Ironically, paternal leave policies help advance male careers even more, at least in academia:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/business/tenure-extension-policies-that-put-women-at-a-disadvantage.html

Summary: Women use maternity leave to breastfeed every two hours, and physical recovery, and taking care of the baby. Men don't, and in academia, use it like a sabbatical where they can focus on their research. This gives them even MORE of an advantage over women who don't get an extra free sabbatical.

Giving birth involves lots of blood, for weeks after delivery. For those of you who haven't done it, they give you these ginormous pads, I'd never seen anything like it, to soak up the blood that's going to gush over the next weeks. There's massive pain for days or even weeks afterwards. Guys... don't have that health complication. They just don't.

It's not just about bonding with the baby, or feeding it. It's an actual physical recovery from a very painful event.

"Don't have kids."

— Uncle Cridmo,
Many Years Ago

Not having children is not the answer. We need population growth to have a vibrant and dynamic economy. Unlimited immigration is not the answer to the population growth need. Folks coming over from other cultures without being assimilated is little more than an invasion.

We also need a low regulatory and financial burden placed on businesses in order to maintain economic growth and dynamism. Centrally-planned economies rarely innovate.

You can't shut down biology and schedule a pregnancy when it's most convenient. You almost can these days, but nature still finds a way to sneak life in. It always does.

So, how do we balance these competing demands?

Tax incentives for parents who don't both work full time?

Hate to burst your bubble here, but why are you laboring under the assumption that Ivanka Trump is a Republican?

She is a New York liberal. Only somewhat constrained on issues her father needs her to toe the line on in order to win the election in 2020,

Donald Trump isn’t much of a Republican either, I just prefer his policies to the now totally insane socialists running as democrats.

It's true that in past centuries, in the U.S., people had children they didn't really want that much so they would have someone to care for them in their old age, but not any more. So, it's safe to bet that nobody has children for the sake of helping the neighbors - or the economy.

Don't forget that even WITH all the out-of-wedlock babies, the U.S. birth rate, in 2016, was a mere 1.8 per woman. In other words, even the poor and the clumsy more or less managed to use birth control efficiently and not breed like rabbits, and/or the middle classes can't AFFORD more than two babies, if that. Plus, those in the top third of society clearly don't WANT more children than they already have - or at least one of the two parties doesn't. (And isn't it a GOOD thing that the teen pregnancy rate - not just the birth rate - has dropped?)

Besides, since we obviously can't afford to have too FEW children (last I heard, no one was suggesting that if we let every single refugee become a citizen, we'd have too many citizens), we clearly need to come up with a system that helps middle-class women, at least, have them.

Here's a very long, recent opinion piece (haven't read all of it yet, but it's not about family leave, per se):

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/opinion/sunday/capitalism-children.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Excerpt:

"There are, to be sure, many people for whom not having children is a choice, and growing societal acceptance of voluntary childlessness is undoubtedly a step forward, especially for women. But the rising use of assisted reproductive technologies in Denmark and elsewhere (in Finland, for example, the share of children born via assisted reproduction has nearly doubled in a little more than a decade; in Denmark, it accounts for an estimated one in 10 births) suggests that the same people who see children as a hindrance often come to want them."

Comment from C Wolfe In Indiana:

"Humans are more complex in what we're adjusting to, but we know we are destroying our biosphere. The biosphere does not care about economic 'growth.' I love children and would never criticize a woman for having a child any more than I would criticize her for terminating an unwanted pregnancy. But a declining human population is a necessary correction for our species, and we are going to have to learn to come up with better definitions of individual flourishing than corporate exploitation of resources and consumerism.

"We might just have to find more meaningful ways to care about one another."

So basically we're bribing people to have kids, on top of the existing tax credits and available welfare programs. Middle-class welfare. The thing to note here is that European countries who have been trying to bribe citizens to have children have had very little success.

Conan is right; we need population growth, and we can't rely on immigration to supply all of it. However, the key to people having children is that they have to be optimistic about the future. Right now, very few people are. Between worries about very real conditions in our country, and the tales of various imminent apocalypses that the Left spreads, most people are pessimistic about the future. When that happens, people don't have kids, or make any other kind of long-term commitment. More welfare won't change that -- in fact, I think the idea reinforces people's perceptions that conditions are going to stay bad or get worse.

