August 7, 2025 • 60 mins
Are Americans having fewer children because we're too poor—or because we're too wealthy? This provocative question launches our exploration into plummeting birth rates and changing family structures across America and other developed nations.
When fertility rates drop below replacement level, what does it mean for our future? We dive into recent statistics showing U.S. birth rates hitting historic lows (fewer than 1.6 children per woman) while challenging conventional narratives about why this is happening. Contrary to popular belief, data consistently shows that more affluent societies have fewer children—not the other way around.
We examine how the rise of individualism has fundamentally altered family formation patterns. Where multi-generational households once provided built-in support systems for young parents, modern couples often feel they must establish themselves independently before starting families. This cultural shift has removed traditional safety nets and created logical incentives to delay parenthood.
The conversation takes a personal turn as we reflect on our own family experiences—one from a close-knit "tribal" background where cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents provided a rich support network, the other with a more typical modern American family structure. These personal stories illuminate how different family configurations shape our perspectives on when and how to have children.
Whether you're wrestling with family planning decisions or simply curious about the demographic forces shaping our society, this thoughtful discussion offers valuable perspective on one of the most consequential choices we make—both individually and collectively.
Listen now to find your own place in this important conversation about how we build families in modern America, and what we might be losing—or gaining—along the way.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Does it feel like every part of your life is
divided, Every scenario, everyenvironment, your church, your
school, your work, your friends,left right, conservative,
liberal, religious, secular?
It seems you always have totake a side.
This is a conversation betweena progressive Christian and a
conservative atheist who happento be great friends.
(00:23):
Welcome to Living on CommonGround.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Do you think if we met today, we would still be
friends.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
I don't know, but we're friends now.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
A mob is no less a mob because they are with him,
man.
So what?
We won a few games and y'allfools think that's something.
Man, that ain't nothing, y'all.
And you know what else?
We ain't nothing either.
Yeah, we came together in camp,cool.
But then we're right back hereand the world tells us that they
(01:00):
don't want us to be together.
We fall apart like we ain't adamn bit of nothing, man.
How you doing.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
I am great Krista says that she's going to
throttle me if she hears us askif we're recording one more time
to start off the episode.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And so I'm asking are we recording?
Yeah, oh good, okay, yep, yes,in fact, from now on, krista, my
clue to lucas will simply behow you doing yeah and that
means that I'm recording.
It's the same way that we dothe weekly update video and then
I'll ask are we?
recording.
Okay, so that was all just forKrista.
Yes, we are, and so, anyway,today we're going to talk about
(01:55):
birth rates in the United States.
We're going to start out first,but we're going to talk about
birth rates, but then we're alsogoing to talk about the idea of
the impact that waiting to havechildren is having on birth
rates as well, as is the declinein birth rates and or is the
(02:17):
waiting longer to have childrenand to begin families connected
to the wealth that we have?
Speaker 6 (02:29):
As a country.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
As a country, well, and I think really in the West,
because I mean we're going tolook at the so okay, let's do
this.
Let's start with.
I got a clip.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
Hang on.
I'm going to say very clearly,though this all started because
I this is, this is one statementthat I do stand behind Yep
Pretty stridently and I'mwilling to back it up yeah, I'm
not going to read any of yourstatements.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
If you want to make them, you make them yeah, I'm
going to make this one.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
there's some of them that I won't make because I I
made these statements to beintentionally inflammatory.
But this one that that peoplewould be better off getting
married younger and having kidsyounger and having more kids
Okay, I am willing to put myneck out on that.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
So just out of curiosity, before the clip now
yeah, how old were you when Reedwas born?
Speaker 6 (03:16):
Yeah, okay, okay.
I was Well, okay, so he got.
He was born in 08.
Jeez, I'm terrible about this.
I was.
I think I was like 26.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Okay 27.
In my mind that's younger.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
Yeah, I was 27.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I was 27.
Okay.
Speaker 6 (03:42):
That is not younger man.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay, I was 34 when Madison our first was born and
Denise was 27.
I was 27.
Okay, I was not younger man.
Okay, I was 34 when Madison ourfirst was born.
Speaker 7 (03:47):
And Denise was 33.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Mm-hmm, and then she turned 34.
Yeah.
And then Robbie came threeyears later.
So I was 37 when Robbie wasborn.
So, yeah, we waited.
Yeah, we didn't wait as long asDenise's sister, who was early
40s Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Was she 40?
Okay, so I do want to say alsoyeah, she was in her 40s.
This is delicate, obviously,because as soon as we start
talking about people, individualpeople, it's going to sound
real judgy.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Right and so okay, just to say this too the reason
I bring up our family is just togive us an idea of um, what
we're talking about in terms ofolder adults, um, adults that
are traditionally older forchildbearing.
(04:38):
I don't think on my, I don'tthink there's a judgment on it
at all.
I think it's just a reality ofthe culture that we live in.
Speaker 6 (04:46):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So I attach no judgment to identifying the fact
that at 40 years old,traditionally you're getting
beyond what they would callquote-unquote parenting.
Speaker 6 (04:57):
Well, and that's not just a culture thing, though.
I mean that's a biological thing.
And also just for context aswell, that's a biological thing.
And, and, and also just forcontext as well, um, my, uh, my
grandmother who raised me, mygrandparents who raised me, uh,
she now think, whatever, youwanted this, and this is the
fifties in California.
The fifties in California, uh,she got married when my grandpa
(05:20):
was 20 and she was 16 and shehad all three of her kids by the
time she was 21.
Yep, and then done.
So that's that's the context,that I knew that, yeah, and then
, um, and again, I'm not tryingto well and we'll play this clip
and then move on with theconversation, but, um, I also
want to make sure that it'sreally clear that I'm not trying
(05:41):
to say this is, I think there'sa rhetorical trap that we fall
into sometimes where, uh, we gowell, I think that it would be
better if X, and then people say, well, you didn't do X, and
then you try to justify why youdidn't do X, or maybe you try to
like slide into really, I did,because blah, blah, blah, no,
(06:02):
blah, no, I.
Um, obviously everyone'ssituation is different.
Um, but we didn't, I mean, we,we did get married.
We did get married young,according to like what most
people would think I was oh, Igot married young.
We waited 11 years, though, tohave kids okay, so you did okay,
all right, okay, I was thinkingit was going to be.
(06:23):
I was thinking you got marrieda little bit.
No of course, because you guysmet in college.
Yeah, you got married right outof college.
Yes, yeah, we got engaged incollege.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Uh-huh, we got married.
And let's see, I got married in93.
Yeah, I was born in 71.
So I was still 21.
I turned 22 the next month.
So okay, Denise was 21.
She didn't turn 22 untilNovember.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
Okay, so I turned 21 the month before I got married,
so pretty much the samesituation.
Yeah, we just waited a littlebit less.
Yeah, we waited 11 years beforewe had Madison.
So you can tell me to shut upand mind my own business, but
was that a clear?
We're deciding to wait thatlong, so um.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
so, when we got married, Denise's father said to
us just remember that you'reyoung, enjoy each other for a
while.
And so that was all he said,and and we did.
And then, though, and we did.
Then though we also did havesome fertility issues, as did we
(07:29):
.
It was so funny, though,because, like of course, it's
easier to first test the guy.
Sure, right, yeah, and so Iwent to a doctor.
Yeah.
And I did what I needed to do inorder to be tested.
Uh-huh, and I did what I neededto do in order to be tested and
(08:29):
when we went back he said to meI'll never forget he said you
played football right?
And I said yeah.
And he said okay, let me put itlike this you don't have any
All-Americans in told I was told, you have plenty of guys, lots
of guys.
None of them want to doanything.
They're all real lethargic nowthat the comedy's over?
Speaker 7 (08:38):
well, maybe for now.
Here's the clip.
This is a news clip actuallyfrom just in June of this year
on CBS.
Listen to this the birth ratein the US is dropping and
actually hit an all-time low in2024.
Fewer than 1.6 children wereborn per woman last year.
In the early 1960s, the totalfertility rate was around 3.5.
But a CDC review of birthcertificates released earlier
(08:58):
this year found a 1% increase inlive births in 2024.
That's about 33,000 more thanthe year prior.
Here to explain is Dr JoanneStone.
She's a maternal fetal medicinespecialist and a professor and
chair at the Icahn School ofMedicine at Mount Sinai.
Dr Stone, thank you so much forjoining us.
So my first question is explainwhat this means that the
(09:18):
fertility rate is dropping butthe number of births increased.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So the general fertility rate means the number
of births given to women who areaged 15 to 44 per 1,000 women.
So while the number of birthsactually increase, the number of
births per woman decrease.
So there's just a larger pool,and it's really interesting when
you break it down intoage-specific numbers.
(09:43):
So women aged 15 to 34 had adecline in number of births,
women aged 35 to 39 were stableand women who are 40 to over had
an increase in births.
So it's really those women intheir 40s that are driving that
small increase in births.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
And doctor, do we know why we're seeing a decline
in the fertility rate?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Well, fertility rate, I think, is an indicator of
public health.
I think we have to ask thequestion why is that?
I think things like access toreproductive care, health
economics, the cost of living,housing and paid parental leave
are key factors to that decreasein birth rate.
Speaker 7 (10:22):
When we do see a dip in the fertility rate like this,
is that something we should beconcerned about?
Why does that matter?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I think it matters because there's less people
coming into the workplace.
I mean, years from now we'regoing to have less workers, less
people in the classroom, so Ithink that it does have a large
impact on the overall population.
Speaker 7 (10:39):
Now the Trump administration has actually been
trying to encourage Americansto have more children.
We're seeing benefits expandedaccess to IVF, baby bonuses to
families, things like that.
Could those potentially beeffective?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I think there's a lot of controversy about that.
What is the actual impact goingto be?
So that executive bill isasking for recommendations?
I'm not sure it's going toimpact our low-income women and
have access to those women whoseek those kind of care, and we
know the maternity desertsacross rural America so well.
I think it remains to be seenwhat that impact will be.
Speaker 7 (11:14):
And when we talk about the fertility rate, I mean
this is is it economical, Is itcultural, Is it a lot of
factors that are influencing?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I think it's a lot of factors and I think the fact
that we're seeing women in their40s show that women are
delaying childbearing for bothpersonal and professional
reasons.
Medical advances are reallyimportant.
Advances in reproductivetechnology are helping women who
are older have children, but Ithink overall that's what's
driving the gene.
Speaker 7 (11:41):
All right, dr Joanne Stone.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
We appreciate it.
Thank you All right, dr JoanneStone.
Thank you so much for joiningus, we appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
Thank you All right there was a lot of information
there.
What are your initial thoughtsin regards to what we're talking
about?
So we're kind of transitioninghere in the conversation to a
more societal conversation,which is fine, um uh.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I just I kind of see it all connected.
Speaker 6 (12:11):
It is connected.
It is connected for sure, butum I, when I look at this, I do
think of it as two separatethings.
Okay.
One being the choice for anindividual couple.
Mm-hmm.
When do they want?
To couple when do they want to,how do they?
want to structure their livesand what kind of trade-offs do
they want?
And then, uh, the societalimpacts or, uh, the societal
(12:37):
changes that are happening, um,and what we can kind of predict
from that and how we shouldthink of that.
Is there a should that weshould, you know?
Should we think of it in anyway?
Right?
So I have a couple thoughts.
Number one is this issue it'sso interesting that it's have
(12:59):
you, it's so interesting.
Let me finish this sentence.
It's so interesting that it'sbecoming a bubbling up to the
surface news story right now.
