I used to kinda buy these things until I started getting to know religious people in the last few years. An average secular couple living in Brooklyn has all the problems you're describing, and then their religious Jewish neighbor lives in the same world but has 6.6 kids on average.
The thing that I think is different - even when I was an atheist, I had the value of "children" very strongly - that they are my way to bring life and perpetuate my ideas and contribute to the world. This was always strong with me, and I see similar concepts strong with my religious friends. Meanwhile my secular friends are much weaker on their motivation "oh... yeah maybe I'll be OK with kids if it happens" - because the value is not there, they aren't motivated to deal with the things you're listing - even though these things are NOTHING compared to what people dealt with in history and still had kids.
Yeah, every time I read people saying stuff like the OP, I’m like, “Yeah, sure if you’re an atheist.” The religious world is chugging along just fine.
All of my religious friends have two, three kids, perfectly fine or above average incomes.
It’s just not a priority for non-religious people, and there was never a loss of third spaces. Church hopping to date is a thing. People share values. Congregations celebrate new babies and chip in. Community exists.
It’s a comparatively bad experience for those without that support. The secular world has none of this except maybe immediate family, and even then I don’t see support from non-religious parents to their non-religious children. So of course these people think these things. They’re basically thrown into the world with no social net.
Yeah, I think that’s a fair argument. It’s easily been the most clear indicator of social connective health I’ve seen over the course of my life regardless of faith background.
Nah, I think that's a really inane argument. Religious fervor (loosely defined as "Religion is a good thing") is the most clear indicator I've seen of social decay over the course of my life, regardless of which particular faith it is.
I think you need to go out more often:). But seriously: this type of social connection works for some people and does not work for others. At church you are not allowed to question. When people pray you are supposed to bow your head. You are supposed to be quiet.
I went to a few church services when a few of my friends invited me. I stuck out like a sore thumb. At the door on my way out the church greeters wished me well-while avoiding any eye contact. To each his own, I guess.
I would compare the experience you had in church to dropping in on an advanced math class or a powerlifting gym. When it's your first time, of course you don't know what to do and what it means - but that's a reflection of your being a novice rather than a comment on the thing itself or your ability to benefit from it.
I can try to make an example. The reason people bow their heads in prayer is to acknowledge our finite mortality and limitation, in the face of the eternal. It puts us in our place, and creates the correct mindset for the prayer. For someone who prays, the bowing of the head isn't just "what you're supposed to do" but an indication of something much more significant and impactful on one's life.
In fact, the idea represented by bowing down in prayer, and the topic of this thread (relationship between religiocity and stance on grief) can be connected.
Bowing your head in church and keeping your mouth shut when the pastor says something silly is very different than behavior in an advanced math class (I do not know about powerlifting gym).
In the advanced math classes I attended discussion and clarification was encouraged. In my stochastic calculus class the professor once made a mistake - which the brightest student caught. The professor thought about it for a few seconds, said this is a mistake indeed and he does not know how to fix at that time; then kept going. At the next class the professor came up with the solution to the mistake.
Imagine standing up in the middle of the church and saying something about evolution. Very different behavior / attitude. Like I said, to each his own.
I can tell you're not familiar with religious approaches so I can share my own experiences. I come at this from the Jewish perspective but I don't represent all branches of Judaism obviously and likewise I am sure there're Christians whose approach is further or closer to what I am describing.
You're right that if you started shouting about evolution during prayer time, you'd be just an asshole - same as if I interrupted my biology lecturer to talk about the book of Genesis.
There's a time and place. The most proximate example is when we read the Torah and the reader (whether that's the rabbi or someone else) makes a mistake, the community corrects him. There are certain things we take as tenets of faith, and it's not up to the reader - or any in-the-moment leader - to mis-state them.
But closer to the spirit of what you're saying - attending a church service is not the sole religious experience. For example, there are lots of classes on interpreting scripture on ever-deeper levels, and finally the Talmud itself which is basically a narrative of logical and philosophical debate. Questioning and challenging "what this means" is an expected, welcome, and necessary element of engaging with those things.