There's also the little issue of how this will be paid for. A payroll tax increase would be the worst possible situation for middle-class wage earners -- they will be paying higher taxes, but those higher taxes won't be going to close the Social Security shortfall. Instead, they will be going into new entitlements, which over time will grow until they are spending more than what the tax increase provides. So the shortfall will get worse.

A day of reckoning is coming with regards to the federal debt. We have been incredibly fortunate in that, although the U.S. dollar isn't all that trustworthy, every other currency on Earth today is even less trustworthy, so the dollar wins by default. That has allowed us to carry a debt load that would have made economists' heads spin in past generations. But the math is inescapable: there will be a day of reckoning someday. The only question is when.

Speaking of things that FedGov shouldn't be doing. Thanks, FDR.

It's true that in past centuries, in the U.S., people had children they didn't really want that much so they would have someone to care for them in their old age, but not any more.

I already paid for my children’s birth and care. What makes you think I should pay for yours?

Darth, people shouldn't be having children they don't want either. (Besides, even the perfect adult child can get hit by a car and become a quadriplegic - never mind those who are nowhere near perfect.) Even having them in the hope the parents can play with them like dolls and then neglect them or dump them on the unwilling grandparents is not acceptable.

It's been said by many that it's just plain wrong to adopt, per se, for reasons other than overwhelming love. Why should the rule be any different for biological parents?

"10 Bad Reasons for Choosing to Adopt"

https://www.americanadoptions.com/blog/10-bad-reasons-for-choosing-to-adopt/

> We need population growth
> to have a vibrant and
> dynamic economy.

1. "Dynamic," while sodden with marketing moistures, is forgivable. "Vibrant" is punishable by death in all contexts. Should be… "Vibrant" should be punishable by death. It's most often heard from shysters working the filthy verge of academic pretense and abject redevelopment funding; There's something about it that makes guys think they can get laid by a grad student or a degree'd-but-unemployed woman freshly disappointed in suburban marriage (trysts which will launch, they imagine, from some fashionable independent coffeehouse). And in finance, the last thing investors want is "vibrance"… They prefer 'Steadily forward towards profit.'
   
   
2. Says who?
   
   
3. Don't you worry for a even a moment: Our population is growing like Hell, and acceleration is almost certain.
   
   In a global pattern, history is moving north, no less for the Americas than for Europe and Africa. There's not a thing that anyone can do about it.
   
   And you'll have noticed that no one, including the orange-b'pubed President of the United States, is inclined to even try.
   
   Our population is growing, but the resultant 'dynamics' are likely to disappoint you.

Why is Nicolek, so smugly escaped from domestic shores, always so eager to spend Other People's Money on the private life choices of third parties (after, we can be assured, the United States government has carved off a slice as a transaction fee)? What is that? It's like the worst of Lefty America and the worst of Socialist Europe.


> why are you laboring under
> the assumption that Ivanka
> Trump is a Republican?
>
> She is a New York liberal.

✓ Affirmed. I don't know if Ivanka spoke at the R Convention in '16 or not, but I distinctly remember hearing tripe from Melania that could have come from any Democrat.


> Humans are more complex in
> what we're adjusting to,
> but we know we are
> destroying our biosphere.

Lenona, this is false, and it's abject. Repugnant.

Google finds no such passage… Who's "C Wolfe In Indiana"?




I've never understood why people so proudly & glibly enthused about supporting distant families in their child-rearing impulses don't assist and sustain those faraway households with their own savings. If it's so important, what else did you have planned for the money?

And I've never understood why people who say things like "a declining human population is a necessary correction for our species" don't take the most direct action imaginable, in their own homes and in their own bodies, to decrement the burden. If you're so certain, get out of the way... There's no time like the present.

PJ wrote eloquent books about that. Even reading the introductions and first chapters could change your life.

What could better instill, within the southern latitudes, a citizen's love for capitalist enterprise better than could the National Football League?