Maybe it shouldn't beinteresting to me, actually, now
that I'm thinking about this.
Anyway, have you ever had thisexperience where you're into
(13:22):
some aspect of society orhistory or something and you
research it and you study it andthere's some people who are
talking about it but they're notknown to any of your friends.
They're not known to mostpeople.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
It happens to me all the time.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
And you're like, oh, this is interesting and they're
talking about some issue, someissue, and so you kind of have,
um, you kind of have a, aconcept of this issue and you
know that people are talkingabout it, you know the arguments
for and against this, whatever,um, but nobody that you know
(13:58):
talks about it, and then itcontinues to.
You continue to follow it.
You know it's a continued issue, but nobody, nobody really
cares.
Then, like 10 years later, 15years later, people start
talking about it as if it'sbrand new.
You know, I felt this way aboutAI.
I'm not trying to say like, oh,I knew about AI before, it was
(14:19):
cool, although I kind of did.
I kind of do feel like that.
I know, intellectually that'snot the case, but I was
listening to people like elonmusk and sam harris and some of
the other big thinkers who weretalking about the, the paperclip
problem and all of this kind ofstuff, um, llms and that kind
of thing.
Like 10 years ago, I waslistening to elon musk talk
about how, uh, he had, prior tothat, been sounding the alarm.
(14:43):
Nobody cared and so he haddecided at that point this is
like eight, nine years ago orwhatever, we only have one
choice and that's to meld withit, because we're never going to
stop it, and that's whereNeuralink came from.
This is another one.
So Mark Stein wrote a book inthe early 2000s called America
(15:05):
Alone, where he was talking atthat point about birth rates.
That was the main focus of thebook.
There's other aspects of thebook as well.
It's the silent driver of allcivilization.
Civilizations rise and fall ondemographics.
(15:29):
And what he was pointing out atthe time and I pulled up these
statistics so that I could havethem was that in 2000, by 2000,
almost every single WesternEuropean country was well,
number one.
All of them were belowreplacement rate.
(15:50):
All of them, most of them, hadgotten to what some demographers
this is just a term would callcollapse rate or severe
demographic decline rate, like1.3 per woman, mm-hmm.
Right, these countries and Ihave these, but like Western
Europe and other developedcountries, japan was like this
(16:30):
as well, korea was like this aswell.
You look across the globe in theearly 2000s, if you're a
developed country, what we wouldconsider a developed country,
you had below replacement,except the states united states
and there's a couple other ones,but it was mostly the united
states was still at like 2.2,2.3, but he points out that's
(16:55):
because we have uh birthrightcitizenship, uh, you know, uh
unconditional birthrightcitizenship, so we are counting
every birth happening, right?
So, whatever you think aboutillegal immigration, those birds
were counted.
His point was this is obviouslyan underlying incentive for the
(17:19):
politicians to not solve theillegal immigration problem,
because we need it to prop upour economic systems, because
it's the only thing that'skeeping us above replacement.
Well, what they're pointing outhere in this clip is because
we're still we're still countingeveryone right, they're
pointing out, it's stilldropping below replacement I
(17:40):
have a number that I've found11.9 births per 1000 people.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
That sounds to me like it's below replacement.
That's right.
That's quite a bit, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
So yeah, cause in the in theclip they they talk about the
problems that that you begin tohave as a society when your
birth rate drops below.
But I want to go back a littlebit, because we talked about the
(18:11):
factors, like when we talkabout deciding whether or not to
have children, or decidingwhether or not to have children
later in life.
Yeah, the original topic wasthis idea, because I think that
in my mind, the decision to havechildren later in life is also
the determining factor for thedrop in birth rates, because it
becomes more and more difficultto have them.
Speaker 6 (18:33):
Absolutely Right, I also see that the economic… to
wait and somebody who woulddecide to have less and focus
more of their economic assets,whatever their economic force,
into a smaller pool, right?
(18:54):
So anyway, go ahead no, no,absolutely our.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Our mentality was we can still divide and conquer.
Yeah, with only two.
Yeah, um, and we've replaced.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
That's right.
We did our part and you gotboth of them to sexual maturity.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
That's important, and we got a guy and a girl.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
Yeah you, we completely replaced.
That's right, you did.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yep, so I'm done.
I can now become dirt.
Speaker 6 (19:18):
As long as somebody else got three, you need
somebody to get three.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Well, that was where I was counting on you, but you
blew it, I know, and you got twoguys.
Speaker 6 (19:27):
I don't know what you're doing.
I know I'm not doing anything.
I know.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So all right, so you have an economic factor that
contributes to the, to thepersonal decision of whether or
not we're going to have children, and that impacts birth rates.
But when you say that it isbetter, right, for who?
(19:53):
Yeah, okay, that's the questionI have.
Better for who?
Speaker 6 (19:58):
Yeah, so when I'm talking about that that's why
I'm saying like I do separatethose two statements a little
bit in my mind when I'm talkingabout better, I am talking about
for um, let me, let me makethis argument as succinct as I
(20:19):
can.
I'm not talking about for thesociety, I'm not relating it
that way.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
I'm saying I think humans greatest Like humans'
greatest drive is towardresponsibility and purpose.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
Even though, on an objective level, I don't see
anything higher than takingresponsibility as being the
purpose for my life, and I thinkthat, just like all other
organisms, our greatest drive isto replace ourselves.
(21:09):
I think that the greatestopportunity for fulfillment is
in creating a family.
So I do think, on the aggregate, it's a more enriched life to
(21:34):
mate, have a family and pouryour life into that family.
I think that that is anenriched life.
And for the kids now, there'salways the argument that it's
better for the kids to haveolder parents because they have
more money.
That's always the argument thatit comes down to Um and you
(21:57):
know, I, in a particular um,under a particular perspective,
I can understand that Um.
However, I also know that thereis an kind of an, an ancient
process whereby large familieshave the kids having this
(22:22):
experience of not only being thekid to the parent but also
being a parent to the youngerkids and having it be this kind
of tribe um that I think I, youknow, I think it's trade-off
when we've, when we have,smaller families, um later in
life.
You know, I think that there isum, something to the um, having
(22:45):
to figure it out when you'reyoung.
Everyone knows that they lookback at those young years as
like these golden years.
You know, like um, and I knowwhen you're in it it's really
hard.
I mean I, I obviously I've I'veexperienced that as well, so I
understand that, um.
(23:06):
I just think I, I think thatwe're trading off things that we
don't, we don't realize we'retrading off when we're waiting
later and later and having lessand less.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
So a couple couple thoughts.
One is, um, you, you talkedabout, the greatest opportunity
to experience fulfillment iswith the family, right?
Um, I would love to talk aboutfulfillment because I'm not sure
that we can ever actuallyexperience it.
Okay, okay, um, I think, Ithink fulfillment is one of
(23:38):
those things that is everelusive.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
Mm-hmm, I think you and Rollins probably would agree
on that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Um, and which is probably why I've enjoyed
reading.
By the way, there was one otherbook of his that I read that I
failed to mention, so I I heldback a little bit of the fanboy,
okay, um, uh, it's, it's, uh,the divine what was it?
Called.
Anyway, I've got, uh, rightover there, the divine magician,
oh yeah, um, so anyway, um, Ithink that's one of the reasons
(24:07):
I really like peter rollins isbecause the reason I think he's
brilliant is because we agree ona lot of stuff.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
Yeah, that's what makes people brilliant.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
So, but I do think that the discussion about
fulfillment probably needs to bea completely separate
conversation.
Sure, so for the time being Iwill.
I'll grant you that.
Speaker 6 (24:32):
I also think that we're animals.
I don't you.
I think we're animals and Ithink this concept of a soul is
an emergent concept and it comesout of human experience, and I
would, I want to have as humanof an experience as possible to
develop this thing called a soul, and I think that I think that
(24:53):
pouring myself into my family isthe number one thing for me to
do Now.
I will say this, I will grantthis it may be that where our
society is currently andactually this gets back to the
demographic thing and my wholeargument that it's actually
wealthy countries that havelower birth rates it's not
(25:16):
because we don't have enoughmoney to have kids, it's when we
have more money we have lesskids.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Oh yeah, I don't think you could actually argue
with that.
Speaker 6 (25:23):
Well, that is the argument happening online right
now, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
The argument happening online right now is
what?
Speaker 6 (25:28):
I know you're not on social media, but if you go on
social media Reddit, whateverthe younger millennials I'm an
elder millennial, that anybodywho's like 30 and under.
they are convinced.
Well, and I shouldn't say they,as if they're one big block,
but you know what I mean.
There is a strong argumentbeing made.
The reason our birth rates aredropping is because we're all so
(25:49):
poor.
That's why, because we don'thave enough money.
And so and that was an argumentthat that woman was making too,
that woman, that doctor, wasmaking Part of her argument for
why it was happening was becausenumber one, she said, lack of
access to fertility care, whichdoesn't make any sense at all,
(26:12):
because the drop is in youngermoms.
There's an increase.
She even said there's anincrease in older moms.
Well, those are the ones whowould be using fertility care.
So it doesn't make any sensethat having less fertility care
would cause a drop in youngermoms.
But she also said that lack ofaccess to-.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I'm glad, by the way, there's a drop in birth rates
among 15, 16, 17, 18-year-olds.
It's interesting, isn't it?
Mm-hmm, I think that's a greatthing, myself.
Speaker 6 (26:44):
I know when we were growing up well, you're 10 years
older than me, so you tell me,when I was growing up, when I
was in high school, the numberone thing people talked about
was teen pregnancy.
You don't talk about that atall anymore.
Nobody cares about teenpregnancy anymore.
I think it's not an issue.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, but also the thing.
It's just, it's not an issue,but I think it's also become.
It's not as taboo as it used tobe.
Do you think that's what it is?
I think so Because I know thatthey have daycares now in high
schools and it's not for theteachers.
I understand that, I mean backwhen I was a kid but if a girl
got?
Pregnant.
Yeah, yeah, I mean we, you knowwell.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
She got shipped off to an aunt's house or whatever,
and it's a it's a main storylinein in dangerous minds, one of
my absolute favorite films forthe 90s.
Okay, that's a shout out to mywife.
Yeah, that, one of the that thesmartest, the most the smartest
student in her class, you know,I'll just say in her ghetto
class.
That was the whole point of themovie.
Right, she's in a ghetto school.
(27:45):
Okay, and the smartest one, thebright one, the one that was
really going places got pregnantand the school was like, well,
we have a school for teenagemoms that teaches them about how
to take care of the baby andblah, blah, blah.
And the whole plot line was,well, you don't have to go, you
(28:08):
can still graduate and get yourdegree.
And she's like, no, I'm notgoing to.
And then she shows up at theend, you know, and it's all, and
it's supposed to be like a no,you, you know, we want you still
here in school, but I would.
I would be interested in seeingwhat the statistics are,
because I I know that I havebeen tracking demographers
(28:29):
talking about how, um, teenagersand, uh, 20-somethings are
having less sex, just in general, right, and so it's this
interesting thing.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
I also think there's less taboo around birth control.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
That's probably true.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Because, when, I was in high school.
I can remember when I was incollege Because, like when I was
in high school, I can rememberwhen I was in college, there was
a clinic in the town that I wasin school, in St Augustine, and
you could go and get.
You'd get a lunch bag full ofcondoms if you wanted them, but
(29:13):
there were guys in college thatwere so embarrassed and so
ashamed that they would go downand like, put in fake
information.
