DINKY people and Europe's negative birth rate

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

All over Europe, people are using contraception.
Well, smart people are. Instead of having half a dozen kids or more, smart couples are having just a couple of kids - sometimes , no kids at all, and spending the money that would have gone on kiddy clothes and baby food on consumer durables and ski trips in Switzerland.

And now, the neocons are worried.
see, my wife and I are both DINKYs - a DINKY is like a Yuppy, but stands for Double Income , No Kids Yet. And seeing as we are both in our 50s, I think the Yet is permanent in our case.

So, when we retire, there are no kids to take our place in the workforce.
OMG! the Neocons wail - hhow can you abandon us? how can you walk away and leave the wheels of industry unmanned? Who will provide the cannon fodder for our next bloody and imperialst war?
Who will work in our factories, clean our cars and do our dirty work for the crap wages we are willing to pay?

And we answer " you told us that you never owed us a living. We therefore think that we don't owe it to you to have any kids. I dunno who will, but just be certain that we won't."

And, as birthrates plummet, and smart women see to it that they don't have kids that the capitalists need to keep the system going, the neocons reach for the panic button. they will import immigrants, they will shout about the joys of motherhood. And smart women will laugh and go on ski trips to switzerland instead of plodding behind a pram through Tescos.

I bet that Mrs Thatcher wishes she had never said ' there is no such thing as society. i bet she wishes she had laid on creches, championed the Welfare state and made motherhood a lot easier and desireable, instead of sneering at the poor. But it's too late Mrs T. Your system kicked us in the face, so we took the Child Free option. Enjoy your bleak and child free future while it lasts.

Comments

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

We therefore think that we don't owe it to you to have any kids. I dunno who will, but just be certain that we won't."

I know who will, but all too often they're not suitable candidates for anything other than making tea in the workplace until they spit out the first of their own requisite 1/2 dozen Welfare state leeches.

FFS I've just seen one of them recently, got a free Lappy because he got free school meals, lappy is now screwed (only had it since just after xmas) but no monies to send it back, let alone pay for parts /repair costs.

It's people like you two who will, by your neglect to have decent honest kids, lower the standards of the future population. </TIC>

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

So neocons have been ruling Europe?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Neocon socialists omg.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

They've tried traps, they've tried sprays but neocons keep coming back!

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

They did rule the UK, once - but now they simply sit on coalitions.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, the response is sure to come soon, when the retirement age is lifted to, say, 70 years.

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, the response is sure to come soon, when the retirement age is lifted to, say, 70 years.

by the looks of staffing in B&Q I'm pretty damned sure you can't retire here till you're 105 or a letter signed in triplicate by 3 surviving great grandparents.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

That's already the case, within some professions in the US. If ever.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Who will work in our factories, clean our cars and do our dirty work for the crap wages we are willing to pay?

Immigrants from the developing world, legal and otherwise.

An aside

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

The given model implies that this process gradually concentrates wealth, or at least some aspects of wealth. You will leave your property to your relations, of whom there will be fewer in the next generation, and so on. The normal counter being that the immigrant worker population will take a generation or two to assimilate at which point they will have a stake in how wealth is disbursed.

We live in a much more complicated world, especially in Europe and the UK, but essentially that has been the nub of all of our respective policies.

Of course, there's always the cat's home or equivalent....but most folk will leave the wonga to their relations. The established classes always have the best support networks: odd that.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

And, as birthrates plummet, and smart women see to it that they don't have kids that the capitalists need to keep the system going, the neocons reach for the panic button. they will import immigrants, they will shout about the joys of motherhood. And smart women will laugh and go on ski trips to switzerland instead of plodding behind a pram through Tescos.

Wow, you're pretty damned condescending to people who choose to have children. Does it occur to you that people might actually like to have children or do you think that everyone who has kids has been hoodwinked by their evil capitalist overlords?

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

It could have been sarcasm. It must have.

[tridus.livejournal.com]

The structure of our society is based around people having kids. Kids grow up and pay for all the health care and retirement programs that old people need, then take their place and allow society to propogate itself.

Stop having kids, and two things happen:

1. With nobody to pay for your retirement, expect to work longer and have smaller government. Isn't that what neocons actually want?

2. To combat #1, governments and companies turn to mass immigration (legal or otherwise).

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

3) Save up (Hope those damned thieving bankers and Madeofs of the world don't rob you again) and pay for your own damned retirement??

