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On a tangent, and relevant (I hope) to the vexed TFR question which gets debated on here: I don't know how many on here are married/partnered with children, but let me pose a question to the guys.
If you came home from work this evening and your wife/girlfriend says "Honey, great news, I'm expecting a baby!" what would be your reaction:
(1) Wonderful, now we can start having the big family I always wanted! This is the best surprise I ever got!
(2) Wait, you're what? We didn't plan for this. Isn't it too soon? There's so much we haven't done yet, are we even ready to start having kids?
Given that my wife is 45, was subfertile, and is now properly infertile after a botched IVF cycle when we tried for a third child that way, there would be loud rejoicing, expressing thanks for a miracle.
I do not think I am particularly unusual in thinking this way among older parents.
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For the sake of this question, shall I assume that I am recently married; that my wife is in her fertile years; and that we do not already have children together?
You can. Just that it's a surprise that you weren't expecting. Or maybe you already have one kid. Needn't even be your wife, as I said.
I'm very curious about the reactions when it comes to "oh, you expect me to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to having kids to save our crumbling TFR rate?" There's a heck of a lot of guys posting on here about "the solution is to force women to have babies", with one person exampling Afghanistan under the Taliban as the "you may not like it, but this is how you do it" as to getting women pregnant whether they agree or not.
I want to see if they're as eager about having three/four/six kids if the chickens come home to roost in their coop.
Then I would be perfectly fine with it.
One of the biggest regrets of my life is that I have only 2 children.
And by the way, if there were some magic genie who offered me a deal where (1) society would be changed such that smart women would be encouraged to marry and reproduce rather than pursuing advanced education or high powered careers; (2) I myself would marry and have a large number of children; and (3) instead of being a successful professional I would be pushing a mop in a sewage treatment plant, I would probably take the deal. (The main reason I wouldn't is if I believed that advances in AI are going to cause so much upheaval that it would be a moot point.)
What I mean is, I am potentially willing to give up the pursuit of money and social status for the sake of fertility so that I am not asking women to do something I wouldn't be willing to do myself.
Okay, you want to be a husband and father and are honest about it. That's good. There's still a lot of men who are pushing the angle that it's all the fault of women for [spin the wheel and pick your reason] no babies but who would run off to Antarctica the minute they got "Honey, I'm expecting!" message.
I'm not sure which specific comments you are referring to, but I think what's common is that (1) someone (usually a man) will say that public policy needs to limit women's choices in order to improve fertility rates; and (2) someone (usually a woman) will interpret this as an attack on women; an attempt to assign "fault" for societal fertility problems.
In my opinion, addressing the fertility crisis would require policies and norms which will a lot of women will perceive as being coercive and unfair. For example, discouraging women (but not men) from pursuing advanced education and careers such as attorney, business executive, etc. Is advocating for such policies "pushing the angle that it's all the fault of women"?
Based on my experience, that seems pretty unusual. All of the conservative pro-fertility men I have encountered were reconciled with the idea of traditional marriage.
It is pushing the angle that "it's all the fault of women" if the solution is only applied to women.
I don't see why. It could just be that this is the only way to solve the problem regardless of who (if anyone) is at fault.
In any event, your objection is just a matter of semantics. For example, opening the door for (and encouraging) women to participate in higher education and more advanced careers pretty clearly has a negative effect on fertility. Stopping that encouragement and closing those doors can reasonably be expected to have an opposite effect. If advocating for such policies is equivalent to "assigning fault," then so be it. It does not change the underlying reality of the situation.
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What reaction are you expecting? At least a third of our posters already have kids and regularly comment on how fulfilling they find it, and another third (myself included) are very vocally unhappy that they haven't been able to start a family. We have a few out-and-proud horndogs around but definitely below a third.
At the risk of being provocative, you seem to be very invested in this idea that 'boys only want one thing'. What would it take in terms of evidence to genuinely change your mind?
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