For Jews especially, exploring and questioning our religion is part of the experience. There are things we take as tenets that form our basic understanding and from those axioms it's all built via logic and subject to examination.
How does the congregation chip in for new babies? Does the congregation provide cheap daycare? Or cheap college ? Lack of both was the main reason me and my wife have only 1 child.
My religious friends also have 3 kids for each family. College (or vaccination for that matter) is not in the cards for these kids. The wives stay at home to take care of the kids. The families live out in the boonies - the dads have 1 hour commute.and even so they are leveraged to the hilt: they bought their homes with a regular loan + HELOC. The kids are very religious-they shun Halloween and video-games for example (but the girls have their Instagram accounts ). For each his own I guess.
I think I just replied to you on a different thread, but I'll also comment here.
It's a matter of priorities. ~4 years ago I moved from NYC to the burbs to have room and a high quality of life for my (now 3) kids. It lengthened my commute and increased my housing costs but I perceive it as unquestionably WORTH it, and I suspect your friends do too.
If your friends were given the choice to not have a HELOC and not have one of their kids - they'll take the HELOC and the kid. It's not an unreasonable choice.
Kids shunning video games and probably less device addiction in general and more face-to-face engagement with friends and family -- weird to talk about that as a negative in this day and age. I suppose you were the same guy that saw it as negative that your religious friends sang songs around the piano?
>> Does the congregation provide cheap daycare? Or cheap college ? Lack of both was the main reason me and my wife have only 1 child.
frankly if it was important you'd figure it out. I have a cop friend who had 7 kids (3 own, 4 adopted). How do they make it work on a cop's salary? They make it work. He's got a long commute and a beater car but there's no part of him that'd trade those things for a nice car but only 1 kid.
How many kids do you have? It's hilarious that atheists are so smart and "it's just Darwinism" and then they literally die on that hill. Maybe there's something to this "sky deity" thing if the only people in the next generations are kids of those who believe.
It is hilarious :) "Idiocracy" is where the "only sky deity worshippers pro-create" movie ends.
I happen to have religious friends. They invited me once to a Christmas dinner - about 5 families. My and my wife were the only ones who did not have at least 2 kids (we had no kids at that time). My wife was the only woman working, and I was the only one who was not working construction - one of the guys made this remark, not me.
During the dinner the male host started playing on a keyboard. There was a chorus of women singing religious hymns around him (I am not making this up). One of the guys tried to convert me. All in good nature and polite and with no confrontation - these are all good people and we saw each other after that. But I skipped Christmas at their house the following year :)
Sounds like you have kids now and that's wonderful!
"Wife being the only woman working" is an odd metric though. My wife went from being an ER physician when we met (fun times during COVID pregnant with our first) to doing telemedicine after we had our second, to doing that part time after we had our third.
Similar to many women in our circle who are highly educated and professional, kids mean "working less" but this decision represents a desired and meaningful tradeoff. My wife loved her work but she (obviously?) loves being there for our children even more.
At the end of the day, I suspect "singing around the piano" is a W not an L. It's funny that if you went to a "normal" party and everyone ended up drunk and scrolling on the phone you'd not posit that as how weird non-religious people are :)
> even though these things are NOTHING compared to what people dealt with in history and still had kids
Until recent human history, though, humans had far less control over childbearing than now. And children in the past were relied on to provide supplemental labour to maintain the household which was, much more often than now, a farm. So at times there were very practical reasons for childbearing.
But agree, deeply held values enable some to overcome obstacles.
I realize these arguments are very common but I think they are more than likely bullshit. Again, I think religious people today are a good proxy for how people were "back then" especially since faith was almost universal.
For example, religious people don't use birth control and have more kids - but it's because that's what they want. To believe that someone has the discipline to adhere to the tenets of religion (eg respecting the sabbath, dietary laws) but keeps having unwanted kids due to uncontrolled lust for his wife, seems bullshit on its face.