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Part of me weeps when I think of a world without a European Europe. The cathedrals empty. The opera quiet. The art galleries closed or sold off to the Japanese. The 1500 years of civilization left to molder and be forgotten.

Then I read a post like yours and I think... good riddance.

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

Part of me weeps when I think of a world without a European Europe. The cathedrals empty. The opera quiet. The art galleries closed or sold off to the Japanese. The 1500 years of civilization left to molder and be forgotten.

yeah, but Kebab shops and other fast-food outlets are thriving, let's just not get into the £5 coffee shops :@

[medea34.livejournal.com]

there are plenty of kids to take our place in the work place. first world nations, with high contraception usage, will have to open up their imigration policies and let people from 2nd and 3rd world nations in, to keep our populations (and economies) growing. imigrants (even poor ones)rent homes and buy necessities with their crap wages and social assistance cheques.

my partner and i are only children and have decided to have a single child. we are not even replacing ourselves, and frankly do not feel obligated to.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

You do realize that this model only works if you permanently lock the 3rd world into poverty. Otherwise the minute their standard of living starts to rise and their birth rates fall there will not be enough immigrants for you to maintain your civilization either.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

That's quite alright if you choose to weed yourselves out of the gene pool. There are others who have a lot more vitality and desire to give life to future generations, and they will not fail to replace you.

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

There are others who have a lot more vitality and desire to give life to future generations, and they will not fail to replace you.

Christ help me, they're all in the estate next to my garden :'(

The problem as I see it, what with the hard working educated peoples not breeding, exactly what traits have been bred into those who will be taxed to pay my pension?

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Lol while I have no love for the Quiverfull folks (my sister is on in spirit if not actuality) I must say I find your attitude refreshingly suicidal.

See Socialism or any other ism requires the next generation just as much as Capitalism and as for war, well as the US is proving rather effectively the days of needing to mobilize your entire country's youth to fight one are over. Technology acting as a force multiplier allows a for so much smaller armies to be as effective as the ones fielded in the past that it would be generations before the western nations did not have enough soldiers to maintain their military dominance over the 3rd world (and most of the 2nd)

On the other hand, what you are doing by having this cavalier attitude about your birth rate is sacrificing your civilization and culture to extinction. Sure, bringing in immigrants to maintain a small shortfall in birth rate is not damaging, there will never be enough of them to overwhelm your society and remake it in their image and by the 2nd or 3rd generation they will have assimilated into your culture enough that they are effectively locals. But, if you're facing the birth rates significantly below 1.5 that are occurring across most of southern and eastern Europe you will quickly reach a point where the number if immigrants you have to bring in is a significant percentage of your total population just to maintain basic infrastructure. When 20 or 30% of your population is first generation immigrants and another 30% is second generation then the immigrants will stop assimilating and simply maintain their own culture and since they are out breeding you it will only be 2 or 3 generations later when your kids start assimilating into their culture and yours is relegated to the dustbin of history.

Now don't get me wrong, if all of Europe has for whatever reason decided to commit cultural suicide that is their right, but don't try to frame it as some noble effort. Simply put you're all to selfish to care about anything but yourselves and way too selfish to bother raising children. It might make for a nice life for you (for a while, if you;re lucky to be at the start of the wave) but in the end you are doing the world a favor by removing your obviously defective genes from the gene pool anyway.

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

When 20 or 30% of your population is first generation immigrants and another 30% is second generation then the immigrants will stop assimilating and simply maintain their own culture and since they are out breeding you it will only be 2 or 3 generations later when your kids start assimilating into their culture and yours is relegated to the dustbin of history.

We're not that far away from that here in Lancashire, most of the Christian Churches have been converted to flats, yet 3 Mosques are in the process of being built, all I need is a sniper rifle (and a get out of jail free card) if they start yelling from the minarets :@

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Here in the US, we look forward to being passed the torch of Western Civilization to carry forward as Europe depopulates itself.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

I am pretty sure that torch was passed to us in 1945.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

This was a post to write only if you have incredibly thick skin. I've heard the debate about future "culture" wars where one culture is eaten up by another, and also all the arguments thrown at people with no kids, for whatever reason they don't have them. Britain has a horrible child support system which literally traps any woman who isn't of steady wealth at home and rather miserable economically. The US isn't very good either, but often presents more varied work opportunities at least. These are all factors that any woman should at least think about, I agree with you, because if you're a woman without a man with a decent job, or unmarried even, it will risk to ruin you, and possibly your child. The world is full of poor and broken families - and in a *societal* context that might not matter, because it may still keep the wheel spinning, but on a personal matter, in what some believe to be the only life you get, it does matter a lot. Being scared economically for having a child is real, and people that act astonished and accuse others of selfishness and worse are hypocrites, because whether they had money or not when they had their kids, there were probably factors that made them still able to make that choice (unless it wasn't a choice, in which case it doesn't apply to this post).
There are *So* many broken families in the world, so many people who didn't think things through and so many kids hurting.

