Demographics.....or 'Where are all the Children!?'

Ok, this one is a funny one!

Suppose they made a retirement policy and sold it to the people as being the most wonderful for the PEOPLE, but secretly they expected everyone to die by the time they would collect?? Is that not the FUNNIEST thing you have ever heard? :-)

Well, that is what has happened...and worse....

For many different reasons many of the industrialized nations of the world have experienced falling birth rates? What does that mean? That women have been having fewer and fewer children since the end of WWII. Now, in North America we went through the baby boom (as the experts are NOW calling it) however in some countries such as Germany this started right after the 2nd world war.

Personally, I feel the biggest contributor is the availability of GOOD, EFFECTIVE birth control (and I don't mean those little sheep gut bags either!). It has put the choice back into women's hands. And frankly....most women look at the societal prejudice against mothers and decide it is not for them, at least 'not right now'.

So let's talk about this prejudice. When at a party a woman says 'Well, I am a stay at home mother of 3', the listener will generally slide away,under the impression that if a woman stays home with 3 children she a) has a very cushy life full of coffees with friends and cookies and soap operas.
b) she has nothing intelligent to say as she does not 'work'

Speaking for myself, I too, as a 'career' woman used to look down on women who got to stay home every day and hang out. And this regardless of the fact that I had a mother of four little hellions (as we were) who changed our clothes 3x a day to make sure we were presentable...spent LOADS of her time in the kitchen, cooking all sorts of meals from about 6 a.m. until long after supper (no such thing as time saving devices in those days, no washing machines initially,, then no dryers (how do YOU dry clothes in -30C?? outside??) and never a dishwasher until we all left), cleaned the kitchen floor at least 1x/day..etc etc etc etc... So how did I miss she must have worked very hard? Who knows!

Ok, jump ahead to the present........when pregnant we have seen a lot of men who just don't want the responsibility, however they felt trapped...so they stuck around...this did not lead to the most harmonious of environments for women, however they had a choice....leave him and support the children yourself, or stick it out and swallow your pride.

I love what is happening today! Men cannot have children. If they truly want children then they better be nice and good to the woman that has to go through that nine months of bloating, never mind the agony of delivery.

But back to the subject, demographics......I have a saying or two:

1. Pigs do NOT make an economy of a country, people do. This means that it does not matter how many pigs or cows a country has, without people to continue on, little people, middle people and yes, older people, there will be no economy, indeed, no 'country' but who would be there to care?

2. Women are the only people who can have children, without us men would be up the creek. And for you science buffs, while we can do without men by implanting some sperm producing material just under the skin of a rat and the silly thing will produce human sperm, we have yet to figure out a replacement for the female incubator.

3. Politicians can say what they want, but without encouraging children there will be no one to vote for their party in the future.

Ok, what are some of the implications of this? Well, it is interesting that finally the governments are realizing that no one coming up through the generations means that we will have a whole big bunch of old people and there will be no one to support them in their old age. Never mind the nasty habit of the medical profession in elongating life.... As well, there will HAVE to be a concurrent shrinking of the economy, if indeed it is people that make up an economy. After all, less people means less money rolling around (even if not exactly proportionately less), it means less tvs sold, less housing needed, etc etc etc. You can figure it out I am sure.

There are now many books out on the subject. But I think we can all figure out the ripple effect this will have.

So what is anyone doing about it?? Not too darned much.....except talking. One small town in the south of Italy is offering 10K Euros to any woman who has a child and stays in the town for at least 6 years. The payments are made over 6 years. Russia is making a big deal about people who have big families, even down to giving them special vans etc etc. France is considering paying more 'baby bonus'. Etc ETc

Ok, so do I feel these things will help boost a woman's desire to have loads of kids? Nope. A big part is creating an atmosphere of respect for a woman that does have a child. Another part is creating a society that makes it easier for a woman to drop out of her career without penalization and drop back in later after raising the kids to a point they feel comfortable with, and maybe even creating a society where a woman can work part-time (which most employers do not allow at this time) at their careers. If you have any other ideas, let me know.

So, bottom line, unlike the German chancellor, I do not believe you can place the 'blame' for this at the feet of men...except to say that men may need to change their attitudes drastically towards women.....as the men are not the ones taking the birth control pill which, as we know, is 99% effective and VERY simple compared with past remedies.

Oh! and if you think countries like India and China are not having the same issues, you are sadly mistaken. China has literally tens of millions of men who will NEVER find a wife because those little girls were 'taken out of the mix' at birth. Further, in this generation both India and China are not having much more than 2 children/family. India is down to 2.54/female. While this is still more than reproductive, it is rapidly dropping as people become more educated.

Just a thought.....what do you think?