Declining birthrates just fuels my anxiety

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When I've heard stories about declining birth rates and people expressing their concerns about it, it does some way aggravate the anxiety and the self-imposed pressure in my brain that my time to find a partner, settle down and start a family is ''running out'' and that I must act sooner rather than later but there is a part of me that doesn't want to rush for still not being ready. It does make me feel bad sometimes for still being single when I feel by now as a 30+ year old man I should have for a while now had settled down or married and maybe had one or two kids by now.

It is obviously concerning when birth rates decline and I seem to think strangely that it is my generation's fault that it is happening. I maybe over reacting here but that's how it feels and that's how some news and media channels put it across. It's as though fingers are being pointed at us and saying to us ''Births are declining, you must start having children now before it is too late!'' Again, this maybe an over-reaction but that's how it comes across to me.

Think this might be a Womens issues also . but when they are good and ready ...not a minute before . but I have been
finding over the years ,that our governments can be quite devious . This could sound like a conspirascy theory.
but test tube children have been incubated and concieved by mechanical means now. This sort of thing came out in the seventies .
Then you add the somewhat wild imaginings , And women ,whom want to adopt . And eventually with our type of government, one might consider , a Movie from sometime back called " The boys from Brazil" .
(((Not so hard to imagine))) with the USA government currently being the biggest supporter of the current Genocide . Science can be a wonderful thing. Except in the cases of madmen running a government.
( What if..?)
But am sure there will be some sort of subtle but intensive media campaign to support ? what ? forced procreation?
That could go with this stuff..Every man and woman has a duty to their country to birth more children.
But here is the rub ...why would you support such a Country as these , ( supporters of a genocide) And bring more children into the world to act as slaves for the kinda of countries that support killing people en masse . Is the military Industrial complex running out of cannon fodder .? (people to throw into frontline Warfare) this is not the world I wish to live in . Nor bring children into.
So you bring in more immigrants, whom just want to be in a less impoverished nation . And give them our tax dollars
as benefits and the immigrants might not have critical thinking skills.And Happily will send their babies to War to fight for their new home country .In supporting of more masse death campaigns. Just look at the repealing or overthrow of Roe V Wade ...Forced birthing of babies can now take hold. And is happening now in a large number of States in the US.
And of course Forced procreation,might make a great number of a certain group of men to be a heaven sent thing.
But to be sure the Government , wants no neurodiverse babies .So men with those diagnoses, might have to be sterilized ,And somehow removed from the breeding pool of adults authorized to procreate . Possibly,you might see the need for any government to have less people with critical thinking skills in their society.Who might see through things like Genocide and violations of Civil liberties . It would be necessary to incorporate more medium and low level IQ peeps for the Nations Wartime readiness.( cannon fodder).

No, we shouldn’t feel personally obligated to have children.

It’s probably not a good idea for people to have kids unless they really want them and can care for them properly. Being a parent isn’t right for everyone. In life, I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t pay much attention to what people think I should do (or to what I think people think I ought to do) because it doesn’t matter. What matters is finding my own path in life and pursuing happiness wherever possible. Those things are going to look vastly different for every person, so comparing yourself to others doesn’t make much sense. Some people want and have kids. I have a son (who’s about to turn 14! ). Others decide that another path in life is right for them. There’s nothing wrong with that.

With that being said and on a macro level, I think the birth rate could increase if governments helped out parents more. Some people want kids but decide that they can’t afford to have them.

Correspondingly, the state has the obligation to take responsibility for raising children and compensating parents for their losses.

I don't know why but whenever issues like these are raised, it feels fingers are pointing at me and my generation to HAVE kids regardless of whether we want to or not. It sometimes makes me feel like not enjoying the 30s as a single man and seeing other people having kids makes feel as though they are rushing to have them from 30 onwards and that even as a man I have to as well despite hearing from people to not rush it because it won't make things any better and might end up regretting it.

Don't worry. Birthrates are low in England, but still very high in other parts of the world.

maga tells me I shoulda got college degree and started a family decades ago, but they know not their head from a hole in the ground, they insist on shoving this square peg through a round hole but I continue to resist. not everybody is well suited for family life.

The only reason the state of any country is bothered about their citizens having children is to add to the labour force and for these future children to pay taxes. There is nothing mandatory about any of this - a person can choose to withold from having children, especially in the event they don't feel like their environment is supporting of them having such children, whether financially or otherwise.

People often don't have children in richer countries, because doing so is financially difficult, especially with how badly a lot of people are paid relative to the cost of living and the difficulty of achieving a 'normal' life on meagre incomes.

If the rich were taxed sufficiently and life was fairer, more people might be optimistic about the prospect of having children.

Even if there is a birth decline, it would never be tragic enough to cause any sort of collapse in society. The UK is waaaay too overcrowded as it is, I think a birth decline is what we might need anyway. Just think how tiny the UK is compared to other countries. We can handle it, what with stupid geniuses replacing a lot of people's jobs with machines nowadays, there'll never be a shortage of people to do human-operated jobs.

It's just harder to have kids now if you're in an average working class family because of the high expectations of women having to work. When I was growing up my parents weren't rich at all but we still managed fine with my dad pulling in most the wage and my mum just doing a part-time 10-hour a week low-paid job. These days a lot of working class families, even in council, won't be able to get by on that and the women would usually be obliged to work more to make ends meet and not get to be at home much. So many toddlers I know have to go to nursery 4-5 days a week, 8am-4pm, so that both the parents can work enough hours to make ends meet, which I think is too much for 2-year-olds. They need to be at home with their mothers more. When I was growing up it was common for toddlers to go to nursery about 9 hours a week on average. So no wonder many people, especially women, don't want to bring kids into this world now. If I had baby I'd rather be at home with them as much as possible, and be able to have some time to myself while they are at (part-time) nursery.

Good.

Issue is largely/entirely out of our control.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79llljy4qeo