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The National Center for Health Statistics, part of the CDC, shared some worrying numbers in a report published on Wednesday this week: the number of babies born in the United States dropped by a whopping 4 percent in 2020, compared to the previous year. It’s part of a trend that has seen the lowest number of births in the country since 1979. In the long-term, this could spell serious issues for the country (or might be beneficial to the planet, depending on your point of view).

And while everyone—from experts to ordinary Americans—appears to have an opinion as to _why_ the birth rates are declining, not all of those reasons apply to everyone equally. So the women of America took to Twitter and explained exactly why they personally aren’t having children and might not want to start a family in the future. They’re refreshingly honest takes on the question.

You’ll find their candid opinions below, so have a read, and let us know what you think, dear Pandas. Remember, this is a sensitive subject with people likely to have very strong opinions both for and against having kids, so let’s all try to keep it civil.

#1

Women-Respond-Low-Birth-Rate-Reports

urlnotfound Report

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Gracie Jay
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This should be higher. So accurate, and I think there are many people in similar situations that feel the same.

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#2

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annehelen Report

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Hans
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You forgot to include the unstable future outlook for the childen-to-be.

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According to the National Center for Health Statistics., the US total fertility rate remains far below replacement. “The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971 and has consistently been below replacement since 2007,” they explain.

#4

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Hans
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Them: "Who should sustain our welfare if there are no kids?". Also them: "Do not complain if you leave colleague with a debt, have no parental leave and cannot afford a house."

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#5

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Scagsy
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Inaccurate. I'm a married man and I frequently get asked when or why we are not having kids. Since we are unable to have kids, it's really depressing being pestered about it all the time.

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#6

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Winx
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'll just say that if my mom hadn't felt pressured to have kids I would have had a much better childhood.

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Last year, around 3.6 million babies were born in the United States. Meanwhile, the number of births was found to have fallen across the board, across all ethnicities and origins. What’s more, the birthrate fell in most age groups and failed to go up in any one of them. And while these unborn Americans could be replaced by immigrants from other nations, if we’re talking purely in cold economic terms, that’s another sensitive political discussion that’s been splitting the US in two.

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#7

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master_minds9 avatar
denzoren
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm 33 and an only child and I don't want kids. My bloodline ends with me. Lol. It's mainly due to the state of the world, the overpopulation, the depleting resources, everything really.

vaelyn avatar
Enlee Jones
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

No one is obligated to explain why they don’t want kids. Let’s start with that.

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Mewton’s Third Paw
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Thank you! Who cares why people don’t want kids also. It doesn’t make a lick of a difference in life.

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Coleonema
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We are killing the planet and each other, would you want your kid to grow up in a world which is doomed because no-one did anything about climate change because they profited from it?

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elStiJneriNO
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

sure, in 30 years there is nobody left in the US to pollute and we'll make a nice vacation park of it

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Tami
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I think this country would be better off with about a 25% reduction in the population. Yes, the economy would shrink some, but if the reduction happens gradually maybe it'd be less painful than what we're heading towards.

simon_37 avatar
Treessimontrees
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Saddest thing is some people who won't even think twice about having 4/5 kids are the type of people (stereotypically) who aren't going to add much to the world apart from consumables and C02.

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Anna McHugh
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Good for them. I don't agree with childbearing - I think we're an absolutely pernicious species who should be phased out. But props to you, at least you've raised kids who can see that.

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renee brack
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I made the same decision for the same reasons when I was 17. That was 40 years ago. I didn't use the same words though. I didn't know it was the patriarchal capitalist system and abuse of the planet yet, but I had gut feeling and instinct. Then I got educated to learn why I felt the way I did. And the cultural context was the greed-is-good ugly 80s. Breeding is not a right. Nature thins out over populating species. We are not above Nature. A tiny blade of grass growing in the crack of a tall building reminds me to keep hold of my human humility.

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Jaclyn Levy
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This list seems to share mostly "liberal" reasons people aren't having kids and I'd be curious the reasons those on the conservative side aren't having kids...or is it just liberals who aren't? I myself am liberal and am always curious about how the other side thinks! ;-)

hard2guesss avatar
Bender Bending Rodríguez
Community Member
2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Most CONservativs are self proclaimed "god fearing family values christians", They don't believe in contraceptives. So there's that.

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Christina Uhlir
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I wish all humans were responsible when it comes to bringing children into the world which is becoming more and more uninhabitable.......thanks to human overpopulation and overconsumption.

