patrick.net

Having kids is easy, taking care of them is hard. It's especially difficult in today's modern world of hazards and net-nannies who oversee a parent's every move. Just keeping kids from destroying their environments (your house, car, school, etc) is difficult, let alone restraining them from killing themselves by accident while also giving them opportunity to grow and explore their world. Add in the activities you are supposed to have them engage in, countless fundraisers for everything from sports teams to their grade school PTA, contributing to college funds, buying clothes and shoes every two months as they destroy or outgrow them, paying for recreation activities, buying larger vehicles and houses to accommodate a growing family, and countless smaller expenses, kids are expensive! It's really difficult to just secure reasonable housing in a good school district without gangs that also has enough space for everyone to not feel cramped and the wife to be happy.
The more kids you have, the harder it all gets.
And should you wish to take the love of your life out for a date, be prepared to drop $60-80 on a babysitter before the costs of said date are counted. And dot think that means you're getting lucky, as by the time you both return home, pay the extortionist, and lock the door, you'll just want to collapse into bed so you have the energy to do it all again the next day.

These days, having children and raising them yourself is a heroic effort. It's much easier to just do your own thing, pay your own way, date around or even get married without tossing a child hand-grenade into the relationship. People have plenty of distractions and entertainments to replace the time sink.

The ironic thing is that if I was to leave the car seat at home while flying somewhere because it's hard enough with a toddler without schlepping a 30lb car seat, and risk putting my toddler in a rental car for a few minutes drive to rent or buy another seat somehwere, betcha ass I'd be pulled over, arrested, face shown on TV as Mr. Bad Dad, and extorted for hundreds or thousands of dollars plus court costs.

I've known parents who let a toddler sleep in the back seat of a car with the windows open on an overcast 60 degree day who had the cops called on them, because they were trying to let their older kid run around the park a bit more.

Meanwhile some welfare Ho is smocking crack and turning tricks 10 feet from her toddler and she goes on to make 5 more kids.

I hear ya on the flying with a car seat issue. It's rough as hell taking it all on the plane, but nice once you get in the seat and can strap your toddler down in their seat for the trip. They stand a good chance of sleeping on the way which is just better for absolutely everyone. In general tho, flying with a toddler of baby is an awful experience, new form of torture.

Quigley says

Add in the activities you are supposed to have them engage in, countless fundraisers for everything from sports teams to their grade school PTA,

This seems like a uniquely American thing, and could easily be curtailed. Or would that make you or the children into outcasts?

Dan8267 says

Current rates of resource consumption considerably exceed nature’s capacity to reproduce itself sustainably. Indeed, in 1997 humans burned fossil fuel energy equivalent to greater than 400 times the annual net primary productivity

Sounds like Club of Rome 1974.

Dan8267 says

Most resource consumption is taking place in rich countries, whose populations and economies had been growing more or less continuously for hundreds of years

as they should.

Dan8267 says

as fertility rates decrease to below population replacement throughout most of the developed world. Fertility is dropping rapidly in developing countries too

Especially among those on the far left as they have too many projects (fund raisers, marathons, protests, STD's, ribbons, screen plays, gym memberships, yoga, therapy) to bother with propagating.

Yeah, the gubmnt here is just too obnoxious. Yet in countries like these, the population is growing leaps and bounds. One thing I find travelling in 3rd world countries is how happy the poor are-ignorance truly is bliss.

@TL, Quigley and anyone flying with a carseat. A GoGo Kidz Travelmate is the best investment you can make. People in the airport will (I kid you not) stop and stare in amazement. No more schlepping. You wheel your kid through the airport like a piece of carry on luggage.

Dan8267 says

World depopulation over next 100 years

And not a moment too soon. Probably it will be too late.

thunderlips11 says

Meanwhile some welfare Ho is smocking crack and turning tricks 10 feet from her toddler and she goes on to make 5 more kids.

Leave CIC's wife out of this.

bgamall4 says

Gorbachev and Ted Turner want the population culled by 90 percent.

Yes, because ending world starvation and poverty by women choosing to have fewer children is exactly the same thing a genocide. Just ask the Holocaust survivors.

World depopulation

TOO MANY humans are a plague upon the Earth. Not humans, generally.

Just like too many deer on a small island is a plague upon the island.

Dan8267 says

Most resource consumption is taking place in rich countries, whose populations and economies had been growing more or less continuously for hundreds of years.

Well, not exactly true.

Europe post-WWII native population has been declining and US population roughly stable.

It's only because of high levels of immigration from nations where the replacement rate is anywhere from 3 to 6 that is the problem.

The Western Middle Class the worst of both worlds.

We create a high value economy, stabilize our births, and then get dumped on by people who essentially want the Western Taxpayer to raise their kids for them gratis.

They are aided and abetted by globalists and liberals who want nothing more than to destroy the voting power of the Middle Class by saturating us with dependencies who will then, of course, vote their favorite bureaucrat into office.

This explains Obama's desparate search, now that Mexico has stopped producing babies, to find yet another source of bodies.

All things being equal, a nation with adequate housing and land will vote Republican, will want stable borders and finance. All of that doesn't sit well with the voracious globalists who want to suck it all up for themselves.

thunderlips11 says

Meanwhile some welfare Ho is smocking crack and turning tricks 10 feet from her toddler and she goes on to make 5 more kids.

And what do you have against Free Enterprise???

What is it about this thread that suddenly switched the default text to boldface? I'm not even quoting anything, and I am getting boldface still.

John Bailo says

We create a high value economy, stabilize our births, and then get dumped on by people who essentially want the Western Taxpayer to raise their kids for them gratis.

The Immigration Act of 1965 was a good start down this road ere those 50 years ago.

https://sukwan.substack.com/p/monday-night-memes

Patrick says

The funny thing is all the articles hyping the cost COVID uptick, which was just marriages delayed for a few years due to Lockdowns.

The real takeaway is that the 2021 numbers are lower than pre-pandemic 2018-2021 and the numbers are still at lows not seen in US history going back to the late 19th Century. In the worst year of the Great Depression it was 7.9

There was also a huge amount of Gay marriages in that uptick at the end of the chart.

This seems like an opportunity for those who have good values, a good community which will help instill those values into their children, and who can nurture large families.

Maybe it will be self-correcting like richwicks says.