Having children can be hard, it can be wonderful and it can be dreadful, but to have a child is never a decision made out of socio-economics, it is every bit as selfish as not having one, just in other ways. And in the old discussion about selfishness, children and a structure which promote better living standards for child families (which I believe is what you wanted to discuss), some people with children *need* to pump up their own importance as "breeders", for reasons just as emotional as some people who can't have kids have for painting up large families as a poor choice.
And in this discussion about breeders and non breeders there should in fairness be a factor about what all the broken families of the world cost society, any kind of society with a structure that's somewhat stable.

Personally, I don't think "breeding numbers" and culture wars are interesting or important discussions, particularly if some form of "ethics" or socio-economy is involved, because they are so disingenuous. On a personal level, having children is never about that, but is sometimes made into that as a fake argument in a discussion.
Easing up the mobility within Europe even more (it's going in the right direction) and discussing a system with more support for families, would be far more interesting (and challenging) topics.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Ok - lets be up front . this was sarcasm , written on an empty stomach, and aimed at someone who voiced an opioin I never really liked.

but, the fact is that my da was a racist. A sexist, a man who sneered at education and openly refered to black people as 'n**gers'. A lot of people who knew us both pretty well remarked that I was nothing like my dad, and I take some pride in that. however, if I was nothing like him , he was nothing like his father either. I should have hated it if any child of mine was nothing like me but more like him, and would not take the chance of such another person like him coming into this world. So, I never had kids.

but European civilisation? I am sure it can go on without me. And if it does not - well, these things happen.

Every child should be a loved and wanted child. every parent who provides for their children in spiritual and emotional terms , as well as physical ones, should be acknowledged for doing so.
Sadly, our society in England does not support even the best parents enough.
that's a more serious note to end on , and I hope y'all like it.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

You people do realize that the US Anglo ethnicity has a negative growth rate, yes? and that within a few decades the minorities will equal or outnumber the WASPs? If you know that, why do you keep harping about EU's alleged "depopulation"?

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

If you know that, why do you keep harping about EU's alleged "depopulation"?

good advice is always best given away, it is never of any use to oneself :)

+ the USA has plenty of land to support more immigration, and as you white folks stole it in the first place, I can't be the only one saying you should approve many more :) though maybe not in the rice grains to chess board squares proportions Our lot seem to have done in the last 20 years....

[magna-carter.livejournal.com]

I fucking love you and your post.

I'm childfree too :)

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Goodness me. I am not expecting fan mail and here it is. thank you.

I don't despise those who have children because they want to bring a child up in a loving and welcoming atmosphere. But to have children and treat them as economic assets, as a vessel to pour your own prejudices, cultual values and stuff like that into? No, sorry - it is not what kids are for.

Me, I call myself a 'cultural Christian'. I love the architecture, the music of English hymn tunes, and certain passages of the New English Bible that articulate ideals about social juatice and concern for the poor. However, both my dear little nieces, whom I love as though they were my own daughters, have decided that Church going is not for them, and I respect their choices that they have made of their own free will.

I suppose that everything I love about England will one day dissappear, and will be forgotten . But nothing lasts forever. I am just so glad that I saw so many things - like the cities of London and Venice, the lovely beechwoods of Surrey and the Weald of Kent before they all dissappeared beneath the rising waters of the global floods or the next glacier in the next ice age that's coming through.

[ex-restless.livejournal.com]

Is there evidence that supports Europe is suffering from overpopulation and that it is actually beneficial to the environment that she experience negative population growth?

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

It's pretty damned obvious the whole world is suffering from human overpopulation I'd have suggested.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

This is a problem I'm not too worried about. As demand increases for these positions, there's plenty of other areas in the world that currently have an overabundance of the young. Maybe some of them will not turn to warlord militias and instead go make a life for themselves.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

And yes this may fundamentally shift the culture of areas that were formerly european centric, and frankly I do not care.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

It's surprising that someone who describes themselves as being a sympathizer of the Green ideology (which is supposed to be socially empathic) has such a weird position about parenthood.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

It's amusing how you think that everyone who isn't like you is both evil and stupid.