Sure, because you had to putyour information so they could,
you know, turn it in and gettheir grants or whatever, yeah,
um, nowadays I don't.
I think that most people are,it's just commonplace.
Well, the things that are ingrocery store like if I go into
walgreens to pick up myprescription the things that are
on the shelf now under familyplanning, blow my mind.
(29:33):
All right, we don't need to getinto that Real quick.
Shout out though for a podcastI would highly recommend to
people that have to do with teenpregnancy, and then we'll kind
of move off of that and get backinto our topic here.
But it's called Liberty Lost.
Have you heard of this?
No, so it's a.
It's a short, a short.
Um, what do you call thosewhere it's like maybe nine
(29:55):
episodes, but it's the?
it's just like an in-depthreport yeah whatever you,
whatever you call that, yeah andum, it's put out by it doesn't
matter.
Put it out, but anyway it'sreally interesting.
It's about the um maternalhouses that liberty university
has oh okay, and that's all I'mgoing to say.
I would highly recommendlistening to that.
(30:17):
Okay and okay.
Speaker 6 (30:19):
Well, look, let me just go on the record and say I
think you should get marriedbefore you mate.
Okay, I do think that.
Oh, yeah, I think so too.
So I think that you should begetting married.
I think get married young, havekids young, that's fine.
(30:52):
So, yes, I'm happy that youknow a 15 year old experimenting
with having sex with herboyfriend isn't getting pregnant
, right, I'm supposed to say I'mhappy that they're not having
sex Right, because that's whatwe were worried about in the 90s
, when you're in college.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I'm in high school.
We were participating in someform of it, and so I also think
that some of that, that ourexperience, has to do with a
morality that was given to usbased on faith, which I think is
fine, sure that's where I'll befine with that.
I also think that Christianitysomehow got warped into being
(31:30):
about moral policing, but that'sagain.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
We can have a long conversation about that, because
I think that that's actuallyinherent to humans and that any
kind of religion is going to befocused on violence and sex.
We're just coming up with somany topics right now, are you?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
writing these all down.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
We need you writing these down?
No, but I'm.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Fulfillment and morality.
Speaker 6 (31:49):
I am saying so there's this little I've seen it
written in schools and there'sthis little like three rule, uh,
uh, agenda, that's not theright word.
Anyway, it's like these threerules, um, and I don't know
where it came, where it comesfrom, actually, but it's like
(32:13):
somebody did this study and ifyou followed these three rules,
Do you remember the rules?
Yeah, I'm going to tell you therules.
Okay, good, if you don't followthese rules, there's something
like a 75% chance you end upbelow the poverty line.
It's a correlative situation,right, it's not causation, it's
correlation, but it's a realstrong correlation, so it's you
(32:35):
might as well follow it, or lookat it, you know, and if you do
follow the three rules, it'slike it's almost impossible for
you to fall below the povertyline.
Um, uh, let me remember itfinish high school, get married
(32:56):
after you finish high school anddon't have a kid before you get
married.
I think that's the three things.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Sounds like If you do that Sounds like good advice.
Speaker 6 (33:07):
It's, but think about that, though.
I mean, it's something that hasto be said for huge.
Well, it's not.
I don't know if you don't thinkabout, if you don't, how rough
your life would be.
You know how difficult life is.
Um, I do want to finish my mythought, which is it could be
(33:32):
that we live in a society sostructured and I don't think
it's been structured likethere's a conspiracy to
structure it this way.
I just think it's developed intothis of half it's.
We're kind of pushed into thissituation of like it'd be better
(33:59):
for me as an individual to wait, because we don't live in
tribes, we don't havemulti-generational households,
we don't, you know, if you hadthe multi-generational household
.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I do.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
You get married, well , okay.
But think I have people I knowthey're all immigrants, these
people I know that I'm going totalk about.
That's important because theyare from very distinctly
different cultures, and they areall these people that I'm
(34:32):
thinking of.
They're very successful.
We would consider themsuccessful economically.
I would also consider themsuccessful socially, like
familially right, with theirfamily.
They're all multi-generationhouseholds.
Mom and dad came over withvirtually nothing.
They built up some business,lived like they were poor.
(34:55):
They had kids.
Their kids grew up.
It was no expectation for thekids to leave and go out and
forge their own way at 18 yearsold, right?
No expectation.
It was no expectation for thekids to leave and go out and
forge their own way at 18 yearsold, right?
No expectation.
There was an expectation.
However, you work for thefamily, you go to school, you,
you know you do the thingsyou're supposed to do.
You get married.
When you get married, yourspouse moves in with us.
(35:16):
Now you guys are contributing,right?
You have kids.
Now we have three generationsin here and at that point, maybe
it's time for you to.
Now there's a section of thebusiness that you can take over
and you go start your mayberight, that seems like a village
.
More to me that seems like atribe.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah no-transcript.
Speaker 6 (36:11):
You know you're going to be at the bottom of the as
jordan peterson call it, theprado distribution.
You know you'll be at thebottom of that hierarchy.
It's going to take a while toto, you know, step up on it.
So yeah, I can see why for anindividual it would be
beneficial to wait.
And uh, you know, it's kind oflike the tragedy of the commons
(36:36):
problem where, like, what's goodfor me doesn't end up being
good for the group.
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Well, someone that was pulled out of tribe, right,
because I grew up with whatyou're describing.
Okay, I grew up where I livedwith my grandparents and my mom
and my mom's sisters all stilllived at home.
Down the street was my mom'soldest brother, his wife and my
(37:04):
two cousins.
The other way, just a fewblocks, was my middle, the
middle child, another uncle withhis wife and young family, and
then when I was in eighth gradeand so that, like no-transcript.
Speaker 6 (37:47):
Yeah, it was like oh he lives in Fairview now.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, which cause they were going to.
This was like going to be thefirst time kids didn't go to
Rocky river high schools.
Yeah, and then we moved out toNorth Ridgeville, which, oh my
gosh, that was like a full 20minutes away.
But even then it was very mucha tribe, like we all, all the
generations, were there and weall played together and we all
(38:10):
hung together and and eventhough you had friends, these
were like your best friends.
And then in eighth grade I gotripped out of that and ever
since then I think I have likemy goal in life is to create
tribe.
So anyway, I I firmly believethat we have done ourselves a
(38:34):
disservice by pushing so hard onthe American rugged
individualism.
Speaker 6 (38:39):
Well, and it's what I'm gonna use, this phrase, it's
gonna be a lot of you.
It's what tamed the west.
Uh, yeah, it, but but it, butit is the.
I think that it's the, it's thebut even then tribes went
together that's true, but whatI'm saying is um, yeah, but by
the time you piled up incalifornia, there was a lot of
(39:00):
people who didn't have any placeto go back to because they had
burned all their bridges.
That's what made up Californiafor us, but anyway, yeah, I
think that it's a repercussionand, to be clear, I think there
are a lot of benefits toindividualism, but I think that
this is a repercussion.
What I think is interestingabout your story you left when
(39:22):
you were eight, eighth grade,eighth grade.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
So like 12, 13.
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (39:29):
So you know your experience of it was, as the kid
, having these emotional bondswith your cousins and uncles I
lost.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
like I burst into tears as we drove off my street.
Speaker 6 (39:41):
I can only imagine I burst into tears as we drove off
my street.
I can only imagine.
But if you were an adult inthat, I'll bet there was an
enormous amount of economicbenefit from that.
Somebody has drywall that'srotting out and you've got three
guys that can come over, theuncles can come over, yep,
(40:04):
whatever, pick your thing.
So there'd be that as well.
Childcare, well, which is whenyou're in a true kind of kinship
society, which yours was kindof a quasi kinship society
(40:25):
inside of this american society.
Um, it's unacceptable for thatsociety to allow, like one of
your aunts and uncles to losetheir home and nobody knows,
right.
That'd be unacceptable yeahabsolutely Like everyone would
feel a sense of shame, you know,unless they had done something
(40:48):
to particularly pull themselvesout of the kin and you know
whatever.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Yeah, it's almost like you had a safety net around
you.
Speaker 6 (40:55):
That's right, that is the safety net.
And when we take that away as asociety, guess what has to step
in is the government has tostep in with safety nets.
Now you can also argue that thegovernment sometimes starts
that process and rips up thesafety nets of the family.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
I would argue that that has happened a lot of times
.
You create dependency on thegovernment sure.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
Time government sure.
But yeah, I mean, you know, Iwe're just talking about this.
Chris and I were just talkingabout this yesterday.
We've got this friend who livesin indiana and she lives in the
town that she grew up in andI'll get this wrong, but she has
like something like 30 or 40cousins that live in town and
she said, like I live here,she's educated, her husband's
educated, they're, and that'simportant because, like they are
(41:44):
mobile, they travel a lot toEurope and what I you know, they
could move, they could livewherever really, and get jobs
and be fine.
Um, and she said, if, if myfamily wasn't here, there's,
there's no other reason to livein Fortville, indiana.
You know, we're looking atwhere our kid's going to land
and trying to decide if thatneeds to determine where we live
.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
And just one last thought about that, because then
I want to kind of run through.
I pulled up two articles andthen I compiled, like what they
have as the benefits of marryingand having children younger, or
what's the benefits of delayingmarriage and starting a family
later, and there's a couple ofdifferent articles that I pulled
this from, and so I want tokind of wrap it up with that.
But you mentioned that, comingfrom a different culture, I will
(42:29):
say that my grandparents werefirst-generation United States
and I think that that probablyhad something to do with it too.
From where the Netherlands?
Speaker 6 (42:40):
From the Netherlands, okay.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would imagine.
Yeah, I mean my mom still.
Speaker 6 (42:48):
well, I don't know if she still does, but for a long
time she still kept in contactwith cousins in the netherlands
and so just to be clear reallyquickly with your situation,
then it wasn't like everyone's,it wasn't like we're taking care
of grandma, grandpa.
Then it's like grandma andgrandpa set up this shop and
everyone stayed here not thatthey didn't take care of grandma
and grandpa, but my point islike there's this other thing of
(43:08):
like my parent has gotten tooold to be able to live on her
own, his own whatever, and sowe've moved them into our house.
That's a different thing.
Yeah, that's fine, that's good.
Right, I think that's good too,but that's a different thing
from we set up shop.
This is now like kind of ourfiefdom if you want to say we're
(43:29):
responsible for these peopleand our descendants.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
And then we're responsible for them.
Speaker 6 (43:35):
And then there's a responsibility that goes out.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
And even when they're still very capable.
So when I lived with mygrandparents, they both still
worked.
Yeah, right, they were stillbringing income into the home.
Yeah, and the only one that wasstill in school was my Aunt
Gail.
Yeah.
She was in high school.
She might have been a senior inhigh school at the time, but I
also then knew, like my grandmaand grandpa's brothers and
sisters, mm-hmm, then knew likemy grandma and grandpa's
(44:03):
brothers and sisters, and theywere part of our tribe and their
kids were part of the tribe andyou know, sort of you still had
them too.
Like my first baseball glovewas given to me from my mom's
cousin's son, who I knew, yeahRight, and who I would go and
watch the television show planetof the Apes at their house and
I loved being at their house.
(44:24):
I knew my great grandparents,john and Jenny, who it was
actually Johan, but anyway, butwhen they got to the United
States it became John and Jenny.
My brother and sister are namedafter, like John is a
generational name in our familyand so, like we just, you just
knew everyone and I have I havememories and stories that go
(44:46):
along with that.
