Andrew Sage

So, you know, in the past, you did have the extended families, the close-knit communities that made raising children a bit more manageable.

But today, it's a bit rarer to find.

And you tend to see a lot more nuclear families or even just individuals going at it alone.

You know, with less support and more isolation and

So it makes it very difficult.

And then there's the existential angst of it all.

You know, I can't forget the fact that there are multiple wars raging around the world.

You know, there's a lot of political instability in much of the world.

And of course, the biggest issue of all, climate change, which makes it, honestly, it makes it feel irresponsible to even think about bringing a child into this mess.

So a declining fertility, a decline in population, it has the government's panicking.

You know, China went from having decades of a one-child policy to now desperately trying to encourage people to have more babies.

They're offering cash bonuses and housing perks and extended parental leave.

But it's not really working.

You know, as populations are aging, there's a lot more elderly people to care for and fewer working age people to support them.

So that is, you know, a recipe for pension crises and labor shortages and spiraling health care costs.

So some governments are even trying to raise the retirement age.

which, as France and their protests have shown, is not going to go over well with much of the population.

Nobody wants to work an extra five years, an extra 10 years more when they've already put so much of their lives to these dead end, pointless and

mentally and physically draining tasks that really just line the pockets of their bosses.

It is worth pointing out that last year there was a pretty massive raise in the retirement age for people in China that's being phased in a way where it's going to take