The "farm help" thing... I think most people then and now see kids primarily as another mouth to feed in perpetuity, and not some sort of revenue generating asset. Certainly people who have a lot of kids today, aren't doing it for financial reasons.
And when I think back on my grandmother who was one of 5 or my wife's grandparents who were one of 10, it wasn't because their parents were harnessing them to a plow.
People today have kids because they love them, and because they want to cast a vote of influence into the future. I think people in the past primarily had similar motivations. The "farm help/birth control thing" is cope for the childless primarily, no parent actually thinks this way.
> Certainly people who have a lot of kids today, aren't doing it for financial reasons.
Because its illegal, people did certainly use kids as financial assets back then. Your kids was what took care of you when you grew old, there were no pensions or old folk homes, it was just your kids.
Along with the factors listed by others, I wonder to what degree that a pervasive dysphoria about the present and future is leading to a conscious decision to not usher more humans into the chaos and uncertainty that has become the American norm. I’m in my 60’s, secure and reasonably set; but even I feel an undercurrent of anxiety that pervades American life.
The greater demographic picture is looking grim,with an ageing population, restricted imigration, total uncertainty as to what is a legitimate residency status, outright war on foriegn labour, so that american women not having children, en mass, is startling, and will have a similar effect in creating a power shift like what is happening in China and asia where governments industry, (and presumably men) are having to incentivise women to have children.
American adversaries and competitors, many who were recent allies, are heading in different directions, rising income levels, and poulations, with climate and social pressures are creating challenges that have pragmatic solutions in new technologies, which the US is regecting and oposing.
Has anyone seen the movie Idiocracy? Because the whole premise of this movie is exactly what you wrote. Watch the first 5-10 minutes of the movie if nothing else.
I don't want to get too in the weeds in this thread, but the evidence is total fertility rate is declining across all income strata, with some evidence in some places higher income women have slightly increased fertility.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-money-more-babies-whats-the-... ("On the whole, a clear conclusion emerges: because different cultural groups often have unique income levels, efforts to correlate income and fertility are often deeply misleading. Global fertility decline was kicked off almost entirely by normative and cultural processes, not strictly economic ones. The effect of income on fertility is not even remotely consistent across cultures or even across times. When whole societies become richer, they do not necessarily have fewer children. Once we control for the basic problem of cultural stratification, the supposed link between low income and high fertility, or high fertility and low income, largely disappears.") [Institute for Family Studies is a pro nuclear family, pro natalist think tank, so take their analysis as you will]
It started with the high income earners, but has shifted to others because everyone has to live with mom right now. No one can afford rent or buying a house.
> This represents a rapid acceleration of the trend, with the surplus of childless women growing from 2.1 million in 2016 to 4.7 million in 2022, and now to 5.7 million in 2024.
Did anything happen in 2016 that young women might have interpreted as a signal that they were on their own and facing hostility?
My wife and I are conservative. My neighbor and his wife literally worked in the Obama White House. I have a Trump-era kid and 2 Biden-era kids, as does he.
Both our wives care about election outcomes and yet neither would look at 2016 or 2020 or 2024 and decide "never mind" on their life-long commitment to family. And neither would anyone else. Nobody was trending in the good direction and then was derailed by an election.
> neither would look at 2016 or 2020 or 2024 and decide "never mind" on their life-long commitment to family. And neither would anyone else.
My wife and I are not conservative; but I would agree that no one is tracking the election results as a go/no-go indicator for child-rearing. My wife and I have 3 children, two of whom are adults so our decisions were made in a different era. Instead of bipolar political outcomes, I think many are affected by a sense of unchanging disinterest in the wellbeing of the great mass of people that populate the country. As long as the GDP rises, it’s good times, right? Few on either side of the political divide want to talk about the distribution of U.S. national income. Want more kids? Make life less difficult for families. Both major parties have completely failed to do this.