Like I can remember when mygreat grandfather got older, I
would, um, we would go visit himall the time and, uh, he lived
in a little apartment and, um,my grandmother had passed away
at this time and and, uh, Iwould, um, I would eat his
peaches becauseaches, because heloved peaches and cottage
cheese.
Well, he liked the cottagecheese, he didn't like the
(45:08):
peaches, and so he gave me thecanned peaches all the time.
Speaker 6 (45:15):
So anyway, but there was something to be said for
that.
Yeah, that baseball mitt wasnot a baseball mitt to you.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
No, it was Chris's mitt.
Speaker 6 (45:20):
That was your time.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (45:22):
That was a coming of it.
That was like a.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
When I lost that mitt , I was devastated.
By the time I lost it, it wasfalling apart.
Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 6 (45:30):
Because it was your position in the family.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (45:34):
It was a representation of your position
in this world.
You know, I say yeah, I getthat.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
So, all right.
So we world, you know, I say,yeah, I get that.
So all right, so we're going towrap this one up back.
I feel like we digressed alittle bit, but it all connects
to, I think.
Just to kind of connecteverything again, we're talking
about what are the benefits of,uh, having getting married and
having children?
Younger is is.
Is that better than waiting?
(46:00):
Um, we talked about that thereare— we agreed that it is.
Not yet.
We'll find our common groundhere in a minute.
But we agreed that part of thedecision-making, whether it's
good or bad or whether it's trueor not, is economics.
There's also this culturalinfluence beyond simply
economics, beyond capitalistcapitalism.
(46:24):
There's also this idea thatwe've lost a little bit which
you would call tribe, you couldsimply call extended family.
But the culture that we live inreally emphasizes the rugged
individualism and because ofthat we've also been find
ourselves in a situation where,because we every generation
(46:45):
seems to be starting out anew,it makes sense to kind of try to
wait and establish yourself alittle bit first, where, if
you're still part of a tribe,the idea of having to get
established first isn'tnecessary because you have a
complete built-in support systemaround you.
Speaker 6 (47:04):
All right, so other things Well all of our movies,
all of our TV shows are allwritten by people who are in
their early 20s and trying anddoing that, and so our cultural
(47:31):
zeitgeist is that, that is, it'snot just like that's a way to
do it, it is absolutely the bestway to do it to go out and be
by yourself and get rid of theparents who just don't
understand.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
How I Met your Mother Friends.
Like those are shows where it'sall the young people and
they're waiting longer.
Yeah, there was something elseI was about to say.
Oh and something else about theeconomic, because in the thing
in that news clip we startedwith, you talked about how there
are some economic challenges.
Now, right, and people talkabout how the like.
(48:10):
One of the things I've heard isthat this is going to be the
first generation that actuallydoesn't have a better standard
of living than their parents did.
I've heard that as well.
That being said, I did do.
I don't gosh.
I don't even know where I comeup with some of the things that
I've heard that as well.
That being said, I did do um, Idon't gosh.
I don't even know where I comeup with some of the things that
I've become aware of, like I wastalking about earlier.
I need to stop for a whilebecause I'm starting to
(48:30):
experience mental overload withjust too much stuff.
But the, the what we wouldconsider most economically
challenged subgroup within theUnited States, is still the 18th
(48:53):
wealthiest people group in theworld.
Speaker 6 (48:58):
Yeah, and this is exactly my point, that it's
wealthy.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yeah, we have no idea actually what struggling
financially is.
Speaker 6 (49:08):
There's a talk show that I used to listen to who
they used to call it affluenza.
It is the natural, predictableresults of an affluent society
and that does not mean that itshows up in an individual's life
necessarily.
Right, an individual might feelthat they're struggling, but as
a society we are affluent, weare an incredibly affluent
(49:30):
society, and so of course we endup having children later and
less, because in our societychildren are, and this is not
just because I think, but thisis one reason society children
are.
And this is not just because Ithink, but this is one reason.
In our culture, in our society,children are a liability, not
(49:51):
an asset.
They are an economic drain,they're something you have to
put into.
They're not an asset, they'renot something that builds the
overall wealth of the family andwe've talked before about how
rich we could be if we didn'thave kids.
That said, madison robbie, welove you okay, here's the other
side of that and this is, andthen I'll be quiet because I
know we got to wrap up back tomy whole like, I think,
(50:11):
individuals, I think individualcouples would be better off
ignoring this, uh, this societalzeitgeist that's happening
right now and getting marriedyounger.
Make a decision, make acommitment, get married to that
person, have kids earlier.
(50:33):
Part of the reason why I thinkthat it's better is because when
you say here's how much wealthy, how much more wealthy I would
be if I didn't have kids, weassume that I am still the same
person, but I just don't havethe kids, sure, which means I
still have the same jobs, Istill work as hard.
(50:55):
I used to think about this allthe time when I was first
starting out in the career thatI'm in.
Uh yeah, and this is not acareer that has a salary, it is
one that has to be built.
And it was years and years andyears and years of terror, just
(51:15):
constant terror.
And I had kids during this time.
My firstborn was born sixmonths after I started this
career, and I used to think allthe time about how I would
balance this in my head.
If I didn't have kids, I wouldbe free to go to a lot more
(51:35):
networking groups, I'd be freeto go, do all of these different
things and I could make so muchmore, and also I would be under
such less pressure.
But that's exactly it, isn't it?
I would be under such lesspressure and so I wouldn't do
those things Right.
What would I do?
I'd probably just sit around, Iwould consume, I would be
(51:57):
intellectual, I'd be a permanentstudent, you know.
Yeah, so you might haveactually be poor having kids.
It created something in me,through a crucible, that made it
so that I had.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
I had to make it work , right, you know all right
benefits, um, of having marryingand having children younger.
Summaries from the articlesOkay, one is you grow and you
adapt together as a young couple.
That's a benefit More time forfamily planning.
So in other words, it allowsyou, if you begin earlier, some
(52:37):
flexibility to decide.
Now this one says to decidewhether or not you want to start
a family, but I don't thinkthat's to me that doesn't
support the argument of havingchildren younger but it's in
here.
Building a strong foundation andsupport system, more energy for
parenting.
Definitely.
Speaker 6 (52:56):
There's that yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
So so far I'm convinced of two of the four.
Four faster empty nest.
I'm not sure that's a benefit.
Speaker 6 (53:04):
Um, I've enjoyed having my kids around yeah, um,
I know people say that's, that'sa uh, that's a theme on social
media as well, the people who dohave kids earlier being like
well, now I'm in my early 50sand now we get to go travel and
do our thing, which is true, butI'm with you Like I feel like
(53:25):
that's probably going to be funfor maybe a year.
Yeah.
And I would be like, hey, willyou guys have kids please?
Yeah, Can we come over and seeyou?
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Yeah, yeah, right, you need to get started on your
family, so the guy has some youknow, I got some work to do.
Speaker 6 (53:38):
Yeah, potential, I got some work to do.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Yeah, potential for better health outcomes?
Sure, I don't think you canactually argue that.
Yeah, and then developing astronger emotional bond and
shared experiences.
Okay, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Of the 7, I find 1, 2, maybethree of them convincing.
(54:05):
Okay, so I'm not convinced bythese arguments.
All right, that having childrenyounger is better Is better.
Speaker 7 (54:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
I'm not convinced by that.
Also, let's just be completelyhonest and upfront.
It's because I'm very pleasedwith my own personal experiences
, and so it would take a lot toconvince me that there could
have been a better way.
Speaker 6 (54:28):
And also that's a rough road to go down that I
don't think is beneficial toanybody.
Sure, Starting to talk about Ishould have done.
X.
No, I mean I don't want, and Ihope that doesn't come across at
all when I'm talking about this.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
No, again, I think like we prefaced the whole thing
.
This is not judgment on any oneindividual.
It's a discussion about ingeneral.
Speaker 6 (54:48):
And also I'm thinking , when I'm talking about this
kind of stuff, I am thinkingabout the younger generation.
I am thinking about highschoolers.
I'm thinking about junior hires.
I'm thinking about like, whatcan I?
How can I best help them have apicture of their future and
their world?
I don't want anybody who is 38years old and weighted-.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
Thinking oh, I wish I should have.
Speaker 6 (55:11):
Thinking that I'm saying that they did it wrong.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Right.
Speaker 6 (55:14):
That's not what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
No, because telling anybody what they should have
done-.
Speaker 6 (55:20):
What is the point?
Speaker 2 (55:22):
It's actually abuse, so it's shaming and not a
healthy.
I do think there is healthyshame.
That might be another one thatwe could talk about.
All right.
So benefits of delay, yeah.
Financial stability I have beenconvinced by our conversation
that that is not a um, that isnot a great argument, okay the
(55:46):
economic yep, okay, I'mconvinced that's not a great
argument.
Uh, personal growth and maturity.
I still think that that mightbe a good one because I can.
I I feel like, um, some of thesome of those horrific stories
I've ever heard of abuse of umnewborns have been and I'm not
saying this is like I have noscience to back this up, I have
(56:08):
no stats to back this up I canjust say through my own personal
experience, some of the mosthorrific stories that I've heard
of abuse and killing of infantshave come at the hands of very,
very young parents.
Sure, right, and so I do thinkthere is something to be said
for personal growth and maturityI also think that that another
(56:31):
half an hour I would uh, I'dargue with that that's fine but
I also think that, um, but I doget that I think you're
you're're probably referencingan accurate stat.
So I also, though, think thatgoing back to the idea of tribe
helps that one, yeah, but, thatbeing said, that's not the
reality.
A reduced divorce risk I wouldhave to look at the stats on
(56:56):
that.
I don't buy that.
Speaker 6 (57:00):
That having kids later somehow reduces your risk
Del delaying your marriage.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Delaying having kids reduces the risk of divorce yeah
, I don't know about that eitherI don't either.
And then stronger relationshipfoundation.
I don't buy that either.
So of this, I actually findonly one of the four convincing
for I win delaying marriageright and delaying parenthood,
(57:24):
so where am I Do whatever thehell you want.
Speaker 6 (57:31):
Yeah, obviously.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
Right, that's kind of where I'm at.
If you decide to have kids, nomatter when you decide to have
kids, love them with everythingyou have.
Treat them like they're themost precious thing that you
have.
Don't listen to all of theparenting experts out there.
Don't listen to what was that?
(57:53):
I remember that one.
What was her name?
Something nanny.
Speaker 6 (57:58):
Super nanny, super nanny, I like super nanny.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
You know what I felt like super nanny was someone who
didn't have her own kids andcould tell everybody else how to
raise theirs yeah maybe right,um, and so that's where I'm at,
as far as you know, um I followthe caesar milan way of of
raising kids.
He's the dog whisperer, okayperfect, all right, so right so
what's our common ground, Lucas?
Speaker 6 (58:22):
Well, is our common ground that we agree that it is
affluent societies that havedrops in birth rates, that it's
not a result of having poorcivilizations?
Speaker 2 (58:40):
Absolutely.
I mean just historicallyspeaking.
That's true.
It's absolutely.
I mean just historicallyspeaking, that's true, it's
clearly yeah.
Speaker 6 (58:47):
I think, well, not, I think.
Speaker 3 (58:50):
I know we're up against it.
Speaker 2 (58:52):
But let's just for a moment go to something that I
think you would appreciate.
Let's look at Rome.
Yes, wealthy Roman citizens hadless children than the plebes.
Yep, absolutely there you go.
Speaker 6 (59:07):
It's true, it just is .
It's just and it's across theboard.
