US Birth Rate Hits All-Time Low: What’s Behind the Decline?

I thought I just posted an article to the blog a few months ago saying that number of babies being born in the USA is on the increase?

Anyway, cue the conservative and Christian whining about how culture is not worshipping babies and marriage enough.

Christian TV host Pat Robertson will exploit this news story to shame singles into marrying and have ten children.

(Link): US Birth Rate Hits All-Time Low: What’s Behind the Decline?

The number of babies being born in the United States continues to fall, with the birth rate reaching a new record low in 2017, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last year, about 3.8 million babies were born in the U.S., which is 2 percent lower than the number born in 2016, and the lowest recorded number of births in 30 years, according to the report.

Why More Women Are Having Babies at 50 and Beyond

Why More Women Are Having Babies at 50 and Beyond

(Link):  Why More Women Are Having Babies at 50 and Beyond

Excerpts:

….Duckworth [Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill] is expected to deliver her second child a few weeks after she turns 50, a time when many woman expect the end of fertility and the beginning of menopause to be around the corner.

The Senator said she delayed having children to pursue her career and, by the time she was ready, she had to overcome infertility.”The early part of my career, which was also, [like] for most women, your twenties and early thirties, your prime fertility years,” she told ABC station WLS in Chicago, “were also my career-building years.”

She is not alone. Duckworth is among a growing number of women, including celebrities like Janet Jackson and Sophie B. Hawkins, tackling motherhood in their fifties.

Overall birthrates in the United States have been declining for years, reaching a record low in 2016, according to National Bureau of Health Statistics, and provisional data suggests a new low for 2017.

Christian Couple Kept Their 13 Children ‘Starving’ and Shackled in Chains Inside House of Horror, Police Say

Christian Couple Kept Their 13 Children ‘Starving’ and Shackled in Chains Inside House of Horror, Police Say

You can see once more how The Nuclear Family, Parenthood, and Marriage does not save society or make things safer for children.

I’m conservative, but a lot of other conservatives (both Christian and secular) will try to argue that society has fallen apart because of feminism or due to liberals and they further suggest that society  would not be such a cess pool only if every one would marry by the age of 25 and have ten kids apiece and become a Christian.

This couple being married, having kids, and reading the Bible, being into traditional gender roles and being Christian did not make them better people, nor did it make our culture a better place.

I’m sure there are probably some atheist parents out there who treat their kids better than this Christian couple treated their kids.

I fail to see how liberalism or secular feminism is to blame for this Christian couple shackling their kids to beds for years and refusing to feed them.

(Link):  Christian Couple Kept Their 13 Children ‘Starving’ and Shackled in Chains Inside House of Horror, Police Say

Jan 16, 2018

The home of a California couple known in their community as a good Christian family was revealed to be a house of horror Sunday morning when local police rescued their 13 children, some of whom were found “shackled to their beds with chains and padlocks in dark and foul-smelling surroundings.”

40 Percent of US Pregnancies Out of Wedlock, ‘Shotgun’ Marriages Have Plummeted: Report

40 Percent of US Pregnancies Out of Wedlock, ‘Shotgun’ Marriages Have Plummeted: Report

Some guy from “Institute of Family Studies” is quoted in this – I think that is the same organization that marriage-idolator and singleness-hater (Link): Bradford Wilcox works for, though I don’t see Wilcox himself mentioned in this. (Or maybe Bradford works for a similarly named organization, but not the same one? Hmm.)

One of the women quoted in this article talks about equality of the biological sexes as though equality for both is “bad.” She hissingly spit out the phrase “gender equality” as though the concept is terrible. I disagree.

As a celibate chick, I for one want, need, and appreciate gender equality.

My guess is that her outfit is a conservative Christian one that espouses the sexist “Gender Complementarian” view, which, unfortunately, confuses equality for women with being the same thing as “secular liberal feminism,” when the two are not necessarily the same thing. (I believe in equality for women, but I am not a liberal feminist.)

The last part of the article mentions that young people today are having sex more often, which is (Link): disputed by other articles I’ve seen where both liberals and oddly, conservatives, are freaking out because adult singles (young ones) are NOT having sex – they are celibate.