Okay, “vibrant” may have been a bit much as a word choice, but I stand by the meaning implied.

Don't you worry for a even a moment: Our population is growing like Hell, and acceleration is almost certain.

Growth by itself is not the solution. Growth with assimilation is. Otherwise we get a population rapidly filling with people marinated in European-style collectivism and not American-style individualism.

And +1 on any recommendation of PJ O’Rourke.

What about just maintenance? Why does it have to be growth? What's wrong with replacement?

Crid, if you were TRYING to raise the birthrate... would you have a better suggestion?

You spend money on the things you want to have.

Nope, NicoleK. Growth creates dynamism, maintenance stagnation.

We need the incoming generation to push the established generation out of its comfort zone. Read Michael Porter’s The Competitive Advantage of Nations. Porter, a Harvard economics professor, does a better job explaining the dynamic than I could. Beware though, it’s a wordy tome. There’s an HBR extract, but it only mentions demand conditions and does not explain how to create them.

Growing populations produce demand, which creates rivals to meet that demand, which produces employment competition, which produces innovation, etc. Growing populations drive Audi’s. Maintenance populations drive Trabants.

Wrote Jay:

I already paid for my children’s birth and care. What makes you think I should pay for yours?

I'll add to that: I chose not to reproduce and took the steps to make that decision (no "whoops" babies for me). What makes you think I should pay for yours?

And, from Amy:

(This is especially true when they want to pander to social conservatives who'll throw over small government principles fast for the right "cookie.")

See "school choice," which is just an unaccountable funneling of my tax dollars to others to spend as they choose. If you don't want your children in public schools, you're free to homeschool or to pay for private school, but the framing of "choice" is just dishonest. The choice already exists, but not everyone can afford it.

That should be Audis. Damned autocorrect.

Bottom line: It's just plain silly for anyone to complain about the men and women who have babies they know they can't afford on their own, AND complain about the men and women who REFUSE to have babies they can't afford or just plain don't want. (Keep in mind that most parents would very much prefer to raise their kids in a safe neighborhood - another big fat expense.) Anyone who's seen the newspaper or TV ads for foster kids knows there is no shortage of unwanted kids. Why should we have even more kids who are unwanted or living on the edge of poverty?

If we truly need more kids, either that means more immigrants or more help for parents, married or not. If, instead, we can handle an aging population with the help of more Victorian-style personal thrift, well, maybe we need to look at how economies managed for centuries, until about WWI, to thrive on thrift, as historian David M. Tucker wrote. (Of course, that would mean having a very different culture and economy.)
_________________________________

Google finds no such passage… Who's "C Wolfe In Indiana"?
_________________________________

You need to click on the article and then click on the comments. It was in response to the second starred comment, by Bill of New Zealand.

Here's that comment, if you like:

Bill
New ZealandNov. 17
Times Pick

"My mother passed away in February this year at age 89. When she was born in 1930, the global population was 2 billion. Today it is nearly 8 billion. That kind of growth is absolutely unprecedented.

"It took all of recorded history up to the mid 19th-century to even reach one billion.

"Our entire economic system is based on a ponzi scheme in which the supposedly more populous younger generations support the older generations. That is not permanently tenable.

"It has been proven over and over that as women are given opportunities and education, fertility drops. How this is a bad thing is beyond me. Perhaps dropping fertility is nature's way of creating a course correction. It certainly is better than all the other ways populations have traditionally been regulated: disease, famine, war...

"The world is not going to depopulate tomorrow. We should embrace this change as a positive new normal and adapt our societies accordingly."

And I've never understood why people who say things like "a declining human population is a necessary correction for our species" don't take the most direct action imaginable, in their own homes and in their own bodies, to decrement the burden. If you're so certain, get out of the way... There's no time like the present.
______________________________________

From VHEMT.org:

Q: "Why don’t you just kill yourself?"

A: "This could be the most frequently asked question of all. Fair enough question: if we’re so bad for whatever habitat we’re occupying, why don’t we just stop it? There are several reasons why retroactive birth control isn’t a part of VHEMT.

"As explained above, increasing death is like trying to bail out a sinking boat without plugging the leak. People are flooding in twice as fast as they’re bailing out.

