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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   28528 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

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Given the social class correlates of breastfeeding, female doctors almost certainly pump so the nanny has breastmilk on hand, and being literal doctors they have access to medical interventions to enable later childbearing- I'd be surprised if female doctors had fewer kids than female accountants, lawyers, etc. Upper class modern women have a low TFR because they choose to do this, not because they start having kids in their thirties(it's totally possible to have 3+ kids starting after thirty- I know a lot of people who've done it- and once more doctors have, by virtue of their incomes and training, access to much better medical interventions for enabling such things than the general public). Female doctors simply don't want to have more than two and so they don't. Yes yes cultural values. But 'women can go to medschool' is a minor part compared to the barrage of antinatalist propaganda shoved down their throats.

Given how good formula is, the chances that pumped, refrigerated, then reheated, breastmilk is providing whatever marginal benefits from-the-source breastmilk does is probably dubious at best. I mean, the formula powder is made to be mixed, heated, etc. Breast milk is made to be drank from the breast. Anything else and its probably rapidly degrading, particularly if you are returning it to body temp for serving.

Not that I dont applaud the effort of pumping. At the very least its converting your excess fat into something useful. It might even provide a 0.1% advantage for you (any greater seems dubious with the stats now, plus my own experiences).

It is significantly less pleasant being the parent of a young child in your late 30s compared to your late 20s

I saw someone remark 'You're able to pull all-nighters in college because that's when you should be having children' and that line as stuck in me like a thorn.

I'll second this. I know, I know, starting later means you've had more time to improve your economic situation, but I just don't see that as worth the downsides, as far as my own life and those others I observe IRL go.

Having experienced the latter and currently experiencing the former, I wish I could have started in my early 20s.

Yep. My wife and I had our final kid mid 30s. The first few months hit harder compared to our first in late 20s despite having a lot more experience re mid 30s

I 100% believe this but there's like 10,000 things that push upper middle class women to have kids in their thirties instead of their twenties, it isn't a 'education takes too long' problem even if that's part of the problem. If we're going to worry about that maybe worry about how long courtship takes nowadays first.

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