The Nesting Instinct - Why We're Having Fewer Kids as a Society

Oct. 4, 2007

Why We're Having Fewer Kids as a Society

Sara over at Choice for Childcare blogs about a new study that explains why our birth rate is dropping. People are just too stressed to have kids, and family itself is stressful.

Many Canadians are dealing with work stress by delaying having children, having fewer offspring or deciding not to have any, says a study released Wednesday.

A quarter of the nearly 33,000 surveyed for the federally funded study say they are having fewer children than they'd like because of difficulties balancing work and family.

Twenty-eight per cent said work stress caused them to delay starting a family, or resulted in the decision not to have children at all.

I think this makes sense, but I'm also very saddened by it. The fact is that we Canadians are putting too much emphasis on the things in life that ultimately don't matter, and not caring enough about the things that do. Work comes and goes; family stays. And nothing is as fulfilling as hugging your own child. Too few people will realize this, though, because they are foregoing the experience altogether. How did we ever become so stressed, so rushed, and so self-focused?

Is all that extra money from work worth it? Do we really need to have such stressful jobs? Why not settle for less money and live out in the country where life is cheaper? I just don't understand people today. We've let the consumer culture dictate our goals, and we're losing out on true contentment.

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