More commentary is below this link with excerpt:

(Link): 40 Percent of US Pregnancies Out of Wedlock, ‘Shotgun’ Marriages Have Plummeted: Report

Excerpt:

A new Senate report is highlighting the effects of unwed childbearing and family breakdown as approximately 40 percent of births in the United States now occur outside of wedlock. And what are known as “shotgun” marriages are largely a thing of the past.

The sharp rise in nonmarital births is a result of a complex mixture of moral, behavioral, and social changes given how the Sexual Revolution overhauled the American landscape, noted Robert VerBruggen, deputy managing editor of National Review, writing on the blog of the Institute for Family Studies Monday. Two out of every five pregnancies in the United States now occur outside of wedlock.

The Failure of Sex Ed Is Killing Our Daughters by S. Goldberg

The Failure of Sex Ed Is Killing Our Daughters by S. Goldberg

(Link): The Failure of Sex Ed Is Killing Our Daughters by S. Goldberg

Excerpts:

….If these women relied on their high school sex education classes they were at a near-total loss when it came to reproductive health.

Public school curriculums dead-set on preventing pregnancy focus heavily on sexually transmitted diseases, birth control, and “using protection.”

As for pregnancy itself, senior students often get a glimpse of a woman giving birth before they pass out in horror.

Young women are never given so much as the opportunity to discuss the dynamics of choosing to have children in today’s world, let alone the biology of reproduction, let alone what should go right and what could go wrong.

Scientist Says People Will Stop Having Sex To Make Babies

Scientist Says People Will Stop Having Sex To Make Babies

(Link): Scientist Says People Will Stop Having Sex To Make Babies by Ruth Brown

Excerpt:

Humans will stop having sex to make babies within 30 years, a scientist predicts.

Instead of conceiving the natural way, parents will instead head to a lab for the decidedly un-sexy process of hand-picking embryos created with their DNA, says Professor Hank Greely, director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Law and the Biosciences, (Link): according to an Atlantic report.

But at least one thing won’t change: One or both partners may be left unsatisfied by the experience.

Women In 30s Now Having More Babies Than Younger Moms in U.S.

Women In 30s Now Having More Babies Than Younger Moms in U.S. 

(Link):  American Women are Opting to Wait Longer to Have Kids

(Link): Women in Their 30s Now Having More Babies Than Younger Moms

Women in their early thirties are for the first time having more babies than younger moms in the United States, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to health experts, the shift was caused by more women choosing to wait longer to have children, as well as a steady national drop in teen births. Now, the birth rate for women in the 30-to-34 age group is about 103 per 100,000.

(Link):  For the First Time Ever, Thirty-Something Women Are Having More Babies Than Their Twenty-Something Counterparts

In many ways, this attitude, and the milestone marked by the new CDC data, represents a gain for women. As Rebecca Traister wrote in her 2016 book All the Single Ladies, the social permission to delay marriage and childbirth—as well the as the biological ability to do so, first through the use of reliable birth control, now with the help of the booming fertility industry—has given women the freedom to define themselves through means other than motherhood. As recently as 1970, the mean age of first birth was just 21, giving most women precious little time to pursue education, adventure, and professional achievement.

However, the rise of older parenthood is also a response to a workplace paradigm that levies penalties on mothers. The U.S. is (Link): the only wealthy nation in the world without a federal paid parental leave policy, and childcare in this country is (Link): exorbitantly expensive and (Link): frighteningly under-regulated. Together, these factors push many women to put off pregnancy in the name of professional success or financial stability.

In her 2012 book Ready: Why Women are Embracing the New Later Motherhood, University of Houston professor Elizabeth Gregory analyzed census data from 2000 and found that delaying motherhood measurably increased women’s earnings.

(Link): Women In 30s Now Having More Babies Than Younger Moms in U.S.  – May 2017

For the first time, women in their early 30s are having more babies than younger moms in the United States.

Atheists At Risk of Dying Out Due to Belief in Contraception

Atheists At Risk of Dying Out Due to Belief in Contraception

(Link): Atheists At Risk of Dying Out Due to Belief in Contraception by Rachel Hosie

Religious people are having more babies

A new study has suggested that atheism is doomed because religiouspeople have higher rates of reproduction.

