer feels stable." thanks for saying the hard parts aloud.
I am astonished at the cost of daycare. I’m 73 and I don’t remember how much we paid but it was do-able. My daughter is a dental hygienist; her partner has a minimum-wage job and the two grandmothers are the daycare. They would love to have another child but don’t feel like they can afford it.
I totally agree Dana, thank you. I've been saying that for years and people looked at me like crazy when I talk about women's reproductive rights, child care, food, medical, and home insecurity.
Yet, look at how many orphanages or state run horror shows we have abusing children in horrific ways. I realize that in some cases, reunification isn't always the best solution. I say this with little Gabriel Fernandez in mind. Some might say, it's an imperfect system, but it's what we have. How about more funding and support to help caring parents that are struggling, and more funding to save the Gabriel Fernandezs' of the world.
With the wild spending this regime has made, IT'S NOT IN THE BUDGET DOESN'T FLY ANYMORE.
What the Dr Oz group don’t mention is the 1973-2011 study of white male fertility that indicated a 50 percent decrease in sperm motility and total sterility possible by 2040. Countries included those in North America, Australia, Northern Europe, etc. Study in US came out of some research center in New York.
Now add in the points made about lack of support. I see a real chance to increase female poverty if we follow Oz’s advice.
It’s entirely possible that women will have to marry for support. I hope that won’t be the case. However, the government would simply need to follow the playbook in Afghanistan and destroy the hopes and dreams of all American women. I wonder how difficult it would be to ban women from the workplace? The rights that women have come to expect are being eroded. Regrettably, I see no reason to expect that those rights will still in place for the next generation of women.
You have absolutely nailed it, says a 75 year old who has watched the slow degradation of the place of women in the physical, economic, moral and ethical spheres of our society, post the rise of women’s rights in the 1970’s and 80’s. The people who gripe the most about a low birth rate have no standing—they are the same ones who sweep Epstein’s damnable network under the rug, push a porn lifestyle as a model for “successful young men on the rise” and wonder where loving partners have gone. That they haven’t already connected the dots between the lack of regard and support that women / families need and the lack of babies reveals both their shallow thinking and their empty ethics.
Agree totally! Those of us who are seniors have witnessed the ascendancy of women holding positions of authority, and now young women are being subjected to aggressive misogyny and harassment in all areas of society . I remember as a young wife and mother when I decided to pursue going back to college and earned an RN degree. I had to shuffle childcare and study time as well as clinical rotations throughout the SoCal area hospitals , commuting in major traffic. For a short time I was eligible for LA County childcare assistance, but Ronnie Raygun and his war on public assistance and education cut most funding for programs. The old “trickle down “ economics hit me personally. Thankfully I was able to call on a number of family members to help with watching my children after school and ended up with a 35 year nursing career. I more than paid up the initial investment from my fellow taxpayers for those programs, paying taxes, taking care of my patients and interacting with their family and friends in very difficult circumstances. Young women need to wake up and get ready to fight for their right to self determination or a true Handmaids Tale society of brainwashed minions will be the future.
One of the BEST articles I've read in a long time! I'm more thankful each day that I chose not to have children. I enjoy children, I'm just terrified at the future they're going to inherit in this country.
This essay is magnificent! Thank you for saying what we know to be true. This regime hates women. Those who support it hate women. Anyone who talks about taking away our equality hates women. The maga mega church pastor is a freak. Nick Fuentes is a woman-hating freak. They can all go to hell. Yes, you clearly and absolutely nailed the truth. Dr. Oz is an asshole. They all are. You did a wonderful thing With your excellent essay.
Doesn't Dr. Oz have a daughter? I remember watching her on a food program before Covid hit. Makes me wonder what is wrong with these dads!!(Greed over family I guess).
Excellent article and as a woman of the Boomer generation, I concur with those of my generation who had to wait for credit cards and other privileges that were only previously afforded to men. The family structure that helped me raise my kids and have a career, as has been said, is largely gone today. I was lucky enough to have very good parents and a very good husband.
I know of several GenX adults who are struggling to make ends meet, even with their parents' help. (None of them spend their money on nail and hair salons or designer clothes either). The MAGA people in our neighborhood who don't understand this are CHILDLESS couples and are both working. (Which is ironic) The stress and anxiety for many of these young people is extremely high, and as you stated, the federal government is NOT citizen/family friendly, (unless you are a billionaire).