You can see it in thestatistics it is less wealthy
societies that have more kids,and you can say the reasons for
it whatever, but it is.
We are not having less kids asa society because it's just so
expensive to have kids.
It's just not the case.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
Right, and then I know that, like you, could get
into discussions, but we don'thave time right now about
fertility, and is our diet, isour lifestyle, actually
affecting our fertility?
Speaker 6 (59:42):
I know my wife would like to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
Both of us talked about how we struggled a little
bit, all right, thanks.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
Thank you for listening to Living on Common
Ground.
Please follow wherever youlisten to your podcasts and
share it with your friends.
You can also find a link to oursocial in the description.
The more people we have livingon common ground, the better the
world will be.
Does it feel like every part of your life is
divided, Every scenario, everyenvironment, your church, your
school, your work, your friends,left right, conservative,
liberal, religious, secular?
It seems you always have totake a side.
This is a conversation betweena progressive Christian and a
conservative atheist who happento be great friends.
(00:23):
Welcome to Living on CommonGround.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Do you think if we met today, we would still be
friends.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
I don't know, but we're friends now.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
A mob is no less a mob because they are with him,
man.
So what?
We won a few games and y'allfools think that's something.
Man, that ain't nothing, y'all.
And you know what else?
We ain't nothing either.
Yeah, we came together in camp,cool.
But then we're right back hereand the world tells us that they
(01:00):
don't want us to be together.
We fall apart like we ain't adamn bit of nothing, man.
How you doing.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
I am great Krista says that she's going to
throttle me if she hears us askif we're recording one more time
to start off the episode.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And so I'm asking are we recording?
Yeah, oh good, okay, yep, yes,in fact, from now on, krista, my
clue to lucas will simply behow you doing yeah and that
means that I'm recording.
It's the same way that we dothe weekly update video and then
I'll ask are we?
recording.
Okay, so that was all just forKrista.
Yes, we are, and so, anyway,today we're going to talk about
(01:55):
birth rates in the United States.
We're going to start out first,but we're going to talk about
birth rates, but then we're alsogoing to talk about the idea of
the impact that waiting to havechildren is having on birth
rates as well, as is the declinein birth rates and or is the
(02:17):
waiting longer to have childrenand to begin families connected
to the wealth that we have?
Speaker 6 (02:29):
As a country.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
As a country, well, and I think really in the West,
because I mean we're going tolook at the so okay, let's do
this.
Let's start with.
I got a clip.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
Hang on.
I'm going to say very clearly,though this all started because
I this is, this is one statementthat I do stand behind Yep
Pretty stridently and I'mwilling to back it up yeah, I'm
not going to read any of yourstatements.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
If you want to make them, you make them yeah, I'm
going to make this one.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
there's some of them that I won't make because I I
made these statements to beintentionally inflammatory.
But this one that that peoplewould be better off getting
married younger and having kidsyounger and having more kids
Okay, I am willing to put myneck out on that.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
So just out of curiosity, before the clip now
yeah, how old were you when Reedwas born?
Speaker 6 (03:16):
Yeah, okay, okay.
I was Well, okay, so he got.
He was born in 08.
Jeez, I'm terrible about this.
I was.
I think I was like 26.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Okay 27.
In my mind that's younger.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
Yeah, I was 27.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I was 27.
Okay.
Speaker 6 (03:42):
That is not younger man.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay, I was 34 when Madison our first was born and
Denise was 27.
I was 27.
Okay, I was not younger man.
Okay, I was 34 when Madison ourfirst was born.
Speaker 7 (03:47):
And Denise was 33.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Mm-hmm, and then she turned 34.
Yeah.
And then Robbie came threeyears later.
So I was 37 when Robbie wasborn.
So, yeah, we waited.
Yeah, we didn't wait as long asDenise's sister, who was early
40s Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Was she 40?
Okay, so I do want to say alsoyeah, she was in her 40s.
This is delicate, obviously,because as soon as we start
talking about people, individualpeople, it's going to sound
real judgy.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Right and so okay, just to say this too the reason
I bring up our family is just togive us an idea of um, what
we're talking about in terms ofolder adults, um, adults that
are traditionally older forchildbearing.
(04:38):
I don't think on my, I don'tthink there's a judgment on it
at all.
I think it's just a reality ofthe culture that we live in.
Speaker 6 (04:46):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So I attach no judgment to identifying the fact
that at 40 years old,traditionally you're getting
beyond what they would callquote-unquote parenting.
Speaker 6 (04:57):
Well, and that's not just a culture thing, though.
I mean that's a biological thing.
And also just for context aswell, that's a biological thing.
And, and, and also just forcontext as well, um, my, uh, my
grandmother who raised me, mygrandparents who raised me, uh,
she now think, whatever, youwanted this, and this is the
fifties in California.
The fifties in California, uh,she got married when my grandpa
(05:20):
was 20 and she was 16 and shehad all three of her kids by the
time she was 21.
Yep, and then done.
So that's that's the context,that I knew that, yeah, and then
, um, and again, I'm not tryingto well and we'll play this clip
and then move on with theconversation, but, um, I also
want to make sure that it'sreally clear that I'm not trying
(05:41):
to say this is, I think there'sa rhetorical trap that we fall
into sometimes where, uh, we gowell, I think that it would be
better if X, and then people say, well, you didn't do X, and
then you try to justify why youdidn't do X, or maybe you try to
like slide into really, I did,because blah, blah, blah, no,
(06:02):
blah, no, I.
Um, obviously everyone'ssituation is different.
Um, but we didn't, I mean, we,we did get married.
We did get married young,according to like what most
people would think I was oh, Igot married young.
We waited 11 years, though, tohave kids okay, so you did okay,
all right, okay, I was thinkingit was going to be.
(06:23):
I was thinking you got marrieda little bit.
No of course, because you guysmet in college.
Yeah, you got married right outof college.
Yes, yeah, we got engaged incollege.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Uh-huh, we got married.
And let's see, I got married in93.
Yeah, I was born in 71.
So I was still 21.
I turned 22 the next month.
So okay, Denise was 21.
She didn't turn 22 untilNovember.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
Okay, so I turned 21 the month before I got married,
so pretty much the samesituation.
Yeah, we just waited a littlebit less.
Yeah, we waited 11 years beforewe had Madison.
So you can tell me to shut upand mind my own business, but
was that a clear?
We're deciding to wait thatlong, so um.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
so, when we got married, Denise's father said to
us just remember that you'reyoung, enjoy each other for a
while.
And so that was all he said,and and we did.
And then, though, and we did.
Then though we also did havesome fertility issues, as did we
(07:29):
.
It was so funny, though,because, like of course, it's
easier to first test the guy.
Sure, right, yeah, and so Iwent to a doctor.
Yeah.
And I did what I needed to do inorder to be tested.
Uh-huh, and I did what I neededto do in order to be tested and
(08:29):
when we went back he said to meI'll never forget he said you
played football right?
And I said yeah.
And he said okay, let me put itlike this you don't have any
All-Americans in told I was told, you have plenty of guys, lots
of guys.
None of them want to doanything.
They're all real lethargic nowthat the comedy's over?
Speaker 7 (08:38):
well, maybe for now.
Here's the clip.
This is a news clip actuallyfrom just in June of this year
on CBS.
Listen to this the birth ratein the US is dropping and
actually hit an all-time low in2024.
Fewer than 1.6 children wereborn per woman last year.
In the early 1960s, the totalfertility rate was around 3.5.
But a CDC review of birthcertificates released earlier
(08:58):
this year found a 1% increase inlive births in 2024.
That's about 33,000 more thanthe year prior.
Here to explain is Dr JoanneStone.
She's a maternal fetal medicinespecialist and a professor and
chair at the Icahn School ofMedicine at Mount Sinai.
Dr Stone, thank you so much forjoining us.
So my first question is explainwhat this means that the
(09:18):
fertility rate is dropping butthe number of births increased.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So the general fertility rate means the number
of births given to women who areaged 15 to 44 per 1,000 women.
So while the number of birthsactually increase, the number of
births per woman decrease.
So there's just a larger pool,and it's really interesting when
you break it down intoage-specific numbers.
(09:43):
So women aged 15 to 34 had adecline in number of births,
women aged 35 to 39 were stableand women who are 40 to over had
an increase in births.
So it's really those women intheir 40s that are driving that
small increase in births.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
And doctor, do we know why we're seeing a decline
in the fertility rate?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Well, fertility rate, I think, is an indicator of
public health.
I think we have to ask thequestion why is that?
I think things like access toreproductive care, health
economics, the cost of living,housing and paid parental leave
are key factors to that decreasein birth rate.
Speaker 7 (10:22):
When we do see a dip in the fertility rate like this,
is that something we should beconcerned about?
Why does that matter?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I think it matters because there's less people
coming into the workplace.
I mean, years from now we'regoing to have less workers, less
people in the classroom, so Ithink that it does have a large
impact on the overall population.
Speaker 7 (10:39):
Now the Trump administration has actually been
trying to encourage Americansto have more children.
We're seeing benefits expandedaccess to IVF, baby bonuses to
families, things like that.
Could those potentially beeffective?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I think there's a lot of controversy about that.
What is the actual impact goingto be?
So that executive bill isasking for recommendations?
I'm not sure it's going toimpact our low-income women and
have access to those women whoseek those kind of care, and we
know the maternity desertsacross rural America so well.
I think it remains to be seenwhat that impact will be.
Speaker 7 (11:14):
And when we talk about the fertility rate, I mean
this is is it economical, Is itcultural, Is it a lot of
factors that are influencing?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I think it's a lot of factors and I think the fact
that we're seeing women in their40s show that women are
delaying childbearing for bothpersonal and professional
reasons.
Medical advances are reallyimportant.
Advances in reproductivetechnology are helping women who
are older have children, but Ithink overall that's what's
driving the gene.
Speaker 7 (11:41):
All right, dr Joanne Stone.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
We appreciate it.
Thank you All right, dr JoanneStone.
Thank you so much for joiningus, we appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
Thank you All right there was a lot of information
there.
What are your initial thoughtsin regards to what we're talking
about?
So we're kind of transitioninghere in the conversation to a
more societal conversation,which is fine, um uh.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I just I kind of see it all connected.
Speaker 6 (12:11):
It is connected.
It is connected for sure, butum I, when I look at this, I do
think of it as two separatethings.
Okay.
One being the choice for anindividual couple.
Mm-hmm.
When do they want?
To couple when do they want to,how do they?
want to structure their livesand what kind of trade-offs do
they want?
And then, uh, the societalimpacts or, uh, the societal
(12:37):
changes that are happening, um,and what we can kind of predict
from that and how we shouldthink of that.
Is there a should that weshould, you know?
Should we think of it in anyway?
Right?
So I have a couple thoughts.
Number one is this issue it'sso interesting that it's have
(12:59):
you, it's so interesting.
Let me finish this sentence.
It's so interesting that it'sbecoming a bubbling up to the
surface news story right now.
Maybe it shouldn't beinteresting to me, actually, now
that I'm thinking about this.
Anyway, have you ever had thisexperience where you're into
(13:22):
some aspect of society orhistory or something and you
research it and you study it andthere's some people who are
talking about it but they're notknown to any of your friends.
They're not known to mostpeople.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
It happens to me all the time.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
And you're like, oh, this is interesting and they're
talking about some issue, someissue, and so you kind of have,
um, you kind of have a, aconcept of this issue and you
know that people are talkingabout it, you know the arguments
for and against this, whatever,um, but nobody that you know
(13:58):
talks about it, and then itcontinues to.