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Shane S
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The planet is dying. I don’t see a problem with a declining birthrate

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J West
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My kids are 18 and 19. Neither wants to go to college because they see at 52 years old I'm still paying off student debt of my own. I can't help them financially and they don't want the burden. Also, neither wants to have kids because of how hard they see it is to keep afloat.

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Gon Freecss
Community Member
2 years ago

This comment has been deleted.

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Dan E
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Because everyone keeps hyping up issues that have vastly changed about every ten years or so and never seem to make the world actually come to an end. Remember when the ice caps were gonna melt by 2008 and then they didn’t because we had unexpected cooling? Yeah. We don’t actually know s**t about climate science because we’ve only been studying it for about 50-60 years with any level of consistency. Maybe stop scaring people for power and we won’t have a declining birth rate...

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#8

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Marianne
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Who cares" is also a question that people who want children ask themselves. And if the answer is "No one cares for my family" then they might not have children.

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Full disclosure, dear Pandas: this reporter is very pro-people. I come from a fairly large family and I can’t imagine not wanting to have lots and lots of kids (maybe on a ranch somewhere or we could all become amateur detectives in a major city). However, one of my cardinal virtues is the freedom of will. It’s pretty much at the top of my hierarchy of what’s important. So I could never imagine telling somebody that they must or must not have kids, for whatever reasons. It’s down to each and every one of us to decide what we should do for our very own personal reasons.

#12

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Abby Not Normal
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Godexx forbid we have paid parental leave like nearly every other industrialized nation on earth.

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And while the human race has its fair share of problems, from the mundane and irritating to the downright devastating, it’s also full of light. Not to sound too childish, but I like people. So the fact that there are fewer people being born than in previous years means there’s a bit less potential awesomeness and creativity in the world. But, hey, your point of view might be different—and I’m perfectly fine with that.

#13

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Cynthia Bonville
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yup. We are poor because we had kids - because to nurse them it is impossible to work and then kids get sick, a lot, which means someone has to be home with them - we have minimal sick leave and this makes working and having a child impossible. So one of us is home (me), BUT as a biologist/biochemist who understands evolution I also understand this artificial bottleneck in our population is a genetic opportunity. We're financially poor, deliberately, but banking on generational (non-economic) wealth. There is rich and there is rich, we have a rich life and we also get to go extreme minimal on our taxing the earth (our household is carbon neutral for eg) and we have kids. We'll never be middle class (rich to me), but maybe that's okay, IDK.

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While it’s everyone’s individual choice whether to have children, when we zoom out to the macro scale, there are potentially disastrous implications to society. Simply put, society can’t function without people. Without them, you don’t have a strong country: you have fewer innovators and friendly neighbors willing to lend a helping hand. You simply have a mass of land with very few things going on there.

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#18

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C.S. E.
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You also have the right to ask them why they are so concerned with what goes on in your crotchal region. Those are the same types of people who are overly concerned with the genitals of said child (not in a pedo way, just 'is it a girl or a boy'). Of course, that invites more conversation. A good 'none of your fu***** business' is an acceptable answer, too. Just be sure to yell it really loudly and make them uncomfortable. I highly suggest Naruto running the other way after yelling it, maybe throw and iced coffee on them for good measure. Maybe they'll think twice or at least spread it around that you're crazy. Fewer questions.

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So, dear Readers, what do you think about this difficult topic? What’s your view about the declining birth rate in the US and the reasons people give for not wanting children? Do you think that there should be fewer people on Planet Earth or does the problem lie not in the number of people but in our lifestyles and how we view the environment? Share your thoughts below.

#19

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DrDFox1 Report

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Arthur Waite
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Gotta ask about the text-censorship in this post. One word largely blacked-out, then the same(?) word not blacked out. Is this a human error, or machine error, or just an overall bad idea?

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#23

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C.S. E.
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually, it WILL maim you permanently. Some get away with small, easy to ignore problems, but that little parasite will leave you with some permanent damage that you will then be routinely ignored or gaslit for. And make no mistake, a fetus may not be a parasite in it's full definition, but it is absolutely parasitic on the host's body.

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#27

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#28

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Ronna Stefan
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's not counterintuitive at all. This relationship is well-known. Education and privilege mean more choice, general, and given real choices in life, women in almost all cultures will choose to have fewer children.

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#30

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elStiJneriNO
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

well most parents are doing the "counting on a lot of people to not have kids and make the world a better place in a generation"

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