Who is to say children today will have children of their own tomorrow? People who are choosing not to have kids “leaving the gene pool” (you say it as if they are some filth to be done away with) doesn’t change anything.
The people of typical child rearing age today grew up in the "16 and pregnant" era, where having children was demonized. They were told that to have children was a failing, and that they should focus on their career instead – that was the key to a successful, happy life. Social pressure is a hell of a drug.
Is that fashion going to remain, though? Everything goes out of style eventually. I think we are already seeing some cracks where people are starting to question why having children is so "wrong". Nothing happens overnight, but I'm not so sure the children today will grow up in that same environment.
I think the economics trump the social factors mostly. It seems to take ever more education in order to grasp at an ever more ephemeral stability, and children need a decade or two of stability when growing up. I can’t imagine anyone will be encouraging their 16 year old daughters to have children any time soon.
> They were told that to have children was a failing
Were they? High-achiever families routinely demonize having relationships at 16 but then turn it around VERY QUICKLY after getting that college degree and want their children to get married and have kids before 30.
(That said many high achievers themselves don't actually want to have kids, despite family pressure to have kids at 30.)
>The people of typical child rearing age today grew up in the "16 and pregnant" era, where having children was demonized. They were told that to have children was a failing, and that they should focus on their career instead – that was the key to a successful, happy life. Social pressure is a hell of a drug.
You could almost call that a genocide... if the originator of that messaging authored it to cause a birth collapse. Throw in every public policy decision made to economically destroy single-earner households and it really almost starts looking like genocide (or democide?)...
If you don’t reproduce then your genes are not passed on. You have self-selected not to be part of the human race any longer.
My hunch is that the people who still decide to reproduce, despite all the reasons people who advocate for not having children talk about, likely have some sort of genetic predisposition for reproduction - a strong innate need.
After all the non-breeders die off, the future belongs to the reproducers.
What a wild take. This is like claiming gay people will "die off" in 2 generations because they don't reproduce.
1000 years ago some subset of people chose not to have children, and humanity did just fine, and that same group of so-called "non-breeders" still exists today. Therefore we can conclude it's not purely a matter of genetics. There are a huge number of reasons people make that choice. People even change their minds during their life. It's not just a YES/NO switch in your genetic code somewhere.
Not just in terms of selecting genes, but also selecting cultures.
If allele A causes increased desire to reproduce than allele B, then in a society in which reproduction is viewed as an optional extra, all else being equal, allele A is likely to predominate allele B over time. Conversely, in a more traditional society in which everyone is subject to a strong social expectation to reproduce, allele A would have far less of an advantage over allele B.
An allele might lead to increased reproduction indirectly rather than directly. For example, if an allele makes a person more likely to be religious, and if religious people are more likely to have kids, then even though that allele does not directly impact desire to reproduce, it may be selected for due to its indirect impact on reproduction.
That's genetics; coming to culture: if subculture A puts higher emphasis on reproduction than subculture B, then all else being equal, in the long-run subculture A is likely to outnumber subculture B, irrespective of any genetic factors. However, defections from subculture A to subculture B may erase much of its innate demographic advantage. This suggests in the long-run, the most demographically successful subcultures will be those which combine sustained high fertility with sustained insularity (social barriers to defection to other subcultures)–which is exactly what we observe with groups like the Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jews.
That isn't really how that works at all. If you have a brother and a sister who both have male and female children, that's basically the same genetic line going on.
The only exception I can think of is if you have some mutation they didn't. But in that case if you're aware of the mutation the consequences are likely to be awful, which is a great case for not having biological children.
randomdata|1 year ago
Is that fashion going to remain, though? Everything goes out of style eventually. I think we are already seeing some cracks where people are starting to question why having children is so "wrong". Nothing happens overnight, but I'm not so sure the children today will grow up in that same environment.
silverquiet|1 year ago
dheera|1 year ago
Were they? High-achiever families routinely demonize having relationships at 16 but then turn it around VERY QUICKLY after getting that college degree and want their children to get married and have kids before 30.
(That said many high achievers themselves don't actually want to have kids, despite family pressure to have kids at 30.)
rustcleaner|1 year ago
You could almost call that a genocide... if the originator of that messaging authored it to cause a birth collapse. Throw in every public policy decision made to economically destroy single-earner households and it really almost starts looking like genocide (or democide?)...
monero-xmr|1 year ago
My hunch is that the people who still decide to reproduce, despite all the reasons people who advocate for not having children talk about, likely have some sort of genetic predisposition for reproduction - a strong innate need.
After all the non-breeders die off, the future belongs to the reproducers.
fallingsquirrel|1 year ago
1000 years ago some subset of people chose not to have children, and humanity did just fine, and that same group of so-called "non-breeders" still exists today. Therefore we can conclude it's not purely a matter of genetics. There are a huge number of reasons people make that choice. People even change their minds during their life. It's not just a YES/NO switch in your genetic code somewhere.
skissane|1 year ago
If allele A causes increased desire to reproduce than allele B, then in a society in which reproduction is viewed as an optional extra, all else being equal, allele A is likely to predominate allele B over time. Conversely, in a more traditional society in which everyone is subject to a strong social expectation to reproduce, allele A would have far less of an advantage over allele B.
An allele might lead to increased reproduction indirectly rather than directly. For example, if an allele makes a person more likely to be religious, and if religious people are more likely to have kids, then even though that allele does not directly impact desire to reproduce, it may be selected for due to its indirect impact on reproduction.
That's genetics; coming to culture: if subculture A puts higher emphasis on reproduction than subculture B, then all else being equal, in the long-run subculture A is likely to outnumber subculture B, irrespective of any genetic factors. However, defections from subculture A to subculture B may erase much of its innate demographic advantage. This suggests in the long-run, the most demographically successful subcultures will be those which combine sustained high fertility with sustained insularity (social barriers to defection to other subcultures)–which is exactly what we observe with groups like the Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jews.
sidewndr46|1 year ago
The only exception I can think of is if you have some mutation they didn't. But in that case if you're aware of the mutation the consequences are likely to be awful, which is a great case for not having biological children.
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
S_Bear|1 year ago