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Fertile society and public-welfare-society are incompatible paths of societal development. I don't know about the other fertility-yes and public-welfare-no people, but as far as I'm concerned it's a question of switching tracks entirely rather than to make minimal adjustments in order to prop up existing institutions. Of course it won't happen - modernity is married to the self-destructive path. But half-measures and knob-fiddling won't cut it. Attempting to raise fertility to prop up public welfare is like trying to throw wood into a burning building because the old beams have already been consumed.
But as much as I detest public welfare, it's not the sole source of this evil. Modernity isn't sick in only one way. Low fertility is also due to urbanization, atomization, and yes, of course, emancipation and the prevalent girlboss et al. narratives. Our resident women and emancipation advocates may disagree, and I understand that this isn't a bullet that can be bitten with any semblance of social grace, but ultimately women must breed. Easy to say for a man, I know. But them's the breaks. Outsourcing fertility to the third world is a retarded idea born from the utterly idealistic view that we can just convert arbitrary types and numbers of immigrants into natives with minimal friction - which isn't working as is. If you want first-world societies to persist as such, you either need first-world women to give birth to and raise their own children, or you need a radically new kind of society that can take in any kind of human capital and convert it into whatever is required without the currently observable failure modes. Which doesn't exist so far, and the fewered imaginings of current-day utopian progressives
And so we come to what seems like an even more ridiculous bullet to bite. Parents should own their children. Sounds atrocious to most people nowadays, and is certainly not without its many pitfalls, but I see no way around it. That's how it was in most premodern societies, and for good reason. It's practical. It's prosocial. The incentives align. It's philosophically consistent, not that anyone cares. The kids age out of it sooner or later, and I'm sure there are many ways for laws and regulations that can screw up the relationships between elderly parents and their adult children, but giving parents all the responsibility and none of the authority (to exaggerate somewhat) has always been a non-starter. Mandatory public schooling, ubiquitous public welfare, and the complete legal independence of children from their parents, what do you even need parents for? Wiping asses? More pressingly, what do you need children for? To punish yourself with little brats who get raised by others and can disregard you at will? Parental love is the only motivator left, and that's in pretty bad shape in a society that lives on synthetic superstimuli and instant gratification. Certainly there are high-functioning parents who raise their children right, have strong bonds with them and are even supported by them in their old age. But there are increasingly more who check out, do the bare minimum, park the kids in front of a screen and call it a day because why bother the little wireheads will never appreciate them anyways.
I wanted to write more, but I need to go.
We're past the society where parents owning their children translated to direct economic benefits, though, such as help on the farm or apprenticing in your profession. How exactly do you propose the parents should extract the value from their children? Lifelong alimony?
The easiest way to extract value from your children is to raise them in such a way that they'll want to help support you later in life. For example, spending time with them when they're young, helping them out both financially and socially when they're starting out on their own, and in general treating them well means that they'll be more willing to support you when you need it. If they don't want to support their children? Well, that's fine, but then they should be forced to plan for their own retirement instead of taking it from those they couldn't convince to help them.
I know of people who love and care for their parents - having their mother live with them and help take care of their children would not be a burden for those people.
I'll bite the bullet and say that if people (like my parents) do not produce kids who can/want to support them, and don't plan for their own future, then they should suffer for it; if I stop working I'll be homeless within a year, they can deal with the same.
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Getting to decide when and who they marry, for one, in order to steer them towards the formation of productive and prosocial families that remain within reach and can thus support each other and the parents, rather than to have them move off each to a different end of the world never to be heard from again.
High-functioning parents won't need the law for their children to take their opinions into account. For others, it looks like the perfect way to go from filial disinterest to open revolt and spite.
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How are you going to enforce this? What are you going to do when your kids want to marry someone you don't approve of? Disown them? Shoot them?
Arranged marriage with veto power backed by disownment is an entirely different thing from killing your child because they won't marry who you want them to...
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