You continue to follow it.
You know it's a continued issue, but nobody, nobody really
cares.
Then, like 10 years later, 15years later, people start
talking about it as if it'sbrand new.
You know, I felt this way aboutAI.
I'm not trying to say like, oh,I knew about AI before, it was
(14:19):
cool, although I kind of did.
I kind of do feel like that.
I know, intellectually that'snot the case, but I was
listening to people like elonmusk and sam harris and some of
the other big thinkers who weretalking about the, the paperclip
problem and all of this kind ofstuff, um, llms and that kind
of thing.
Like 10 years ago, I waslistening to elon musk talk
about how, uh, he had, prior tothat, been sounding the alarm.
(14:43):
Nobody cared and so he haddecided at that point this is
like eight, nine years ago orwhatever, we only have one
choice and that's to meld withit, because we're never going to
stop it, and that's whereNeuralink came from.
This is another one.
So Mark Stein wrote a book inthe early 2000s called America
(15:05):
Alone, where he was talking atthat point about birth rates.
That was the main focus of thebook.
There's other aspects of thebook as well.
It's the silent driver of allcivilization.
Civilizations rise and fall ondemographics.
(15:29):
And what he was pointing out atthe time and I pulled up these
statistics so that I could havethem was that in 2000, by 2000,
almost every single WesternEuropean country was well,
number one.
All of them were belowreplacement rate.
(15:50):
All of them, most of them, hadgotten to what some demographers
this is just a term would callcollapse rate or severe
demographic decline rate, like1.3 per woman, mm-hmm.
Right, these countries and Ihave these, but like Western
Europe and other developedcountries, japan was like this
(16:30):
as well, korea was like this aswell.
You look across the globe in theearly 2000s, if you're a
developed country, what we wouldconsider a developed country,
you had below replacement,except the states united states
and there's a couple other ones,but it was mostly the united
states was still at like 2.2,2.3, but he points out that's
(16:55):
because we have uh birthrightcitizenship, uh, you know, uh
unconditional birthrightcitizenship, so we are counting
every birth happening, right?
So, whatever you think aboutillegal immigration, those birds
were counted.
His point was this is obviouslyan underlying incentive for the
(17:19):
politicians to not solve theillegal immigration problem,
because we need it to prop upour economic systems, because
it's the only thing that'skeeping us above replacement.
Well, what they're pointing outhere in this clip is because
we're still we're still countingeveryone right, they're
pointing out, it's stilldropping below replacement I
(17:40):
have a number that I've found11.9 births per 1000 people.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
That sounds to me like it's below replacement.
That's right.
That's quite a bit, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
So yeah, cause in the in theclip they they talk about the
problems that that you begin tohave as a society when your
birth rate drops below.
But I want to go back a littlebit, because we talked about the
(18:11):
factors, like when we talkabout deciding whether or not to
have children, or decidingwhether or not to have children
later in life.
Yeah, the original topic wasthis idea, because I think that
in my mind, the decision to havechildren later in life is also
the determining factor for thedrop in birth rates, because it
becomes more and more difficultto have them.
Speaker 6 (18:33):
Absolutely Right, I also see that the economic… to
wait and somebody who woulddecide to have less and focus
more of their economic assets,whatever their economic force,
into a smaller pool, right?
(18:54):
So anyway, go ahead no, no,absolutely our.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Our mentality was we can still divide and conquer.
Yeah, with only two.
Yeah, um, and we've replaced.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
That's right.
We did our part and you gotboth of them to sexual maturity.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
That's important, and we got a guy and a girl.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
Yeah you, we completely replaced.
That's right, you did.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yep, so I'm done.
I can now become dirt.
Speaker 6 (19:18):
As long as somebody else got three, you need
somebody to get three.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Well, that was where I was counting on you, but you
blew it, I know, and you got twoguys.
Speaker 6 (19:27):
I don't know what you're doing.
I know I'm not doing anything.
I know.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So all right, so you have an economic factor that
contributes to the, to thepersonal decision of whether or
not we're going to have children, and that impacts birth rates.
But when you say that it isbetter, right, for who?
(19:53):
Yeah, okay, that's the questionI have.
Better for who?
Speaker 6 (19:58):
Yeah, so when I'm talking about that that's why
I'm saying like I do separatethose two statements a little
bit in my mind when I'm talkingabout better, I am talking about
for um, let me, let me makethis argument as succinct as I
(20:19):
can.
I'm not talking about for thesociety, I'm not relating it
that way.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
I'm saying I think humans greatest Like humans'
greatest drive is towardresponsibility and purpose.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
Even though, on an objective level, I don't see
anything higher than takingresponsibility as being the
purpose for my life, and I thinkthat, just like all other
organisms, our greatest drive isto replace ourselves.
(21:09):
I think that the greatestopportunity for fulfillment is
in creating a family.
So I do think, on the aggregate, it's a more enriched life to
(21:34):
mate, have a family and pouryour life into that family.
I think that that is anenriched life.
And for the kids now, there'salways the argument that it's
better for the kids to haveolder parents because they have
more money.
That's always the argument thatit comes down to Um and you
(21:57):
know, I, in a particular um,under a particular perspective,
I can understand that Um.
However, I also know that thereis an kind of an, an ancient
process whereby large familieshave the kids having this
(22:22):
experience of not only being thekid to the parent but also
being a parent to the youngerkids and having it be this kind
of tribe um that I think I, youknow, I think it's trade-off
when we've, when we have,smaller families, um later in
life.
You know, I think that there isum, something to the um, having
(22:45):
to figure it out when you'reyoung.
Everyone knows that they lookback at those young years as
like these golden years.
You know, like um, and I knowwhen you're in it it's really
hard.
I mean I, I obviously I've I'veexperienced that as well, so I
understand that, um.
(23:06):
I just think I, I think thatwe're trading off things that we
don't, we don't realize we'retrading off when we're waiting
later and later and having lessand less.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
So a couple couple thoughts.
One is, um, you, you talkedabout, the greatest opportunity
to experience fulfillment iswith the family, right?
Um, I would love to talk aboutfulfillment because I'm not sure
that we can ever actuallyexperience it.
Okay, okay, um, I think, Ithink fulfillment is one of
(23:38):
those things that is everelusive.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
Mm-hmm, I think you and Rollins probably would agree
on that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Um, and which is probably why I've enjoyed
reading.
By the way, there was one otherbook of his that I read that I
failed to mention, so I I heldback a little bit of the fanboy,
okay, um, uh, it's, it's, uh,the divine what was it?
Called.
Anyway, I've got, uh, rightover there, the divine magician,
oh yeah, um, so anyway, um, Ithink that's one of the reasons
(24:07):
I really like peter rollins isbecause the reason I think he's
brilliant is because we agree ona lot of stuff.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
Yeah, that's what makes people brilliant.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
So, but I do think that the discussion about
fulfillment probably needs to bea completely separate
conversation.
Sure, so for the time being Iwill.
I'll grant you that.
Speaker 6 (24:32):
I also think that we're animals.
I don't you.
I think we're animals and Ithink this concept of a soul is
an emergent concept and it comesout of human experience, and I
would, I want to have as humanof an experience as possible to
develop this thing called a soul, and I think that I think that
(24:53):
pouring myself into my family isthe number one thing for me to
do Now.
I will say this, I will grantthis it may be that where our
society is currently andactually this gets back to the
demographic thing and my wholeargument that it's actually
wealthy countries that havelower birth rates it's not
(25:16):
because we don't have enoughmoney to have kids, it's when we
have more money we have lesskids.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Oh yeah, I don't think you could actually argue
with that.
Speaker 6 (25:23):
Well, that is the argument happening online right
now, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
The argument happening online right now is
what?
Speaker 6 (25:28):
I know you're not on social media, but if you go on
social media Reddit, whateverthe younger millennials I'm an
elder millennial, that anybodywho's like 30 and under.
they are convinced.
Well, and I shouldn't say they,as if they're one big block,
but you know what I mean.
There is a strong argumentbeing made.
The reason our birth rates aredropping is because we're all so
(25:49):
poor.
That's why, because we don'thave enough money.
And so and that was an argumentthat that woman was making too,
that woman, that doctor, wasmaking Part of her argument for
why it was happening was becausenumber one, she said, lack of
access to fertility care, whichdoesn't make any sense at all,
(26:12):
because the drop is in youngermoms.
There's an increase.
She even said there's anincrease in older moms.
Well, those are the ones whowould be using fertility care.
So it doesn't make any sensethat having less fertility care
would cause a drop in youngermoms.
But she also said that lack ofaccess to-.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I'm glad, by the way, there's a drop in birth rates
among 15, 16, 17, 18-year-olds.
It's interesting, isn't it?
Mm-hmm, I think that's a greatthing, myself.
Speaker 6 (26:44):
I know when we were growing up well, you're 10 years
older than me, so you tell me,when I was growing up, when I
was in high school, the numberone thing people talked about
was teen pregnancy.
You don't talk about that atall anymore.
Nobody cares about teenpregnancy anymore.
I think it's not an issue.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, but also the thing.
It's just, it's not an issue,but I think it's also become.
It's not as taboo as it used tobe.
Do you think that's what it is?
I think so Because I know thatthey have daycares now in high
schools and it's not for theteachers.
I understand that, I mean backwhen I was a kid but if a girl
got?
Pregnant.
Yeah, yeah, I mean we, you knowwell.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
She got shipped off to an aunt's house or whatever,
and it's a it's a main storylinein in dangerous minds, one of
my absolute favorite films forthe 90s.
Okay, that's a shout out to mywife.
Yeah, that, one of the that thesmartest, the most the smartest
student in her class, you know,I'll just say in her ghetto
class.
That was the whole point of themovie.
Right, she's in a ghetto school.
(27:45):
Okay, and the smartest one, thebright one, the one that was
really going places got pregnantand the school was like, well,
we have a school for teenagemoms that teaches them about how
to take care of the baby andblah, blah, blah.
And the whole plot line was,well, you don't have to go, you
(28:08):
can still graduate and get yourdegree.
And she's like, no, I'm notgoing to.
And then she shows up at theend, you know, and it's all, and
it's supposed to be like a no,you, you know, we want you still
here in school, but I would.
I would be interested in seeingwhat the statistics are,
because I I know that I havebeen tracking demographers
(28:29):
talking about how, um, teenagersand, uh, 20-somethings are
having less sex, just in general, right, and so it's this
interesting thing.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
I also think there's less taboo around birth control.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
That's probably true.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Because, when, I was in high school.
I can remember when I was incollege Because, like when I was
in high school, I can rememberwhen I was in college, there was
a clinic in the town that I wasin school, in St Augustine, and
you could go and get.
You'd get a lunch bag full ofcondoms if you wanted them, but
(29:13):
there were guys in college thatwere so embarrassed and so
ashamed that they would go downand like, put in fake
information.
Sure, because you had to putyour information so they could,
you know, turn it in and gettheir grants or whatever, yeah,
um, nowadays I don't.
I think that most people are,it's just commonplace.
Well, the things that are ingrocery store like if I go into
walgreens to pick up myprescription the things that are
on the shelf now under familyplanning, blow my mind.
(29:33):
All right, we don't need to getinto that Real quick.
Shout out though for a podcastI would highly recommend to
people that have to do with teenpregnancy, and then we'll kind
of move off of that and get backinto our topic here.
But it's called Liberty Lost.
Have you heard of this?
No, so it's a.
It's a short, a short.
