The future needs more children

The future belongs to those who have children. With fertility rates in developed countries declining steadily each year, it poses a concern about the future workforce and economy. Fewer workers in our future labor force means higher taxes for the next generation. Fewer people to take jobs also means an even easier path for artificial intelligence to take over the labor force. The current state of fertility rates is setting our future generation up for high taxes, low opportunities, and the burden to take care of a massive aging population that dwarfs the young one.

There are a multitude of factors that have contributed to the current fertility rate. The culture has changed and values of those of reproductive age have changed.  Higher costs of living also have a strong correlation with lower fertility rates. Women face more pressure to not only make an adequate living but also to have a family. This pressure has caused an ever-growing aversion to motherhood in women today. They’re forced to choose between family and career, and most are choosing careers. Higher education for women has also contributed to the decline in fertility rates. Having children is no longer a fact of life, but an inconvenience that is now easily avoided.

A lack of family values is hurting our society. Children are not just our future, but a gift in our present. Life is precious and should be protected and encouraged. Feeding into the narrative of childlessness is not the empowerment we’re told that it is. It’s a calculated mission by our governments and corporations to use us all up for our labor, then replace the kids we never had with artificial intelligence. Family has become an act of rebellion today. Choosing childlessness is easy and peaceful now, but we are meant to reproduce. Ignoring an instinct doesn’t get rid of it, and that’s not usually not understood until it's too late.

 In a developed country there are privileges that are so certain that we can barely distinguish them anymore. The privilege to complain about how bad everything is instead of taking advantage of all the wonderful things available to us. The meaning of life is not to work your dream job that you’ll eventually get sick of, or traveling the world, or buying designer brands. Having children is not selling your happiness, future, or career, the problem is that you’ve been told happiness comes from self-serving. Humans are meant to choose family.

The idea that it's a terrible time to have children is ludicrous. There has never been a perfect time to have children. Comparing the state of our world now with how it was 100 years ago, 200 years ago, gives some perspective. It was a worse time to have children when running water and electricity were not a normality. Life has never been about convenience nor proper circumstances, it was just an unquestionable fact.