‘I want more babies’ in the US, JD Vance says in his first speech as vice president

Posted by BipartizanBelgrade

15 Comments

  1. Good thing we’re kicking a bunch of people out and trying to make it so people born here aren’t citizens

  2. I wish Republicans would stop inflicting their fetishes on the rest of us. Why are they so weird

  3. On a personal level, I really recommend having babies. It’s a lot of fun, and not enough people make it a priority.

    On a societal level, it’s a hard problem. Much of the decline in birthrate is probably due to allowing women to pursue education, to do equal work to men, and to make their own decisions. Doing equal work, especially, means that there’s a much bigger opportunity cost for getting pregnant.

    Obviously, no one here wants to actually role back those cultural advances. Not even JD Vance. My fear is that if we don’t solve this, then governments and political movements may cast liberalism aside and seek to make women the property of men once more.

    I think a liberal approach requires an across-the-board attack on any *other* factor that affects how easily people couple up and how readily they commit to a child.

    That means a comprehensive childcare policy that helps both working mothers and mothers who choose to stay home. It means promoting remote and flexible work for those who are qualified. (My wife’s WFH situation and my flexible hours – we’re both in research – are essential to our parenting strategy.) It means attacking the media companies that isolate us and keep us from going out and meeting potential lovers. (A sin tax on social media?)

    Each of these probably has only a small effect on fertility, as it’s not really getting at the root cause. But unless we commit to attacking all of these challenges and more, I don’t see us making a big dent in the problem.

  4. If you really believe in one generation’s obligations to the next, you need to take climate change seriously too, JD.

  5. “I want more babies” says man who wants to make it even more difficult to have a child in a country that is speedrunning democratic backsliding.

  6. Didn’t take long for the guys who say weird shit on birth rates posts to show up to this one

  7. RTSBasebuilder on

    We can go round and round in circles about the birthrate thing, but basically for many, the opportunity cost of raising a child is not worth career and opportunity advancement and more money.

    The only way to get the rate up is for after the first or second child, a superannuation fund with a lump sum of circa 300k-1m would be given, considering that the average person produces 1.6M value at minimum, and a university-educated one makes 2.8M over the course of their lifetime.

    Said fund can only be withdrawn via cashless welfare card for childcare, grocery, medical, school-related reasons (which are already government registered entities), and can’t be withdrawn to convert to cash, and the fund can mature and be able to be invested until said person becomes an adult.

    The fund compensates for the loss of economic and career advancement opportunity the family has, while leaving their own personal accounts untouched. Less financial and working-time stressed parents might be more productive at work and a fund might provide better quality of life care for their children, potentially leading to a growth multiplier – notwithstanding additional technologies such as robotics and anti-aging that push the work stressors back into the feasibility of raising a family.

    In other words – you have to bribe for it at this point. It’s either that, or the return of the nanny and governess and the live-in downstairs servant class, and throwing kids into boarding/finishing school for a few years. Or simply cut women from the workforce like the good ol’ days.

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