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?”