Um, what do you call thosewhere it's like maybe nine
(29:55):
episodes, but it's the?
it's just like an in-depthreport yeah whatever you,
whatever you call that, yeah andum, it's put out by it doesn't
matter.
Put it out, but anyway it'sreally interesting.
It's about the um maternalhouses that liberty university
has oh okay, and that's all I'mgoing to say.
I would highly recommendlistening to that.
(30:17):
Okay and okay.
Speaker 6 (30:19):
Well, look, let me just go on the record and say I
think you should get marriedbefore you mate.
Okay, I do think that.
Oh, yeah, I think so too.
So I think that you should begetting married.
I think get married young, havekids young, that's fine.
(30:52):
So, yes, I'm happy that youknow a 15 year old experimenting
with having sex with herboyfriend isn't getting pregnant
, right, I'm supposed to say I'mhappy that they're not having
sex Right, because that's whatwe were worried about in the 90s
, when you're in college.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I'm in high school.
We were participating in someform of it, and so I also think
that some of that, that ourexperience, has to do with a
morality that was given to usbased on faith, which I think is
fine, sure that's where I'll befine with that.
I also think that Christianitysomehow got warped into being
(31:30):
about moral policing, but that'sagain.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
We can have a long conversation about that, because
I think that that's actuallyinherent to humans and that any
kind of religion is going to befocused on violence and sex.
We're just coming up with somany topics right now, are you?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
writing these all down.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
We need you writing these down?
No, but I'm.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Fulfillment and morality.
Speaker 6 (31:49):
I am saying so there's this little I've seen it
written in schools and there'sthis little like three rule, uh,
uh, agenda, that's not theright word.
Anyway, it's like these threerules, um, and I don't know
where it came, where it comesfrom, actually, but it's like
(32:13):
somebody did this study and ifyou followed these three rules,
Do you remember the rules?
Yeah, I'm going to tell you therules.
Okay, good, if you don't followthese rules, there's something
like a 75% chance you end upbelow the poverty line.
It's a correlative situation,right, it's not causation, it's
correlation, but it's a realstrong correlation, so it's you
(32:35):
might as well follow it, or lookat it, you know, and if you do
follow the three rules, it'slike it's almost impossible for
you to fall below the povertyline.
Um, uh, let me remember itfinish high school, get married
(32:56):
after you finish high school anddon't have a kid before you get
married.
I think that's the three things.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Sounds like If you do that Sounds like good advice.
Speaker 6 (33:07):
It's, but think about that, though.
I mean, it's something that hasto be said for huge.
Well, it's not.
I don't know if you don't thinkabout, if you don't, how rough
your life would be.
You know how difficult life is.
Um, I do want to finish my mythought, which is it could be
(33:32):
that we live in a society sostructured and I don't think
it's been structured likethere's a conspiracy to
structure it this way.
I just think it's developed intothis of half it's.
We're kind of pushed into thissituation of like it'd be better
(33:59):
for me as an individual to wait, because we don't live in
tribes, we don't havemulti-generational households,
we don't, you know, if you hadthe multi-generational household
.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I do.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
You get married, well , okay.
But think I have people I knowthey're all immigrants, these
people I know that I'm going totalk about.
That's important because theyare from very distinctly
different cultures, and they areall these people that I'm
(34:32):
thinking of.
They're very successful.
We would consider themsuccessful economically.
I would also consider themsuccessful socially, like
familially right, with theirfamily.
They're all multi-generationhouseholds.
Mom and dad came over withvirtually nothing.
They built up some business,lived like they were poor.
(34:55):
They had kids.
Their kids grew up.
It was no expectation for thekids to leave and go out and
forge their own way at 18 yearsold, right?
No expectation.
It was no expectation for thekids to leave and go out and
forge their own way at 18 yearsold, right?
No expectation.
There was an expectation.
However, you work for thefamily, you go to school, you,
you know you do the thingsyou're supposed to do.
You get married.
When you get married, yourspouse moves in with us.
(35:16):
Now you guys are contributing,right?
You have kids.
Now we have three generationsin here and at that point, maybe
it's time for you to.
Now there's a section of thebusiness that you can take over
and you go start your mayberight, that seems like a village
.
More to me that seems like atribe.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah no-transcript.
Speaker 6 (36:11):
You know you're going to be at the bottom of the as
jordan peterson call it, theprado distribution.
You know you'll be at thebottom of that hierarchy.
It's going to take a while toto, you know, step up on it.
So yeah, I can see why for anindividual it would be
beneficial to wait.
And uh, you know, it's kind oflike the tragedy of the commons
(36:36):
problem where, like, what's goodfor me doesn't end up being
good for the group.
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Well, someone that was pulled out of tribe, right,
because I grew up with whatyou're describing.
Okay, I grew up where I livedwith my grandparents and my mom
and my mom's sisters all stilllived at home.
Down the street was my mom'soldest brother, his wife and my
(37:04):
two cousins.
The other way, just a fewblocks, was my middle, the
middle child, another uncle withhis wife and young family, and
then when I was in eighth gradeand so that, like no-transcript.
Speaker 6 (37:47):
Yeah, it was like oh he lives in Fairview now.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, which cause they were going to.
This was like going to be thefirst time kids didn't go to
Rocky river high schools.
Yeah, and then we moved out toNorth Ridgeville, which, oh my
gosh, that was like a full 20minutes away.
But even then it was very mucha tribe, like we all, all the
generations, were there and weall played together and we all
(38:10):
hung together and and eventhough you had friends, these
were like your best friends.
And then in eighth grade I gotripped out of that and ever
since then I think I have likemy goal in life is to create
tribe.
So anyway, I I firmly believethat we have done ourselves a
(38:34):
disservice by pushing so hard onthe American rugged
individualism.
Speaker 6 (38:39):
Well, and it's what I'm gonna use, this phrase, it's
gonna be a lot of you.
It's what tamed the west.
Uh, yeah, it, but but it, butit is the.
I think that it's the, it's thebut even then tribes went
together that's true, but whatI'm saying is um, yeah, but by
the time you piled up incalifornia, there was a lot of
(39:00):
people who didn't have any placeto go back to because they had
burned all their bridges.
That's what made up Californiafor us, but anyway, yeah, I
think that it's a repercussionand, to be clear, I think there
are a lot of benefits toindividualism, but I think that
this is a repercussion.
What I think is interestingabout your story you left when
(39:22):
you were eight, eighth grade,eighth grade.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
So like 12, 13.
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (39:29):
So you know your experience of it was, as the kid
, having these emotional bondswith your cousins and uncles I
lost.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
like I burst into tears as we drove off my street.
Speaker 6 (39:41):
I can only imagine I burst into tears as we drove off
my street.
I can only imagine.
But if you were an adult inthat, I'll bet there was an
enormous amount of economicbenefit from that.
Somebody has drywall that'srotting out and you've got three
guys that can come over, theuncles can come over, yep,
(40:04):
whatever, pick your thing.
So there'd be that as well.
Childcare, well, which is whenyou're in a true kind of kinship
society, which yours was kindof a quasi kinship society
(40:25):
inside of this american society.
Um, it's unacceptable for thatsociety to allow, like one of
your aunts and uncles to losetheir home and nobody knows,
right.
That'd be unacceptable yeahabsolutely Like everyone would
feel a sense of shame, you know,unless they had done something
(40:48):
to particularly pull themselvesout of the kin and you know
whatever.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Yeah, it's almost like you had a safety net around
you.
Speaker 6 (40:55):
That's right, that is the safety net.
And when we take that away as asociety, guess what has to step
in is the government has tostep in with safety nets.
Now you can also argue that thegovernment sometimes starts
that process and rips up thesafety nets of the family.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
I would argue that that has happened a lot of times
.
You create dependency on thegovernment sure.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
Time government sure.
But yeah, I mean, you know, Iwe're just talking about this.
Chris and I were just talkingabout this yesterday.
We've got this friend who livesin indiana and she lives in the
town that she grew up in andI'll get this wrong, but she has
like something like 30 or 40cousins that live in town and
she said, like I live here,she's educated, her husband's
educated, they're, and that'simportant because, like they are
(41:44):
mobile, they travel a lot toEurope and what I you know, they
could move, they could livewherever really, and get jobs
and be fine.
Um, and she said, if, if myfamily wasn't here, there's,
there's no other reason to livein Fortville, indiana.
You know, we're looking atwhere our kid's going to land
and trying to decide if thatneeds to determine where we live
.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
And just one last thought about that, because then
I want to kind of run through.
I pulled up two articles andthen I compiled, like what they
have as the benefits of marryingand having children younger, or
what's the benefits of delayingmarriage and starting a family
later, and there's a couple ofdifferent articles that I pulled
this from, and so I want tokind of wrap it up with that.
But you mentioned that, comingfrom a different culture, I will
(42:29):
say that my grandparents werefirst-generation United States
and I think that that probablyhad something to do with it too.
From where the Netherlands?
Speaker 6 (42:40):
From the Netherlands, okay.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would imagine.
Yeah, I mean my mom still.
Speaker 6 (42:48):
well, I don't know if she still does, but for a long
time she still kept in contactwith cousins in the netherlands
and so just to be clear reallyquickly with your situation,
then it wasn't like everyone's,it wasn't like we're taking care
of grandma, grandpa.
Then it's like grandma andgrandpa set up this shop and
everyone stayed here not thatthey didn't take care of grandma
and grandpa, but my point islike there's this other thing of
(43:08):
like my parent has gotten tooold to be able to live on her
own, his own whatever, and sowe've moved them into our house.
That's a different thing.
Yeah, that's fine, that's good.
Right, I think that's good too,but that's a different thing
from we set up shop.
This is now like kind of ourfiefdom if you want to say we're
(43:29):
responsible for these peopleand our descendants.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
And then we're responsible for them.
Speaker 6 (43:35):
And then there's a responsibility that goes out.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
And even when they're still very capable.
So when I lived with mygrandparents, they both still
worked.
Yeah, right, they were stillbringing income into the home.
Yeah, and the only one that wasstill in school was my Aunt
Gail.
Yeah.
She was in high school.
She might have been a senior inhigh school at the time, but I
also then knew, like my grandmaand grandpa's brothers and
sisters, mm-hmm, then knew likemy grandma and grandpa's
(44:03):
brothers and sisters, and theywere part of our tribe and their
kids were part of the tribe andyou know, sort of you still had
them too.
Like my first baseball glovewas given to me from my mom's
cousin's son, who I knew, yeahRight, and who I would go and
watch the television show planetof the Apes at their house and
I loved being at their house.
(44:24):
I knew my great grandparents,john and Jenny, who it was
actually Johan, but anyway, butwhen they got to the United
States it became John and Jenny.
My brother and sister are namedafter, like John is a
generational name in our familyand so, like we just, you just
knew everyone and I have I havememories and stories that go
(44:46):
along with that.
Like I can remember when mygreat grandfather got older, I
would, um, we would go visit himall the time and, uh, he lived
in a little apartment and, um,my grandmother had passed away
at this time and and, uh, Iwould, um, I would eat his
peaches becauseaches, because heloved peaches and cottage
cheese.
Well, he liked the cottagecheese, he didn't like the
(45:08):
peaches, and so he gave me thecanned peaches all the time.
Speaker 6 (45:15):
So anyway, but there was something to be said for
that.
Yeah, that baseball mitt wasnot a baseball mitt to you.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
No, it was Chris's mitt.
Speaker 6 (45:20):
That was your time.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (45:22):
That was a coming of it.
That was like a.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
When I lost that mitt , I was devastated.
