The Fertility Crisis

This morning a shocking article came to my attention. The short of it is that the Prime Minister of Australia has the same view on the fertility crisis as the previous government. This raises two issues which bug me a great deal: public perceptions of the fertility crisis and the complete failure of the two party political system in Australia. I'll talk about the failure of the two party system in Australia another day.

Firstly, the fertility crisis in a nutshell by a paranoid idiot:

White people (and the Japanese) have stopped breeding. While the non-white people of the world appear to be breeding so much that they are threatening to overrun all of the lovely clean white countries (but not Japan because they're rightly scared of foreigners (and don't have massive social problems either, apparently ;-)). Something must be done about this! It must be women's fault!

Question: What can we do to make women have more babies (for us men since we don't have any part in childrearing)?

Now, the fertility crisis in a more realistic and calm nutshell.

People from highly educated societies have decided to put off parenting until later in life, not because they don't want children, but because they do not feel that they could properly support and raise a child by themselves or by their current financial means. Although highly educated people have existed in these countries in great numbers for over one hundred years, this situation has only appeared since female birth control allowed women to take control of their bodies.

Question: What can we do to create a society and environment that women would feel comfortable and safe raising more children and at an earlier age?

The first explanation is far simpler and has a far simpler and cheaper solution: simply force women to have children. In fact, the baby bonus is also a lot cheaper than actually fixing the wider problems society has: educated women just don't feel comfortable raising children until they feel secure enough that they can do it on their own terms.

Now, some women genuinely don't want to have children, that's true and always has been the case historically. But most young women I've spoken to have expressed a desire to have children... yet they don't. We should be listening carefully to these women and stop dismissing their opinions.

I think the problem is that our society simply takes fertility and child-rearing for granted. In the past contraception was the man's responsibility and not one that they particularly cared about if it went wrong. Sure, societal pressures might have helped some men to help raise any unwanted children but really, who wants to be forced to live with a man who doesn't want to be father to your children?

I don't want to start turning this into an "it's all men's fault" argument but rather suggest that we try accepting that men and women often have needs that society would rather they didn't have so that we could have a perfect utopian society. Men generally don't want to settle down into family life at age 20, after age 30 though that's a different story. Men also need a lot of support when it comes to relationships, particularly as boys and young men. Men generally don't do as well as women on tests of empathy. Men also have greater trouble resolving disputes with women because women often don't understand how important saving-face is to even a really friendly kind man and men don't realise how less important saving-face is to women in general so long as an equitable solution is reached (i.e. for women the priority is the outcome of the argument, for men the priority is in how the outcome is reached).

I should stress that the reason why I think women are generally ahead of men when it comes to thinking about child-rearing/family matters is not because women are necessarily better at doing the family thing. Rather, if one has a uterus then one usually spends a lot more time thinking about what the consequences of getting pregnant involve. If one doesn't have a uterus, one generally doesn't think about these things as deeply. I personally believe men have enormous potential in the family, not just as breadwinners, but as loving, caring, nurturing and supportive members of the family regardless of whether they are fathers, uncles, brothers or cousins. But for men, thinking about family issues probably doesn't come so naturally because babies don't come out of penises... although I don't think that's the only reason why Australian men in particular might not be the most family literate.

Of course both men and women could definitely use more practice in understanding how to interact with each other... but as an Australian man I feel that the general perception is that men don't have a role in the family. The family is 'women's business' and men are actively discouraged it seems from wanting to have a significant role in the family. When I hear men talk about problems in their families it often sounds to me as though they are helpless observers of what is happening and not empowered agents of support and care within their families.

It is hardly surprising though because as an Australian man I often feel as though women are turned off by a man who cares too much about others and his family, or for merely being too easy to get along with. A lot of my male friends have a saying, "chicks dig pricks". (Dear women, stop dating arseholes at once! Why is it that men are apparently so much better at spotting arseholes than women?!?!)

As for women, I really think we have to stop harassing single mothers! This is mostly a women picking on women situation, but there are plenty of conservative male politicians who do it too. Although the situation has improved alot, I personally think single mothers are heroic and if the Prime Minister genuinely cares about women having more babies he should be championing single mothers because at least they are having children. All to often this debate turns into a social engineering debate and not one about how best to care and look after the people in the community. Trying to force people into models of behaviour that some people think is 'natural' (although nothing has been 'natural' in our society for a very long time) is really a disturbing attitude to see in someone who is meant to be a leader.

In conclusion, my own list of suggestions on how to deal the fertility crisis:

For to fix Australia's fertility problem:
1. Guarantee a certain level of free child care.
2. Force all workplaces with more than x number of employees to provide free child care facilities in the workplace.
3. End non-co-ed education.
4. Promote platonic male-female friendships in the media as a way for men and women to better understand, live and communicate with each other.
5. Teach parenting in high-school, it is a valuable life skill is it not?
6. Emphasise the challenges of parenting and promote community support groups parents can join for advice, help and support.
7. Accept that single-mothers are still mothers and promote them as heroines rather than whores.
8. Promote fatherhood as a challenging, heroic and rewarding experience.
9. Give women equal pay for equal work FFS.

Why does this post even belong here?

The key problem with the Prime Minister's thinking is that he believes he is a social engineer. He has a vision on how society ought to be and through legislation he believes he can shape people and society into how he thinks they ought to be. The problem isn't that he is trying to shape society, after all, that is what the government is supposed to be doing. The issue is where does he get his idea of an 'ideal society' from? I don't think he sat down and rigorously interogated people in the community and thought hard over the question of "what would be best for everyone?". No, I think he just copied some conservative dogma about men being breadwinners and women being dutiful child factories. His lack of creativity/flexibility demonstrates an unwillingness to listen to other people and be challenged in his opinions. If your policies aren't working Mr. Rudd, stop, listen, think and come up with something new. Stop wasting our time trying tried and failed methods!

Why do we elected arrogant and paranoid men like this? Sure, it's always great to have a lot of arrigant and paranoid men like this working in the defence department, always erring on the side of caution willing to take risks with people's lives for the good of the country. But would you trust the military to run the social security system like that? Of course not. Get the right man for the right job. Don't put arrogant and paranoid men in charge of child care. This is a job that requires a complex, creative and thoughtful solution.

Which means we now have to chose between Tony Abbott (Catholic) and Kevin Rudd (Anglican). Both chauvanists too thick to notice that women's rights are actually human rights which, for some dogmatic reason, won't be given to women but we've been giving to men for decades.