I threw my fears to the wind

[Bedrock Barney]

My wife and I had quite an earnest discussion about kids before 'going for it'. If I remember rightly the main topic of conversation centered around affordability. We were happy regarding all other aspects. It was early 1996, we were 4 years out of University but not earning as much as I believe we were 'worth', my wife had been made redundant twice during the early 90's recession and very little money seemed to be left over at the end of each month. Therefore we couldn't really afford to introduce a new family member but in the end I guess most people, like us, say sod it we'll muddle through somehow. Baby no.2 arrived in 1999 but by then I suppose we had started to gain value through the rising housing market, did a couple more houses up and are now relatively well off compared to those early days (notwithstanding the mortgage still to be paid off)

Dilemmas because of sustainability/peak oil/declining markets didn't enter into our heads at the time but I bet they would now. I feel lucky that this extra factor wasn't present at the time (or more correctly was much less apparent).

[Vortex]

Families put off having kids during the peaks of the Cold war in 1954 and 1962 ... for no reason.

Possibly families in 1973 did the same during the first oil crisis .. for no reason.

Peak Oil may - or may not - be a disaster ... but so what.

Your kids and their kids will simply have to adapt.

That's what humans do.

[Miss Madam]

I think both of my grandparents responses do prove his point to some extent, but also my point that men and women react differently to fertility and succession. Women seem to focus on day to day care, men often have the bigger picture view of 'legacy' - both are needed to ensure that progeny survive. And yes, many women do congratulate themselves after a long period of trying to conceive if they are successful, but they don't tend to if it has been an easy process, and lets be fair getting pregnant is much easier (if everythings working tickety boo), and much more fun than rocket science - what do you want a medal? I can see it now: "Congratulations you had sex at the wrong / right time of the month depending on your viewpoint, with a partner who's genitalia also function as designed... Go straight to go and collect ?200".

[Andy Hunt]

"Congratulations you had sex at the wrong / right time of the month depending on your viewpoint, with a partner who's genitalia also function as designed... Go straight to go and collect a council house and 16 years' worth of free money"

[/irony]

[leroy]

Hey, when I retire there won't be a pension

I don't think we will be retiring at all. I'm not sure that I'll even be around in 2048 or 2053 or whatever. Anyone see BBC4 programme 'Are we having fun yet' on babyboomers the other day - fantastic. Several academics expressed doubt that younger generations will be willing to support the 'boomers through retirement. Interesting and worrying stuff. I often wonder what we'll say to today's ittle kids when they're in their twenties - "Yeah, I used to fly to Nice for weekends, eat rare steak and chat to French girls on the beach. Sorry about the climate, food shortages and the ever increasing poverty and all...." I don't think that telling them that I was too young to have any political power will work too well. Better keep up the Kali, I reckon...

[Bozzio]

I was looking at some statistics regarding the population of the UK and found this article about population and sustainability.

The bottom line appears to be that immigration is the reason for our overcrowding and not birthrates which are lower than the replacement rate necessary to maintain the population at today's levels assuming all things are equal. The birth rate is currently just above 1.8 and the replacement rate is 2.1 although the birth rate is rising (it is now the highest for 26 years) which appears due to growing immigrant families rather than the trends of UK citizens (Rising immigration fuels 26-year fertility high).

I heard on Radio 4 yesterday that the official statistics for Polish immigrants is 800,000 although this doesn't include self-employed workers, which nearly all construction workers are!

I therefore have great difficulty with people who start telling others in this country not to have children due to overcrowding and problems with sustainability. Of course I understand their reasoning but if birth rates are not the issue then their argument comes over as rather naive and a bit pompous. Would they dare to tell those in the third world to stop having children because they are too poor to feed them? We could at least stop Bob Geldof ranting on if they were succesfull with that mission.

[Miss Madam]

Ah but did you also see the latest report (it was cited in the Metro and a host of papers last week) - lots of Poles are heading home as our economy starts to look shaky - as the pound slides against the Euro and the Zloty - it's just not sensible to stay. Good for them, a bit of reverse colonialism could give us a kick up the collective psyche...

[Gerontion]

I therefore have great difficulty with people who start telling others in this country not to have children due to overcrowding and problems with sustainability. Of course I understand their reasoning but if birth rates are not the issue then their argument comes over as rather naive and a bit pompous.

I'm not sure if you read all the article to which you linked but it concludes:

OPT researchers have concluded that, in the absence of radical breakthroughs in energy technology, an environmentally sustainable population for the UK may be lower than 30 million if it is to be largely self-sufficient in clean energy, if continuing damage to local and global environments is to stop, and if its citizens are to enjoy an acceptable quality of life.

so I don't think we can lay the blame for this one on Polish plumbers.

[tattercoats]

It's certainly an incentive, if we needed one, to teach the children we have useful skills so that in some starving future they will earn their keep in the community by knowing stuff, and how to do stuff.

That's my rationalisation, anyway - I had my two before I was strictly PO-aware as such, although I always knew the future was going to get rough and that finite resources do not last forever.

Now my children know that too, and their skillbase is part of the legacy I will leave the future.

As to whether parents fight shy of the main issue once they have kids, I don't know - I think the population in general is too scared to face it, kids or not.

