Having kids is quite easy. Most of my colleagues that don't have any kids got into this situation because they pursued careers (long live the corporations selling dreams about careers) and then at 40 years old they figured out they cannot have kids anymore, even with fertility treatments they now afford. The younger ones that are still age 25 to 30 strongly believe it is too early for having kids and they postpone that for another 10-15 years.
Having kids is easy for a man. For a woman, it is anything but.
And women’s freedom to choose when and how many and who to have children with is what has caused birthrates to decline.
From what I can tell, women have been eating the true costs of birthing and raising children since forever. Now they can choose the terms under which they are willing to subject themselves to the risks and effects of childbirth, breastfeeding, and child rearing, so the “free” market should help see what the appropriate price will be.
Of the women that have kids and I talked to, none complained that having kids is not easy. I know women that after having the kid they planned for, decided to have 2 or 3, even 4 and it was their decision, not their husband's. The only women I heard complaining about having kids are the ones that have none, which is a bit strange - they have only second hand experiences, if any, of having kids.
Yes, now the future of the human race is practically at the hand of the women only. So far it is not going well, as a society and as a race.
> The only women I heard complaining about having kids are the ones that have none, which is a bit strange - they have only second hand experiences, if any, of having kids.
This is an implicit confirmation bias; of course more of the women that don't want kids will have no kids.