> Few on either side of the political divide want to talk about the distribution of U.S. national income. Want more kids?
nice lil both-sides-ism fantasy escape - now back in reality, do tell which party specifically platforms AGAINST distribution of concentrated wealth ? and which one is FOR it?
I am doing me, and you do you - although I have to say given your posting history, you're an intelligent, principled, and thought out person and there's a part of me that's sad to know you're not "casting" that into the next generation. And I say that even though our politics are opposite.
One huge benefit of religion is a timeless/eternal orientation in thinking. Like, if someone takes concepts like "spending eternity in heaven or hell" - they are indeed thinking about eternity, a topic that an atheist never has to be concerned with. And I say this as someone whose religion does not orient around a traditionally understood heaven and hell.
The reason I mention that is because it's obvious that in the grand scheme of things whatever you're worried about today won't matter. Whatever evils you see in the 2024 election (I don't but that's the political difference) pale in comparison to what someone could discern at different points in time. And yet - I am very glad my great-grandparents decided to have my grandmother despite the turmoil around the Soviet revolution. I am glad my grandparents decided to have my parents despite their horrific experience in WW2. Both of my wife's grandparents literally went through concentration camps as eastern European Jews, and still went on to have families. I have cousins born soon after 9/11, etc.
The point is - looking back on it, as real as those events were, it would be exponentially more horrible if they "won" not by how horrible they were, but by making good people give up on the whole game.
If I dare go on a limb - I'll suggest an alternate perspective. Whatever forces caused you to see "fascism and antifeminism" so strongly today that you're not having kids, have done you more permanent harm than anyone else.
Among other things, we are rearranging our lives to provide maximum aid for those suffering in the US and abroad. Our time and money is being focused on the poor and downtrodden.
I also do not understand why I need to justify this decision in public.
First, I am sorry as I did not intend to "push" in this way. As I mentioned, I respect your principled posting history and I deeply respect what you wrote above.
My last question was one of curiosity. I can reframe but I don't insist on an answer. As I clumsily tried to allude to - I see religion as a source of "timelessness" that anchors somebody to something other than what's happening today. I hear from my religious friends things like "we know it seems today that X, but our faith supports us in believing its Y." So for them, "be fruitful and multiply" would be Gd's eternal command, that would override whatever seems to be the case today. So I was genuinely curious whether that's very different in Christianity (I know there's a huge range of sects and beliefs within it) and how these things are reconciled. But I of course understand that's very personal and I didn't mean to tangle my curiosity with a need for you to "justify your decision". Sorry.
A huge portion of Christians read "be fruitful and multiply" as a command to specific people, not a command in general. And it is nowhere near the core message of the religion. Paul himself praises a childless life.
I also find the idea that "thinking eternally" is bound so tightly with "having children" to be very odd.
I appreciate your first paragraph and will read more about that.
>> I also find the idea that "thinking eternally" is bound so tightly with "having children" to be very odd.
I guess I can't relate to that. What I do today in my life is only due to (a) the fact that my ancestors fought and labored to survive and procreate and (b) of the values they passed down.
From my grandfather's perspective, I am his agent in today's world, and Gd willing my own grandchildren will be mine (and therefore his) agents in the future.
So one thing I meant around eternal here is that my own role and time is less significant in context of this greater continuity. Or put it another way, I could easily find seemingly valid reasons to not have kids but the fear of breaking this cycle and being the last of the line feels to me very opposite of orienting to eternity. Again, I understand that's not the choice you're making and that's totally cool, I am just explaining my framework.
The rent is too damn high
It takes longer into adulthood to achieve stability
Porn brain
Phone brain (24/7 infinite entertainment)
Dating apps are not delightful
The pandemic led some people to stay in for good
Loss of third places (rent too damn high again)
Tight job markets lead to reluctance to bring kids into the picture
Healthcare is more expensive every year
American individualism diminishes multi generational family support structures after a generation
A long tail of other causes: drugs, gun violence, obesity, losing one's religion, growing up with divorced parents