High Parenting Expectations are the main cause of low birth rates

The higher the bar is set for parents the less kids they will have. Parenting today is wildly different from 1950 or even 1990. Many people believe you need to raise your child so every opportunity is available to them. This can be interpreted differently by people but it can mean you enroll your child in endless extracurriculars, fund a 5-6 figure college fund, tutor them in addition to school or pay a tutor. Some people believe you either need to live in the best school district or pay for private school. All of this is expensive.

But in addition to this self imposed major financial burden there is also a time burden parents of that past did not have. My siblings and my neighbors kids wandered the neighborhood playing with other kids as young as 3-4. We were outside for hours nearly every day. Kids started babysitting younger siblings at 10-12. Families would leave 4 younger children (including an infant!!) with a 12 year old. Mom did not entertain us. If she played a game with us it was a special time not a daily expectation. The mothers I see while I’m out with my daughter are incredibly involved. At story time they are singing and playing with the kids. Moms of the past would sit at the back and chat or go browse books for themselves.

I think I could go on endlessly about how insane parenting has become. People have turned stuff as simple as starting solids into a complex process that requires logging every bite and paying for an online course to learn the ‘proper method’.

When I see parents with 3+ kids they are much more hands off than the helicopter parents with 1-2. You can’t invest that much energy in 3+ kids unless they’re incredibly spaced out or you have full time help. Even just having 1-2 kids with expectations this high is a major deterrent to the average person. We put a ton of pressure on parents with very little societal support.

I think financial and societal influences are affecting the birth rate but overall I think the main cause is the higher expectations. And it’s silly because on this quest for every child to be the best and have the best I think we’re causing a lot of anxiety for the parents and the kids. It’s not good for families or people in general.