Children Don’t Come Cheap: Cost of Raising One Hits $233,610 (2017 Findings)

Children Don’t Come Cheap: Cost of Raising One Hits $233,610

(Link):  Raising kids isn’t cheap — and the annual cost of a child is only going up by J. Dennin

Wondering if you can afford to have a kid? Here’s some sobering news.

Children born in 2015 will cost about $380 more per year to raise than kids born in 2014, according to the Department of Agriculture’s latest report on the cost of raising a child in the United States, released Monday.

Overall, families spend between $12,350 and $13,900 annually on their kids, at least when you’re talking married couples with two kids in the middle third of income bands, the report found.

Single, 54, and a New Dad: Why Some Start Families Late by A. Ellin

Single, 54, and a New Dad: Why Some Start Families Late

(Link):  Single, 54, and a New Dad: Why Some Start Families Late by A. Ellin

Excerpts:

August 5, 2016

SPARKY CAMPANELLA never heard the thrumming of a biological clock. But his “sociological clock” — his sense that he was missing out on something important in life — boomed mightily. At the age of 54, he decided to do something about it. He became a father.

He was single, but so what? “I decided I could either do it myself, or wait for the right partner to come along,” said Mr. Campanella, a Los Angeles fine arts photographer whose son, Rhys, is a little over 1 year old. Over the years he had dated women who had children of their own, but he realized that he didn’t want to be a stepdad.

….It’s a question many childless people over 50 are asking themselves. Of course, dealing with night feedings and rambunctious 2-year-olds are not for the faint of heart. But with their finances in order and their careers in place, with their life spans extended, some older people are concluding: Why not start — or continue — raising children in later life?

With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

(Link): With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

The hot flashes, night sweats, and vaginal dryness characteristic of menopause may no longer also signal the end of a woman’s fertility thanks to a blood treatment used to heal wounds.

Presenting their findings at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology annual meeting in Helsinki, Finland, this month, researchers in Greece said they were able to reverse menopause in roughly 30 women, including one who entered menopause at 40 but five years later menstruated again, reports (Link): New Scientist.

Why does society still view childless women like me with suspicion? by E. Day

Why does society still view childless women like me with suspicion?

(Link): Why does society still view childless women like me with suspicion? by E. Day

Excerpts:

• Remarks like Leadsom’s go far beyond the usual cut-and-thrust of the political arena and reveal how (Link): childless women are still viewed with innate suspicion. This, in spite of the fact that women in their mid-40s are now almost twice as likely to be childless as their parents’ generation. One in five women born in 1969 is childless today, compared with one in nine women born in 1942.
• But there remains a taboo, a retrograde belief that (Link): we are in some way unnatural for not fulfilling our biological destiny. How else to explain the fact that the first question many people ask when I meet them is whether I have children, followed by an uncomfortable pause when I say that I don’t. “But why?” I can see them thinking. “What’s wrong with her?”

The Eclipse of White Christian America

The Eclipse of White Christian America

(Link): The Eclipse of White Christian America

Excerpts:

• A once powerful demographic group is losing ground in American politics.
• For most of the country’s history, white Christian America—the cultural and political edifice built primarily by white Protestant Christians—set the tone for our national conversations and shaped American ideals. But today, many white Christian Americans feel profoundly anxious as their numbers and influence are waning.
• ..The key question is not why one white Protestant subgroup is faring worse than another, but why white Protestantism as a whole—arguably the most powerful cultural force in the history of the United States—has faded. The answer is, in part, a matter of powerful demographic changes.
  

Actress Jennifer Aniston Responds to Media’s Constant Fixation on her Reproductive Status

Actress Jennifer Aniston Responds to Media’s Constant Fixation on her Reproductive Status

I’ve said it before, but women face much more scrutiny and pressure to have children than men do.