This Regime cannot collapse fast enough for me and many of my friends!
One thing that hasn't been addressed is more and more women are suffering from endometriosis and PCOS making motherhood doubtful. Pair with that men with lower sperms counts becoming more of the norm, than the exception. In vitro fertilization isn't an option for most--way too expensive and comes with side effects. Some reptiles, snakes, and even a few fish do not reproduce when the outlook for survival isn't good. Perhaps, nature is helping make this decision.
Excellent points. I’d considered similar thoughts when writing this and decided not to layer in potential medical complexity, as it’s not my area of expertise. But it’s 100% part of the story—as is the catastrophic state of dating.
I posted this as my initial comment to this post. I’m posting it again, hoping that you’ll see it: 👇🏼
This is another extremely important underlying “causative” issue that has a significant and cumulative impact on lower birth rates. But it has been sidelined by the trump administration for political reasons.
“The Trump administration has actively sidelined the environmental and health impacts of plastics in its policymaking, despite growing global research linking plastic additives to declining global birthrates and millions of premature births.
“Instead, federal policies have focused on prioritizing industrial expansion, deregulation, and addressing declining population growth through traditional pronatalist approaches rather than resolving environmental toxicity.”
Also -
This plastic waste problem is a PRIMARY, TREAT-THE-CAUSE issue that MUST be addressed and resolved. Otherwise, if left unchecked, birth rates - and fetal abnormalities - with continue to decline:
Large quantities of plastics that are betterdumped in the oceans is an increasing threat to ocean life that in turn impacts everything else.
“If plastic waste and its chemical byproducts remain unaddressed, scientific evidence suggests that reproductive health complications and developmental abnormalities are likely to continue escalating.
“Microplastics and chemical additives (such as bisphenols and phthalates) cross the placenta and accumulate in fetal tissues. These pollutants act as endocrine disruptors, and their unaddressed accumulation is linked to several ongoing trends:
“Decreased Fertility and Birth Rates: Chemical exposure is associated with declining sperm quality, reduced testosterone, and disrupted ovarian function, which can lead to lowered overall birth rates.
“Fetal Growth Restrictions: Studies in the National Center for Biotechnology Information show that microplastics in the placenta correlate directly with reduced birth weights, altered gestational ages, and poor organ development.
“Congenital and Developmental Abnormalities: In utero exposure to plastic-associated chemicals has been linked to hormonal imbalances that can cause genital malformations (such as undescended testes in baby boys) and abnormal fetal tissue development.”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10794604/
https://dipndive.com/blogs/stories/10-amazing-organizations-fighting-to-save-our-oceans?srsltid=AfmBOorPqJ83QnzgMu0xmh3cDvdrC3E0R2jBhqlQtydAV_VEsqedhAGa
https://www.gettyimages.com/search/2/image?phrase=plastic+pollution&tracked_gsrp_landing=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gettyimages.com%2Fphotos%2Fplastic-pollution
Yeah, I’ve been reading about this issue and it’s so alarming!
Yes, I read about microplastics & decreased fertility about 5-6 yrs ago & forwarded the article to my young NIL.
I’m pretty “right wing” on a lot of things. Against abortion and divorce for example, but would also be considered “trad” at least until recently I guess. Before that movement got highjacked like everything else, it was pretty niche and mostly catholics and conservative intellectual protestants and used to focus its energy on distributism as an economic theory, and pursuing virtue and being a good example as a social one, particularly for men, who had to be really self sacrificing and take care of their wives and lead them, and to do that you have to be the sort of man that people want to follow. I have noticed since maga grifters and redpillers weaseled into this narrative space that it is becoming pretty much exactly as you say. That said, there are a ton of good ideas for fixing a lot of this stuff from the older era and adherents to it, including how to combat the maga grifters and redpillers and weasels and stuff. You can’t beat them with feminism and sympathy for people who arent affirmed for their 2slgbtqiaap+ lifestyles. Both of those movements have gotten waaay over their skis as far as a lot of the general public is concerned and adherents to those ideologies dont appreciate just how much ground they have gained. Acting like maoists upon gaining it isnt doing anyone any favors, it’s just snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Criticizing the redpillers and grifters from that front is the one place that they are actually fairly competent—not the loonytoons examples you gave who make andrew tate look like a moderate, but the andrew tates of the world. If you confront those schmucks on their utter lack of most virtues, you can deflate their sails pretty easily, and then they lose followers. My guess is that you’ll probably hate this response but I hope you and other readers consider it before we get to a situation where all the formerly completely absurd handwringing about society turning into something like the handmaid’s tale starts looking a lot less absurd. Arguing with them and polemics against them isnt for the people already on your side, it’s for everyone else. Sorry to best this into a comment that it is only somewhat related to—I was originally going to comment on how much the other side also cares about that topic, but then I thought, no the type of people youre talking about dont, and theyre a particularly nasty group that causes me and many others no end of consternation.