Certainly I believe that family ties will one day again be the masinstay of how communities are structured, where cousins and second cousins are kinfolk who work alongside you rather than people to whom you forget to send a christmas card.

[RenewableCandy]

Families put off having kids during the peaks of the Cold war in 1954 and 1962 ... for no reason.

Are you sure? I always thought 1964 was the absolute peak and 1962 was well on the way up.

Possibly families in 1973 did the same during the first oil crisis .. for no reason.

Except I heard that 9 months after the winter with the power cuts, the birthrate went up. No telly to watch football on...

About immigrants, Evan Davies on the Beeb news is also commenting about Poles going home. But Cat, don't leave us

[Miss Madam]

I'm third generation, and having had a Polish father, and an English mother, my mother tongue was English and my Dad could never quite be arsed to teach us his first language. Which means that I am significantly less skilled than most of the Polish workforce who are bilingual in English and Polish. Of course, that view tends to jar with the Daily Mail's attempts to label them as lazy lay abouts who come here to steal our jobs. The Polish system of small holdings and low impact agriculture is really interesting, and should do ok post peak - so I do wish my Dad had helped me learn Polish when I was young as it is a bugger of a language to try to pick up as an adult... It could have been a good lifeboat, and as a family we do own some land in the east of Poland - which is a very fertile part of the world, and partially explains why it has so often been invaded. Unfortunately its a little close to Ukraine and Russia for my liking.... Poland's history of being invaded doesn't necessarily bode well for the future.

[Bozzio]

I therefore have great difficulty with people who start telling others in this country not to have children due to overcrowding and problems with sustainability. Of course I understand their reasoning but if birth rates are not the issue then their argument comes over as rather naive and a bit pompous.

I'm not sure if you read all the article to which you linked but it concludes:

OPT researchers have concluded that, in the absence of radical breakthroughs in energy technology, an environmentally sustainable population for the UK may be lower than 30 million if it is to be largely self-sufficient in clean energy, if continuing damage to local and global environments is to stop, and if its citizens are to enjoy an acceptable quality of life.

so I don't think we can lay the blame for this one on Polish plumbers.

I'm not blaming Polish plumbers but UK immigration as a whole. I make reference to Polish immigration to show how silly our immigration reporting is. However, as a plumber myself, I can say that the construction industry is saturated with Polish workers (most of whom are unskilled and not plumbers) who are having a big affect on our own work force. The Polish guys have little overheads, often living in shared houses which means they can work for less. And if they work hard, which they usually do, can generate a healthy income, much of which they siphon back to their families in Poland without adding to the UK economy. In the meantime, the wages for general construction workers are falling as a consequence, at a time when inflation is increasing.

The 30 million quoted in the article is only a guesstimate and besides, the point I was making is that without the very high immigration into this country, UK population would have dropped over the last 30 years even though people have had and continue to have children.

[extractorfan]

I'm not blaming Polish plumbers but UK immigration as a whole. I make reference to Polish immigration to show how silly our immigration reporting is. However, as a plumber myself, I can say that the construction industry is saturated with Polish workers (most of whom are unskilled and not plumbers) who are having a big affect on our own work force. The Polish guys have little overheads, often living in shared houses which means they can work for less. And if they work hard, which they usually do, can generate a healthy income, much of which they siphon back to their families in Poland without adding to the UK economy. In the meantime, the wages for general construction workers are falling as a consequence, at a time when inflation is increasing.

I can vouch for this, I have worked in the recruitment side of the construction industry for 10 years (please don't shoot me) and I have seen wages for a semi skilled worked fall from ?500 / week to ?300 and sometimes lower.

Wages are physically lower, not just because of inflation. It must be infuriating for those affected, in fact down right depressing.

It is not just because of immigration though, as companies have got larger they have got more power over the supplier, Unions had some power left in the 90's (believe me) but really not now. The end user client now has the power to tell the supplier what to charge.

The same happens with supermarket's and their suppliers.

[Vortex]

Vortex wrote:
Families put off having kids during the peaks of the Cold war in 1954 and 1962 ... for no reason.

Are you sure? I always thought 1964 was the absolute peak and 1962 was well on the way up.

I base that on the peak years of nuclear bunker construction.

[fifthcolumn]

My two boys don't seem to be too disgruntled about it.
The only part they genuinely don't like about all of the possible bad scenarios (ranging from no food in the supermarkets which is why we are growing our own vegetables, to no water in the taps because there's no electricty so we need to filter water from the river or the rain, to how to start fires with firewood, to taking karate classes to learn to defend themselves etc etc) is that bombs might start dropping.

Even then they are of the opinion that any nasty russians come around and they will give them the karate chop.

Perhaps they are only a little naive, but it seems that kids are much more resilient than we give them credit for.

My oldest, who is eight has an almost resigned and battle hardened attitude already. He can tell me exactly how to keep crops going, how to make sure they get enough water, how to save seeds, how to rotate the crops, how to companion plant. How to spot diseases of the plants and what to do about it.
How to control pests such as slugs.
How to compost and create natural fertiliser.

Short of the russians dropping bombs even in the worst scenario I think my boys will be fine. I have done as good a job as I can and I am proud of them.