What’s Up With The Declining American Birth Rate, Y’all?

When I scroll through Instagram these days, I feel like everyone is either working out their perfect bodies, dressed in their perfect OOTD, making something perfectly gourmet, showing me their perfectly decorated home, or showing off their perfect baby bump.  Honestly, it looks like everyone is perfectly pregnant these days. Like, celebrity contoured-pregnant – the kind of pregnant that I never was (I had a runaway Hillary cankle and gained the weight equivalent to that of a husky 4th grader).

This is where I’m reminded once again that social media is one huge steaming pile of lies.  Because as it turns out, fewer people are having babies these days.  Consequently, diaper sales are “plummeting,” according to LifeNews.  That’s the word on the street, anyway, from said diaper sellers.  And it’s in direct correlation to the fact that birth rates have been “sharply declining for decades.”

That’s right.  Decades.

Go figure:

In places like Italy and Ireland, the birth rate has dropped below replacement levels.

In the United States, the birth rate has reached historic lows in recent years with below-replacement levels of 1.76 births per married couple. Should the trend continue, the United States will quickly join Europe in the population decline in less than a decade.

Because of this downward trend, the sale of diapers and the disposable pull-up pants (oh, how I remember those days fondly) have decreased by 6% JUST THIS PAST YEAR alone. And because of the crappy (no pun intended) sales, companies like Kimberly Clark and Proctor & Gamble are laying folks off.

So, what gives?  What’s up with the birth rate decline?

Now, I have a few theories.  Conveniently, marriage is ALSO on the decline.  More people are simply shacking up instead of getting married, which means that less people are truly committing to one another.  And if they’re not committed to each other, why would they commit to a creating and raising a whole other human being?  I think the more appropriate question is, why should they?  I mean, what’s the point?

And then there’s the “action” part of parenting.  To me, parenting is more than physical and mental and financial effort.  It’s as if when I got pregnant, my daughter literally took over a part of my heart.  And now I hold a part of her heart in my heart.  That will never go away.  The care I give her, the attention, the love – it’s all unconscious now.  Everything I do for her or try to teach her is done without a single trace of selfishness.  I do it, because she’s part of me and I want her to be the best she can be so that one day she can thrive on her own.

Perhaps that kind of care of another human being can be daunting to some younger folks these days? After all, this is the first generation to demand safe spaces on college campuses.  It’s very much a “me” generation – argue with me on that, but I’ll point at all the selfies on social media.  This is the generation that had a dude who didn’t move out of his Mom and Dad’s house until he was 30, and he had to be thrown out by a judge.  And it was national news.

Or, I don’t know – maybe this generation has just simply been taught to hate babies?  #blameplannedparenthood

So many theories to kick around.

I’d love to hear your take on this, clever and competent readers.  Discuss.