Dissociated Thoughts

Making Babies

Written for: "Journalistic Intentions"  Entry 3 of 8
Prompt:

         This video talks about the "Baby Bust" of the recent year due to the effects of Covid-19 on our society, which runs in direct opposition of their prediction that it would result in another Baby Boom. They interviewed people with differing opinions on whether the decline in child births was a good thing or a bad one. The video also attempts to introduce reasons as to why this decline is happening. I am going to attempt to look at this from both sides and give my opinion along with reasons I feel the way I do.

         Side 1: "This Baby Bust is a bad thing for our world." - Those who feel this way believe that in order to support our growing population of persons in the older demographic, a child has to be born to "replace" each person who dies or is too old to work. What's wrong with this view in my opinion? Mainly, I oppose this view because the world is overpopulated with humans as it is. Bringing more children into this world is not going to immediately refill a slowly receding workforce, nor will it ensure that those too old to work will be taken care of. It is just going to put even more stress on the adults who actually do work for the next ten years or more because they are then having to care for the older generations as well as a growing population of a new generation. This seems, to me, to be less economically feasible than the "Baby Bust" does.

         Side 2: "The Baby Bust is a good thing for our world." - Those siding with this view acknowledge that we have already overpopulated our world and due to our overpopulation, we are killing the earth. My opinion? I side with this way of thinking personally. In nature, when a population of anything gets too high, it begins to choke out other life. Eventually, an act of nature will happen that helps restore the order of things and reduce the overgrown population. Casualties occur both while the population is exploding and when nature comes to correct it. How can we, as the supposed only creatures to have a conscience, be okay with killing the earth and its denizens to ensure our continued growth of population?
         The Whys: What were considered to be the reasons that people had forecasted a Baby Boom and the actual Baby Bust that happened? Opinions were that due to couples being stuck at home together for interminable lengths of time due to Covid-19 restrictions, there would be an increase in the number of children being born. The reality was, in fact, that there were fewer. Why? The video offers a few viable reasons. First, economic instability was a factor. During the lock-down, very few people were able to go to their jobs to earn a living and many had to result to using monies from their savings in order to get by. Secondly, it was proposed that being stuck in a domicile with each other for so long began to grate on nerves and so people were less likely to want to have sex. For single people (somehow usually sizeable contributors to at least the U.S. population), they were no longer able to go out and meet up with one another. Then there was the reasoning that women are demonstrating their rights, do not want to have children and instead want to have a career and lead their own lives. (I do not understand how this particular one can be included in a video about how birth rates have gone down instead of up during the pandemic. I mean, wasn't this happening before the pandemic? And finally, some didn't want to bring more kids into an already messed up world. But what could be some other reasons for fewer births since the onset of Covid-19?
         Being a mother of two and an aunt of eight, all in their child bearing years, I asked. Yes there were responses of economic uncertainty, becoming tired of being around their spouse or significant other all the time, and for those not in serious relationships, the inability to go out. But They also had other reasons. My youngest doesn't want kids at all. She is aware that my medical issues, as well as her fiancee's, are genetic and could possibly be passed to any child she might have. My oldest said she didn't want to have children with the guy she had been with and was going to wait until she felt she had found the right one. She is less worried about genetic traits being passed down. My nieces and nephews are a varied bunch. A couple of them aren't interested in getting into serious commitments (and kids are definitely that). Two of my nephews are married to lovely ladies and already have children, one of them is a brand new father. One of my nieces is happy being single and doing her own thing and says she has enough responsibilities for now. At least one of the kids is on drugs and I hope he doesn't help create any kids until he gets off the stuff - but he's too lost in his drug induced world to care about too much. But you know what they all have in common? They all said their lock down time was dominated by playing video games and being on the internet and their phones. How can the youth of our nation procreate when they're lost in the artificial worlds of computers and video games? They talk or text people using their phones and other apps rather than interacting face to face. Heck, most of them don't even have the time to spend with family because their lives are dominated by the digital world. Wanna have a kid? I'm sure there's an app for that.

LeJenD