By the time I lost it, it wasfalling apart.
Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 6 (45:30):
Because it was your position in the family.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (45:34):
It was a representation of your position
in this world.
You know, I say yeah, I getthat.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
So, all right.
So we world, you know, I say,yeah, I get that.
So all right, so we're going towrap this one up back.
I feel like we digressed alittle bit, but it all connects
to, I think.
Just to kind of connecteverything again, we're talking
about what are the benefits of,uh, having getting married and
having children?
Younger is is.
Is that better than waiting?
(46:00):
Um, we talked about that thereare— we agreed that it is.
Not yet.
We'll find our common groundhere in a minute.
But we agreed that part of thedecision-making, whether it's
good or bad or whether it's trueor not, is economics.
There's also this culturalinfluence beyond simply
economics, beyond capitalistcapitalism.
(46:24):
There's also this idea thatwe've lost a little bit which
you would call tribe, you couldsimply call extended family.
But the culture that we live inreally emphasizes the rugged
individualism and because ofthat we've also been find
ourselves in a situation where,because we every generation
(46:45):
seems to be starting out anew,it makes sense to kind of try to
wait and establish yourself alittle bit first, where, if
you're still part of a tribe,the idea of having to get
established first isn'tnecessary because you have a
complete built-in support systemaround you.
Speaker 6 (47:04):
All right, so other things Well all of our movies,
all of our TV shows are allwritten by people who are in
their early 20s and trying anddoing that, and so our cultural
(47:31):
zeitgeist is that, that is, it'snot just like that's a way to
do it, it is absolutely the bestway to do it to go out and be
by yourself and get rid of theparents who just don't
understand.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
How I Met your Mother Friends.
Like those are shows where it'sall the young people and
they're waiting longer.
Yeah, there was something elseI was about to say.
Oh and something else about theeconomic, because in the thing
in that news clip we startedwith, you talked about how there
are some economic challenges.
Now, right, and people talkabout how the like.
(48:10):
One of the things I've heard isthat this is going to be the
first generation that actuallydoesn't have a better standard
of living than their parents did.
I've heard that as well.
That being said, I did do.
I don't gosh.
I don't even know where I comeup with some of the things that
I've heard that as well.
That being said, I did do um, Idon't gosh.
I don't even know where I comeup with some of the things that
I've become aware of, like I wastalking about earlier.
I need to stop for a whilebecause I'm starting to
(48:30):
experience mental overload withjust too much stuff.
But the, the what we wouldconsider most economically
challenged subgroup within theUnited States, is still the 18th
(48:53):
wealthiest people group in theworld.
Speaker 6 (48:58):
Yeah, and this is exactly my point, that it's
wealthy.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yeah, we have no idea actually what struggling
financially is.
Speaker 6 (49:08):
There's a talk show that I used to listen to who
they used to call it affluenza.
It is the natural, predictableresults of an affluent society
and that does not mean that itshows up in an individual's life
necessarily.
Right, an individual might feelthat they're struggling, but as
a society we are affluent, weare an incredibly affluent
(49:30):
society, and so of course we endup having children later and
less, because in our societychildren are, and this is not
just because I think, but thisis one reason society children
are.
And this is not just because Ithink, but this is one reason.
In our culture, in our society,children are a liability, not
(49:51):
an asset.
They are an economic drain,they're something you have to
put into.
They're not an asset, they'renot something that builds the
overall wealth of the family andwe've talked before about how
rich we could be if we didn'thave kids.
That said, madison robbie, welove you okay, here's the other
side of that and this is, andthen I'll be quiet because I
know we got to wrap up back tomy whole like, I think,
(50:11):
individuals, I think individualcouples would be better off
ignoring this, uh, this societalzeitgeist that's happening
right now and getting marriedyounger.
Make a decision, make acommitment, get married to that
person, have kids earlier.
(50:33):
Part of the reason why I thinkthat it's better is because when
you say here's how much wealthy, how much more wealthy I would
be if I didn't have kids, weassume that I am still the same
person, but I just don't havethe kids, sure, which means I
still have the same jobs, Istill work as hard.
(50:55):
I used to think about this allthe time when I was first
starting out in the career thatI'm in.
Uh yeah, and this is not acareer that has a salary, it is
one that has to be built.
And it was years and years andyears and years of terror, just
(51:15):
constant terror.
And I had kids during this time.
My firstborn was born sixmonths after I started this
career, and I used to think allthe time about how I would
balance this in my head.
If I didn't have kids, I wouldbe free to go to a lot more
(51:35):
networking groups, I'd be freeto go, do all of these different
things and I could make so muchmore, and also I would be under
such less pressure.
But that's exactly it, isn't it?
I would be under such lesspressure and so I wouldn't do
those things Right.
What would I do?
I'd probably just sit around, Iwould consume, I would be
(51:57):
intellectual, I'd be a permanentstudent, you know.
Yeah, so you might haveactually be poor having kids.
It created something in me,through a crucible, that made it
so that I had.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
I had to make it work , right, you know all right
benefits, um, of having marryingand having children younger.
Summaries from the articlesOkay, one is you grow and you
adapt together as a young couple.
That's a benefit More time forfamily planning.
So in other words, it allowsyou, if you begin earlier, some
(52:37):
flexibility to decide.
Now this one says to decidewhether or not you want to start
a family, but I don't thinkthat's to me that doesn't
support the argument of havingchildren younger but it's in
here.
Building a strong foundation andsupport system, more energy for
parenting.
Definitely.
Speaker 6 (52:56):
There's that yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
So so far I'm convinced of two of the four.
Four faster empty nest.
I'm not sure that's a benefit.
Speaker 6 (53:04):
Um, I've enjoyed having my kids around yeah, um,
I know people say that's, that'sa uh, that's a theme on social
media as well, the people who dohave kids earlier being like
well, now I'm in my early 50sand now we get to go travel and
do our thing, which is true, butI'm with you Like I feel like
(53:25):
that's probably going to be funfor maybe a year.
Yeah.
And I would be like, hey, willyou guys have kids please?
Yeah, Can we come over and seeyou?
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Yeah, yeah, right, you need to get started on your
family, so the guy has some youknow, I got some work to do.
Speaker 6 (53:38):
Yeah, potential, I got some work to do.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Yeah, potential for better health outcomes?
Sure, I don't think you canactually argue that.
Yeah, and then developing astronger emotional bond and
shared experiences.
Okay, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Of the 7, I find 1, 2, maybethree of them convincing.
(54:05):
Okay, so I'm not convinced bythese arguments.
All right, that having childrenyounger is better Is better.
Speaker 7 (54:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
I'm not convinced by that.
Also, let's just be completelyhonest and upfront.
It's because I'm very pleasedwith my own personal experiences
, and so it would take a lot toconvince me that there could
have been a better way.
Speaker 6 (54:28):
And also that's a rough road to go down that I
don't think is beneficial toanybody.
Sure, Starting to talk about Ishould have done.
X.
No, I mean I don't want, and Ihope that doesn't come across at
all when I'm talking about this.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
No, again, I think like we prefaced the whole thing
.
This is not judgment on any oneindividual.
It's a discussion about ingeneral.
Speaker 6 (54:48):
And also I'm thinking , when I'm talking about this
kind of stuff, I am thinkingabout the younger generation.
I am thinking about highschoolers.
I'm thinking about junior hires.
I'm thinking about like, whatcan I?
How can I best help them have apicture of their future and
their world?
I don't want anybody who is 38years old and weighted-.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
Thinking oh, I wish I should have.
Speaker 6 (55:11):
Thinking that I'm saying that they did it wrong.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Right.
Speaker 6 (55:14):
That's not what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
No, because telling anybody what they should have
done-.
Speaker 6 (55:20):
What is the point?
Speaker 2 (55:22):
It's actually abuse, so it's shaming and not a
healthy.
I do think there is healthyshame.
That might be another one thatwe could talk about.
All right.
So benefits of delay, yeah.
Financial stability I have beenconvinced by our conversation
that that is not a um, that isnot a great argument, okay the
(55:46):
economic yep, okay, I'mconvinced that's not a great
argument.
Uh, personal growth and maturity.
I still think that that mightbe a good one because I can.
I I feel like, um, some of thesome of those horrific stories
I've ever heard of abuse of umnewborns have been and I'm not
saying this is like I have noscience to back this up, I have
(56:08):
no stats to back this up I canjust say through my own personal
experience, some of the mosthorrific stories that I've heard
of abuse and killing of infantshave come at the hands of very,
very young parents.
Sure, right, and so I do thinkthere is something to be said
for personal growth and maturityI also think that that another
(56:31):
half an hour I would uh, I'dargue with that that's fine but
I also think that, um, but I doget that I think you're
you're're probably referencingan accurate stat.
So I also, though, think thatgoing back to the idea of tribe
helps that one, yeah, but, thatbeing said, that's not the
reality.
A reduced divorce risk I wouldhave to look at the stats on
(56:56):
that.
I don't buy that.
Speaker 6 (57:00):
That having kids later somehow reduces your risk
Del delaying your marriage.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Delaying having kids reduces the risk of divorce yeah
, I don't know about that eitherI don't either.
And then stronger relationshipfoundation.
I don't buy that either.
So of this, I actually findonly one of the four convincing
for I win delaying marriageright and delaying parenthood,
(57:24):
so where am I Do whatever thehell you want.
Speaker 6 (57:31):
Yeah, obviously.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
Right, that's kind of where I'm at.
If you decide to have kids, nomatter when you decide to have
kids, love them with everythingyou have.
Treat them like they're themost precious thing that you
have.
Don't listen to all of theparenting experts out there.
Don't listen to what was that?
(57:53):
I remember that one.
What was her name?
Something nanny.
Speaker 6 (57:58):
Super nanny, super nanny, I like super nanny.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
You know what I felt like super nanny was someone who
didn't have her own kids andcould tell everybody else how to
raise theirs yeah maybe right,um, and so that's where I'm at,
as far as you know, um I followthe caesar milan way of of
raising kids.
He's the dog whisperer, okayperfect, all right, so right so
what's our common ground, Lucas?
Speaker 6 (58:22):
Well, is our common ground that we agree that it is
affluent societies that havedrops in birth rates, that it's
not a result of having poorcivilizations?
Speaker 2 (58:40):
Absolutely.
I mean just historicallyspeaking.
That's true.
It's absolutely.
I mean just historicallyspeaking, that's true, it's
clearly yeah.
Speaker 6 (58:47):
I think, well, not, I think.
Speaker 3 (58:50):
I know we're up against it.
Speaker 2 (58:52):
But let's just for a moment go to something that I
think you would appreciate.
Let's look at Rome.
Yes, wealthy Roman citizens hadless children than the plebes.
Yep, absolutely there you go.
Speaker 6 (59:07):
It's true, it just is .
It's just and it's across theboard.
You can see it in thestatistics it is less wealthy
societies that have more kids,and you can say the reasons for
it whatever, but it is.
We are not having less kids asa society because it's just so
expensive to have kids.
It's just not the case.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
Right, and then I know that, like you, could get
into discussions, but we don'thave time right now about
fertility, and is our diet, isour lifestyle, actually
affecting our fertility?
Speaker 6 (59:42):
I know my wife would like to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
Both of us talked about how we struggled a little
bit, all right, thanks.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
Thank you for listening to Living on Common
Ground.
Please follow wherever youlisten to your podcasts and
share it with your friends.
You can also find a link to oursocial in the description.
The more people we have livingon common ground, the better the
world will be.
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