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The quality contributions roundup has a lot of discussion of fertility. I found it pretty disconcerting to read, since it all seemed to assume that the only way to get women to have kids is to enforce a top down dystopia. This is not my personal experience in my social surroundings★, but of course I live in Israel so I don't count‡.
Anyway, here is my follow-up question:
If you had the ability to set policies that will encourage increased fertility, what policies would you be implement across the board for both men and women simultaneously?
In other words, not "women can't be allowed access to higher education until they've had at least two children", but "people of child-bearing age can't be allowed access to higher education until they've had at least two children". Or "new parents of children are given twenty additional paid vacation days", or whatever. Are there any such policies you think could actually be effective?
★ if anything what I see is women regretting not being able to have more kids
‡ In Israel, fwiw, having kids is simply by default assumed to be a shared responsibility of men, women, and society. It is expected that men take (government paid) sick days to stay home with sick kids. It is not blinked at for the manager to show up to a meeting remotely with a sick kid in his lap. It is expected that men will leave work early several times a week to pick up kids from school — at least in all the places in Israel I have lived I have seen reasonably close sex splits of the parents at pickup/dropoff. I am not clear on whether or not this is equally the case in America — I don't get that impression, but as my knowledge of America is limited to TV and internet discussions, I could be wrong. But I see fathers at the park supervising their kids all the time, and the internet discourse re America is about men getting assumed to be pedophiles for being around kids... So I assume there must be some difference...
What would I do to make myself have more children? Hmm. At the age of 24, the barriers preventing me from having children with my boyfriend are;
I do not have enough money to afford diapers, much less food for another person, so I would increase the minimum wage to the proper rate it should be, which is $20 an hour. I would, in the same vein, eliminate tipping as a substitute for wages as well to eliminate the hostile tipping environment and poor wages encouraged by my state’s poor labor laws. That would include eliminating all Republicans from my state’s government, as they have opposed all measures to do what is listed above.
I am not confident that, should I approach trying to build a career in my state with a child, that I have protections from corrupt, lazy and immoral business owners who would abuse their position of authority over me to compromise my work/life balance. So, I would replace my state’s labor laws with laws similar if not exactly to California, so that I could, for example, have a lunch break and maternal leave for my post-pregnancy complications.
I cannot afford medical care for myself, much less my children. I suppose with higher wages that would be solved on it’s own, but if not, I would change whatever policies need to be changed to decrease the cost of medical care. I am not too verbose on medical care policies to know what the causes for high costs are and how to solve them.
My social network is dangerous for children, as it consists of social conservatives who will try to shame my children into gender roles and disrespect my choices as a parent, and I would not want to reach out for help from them in an emergency. If I had higher wages, I would not need to work so much and I could spend time developing friendships to replace my network. If not that, reducing the cost of interstate travel so I could move to a state with a locale more suitable to my personality would solve that problem. I am not too sure what policies need to be enacted to solve high-cost interstate travel, as I am not verbose in those policies as well.
Emotionally, me and my boyfriend are recovering from the effects of growing up in an abusive, socially conservative household, and need therapeutic services to confirm we won’t pass our issues to our children. I supposed lowering the cost of therapists falls in the same category as “decrease medical costs”.
You're really getting your punches in against those wicked Republicans. Do you actually want kids or do you want to dunk on Republicans for a bunch of unrelated reasons and this was a convenient excuse? I mean, tipping culture and the general existence of elected Republicans? Those are really factors in your personal choice to not be a mother?
I'm a father and lack of taxpayer paid therapy and the existence of restraunt tipping hasn't impeded me yet.
Yes. My state has terrible labor laws put in place by Republicans and upheld by Republicans. One of those labor laws allows businesses to substitutes tips for wages, and in the 10 jobs I have had in this state, 5 of them supplicated my wages with tips. I find that type tipping culture present in a company to be extraordinarily indicative of a corrupt and unethical business owner, and with the knowledge 50% of my jobs had corrupt and unethical business owners, it makes me nervous to lose my job and have to find a new one in a state where I have a 50/50 chance of having a boss who will try to sabotage my work/life balance with unethical and corrupt decisions.
And yes, I find the existence of the Republican party as an active threat to the safety of everyone, including my future children I very much want to have. I am, no kidding, the 57th great-great granddaughter of the first king of Norway, and it would be a shame to end the royal line.
Bro, you can't go this mask off in trolling. Come on, bro.
I'm not trolling. If you'd like to message me privately, I can send you proof of the genealogical book my grandmother wrote that traces my ancestry back to the mid 1500s starting with the owner of Sud-Bjorntuft Farm, Taraldson Bjorntuft (earlier than that and I will have to get my grandmother to send me some PDFs for you).
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