To the editor: Marisa Gerber’s article on revenue and childbearing deserves reward. What largely stays ignored, nevertheless, is the abject failure of America’s political elite to guard the nation’s middle-class lifestyle.
Financial insecurity gnaws at everybody however the very rich. Comfy housing is priced within the stratosphere, as are respectable healthcare, larger training and baby care. Employees’ incomes energy has declined significantly during the last 4 many years, prompting longer hours on the job.
Many youthful adults additionally weigh the morality of bringing kids right into a world devastated by world warming.
The Pew research discovering talked about within the article that almost all child-free adults “simply don’t wish to” have kids shouldn’t shock competent social scientists — we are able to’t count on respondents to tackle our mandate to demystify human thought and conduct. I think that lots of these respondents felt personally insufficient and thus reluctant to confront the difficulty head-on.
When these folks understand they’re victims of our nation’s pay-to-play politics and the ensuing polarization in wealth, solely then will they be part of the motion for real reform of our political financial system.
Sam Coleman, Huntington Seaside
The author, a lecturer in Asian Research at Cal State Lengthy Seaside, is writer of the e-book “Household Planning in Japanese Society.”
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To the editor: Your article on adults selecting to forego parenthood was terribly miserable. Except components of their tales had been omitted, the logic of the folks quoted in your article highlights the elevated attachment now we have to consolation and disinclination to sacrifice.
People do exhausting issues. Household life is each joyful and exhausting, however it’s the way in which now we have cared for one another, tolerated one another and linked with one another from the daybreak of time.
There isn’t a preferrred household measurement, whether or not or not it’s one baby or many, and there’s no requirement that kids be in eight totally different sports activities and play 4 musical devices.
But when as a society sufficient folks determine household life isn’t for them, all of us will expertise an important loss.
Karen Cuni Tang, Torrance
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To the editor: I used to be glad to see a distinguished article giving voice to those that select to be child-free.
Nonetheless, falling birthrates had been described as a detrimental pattern due to financial issues. Why not quote scientists or environmentalists who’ve totally different issues or see the upside to this complicated state of affairs?
The title of this 2022 research within the journal Organic Conservation says all of it: “Overpopulation is a serious explanation for biodiversity loss and smaller human populations are essential to protect what’s left.”
In a March 2023 article in Scientific American, Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes approvingly quotes the Royal Society: “Extra folks ‘has meant that ever extra pure habitat is getting used for agriculture, mining, industrial infrastructure and concrete areas.’ ”
In a 2013 interview, David Attenborough stated, “All our environmental issues turn into simpler to resolve with fewer folks, and tougher — and finally unimaginable — to resolve with ever extra folks.”
Zan Dubin, Santa Monica
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To the editor: I loved the piece about millennials not having kids. As a child boomer, I’ve suffered the slings and arrows of subsequent generations complaining how we ruined the world, so it’s good to listen to from the subsequent of us.
It’s good that millennials have chosen to forsake parenting. Elevating youngsters requires a complete dedication of oneself, and their focus leaves little room for something however them.
So, get pleasure from swimming with dolphins, leaping out of airplanes and posing with the bronze Fonz, because the couple you profiled has carried out. You’ll not fear about youngsters who puke in your costly carpet, potty in your furnishings or wake you up at evening.
However you’ll miss watching the profitable purpose, the diploma being earned, a wedding and an limitless record of moments that make parenting definitely worth the effort.
Theodore Furlow, Medford, Ore.
