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I don't buy into this story that social media is to blame for the drop in fertility. (In the US, most of the dip happened before the 21st century.)
But I will say that I've seen a tendency for moms I know to almost "brag" about how tough their kid is to take care of, and to make things more difficult for themselves than it needs to be.
In the hospital, they made us watch some educational videos after my first daughter was born. There was a video called something like "Don't Shake the Baby" where the real thesis of the video is that it's okay to ignore the baby for a bit. If she's being annoying and you need a break, put her somewhere safe and then walk away for a few minutes. She'll be fine. But walking away is something new mothers struggle with.
Now don't get me wrong - kids are tough. It takes a ton of work to make one. But it's the pregnancy, the birth (oof), and those first months where you have to wake up multiple times during the night to feed them that are the tough part. Beyond that, the difficulty should be about on par with taking care of a dog. And if it's a lot tougher, you have to give yourself permission to put in less effort. The kids will be fine.
Yeah, I could see that.
I will say that mothers of infants have a bunch of hormones going off, oriented towards getting them to treat a crying baby as an emergency. Breastfeeding mothers, especially, won't necessarily benefit from putting the baby off, they get dripping hurting breasts, a baby who's flailing around in all directions, and general mayhem. Many babies like to cluster feed, and will cry until they get to, and it's awful. Baby #3 is getting 6 oz formula a day during evening cluster feed before bed time (out of ~24 oz total), and it is making a noticeable improvement in quality of life.
Currently the three week old is lying on the floor crying about tummy time while I'm commenting here. Various articles suggest that I could "play" with him, or lay next to him and cheer him on. But I don't want to do that, and attempts to try with his older sister suggest that the crying lasts about as long either way. He would probably not even exist if I really thought following all the interactive suggestions from various articles was mandatory.
On the other hand, I have found our older child legitimately very difficult as a baby and toddler, for reasons that seem to come down to energy level. She was born in a one room apartment without an enclosed yard or playground within walking distance. I do have some sympathy for why many people would prefer not to do that, because it was kind of terrible. If she got woken up in the evening, she would proceed to scream for the next two hours, and nothing we could do would stop her. My husband had to take care of her for several months, and she would refuse a bottle, then proceed to scream at him for hours about how he didn't have any milky breasts. She learned to speak at 2, and has been chattering nonstop ever since. Now she's 5, we have an expansive yard with different whole areas in it, and I have a lot of sympathy for the kind of parent that locks their kid out of the house for outside play time.
I have no intention of ever owning the kind of high strung dog that wants to be taken for walks twice a day and keeps jumping the fence. We don't have a dog, actually, because they're too much effort, in some ways more than children. At least if we go on a trip we can take the children with us, and if they step on thorns we can tell them to wear shoes. The children would like a dog, but we don't have anyone to look after it if we're away, and we are away at least several weeks a year.
Well that all sounds immensely fun. No honestly, I mostly think it’s important to know what you’re getting yourself in for. But maybe it’s best not to know. Reading that does not make me want to have children, even though I very much do. I think that’s the thing, if everyone has children and it’s inevitable and it just happens after you get married (which you do between 19 and 23 because everyone does) and then you get pregnant and then you have to deal with it and suffer through it and then it’s fine then you just do it. If you have to think about it, like I’m doing now, then you doubt.
I realize this is an old comment- I make a point of reading comments under AAQC's from the past month- but observed reality is that women familiar with the reality of taking care of a baby/infant are more likely to have kids.
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Baby and small child problems might not be a very productive line of conversation.
The current status quo of everyone having quite effective birth control all the time is probably not a good idea. I was newly married and on contraceptive pills that I didn't manage to renew quite on time when first baby was conceived. Maybe subconsciously I wasn't trying very hard to keep on top of the birth control, but was still surprised, because it was only for a couple of days and I was past 30. The other two children I had to go to a doctor and remove an implant, so more intentional (and I was clearly not put off having more children), and then I was pregnant two months later. If I were more conscientious, I would probably have waited another couple of years and only ended up with only two, confirming society is probably selecting for not very conscientious mothers who conceive quickly.
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