I feel like I lived in the golden age of the 1990’s where midwifery was newly covered by insurance/medicaid (before it wasn’t …again) I have this picture from my first pregnancy that I now cherish more than I could have imagined I would , in it one of my midwifes is sitting in my tiny long cabin home where she’s attached an IV bag from the low ceiling into me after I experienced an awful several day stomach bug…that pregnancy was 100% covered. By my next pregnancy, we were post collage, working ‘real’ jobs , not making a ton w/typical work insurance via the small liberal arts collage we were both working at, choosing midwifery care cost a flat $500….7 + mo of regular care, home visits. It was amazing, absolutely amazing and professional care (back by a local hospital & OB’s if any potential issues came up during delivery) I did end up having to transfer for that second delivery to a birthing suite b/c of what ended up not being a real issue but still …. Only $500. We’ve stopped supporting woman’s health at every turn, the midwifery clinic in my town was forced to close even though their infant mortality rate was something like 2 in 30 years. My son was the 500th baby delivered by the senior midwife we were lucky enough to have on schedule the day of his birth. My oldest, a daughter, is 26 and it pains me she might not have access to women focused care.
In states where abortion has been banned the legislators voting for those bans have overwhelmingly been white Republican men. These white Republican men expect the women they force to carry unwanted prregnancies to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps with one hand while changing diapers with the other. And should these new mothers ask for help with healthcare, childcare, nutrition and education, these white Republican men have a name with which to further stigmatize them: welfare queen. They claim to be pro-life but they stop caring about the lives of mother and baby the moment they are wheeled out of the delivery room.
And they seem to think women get pregnant all by themselves.
A point made brilliantly by Gabrielle Blair in her book Ejaculate Responsibly.
Republicans have never cared about “prolife”. All they care about is winning elections and creating wealth for themselves. They will conspire with religious leaders who can harvest votes for them. The country is full of ignorant, gullible, fools who believe their lies.
With their evisceration of USAID they have shown themselves to be anti-life when those lives are dark-skinned people in what they call "shithole countries."
https://joetye.substack.com/p/if-satan-were-president?utm_source=publication-search
This reminds me of a display in the small town where I lived in East Tennessee for a few years: an anti-abortion grouping of crosses depicting the unborn who had been “murdered.”
I often pictured myself sneaking into it under cover of darkness to attach sign on several that said “gay” and “trans” “disabled” etc. With a poster that asked “do you still care about these?”
I’m not glad for the miscarriages I had, but at least they were in the 80’s when I could get care, and not now!
These people only want one particular type of babies to be born. And who wants to live in their world?
Does it show that I’m disgusted? lol
It does and I completely understand why.
It’s like Nazi Germany and liebensborn
Those anti abortion people absolutely enrage me to the point I can barely keep from screaming.
Excellent essay! You knocked this one out of the park. I would add to everything you wrote, the USA and the World has become overpopulated. I know the arguments for needing others to support an aging population, we do need to find an answer for that while also working to reduce our burden on the planet. I say this mostly because the planet's ability to feed all of us and provide water has been greatly diminished and in some areas been depleted beyond any ability to recover. For a long time I've likened the human species to a cancer on the planet as we (seem) to reproduce without any limits.
Thanks so much—and you’re absolutely correct.
You might find this essay of interest . . .
https://themorenotebook.substack.com/p/europe-just-broke-may-heat-records?r=36jfu&utm_medium=ios
I once told a colleague that people need to practice birth control. She responded angrily that all of her grandchildren & great grandchildren pay taxes. I told her they also use resources & create trash & use products that contribute to pollution. We never achieved a “meeting of our minds”.
