Let me repeat, It’s perfectly ok to not want to have any kids, some people can’t have kids, some people never get married. We are only talking about households that say how many kids they want, vs how many they have and are having.
Americans’ Ideal Family Size Is Larger Than the Birthrate Suggests
Here’s the graph.
Source: WSJ
From the article:
“In essence, many people are just saying something like, “If everything was good in life, having bigger families is a good thing,” said Gemmill.” (Demographer at Johns Hopkins University)
“While the birthrate is followed closely, the ideal family size gets less attention.
“The number of children people want is too often omitted from the conversation about birthrates,” said Lyman Stone, the director of research for the population consulting firm Demographic Intelligence. “
So, what happens to people the writer asks. He suggests some answers…not really a good job.
“Many millennials have a story like going to college, working a few years, meeting somebody and not wanting to rush into anything—maybe paying off student loans first or saving for a house, which takes a few years or more. Then the person gets married, doesn’t want children right away, perhaps finds some news developments unsettling and waits for the world to calm down. Maybe the person eventually decides to go for it anyway but has trouble getting pregnant, a frequent experience for those starting later, or has a first child and raising the child is harder than expected. Maybe the sleep deprivation is worse than imagined, or the child care is more expensive.”
A better answer is the reason I am running for President. The middle class has been destroyed. By the public schools, By trading with Communist China, and by the Federal Reserve. Etc. I have said this 100s of times.
Then the writer asks a second question.
“The second question is how to help people achieve their family goals.”
The answer is at stevelaffey.com and the thrust of my entire campaign.
Families want an extra kid. I want to help them have one. It is really that simple.
Right now, we are missing 40,000,000 bundles of joy.
One of the Saddest Articles I Have Ever Read. Are We Missing 40 Million Bundles of Joy?