UNDERpopulation?

I found this article via Ryan's website, and thought it was interesting enough to share. Basically talking about how families are having less children than they used to, so now there aren't enough young people to support the older generations. It's a bigger problem in Japan and Europe, according to the article, but it's becoming an issue here, too.

It's interesting because it's not something I've ever thought about, and certainly not something I've really witnessed. Granted, anyone who knows me is aware that Chris and I are not anywhere close to thinking about having children, and don't know if we ever will be. But in my experience, we're an anomoly in the world. I mean, I actually have friends that chide me for not wanting kids. In the 7 months I worked at the TV station in Savannah, 4 people there had a new baby. Most of our married friends in Gainesville have had at least one. In fact, I can only name THREE married couples in Gainesville I know that are NOT with child, and two of them have been married less than a year. My point in this is that I certainly haven't seen much evidence of people not wanting children, with the exception of myself.

I can list plenty of reasons why I lean more towards the Japanese standard. The article says that we're all too selfish and concerned about ourselves, and that's probably true. When it comes down to it, I see children as messing up what I want for my life, and not allowing me to do what I want. But another part of that is that I've seen plenty of parents who are just as selfish, but they had children in spite of their selfishness, and wound up either treating their children as burdens to their own lives, or just not knowing how to parent, and so raising spoiled horrible children with no manners. I know that I don't want to do that, and so I figure my best option is not to have children if I'm going to screw them up. I guess my point here is that I don't think my generation is any more spoiled than our parents' generation... there's just more of us who have decided not to screw up someone else's life because of our selfishness.

Just to make myself clear, my parents raised me great and I don't think they were selfish at all, and I definitely wouldn't say they are the reason I don't want children. Just had to throw in that disclaimer before everyone starts thinking my parents left me home alone every weekend to live their own lives or something. They didn't. (But they did stop taking me out to eat when I was too big to order from the kid's menu... but that means they stopped taking my brother, too, so that poor kid missed out on 2 extra years of restaurants. Yeah. Life sure was rough.)