People need to be informed about how population increases, as well as scientific & technological advances, such as AI, impact this planet with its finite resources.
For instance, I don’t think people realize the water on earth is all the water there will ever be. It is continuously used, disposed, filtered (either by nature or by man) & reused. Land is also finite. If it is increasingly paved over or polluted by unregulated industries & careless people, its ability to filter groundwater will diminish. Industrial scale farming of plants & livestock also deplete the soil which results in less nutritious food products & less healthy humans.
The more people on Earth, the more demand for resources, the sooner the planet will be unable to meet demands.
We can pretend this isn’t so. We can pretend it’s a long way off. We can ignore all the warning signs, but doing so won’t stop the inevitable.
This is in accord with the thinking credited to the Iroquois that one should make their decisions considering the impact not just the in the present, but looking Seven Generations into the Future. I would say to your friend that yes you should consider your grand and great grand kids, BUT that means making sure what you do today will not be bringing harm to them in their lifetimes. If we do not look into the future to see the impacts of our decisions now much of what we do is of a purely selfish nature. —one digression here . . . whether her grands and great grands pay taxes or not is irrelevant . . . none of this is about taxes—
I firmly agree with you.
I read “The Population Bomb” by Dr Paul Erlich way back in 1966-67. I asked my good old family Dr to tie my tubes, I’d had 1 child & had already decided I wouldn’t have any more. He refused at the time, telling me the usual paternalistic phrases; “you’re too young (20) you might change your mind, what if a future husband wants to have a baby, it’s people like you (white, educated) who need to have more babies.”
So it seems, the white, male, supremacist, attitude really hasn’t changed all that much. I’m 75 now & horrified at what I’m seeing.
What I find especially galling is how all of this is couched in control of what a woman does with their own body! That someone else’s views count more than the actual person whose body it is.
Open borders is another way to augment the population. Or at least better ease of movement across borders.
"People aren’t hesitating because they’re selfish. They’re hesitating because the ground beneath them no longer feels stable." thanks for saying the hard parts aloud.
I am astonished at the cost of daycare. I’m 73 and I don’t remember how much we paid but it was do-able. My daughter is a dental hygienist; her partner has a minimum-wage job and the two grandmothers are the daycare. They would love to have another child but don’t feel like they can afford it.
Dr Oz should possess the medical acumen to realize that entrenched misogyny is not an aphrodisiac.
It’s almost like— after hearing that men hate them for a fucking decade— young women are opting out. - Signed an exhausted millennial
I totally agree Dana, thank you. I've been saying that for years and people looked at me like crazy when I talk about women's reproductive rights, child care, food, medical, and home insecurity.
Yet, look at how many orphanages or state run horror shows we have abusing children in horrific ways. I realize that in some cases, reunification isn't always the best solution. I say this with little Gabriel Fernandez in mind. Some might say, it's an imperfect system, but it's what we have. How about more funding and support to help caring parents that are struggling, and more funding to save the Gabriel Fernandezs' of the world.
With the wild spending this regime has made, IT'S NOT IN THE BUDGET DOESN'T FLY ANYMORE.
It’s not just women rejecting having babies in this political-cultural environment - it’s also their male partners.
8. The People Demanding More Babies Seem to Deeply Dislike Women
They only dislike us because they feel the most threatened by women.
8. The people demanding more babies seem to feel deeply threatened by women.
I have two siblings and between the 3 of us we have 8 grown children. They are well established adults.
ZERO grandchildren.
Zero.
And I cannot blame them though it does make me sad.
I totally understand this, from both sides. Sounds like you do as well.
What the Dr Oz group don’t mention is the 1973-2011 study of white male fertility that indicated a 50 percent decrease in sperm motility and total sterility possible by 2040. Countries included those in North America, Australia, Northern Europe, etc. Study in US came out of some research center in New York.
Now add in the points made about lack of support. I see a real chance to increase female poverty if we follow Oz’s advice.
It’s entirely possible that women will have to marry for support. I hope that won’t be the case. However, the government would simply need to follow the playbook in Afghanistan and destroy the hopes and dreams of all American women. I wonder how difficult it would be to ban women from the workplace? The rights that women have come to expect are being eroded. Regrettably, I see no reason to expect that those rights will still in place for the next generation of women.
They won’t if white women don’t stop voting for Republicans!!! If we white women would join with POC we would be the majority