As people talk about the issues of depopulation, they look to government programs to solve the issue. This is something I don't like just on principle, but I'll admit that there are times such programs might be beneficial.
But there's one issue every suggestion I've seen makes, and that's how it misses the real problem.
Yes, people aren't having as many children, but that's not really the issue. It's a symptom of the issue.
Children, you see, are the end result of a series of decisions made by men and women, and the way society suggests people make those decisions has ramifications that go well beyond the short-term ramifications people see.
People aren't having kids because they're not getting married like they used to. They're not getting married as much because dating is a lot harder than it used to be, and they're going on fewer dates. Part of this is because both sexes have some warped ideas about dating, coupled with some legitimate concerns about where lines are that shouldn't be crossed.
First, let's talk about the warped ideas.
While I'm long out of the dating pool – thank God, considering all of this – I've kept an eye on it because I have kids, one of whom is an adult and is one of those having issues.
What he encounters is a world where a lot of women, including some who frankly shouldn't even think about being picky, follow the 666 Rule. What that means is they want their partners to be six-feet tall, have a six-figure income, and have at least six inches...um...downstairs, let's say. Some will say the third six is six-pack abs, which is a bit less dirty, but still pretty superficial.
Now, it's good to have standards, but none of those outline who would make a good partner.
There's also the fact that only 14.5 percent of the American male population is over six feet in height. Only 25 percent of men in the US make $100,000 or more. I'm not going to get into the physical aspects.
With these two criteria, we omit at least 85 percent of the male population, but the real number is even more, because not all of those six-foot tall men are making $100K or more per year. How many does that leave? Try just three percent. A whopping three percent meet these very specific demands, and a lot of women simply won't talk to a guy who isn't part of that three percent.
And yes, that includes many that should aspire to be considered "mid."
No, looks aren't everything, but if you're one of the guys in the most desirable three percent of men, you can afford to be a little picky, right?
Men aren't blameless in all of this, though, because a lot of women aren't that superficial. They're open to dating guys. The problem is that men don't approach them anymore. Part of that could be due to the whole #MeToo movement, which brought up sexual harassment as something that should destroy your life. I'm not going to condone sexual harassment, either, but when you've been told that it's defined as, "An unwanted sexual advance," guys can be a little gun shy of risking it, not understanding that asking a woman out, then accepting no for an answer, shouldn't be a problem.
Then there are the male influencers of the world.
From people like Andrew Tate telling guys that to be an alpha male, they need to be insufferable jerks, to the "grind culture" influencers that tell young men that they have to have started 43 businesses and be a multimillionaire before they ever consider dating.
And that's without getting into the fact that even more sane, rational women want a man with at least a comparable level of education, only to miss the fact that women are being accepted and graduating from school at much higher rates, meaning the dating pool is going to be skewed.
Having children is a wonderful thing, but that's what happens at the end of the road, in a manner of speaking.
The problems with the number of kids being born isn't the result of couples simply not wanting children. It's that there are fewer couples being created, and no legislation can fix this. It's a cultural issue that we desperately need to address.
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