This is by actress Jennifer Aniston:

(Link): For The Record 

Excerpts:

• Let me start by saying that addressing gossip is something I have never done.  I don’t like to give energy to the business of lies, but I wanted to participate in a larger conversation that has already begun and needs to continue. Since I’m not on social media, I decided to put my thoughts here in writing.
• For the record, I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up. I’m fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of “journalism,” the “First Amendment” and “celebrity news.”
• …If I am some kind of symbol to some people out there, then clearly I am an example of the lens through which we, as a society, view our mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, female friends and colleagues. The objectification and scrutiny we put women through is absurd and disturbing. The way I am portrayed by the media is simply a reflection of how we see and portray women in general, measured against some warped standard of beauty.
• …But I really can’t tell myself that anymore because the reality is the stalking and objectification I’ve experienced first-hand, going on decades now, reflects the warped way we calculate a woman’s worth.

Many Parents Will Say Kids Make Them Happier. They’re Probably Lying. by A. Swanson

Many Parents Will Say Kids Make Them Happier. They’re Probably Lying. by A. Swanson 

(Link): Many Parents Will Say Kids Make Them Happier. They’re Probably Lying. by A. Swanson 

Excerpts:

• Ask the vast majority of American parents, and they will tell you that having kids has made them happier.
• The problem with this claim, as common as it is, is that (Link): research suggests it just isn’t true. People who have kids in the United States and in many countries around the world report being less happy than people who don’t have kids. Being a parent gives people a sense of purpose and meaning, as well as lifelong social connections. But for some reason, it doesn’t appear to bring American parents more happiness.
• Now, new research has shed light on why this might be.
• …The key to their findings is that not every country experiences a “parenting happiness gap” like the United States does. On average, an American parent reports being 12 percent unhappier than a non-parent in America – the biggest gap in the 22 countries the researchers looked at, followed distantly by Ireland. In 12 other countries, non-parents also described themselves as happier than parents.
• ..The researchers examined the differences among these countries to figure out what might be causing the happiness gap. They conclude that U.S. policies – or, more accurately, the lack of them – are likely to be the fundamental cause, by increasing the cost and the amount of stress and anxiety that parents feel.

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Related Posts:

(Link):  ‘It’s a break from the kids’: Why parents cheat more than childless couples

(Link):  Mommy Blogger Confesses in Blog Post that Mommy Blogging is a Bunch of Fake, Happy-Clappy B.S. – Kind of Like Most Christian Adult Singleness Blogs

(Link): Marriage Does Not Make People More Loving Mature Godly Ethical Caring or Responsible (One Stop Thread)

(Link):  Are Marriage and Family A Woman’s Highest Calling? by Marcia Wolf – and other links that address the Christian fallacy that a woman’s most godly or only proper role is as wife and mother

 

Please Stop Asking Me When I’m Getting Married and Having My Own Kids – by E. Barnes

Please Stop Asking Me When I’m Getting Married and Having My Own Kids – by E. Barnes

I believe I first saw this link on Melanie Notkin’s Twitter:

(Link):  Please Stop Asking Me When I’m Getting Married and Having My Own Kids – by E. Barnes

Excerpts:

I’m a PANK. Yeah, you’re reading that right. I’m a PANK, a Professional Aunt No Kids.

….I recently shared something on my personal Facebook page that reads, “I’m tired of hearing, ‘When are you going to get married and have kids?’ Let me tell you, I could have done that already and chose not to.

Tokophobia – Too Afraid To Have A Baby by A. Lauretta

Tokophobia – Too Afraid To Have A Baby by A. Lauretta

(Link):  Too Afraid to Have a Baby

• Tokophobia—a pathological dread of giving birth—might be causing some women to avoid pregnancy.
• ….Though there aren’t statistics in the United States for a pathological anxiety over pregnancy and childbirth—known as tokophobia— (Link): studies in Australia and Britain have found that 6 percent of pregnant women report a disabling fear of having babies, while 13 percent of women who are not yet pregnant are afraid enough to postpone or avoid pregnancy altogether.
• ….Pregnancy and childbirth do come with feelings of anxiety, of course: hopes that the mother and child will be safe and healthy, that there will be little to no complications during childbirth, that the first days and months at home will go smoothly.
• So when do common pregnancy jitters cross the line into a clinical phobia? And, if the phobia is as prevalent as some research suggests, why isn’t it more widely recognized? The answer may have to do with the difficulty of being open about not looking forward to something that most people consider a miracle—especially when more than six million women in the U.S. alone have problems getting or staying pregnant and may dream of having children.
• …Tokophobia is categorized in two forms: primary and secondary. The former can be understood through the lens of Mirren’s fear—often happening at a young age—when seeing disturbing images of birth or even resulting from sexual assault. The latter is often described similarly to post-traumatic stress disorder, resulting from a traumatic past birth experience.