"It’s hard enough just to get people to consider not breeding. Advocating suicide, by any method besides old age, would be a particularly hard sell. There’s no way we could convince enough people to kill themselves to make a difference, especially after we’re too dead to talk. Suicide doesn’t set an example others will follow.

"Death comes soon enough -- far too soon for many of us. After working most of our lives, a dozen years of retirement isn’t too much to ask. Those years may be dedicated to humanitarian and environmental causes.

"Shortening an existing person’s life by a few decades doesn’t avoid as many years of human impact as not creating a whole new life—one with the potential for producing more of us. Four people would have to die 20 years early to offset one new human with 80 years ahead of them, unless they breed.

"We have a responsibility to help the world as much as we’re able before we die. Leaving the work for others would be irresponsible.

"VHEMT is a cause to live for not to die for."
________________________________________

As the wise man said: "Nothing except diamonds is above the law of scarcity value."

That is, the more people there are, the more people will consider other people to be disposable, whether as cannon fodder or workplace fodder.

"What about just maintenance? Why does it have to be growth? What's wrong with replacement?" ~NicoleK

Well, you pretty much can't do it. You either grow or shrink. Hitting net zero even averaged over a decade doesn't really work.

"if you were TRYING to raise the birthrate... would you have a better suggestion?"

Oddly enough the thing that works best historically is do nothing. Most incentives to have kids are ineffective. A kid is a lifetime commitment. So any small or short term supports don't matter. Crushing punishment for not having kids has worked historically. At least in increasing the birth rate. And 15-20 years later you have a revolution as all those unwanted kids grow up. As Lenona said people who don't want kids shouldn't have them.

So the thing that seems to work best is to just leave people alone and let them figure it out.

"Republicans are just the party of slightly less ginormous government" ~Amy

Both parties are coalition parties. The small government types are only one group in the Republican party. Romney and Rubio are not part of that group. McConnell is also not a small government proponent. All of them would gladly tax and spend you into the poor house. Oddly enough Trump does appear to lean toward smaller government. Or at least smaller than the one we currently have. But that doesn't matter. Presidents have little influence on the budget.

Oh, and in 2013, fundamentalist lawyer and media consultant Don Feder (now 73 and a father of four) wrote one of his vitriolic columns. Can't find the whole thing anymore online (I did print it), but early on, in it, he said:

"...Thus, Time - The Overpriced News Brochure ($4.99 for 60 pages) - had an intense erotic experience with the cover story in its August 12th issue, 'The Childfree Life: When having it all means not having children.' Please note the choice of words - not childless but childfree, like cancer-free, as if children are a life-threatening disease, which is pretty much the way the contraceptive left views them..."

He finished it like this:

"...Some can't have children. Others forget to have them, being distracted by education and careers.

"But the proudly, defiantly childfree? To call them selfish is like saying that Barack Obama is somewhat disingenuous. Basically, their attitude is après moi, who-gives-a-bleep. Time magazine calls this trailblazing and heroic.

"In a Townhall.com commentary, David Stokes reminds us of the words of Theodore Roosevelt on a European tour in 1910: "The greatest of all curses is the curse of sterility, and the severest of all condemnations should be that visited on the willfully sterile."

"The Old Bull Moose and committed natalist contended: 'If the failure is due to the deliberate and willful fault, then it is not merely a misfortune, it is one of those crimes of ease and self-indulgence, of shrinking from pain and effort and risk, which in the long run nature punishes more heavily than any other. If we of the great republics, if we, the free people who claim to have emancipated ourselves from the thralldom of wrong and error, bring down on our heads the curse that comes upon the willfully barren, then it will be an idle waste of breath to prattle of our achievements, to boast of all that we have done.'..."

_____________________________

Um, no, people do not "forget" to have children. They just pretend it was an accident, to fend off nosy types like him.

And I'd love to ask him what is stopping younger conservatives from having extra babies to fill in the gap. Could it be...not wanting to cut back on their lifestyles? Or women being, reasonably, too afraid to take months or years off from their jobs? Or couples just not wanting three or more kids? Or maybe a lot of macho men are realizing they don't want even ONE kid if it means having to change even one diaper?

