What To Expect When No One's Expecting

[Confused_by_religion]

As a non-American, I find this statement ridiculously insulting.

As a non-American, I find this statement very funny. Could somebody tell the author of this book about China?

In Germany, where I live, there is the same kind of panic, but it's more about "who's going to pay for the pensions" than world domination.

Germany has figured out whose fault it is, though: I teach social science, and among four or five reasons of demographic change, the first reason named is "the emancipation of women". Yes, ladies. Apparently men have nothing whatsoever to do with procreation and being allowed to vote and own money has made our poor frustrated wombs shrivel up. :angry-banghead:

[julie paradox]

'strue though. Whenever women get educated and access to contraception, the birth rate falls.

I happen to think this is a good thing.

[Confused_by_religion]

'strue though. Whenever women get educated and access to contraception, the birth rate falls.

I happen to think this is a good thing.

Birth rates began to fall before women even had a lot of rights and education, or before feminism was widespread - in Western Europe, it had begun to decrease around 1900.

What bugs me so much that in Germany, this is a blame game. And anybody and everybody feel they have the right to blame women for not having more children - while conveniently overlooking the fact that many young women in Germany do want children, but can't find a partner willing to go along with it.

[August]

As a non-American, I find this statement very funny. Could somebody tell the author of this book about China?

In Germany, where I live, there is the same kind of panic, but it's more about "who's going to pay for the pensions" than world domination.

Germany has figured out whose fault it is, though: I teach social science, and among four or five reasons of demographic change, the first reason named is "the emancipation of women". Yes, ladies. Apparently men have nothing whatsoever to do with procreation and being allowed to vote and own money has made our poor frustrated wombs shrivel up. :angry-banghead:

America feels no compulsion to pay for stuff for people who don't work, so that's not really a concern.

(actually, they do put on a song and dance about the taxpayer base to fund elderly care, but I have no doubt it will be easy to raise the age to 80 when the time comes. )

As far as Germany is concerned, I've been told it's a nightmare to have kids there. You pretty much can't work and have kids under 12 because society frowns on it and so has, ridiculous school hours, not much child care.

[Confused_by_religion]

America feels no compulsion to pay for stuff for people who don't work, so that's not really a concern.

(actually, they do put on a song and dance about the taxpayer base to fund elderly care, but I have no doubt it will be easy to raise the age to 80 when the time comes. )

As far as Germany is concerned, I've been told it's a nightmare to have kids there. You pretty much can't work and have kids under 12 because society frowns on it and so has, ridiculous school hours, not much child care.

My husband and I checked the German federal budget a couple of years ago - money paid to pensioners was the biggest amount of all the parts of the budget. So this is a real concern. They've put up the age when you can stop working and be paid a full pension to 67, but I've heard the EU want to raise it to 69. Of course you can stop working earlier than that, but this means reduced pensions. So it's basically a scheme to reduce pensions.

The nightmare - you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you don't have kids, you will be regarded as selfish and be blamed for demographic change. About 10 times a year another newspaper brings up the idea of taxing childless people extra, so this might give you high blood pressure from sheer anger. If you have children, you will get I think 10 months of maternity leave and there are two months of paternity leave, but childcare for children from 1 to 3 is hard to get, and if you put your child in childcare, you might be frowned upon for being such a "raven mother". So most young mums stop working (and I can't blame them, time with one's small children is really so precious) and it's hard for them to get back into the workforce later on. Once the children are older, kindergarten and schools tend to be mornings only, so you most women work part time. (If they work full time, as you say, it's "raven mother" once more.) There are more and more schools that offer some sort of after-school programs, but these don't work very well and can't be compared to schools in countries like Finland. The whole thing is enough to give you a bad case of German Angst, and you will note that the system basically makes the mother the parent whose responsibility childcare and housework and so on is. The fathers are basically supposed to be the ones with the "serious" job and aren't expected to do their fair share of household chores and so on.

There is an interesting BBC documentary on youtube abut being German. They send a British family over to Germany and make them live like Germans for a week or so. The British woman is absolutely aghast when she finds out that her German counterpart does 4.5 hours of housework a day. So was I, as I avoid it as much as I can. :-)

[ems]

Well, I know several people right now who either are "expecting" or had a baby very recently.

I'm thinking this "underpopulation crisis" is just a bit exaggerated.

[August]

LOL, I've watched that!

Are there no tax breaks for families with kids in Germany?

[So Many Lies]

As an American, so do I.

Really? I wouldn't. As far as I know America is still the world's biggest economy. For now.

I'm not American but I can accept that some countries have certain advantages/strengths, America is still the big cheese.]

[Melissa1977]

Really? I wouldn't. As far as I know America is still the world's biggest economy. For now.

I'm not American but I can accept that some countries have certain advantages/strengths, America is still the big cheese.]

Economy is corporations, not countries.

US was the biggest world leader for decades, when countries had (or hadn't) power by themselves. USSR was a leader also, for another part of the world.

Now, even military power is based in economy not in politics. Wars are business nowadays.

And corporations are not patriotic, NONE of them. MAybe US has more corporations than other countries, but these corporations are trying to pay the less taxes or hire the cheapest workers in third world countries. So corporations are not helping US, they are only helping themselves.

What fundies don't see is that if US increases population through people living in poverty and with no education, the country will be poorer and its leadership will go down and down. As we don't live in the Middle Age, the importance of countries is not based in the number of inhabitants, but in the businessmen, researchers, scientists... and of course in the natural resources of the country.

[Confused_by_religion]

LOL, I've watched that!

Are there no tax breaks for families with kids in Germany?

Yes there are, and parents get about 150 Euro per child (so if you pay taxes, you get a bit of it back, lol) and I think they are introducing something that's called "caregiving money" for stay-at-home moms of small kids. (Highly controversial thing.)

So I guess compared to the US it is pretty generous, but still people don't have that many kids, which suggests the difficulties lie elsewhere. :-/

[DuggarsTheEndIsNear]

I must be missing the one child middle class 'norm'. It seems like 3, 4 and 5 kids are common among middle class families (non fundies) and there are a lot more stay at home moms. Having more babies isn't going to guarantee that America will 'lead the world', especially when they are deliberately ignorant and under educated. Until this country puts these babies first (education, food supply, support) we will continue to slide.

I think it really depends on where you live and the cost of living. Around my parent's house in California, it's really uncommon to have more than 2 kids, and most families have 1 kid. Even when I was younger, my family was "large" because we had 3 kids. However, I'm moving to Connecticut, and the majority of families around my new house have 3 or 4 kids. A lot of it, I think, has to do with the fact that people in CT can afford to either have a stay at home parent while living in the suburbs/rural areas, or hire help in all the different locales. Conversely, you have to move 2 hours outside of my parent's area to get somewhere you can afford to have a stay at home parent, and most people don't have the income necessary to do more than send their kids to daycare.

[Mama Mia]

Yes there are, and parents get about 150 Euro per child (so if you pay taxes, you get a bit of it back, lol) and I think they are introducing something that's called "caregiving money" for stay-at-home moms of small kids. (Highly controversial thing.)

So I guess compared to the US it is pretty generous, but still people don't have that many kids, which suggests the difficulties lie elsewhere. :-/

Um, yeah, I would say by U.S standards that is pretty generous. I bet you don't even have small children living in cars all over the place, dang spoiled Europeans ( that was sarcasm, of course , I am highly envious of how supportive of families other countries are )