Dad Buys Full-Page $900 Newspaper Ad Seeking a Wife for His 48 Year Old, Never Married Son

Dad Buys Full-Page $900 Newspaper Ad Seeking a Wife for His 48 Year Old, Never Married Son

I hope this father realizes that men over 40 who father kids are more likely to father a kid with various diseases, see link 1, link 2, link 3.

(Link): Dad places newspaper ad to find wife for son

(Link):  Dad seeks ‘wife’ for 48-year-old son with full-page newspaper ad

(Link):  Wife wanted: Dad places spouse-needed ad in Idaho newspaper

The ad gives a brief description of Brooks, including a photo with the disclaimer, “I look just like my picture, except I now have grey hair.” The “About You” section states applicants “Will be attractive being height and weight proportional.” It also goes on to say that applicants should be prepared to have children with Brooks and also be a stay-at- home mom.

(Link):  MEDDLING BEVERLY HILLS DAD PUTS OUT FULL-PAGE AD TO FIND 48-YEAR-OLD SON A WIFE

He said his father has been ill and wants a grandson to carry on the family name.Brooks compared his father to Larry David’s character in the TV series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” saying he “thinks he does the right thing, and then it all blows up in his face.”He said he’d never buy an ad like this himself, but “it’s worth a shot. Can’t hurt.”

(Link):  Full-page newspaper ad seeking wife

(Link): Dad Buys Full-Page $900 Newspaper Ad Seeking a Wife for His 48 Year Old, Never Married Son

One father in Beverly Hills is trying to find his son a wife the old-fashioned way.

Arthur Brooks, 78, spent $900 on a full-page ad in Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Press newspaper using the headline “Looking For a Wife.”

Father Who Had Daughter Marry Her Rapist Sentenced to Jail

Father Who Had Daughter Marry Her Rapist Sentenced to Jail

Christians sure do go on and on about how the Nuclear Family is so important to culture – I’m here to say that being in a Nuclear Family did not protect this teen girl from statutory rape, or from her sicko father trying to marry her off to her rapist.

I’m sure there are plenty of single-parent families out there who don’t end up trying to marry their son or daughter off to that child’s rapist. So, Christians really need to drop the rhetoric about how Nuclear Families are the Cure for everything that ails society (not to mention the Bible does not teach this).

Christians: Stop spreading the falsehood that parenthood is necessary to make a person mature, ethical or godly – not only does the Bible not teach this, but real life examples show you it’s just not true. Such as.

(Link): Father Who Had Daughter Marry Her Rapist Sentenced to Jail

• May 31, 2016
• An Idaho man will spend about four months in jail for taking his pregnant 14-year-old daughter to Missouri and having her marry a 24-year-old family friend who had raped her.
• The father pleaded guilty to injury to a child last week, and a judge put him behind bars for 120 days and ordered three years of supervised probation, the Idaho State Journal reported.

Mothers Over 40 in Record Baby Boom: Number of Women Who Give Birth in Their Fifth Decade or Later Trebles

Mothers Over 40 in Record Baby Boom: Number of Women Who Give Birth in Their Fifth Decade or Later Trebles

This article is from 2010. I could have sworn I already did a blog post on this, but I looked around my blog a little bit and don’t see it.

(Link): Mothers over 40 in record baby boom: Number of women who give birth in their fifth decade or later trebles

• By Steve Doughty for the Daily Mail
   26 May 2010
• A baby boom among older women has trebled the number giving birth after their 40th birthday.
• Almost 27,000 babies were born to mothers over 40 last year, figures revealed yesterday.
• The unprecedented level is nearly three times the total of 20 years ago and up by 50 per cent over the past decade.
• Even during the post-war childbirth peak in the Sixties there were fewer children born to women in their fifth decade and beyond.
• Britain now has one of the highest birth rates for older women in the world, with 3.8 per cent of all babies born to mothers over 40. Only Italy has a higher level in Europe.