Or, as Kristen Tsetsi (aka Sylvia D. Lucas?) titled one piece: "He Says He Wants Kids — But Does He Mean, 'I want YOU to have kids'?" (The original piece was written in 2012.) It's great - very eye-opening.

From lenona's post: "Why don't you just kill yourself?"

The VHEMT answer is kind of funny:

"It’s hard enough just to get people to consider not breeding. Advocating suicide, by any method besides old age, would be a particularly hard sell. There’s no way we could convince enough people to kill themselves to make a difference..."

In other words, suicide is not the solution because we can't convince enough other people to kill themselves. The world would be better if there weren't so many other people.

Lenona——

> if you were TRYING to raise
> the birthrate... would you
> have a better suggestion?

I am simply not. The birthrate is roaring along nicely without my consultation. The problem on our planet has never been staffing per se… Plenty of people, plenty of 'em.

But if the inquiry were sincere, those most eager to make it would have composed their morality and intellectual appeals on greater study of both economics and the interests (personal and financial) of other human beings.

Instead, we get these snotblowing ninnies:

Advocating suicide, by any method besides old age, would be a particularly hard sell.

"Hard sell" suggests both an aversion to rigor and a shamed recognition that there are no underlying principles (ON TOP of the personal cowardice). This person is bullshitting. It's not really worth arguing with them, because they're going to blow their own brains out (as did voters for Trump and Obama) before they can do much damage to others.

"As explained above, ...."

I hate those weasels.

And for the love of Christ, since when is old age a method of suicide?

These people are not bright.

> if you were TRYING to raise
> the birthrate... would you
> have a better suggestion?

Crid, that was NicoleK.

And yes, that phrase from VHEMT wasn't as well thought out as it could be - but I suspect there's a certain amount of humor in their writing anyway.

Advocating suicide, by any method besides old age, would be a particularly hard sell.

Getting people to join such an organization or subscribe to its newsletter is a dead giveaway (pun intended) that it's not serious about its own mission, hard sell or not.

When you've got an organization whose stated mission is to convince people to kill themselves and its membership ranks are growing, you've got the makings of a comedy skit. Monty Python could have had a field day with this.

> that was NicoleK.

Sorry. You don't share her presumptions, obviously. (I built that responding comment backwards.)

> I suspect there's a certain
> amount of humor in their
> writing anyway.

I get it, but rather than make 'jokes' about a presumption that others should take their own lives, they should read their own discomfiture as an impetus to read a fucking book. The O'Rourkes linked in my comment would be fine, but they could do well by starting with the Bible, and its howling implication to each reader: You are not darling!

I thank you Crid for claiming I came up with those ideas. Sadly they are hardly original to me. Pick up a text book some time.

"It has been proven over and over that as women are given opportunities and education, fertility drops. How this is a bad thing is beyond me. Perhaps dropping fertility is nature's way of creating a course correction."

If the 20th century proved anything, it proved that Malthusianism is bullshit.

And just much higher does anyone seriously believe the earth's population SHOULD grow before stopping?

At the very least, wouldn't it be good if we DIDN'T increase by one billion every 12 years, which is what's been happening since 1975 or so? (Yes, I keep hearing the global population is going to "level off," but that would suggest that growth is going to stop completely, and I see no sign of that, and the media are suspiciously vague on hwo or why it would happen.)

How about you quote your number Lenona.

The truth is for the foreseeable future there are no overpopulation problems. There are government corruption problems certainly. And with a corrupt enough government having two people is one too many. But the issues of food and water are not resource issues. They are government corruption issues.

Malthus was wrong.

Well, pollution-wise, obviously it would be great if the population started to drop right now.

But all one has to do is look at the numbers before and after WWII to realize that even THAT war didn't halt global population growth - never mind put it into reverse.

So maybe the only semi-realistic - and economically "safe" thing to hope for is that the population will take until 2050 to reach 9 billion and then take 50 years or so to DROP to 7 billion or fewer.

But I suppose that's too optimistic. (Again, we'd have to accept the idea of very frugal lifestyles as hip and a very old-fashioned economy to make it work. But I seem to remember that millennials are more into "experiences" these days, rather than possessions. I hope so.)

Not so great, lenona. And not so obvious.

Malthus, Erlich, et al were mistaken and never considered advances in food production and resource usage/allocation. The Earth is not now, nor in the near future will be, overpopulated.

Borrowing against your own future benefits IS a form of "Pay[ing] For Your Own Choices."

I fund major life expenses in part by borrowing against a 457. This is just a less bourgie version of that. Tax-deferred savings and low interest borrowing are far preferable ways to help people afford temporally-local expensive phases of life than outright entitlements.

I "funded my own", but I wouldn't advocate that as policy since in reality it means fertilizing Michael Douglas-aged gametes.

The doc told us we had something like 1:280 odds of having a child with downs. Those are pretty fucking bad odds of doing a really shitty thing to a kid.
Weigh that against carrying interest on a loan against a vested benefit.

I wonder why neither Ben or Conan wants to talk about the pollution factor. Not trivial - and everyone is guilty of it in one way or another.

Okay, lenona, let's talk pollution. Let's set the wayback machine for the late 19th and early 20th century. Power plants were located in or very near the city center since power transmission technology was in its infancy. Those power plants were coal-fired plants. Most, if not all, buildings had furnaces powered by coal for heat, hot water, and limited power generation.

And this was not low-emission coal, it was the smokey, dirty stuff. In fact, London's famous fog was not fog, but clouds of smoke produced by its many coal-burning furnaces trapped by temperature layers.

Chemical disposal was also not a big concern, most chemicals and raw sewage were dumped into local rivers and lakes. The ability to preserve food was limited so farms were located nearer to cities than they are today. Farms produce runoff - animal waste, fertilizers, tractor fuels, etc. All that went into the local water supply.

There's a reason that people in history preferred to drink whiskey and beer instead of water - beer and whiskey were cleaner and safer. Read about the fight for safe milk in New York City. Swill milk from distillery-fed cows was being cut with sawdust and plaster to thicken it, color it white (it was bluish in color), and extend its life. When the unsold milk was dumped out, those additives went straight into the local water supply.

While things may not be perfect today, they're much better than they were. And that's due to the development of better technology in power generation and transmission, demands from residents for cleaner neighborhoods and safe drinking water, and better industry and government oversight.

While things may not be perfect today, they're much better than they were.
_____________________________________

I'm well aware of that, plus many of the details you listed; I own a copy of "The Good Old Days - They Were Terrible!" (Still in print, last I heard.)

https://www.amazon.com/Good-Old-Days-They-Terrible/dp/0394709411

That doesn't change the likelihood that the improvements made don't make up for the fact that modern Americans, at least, tend to buy huge amounts of stuff they don't need and allow a great deal of it - especially food - to go to waste. Not to mention all the packaging that can't be recycled. (Why didn't you mention that?)

I remember that in 1981, a well-known satirical publication had a piece called "Who Are You Gonna Blame?" At one point it said, in effect, are you going to blame the corporations that make all sorts of products that will only clutter the landfills eventually - or the dimwitted consumers who keep buying them?

(Think of all the people who can't be bothered to bring their own backpacks when they go shopping, for one - they keep buying ten-cent bags instead. Why? Chances are one can find a free used backpack online, after all, AND reuse the plastic bags one already has for anything leaky, like strawberries. I do.)

Bottom line: There's only so much governments can do so long as a certain percentage of Americans refuse to practice self-discipline AND keep setting a bad example for their offspring.

Or, as the wise man said, too much freedom and lack of self-discipline makes anyone unhappy. (We see this in children; they keep behaving worse and worse to see how much it takes before adults say "enough! Stop that!" And, deep down, the kids appreciate it when the adults DO say that, though they may deny it.)

Quote:

"Chains are of our own making.

"However heavy these may be they will never feel as irksome as limitations placed on us by others."

So if individual adults, per se, keep behaving like selfish, lazy children, either we'll have a terminally polluted planet or the government will have to step in - and then we can watch the start of all the childish screams of "unfair!"