The Complexities of Parenthood and Regret

In this episode, we delve into concerning statistics about the declining intention of Gen Z and Millennials to have children. Malcolm reveals historical data showing a significant increase in childlessness compared to previous generations. We explore survey results from Pew, Teen Vogue, and OnePoll, highlighting that nearly 50% of young adults now plan not to have children. Historical context shows only 5% intended childlessness, translating to 15% actual childlessness. The episode discusses various factors impacting these trends, such as housing market pressures and societal expectations. We also examine how traditions like marriage and fertility are being affected by modern dynamics and propose potential cultural shifts and incentives to address the fertility crisis.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to go over some chilling statistics that I have been looking for, for some time at this point. Ooh. I've always sort of said in the background, like, because we found a bunch of other statistics on how few Gen Z plan to have kids today and I've always been like, what was that number historically and what percent actually completed having no kids?

But I could never find that number historically and I finally found it and the number is so much worse than you would imagine.

Simone Collins: Okay, let's go into this.

Malcolm Collins: So if we go at a few surveys here 2018 to 2023, a Pew survey looking at adults under 50 who said they plan to have no kids. The numbers went from 37 percent to 47 percent in 2023, so we're looking at around half in that survey, okay? Now, and this is Pew, if we go to Teen Vogue, you'll get slightly better results. Teen Vogue says for Millennials and Gen Z about a third plan to have No kids.

If you look at research by one poll into a [00:01:00] thousand people aged 18 to 34, this was in the UK it found that over one in four had ruled out having a baby completely and over 50 percent were unlikely to have a baby.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. So you get the idea here. So we're looking at like maybe on the good side, like 31%, maybe up over 50%.

Simone Collins: But suffice it to say, having kids, or I guess the intention to not have any kids or expectation that one will not have any kids is higher now than it ever was before.

Malcolm Collins: Right. So I was trying to understand what did that look like historically? Historically, about 5 percent of women intended to be childless, about 15 percent ending up without children. Wow. And it looked at many years of data to get this. So this is like over a big swath of data. It wasn't just in that year, like obviously it's been going up.

It looked across countries, it looked across regions. Now where this gets chilling is that means that at a historic level, about 5 percent of people, women specifically in a country plan to have no kids. [00:02:00] And the number who actually end up without any kids, it's three times that. So 15%.

Oh

Simone Collins: no. So there's always had been a pretty big gap between people's intentions and reality when it comes to kids.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. How do you even do the math when 31 percent say they want no kids or when 50 percent say they want no kids? You can't just triple it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and I'm thinking about all these other factors like The Canadian housing market, which is so insane.

I'm obsessed with this too, this new account that just compares really crappy houses in Canada with castles in Europe that cost less. And this just, there are so many headwinds. It might make people delay having kids. I think that's

Malcolm Collins: all nonsense. No, but I'm

Simone Collins: still thinking that like there, there are some factors.

This definitely happened with us. We're like, we're going to start our family when, and ours may not have been as solid [00:03:00] as it

Malcolm Collins: was. So that things were cheaper. Like you can move these people who actually are

Simone Collins: reasonable. You think people are willing to make sacrifices to have,

Malcolm Collins: but I'm pointing out that I don't think it's healthy to buy into their fantasies of, I can't afford a house in Canada.

Therefore I have to genetically commit. Seppuku, you know, like that is not, no, no, that's a silly, silly argument by people who do not want to think outside the box or do the extra work that's required of our generation. And as we've seen historically, you know, the numbers just aren't that correlated.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I'm at least those who have a lot of kids are having them for ideological reasons and not because it's the right time or it's convenient.

Malcolm Collins: But the point I was trying to make with this. for our listeners is when you talk to people and they go, how bad is it going to be? When people wonder why I just keep being like, no, you don't get how bad this drop is going to be.

If [00:04:00] you're looking at historical data to attempt to predict it. A lot of people just like blow it off. They're like, oh, it couldn't possibly be that bad. It couldn't possibly be almost nobody. And that's what it might turn out to be for this next generation, especially among educated groups, especially among groups with any degree of you know, intellectual freedom.

You can see that. I've got other stuff I want to go over here, but just in case people are wondering, if you're looking at me and you go, Malcolm, your face looks insane right now. What happened to you? I have had a horrible flu and have extremely swollen lymph nodes right here. And going to a doctor and maybe a hospital tonight, so we'll see but i'm never going to not give you guys an episode and we're going to go into more stats here in just a second

Simone Collins: talk about dedication to the cause malcolm I have massive respect for you, and i'm really sorry

Malcolm Collins: So right here, I'm going to put some graphs on screen these graphs cover [00:05:00] intended actual childlessness in percentages and then excess childless in percentages of the intended childness.

And you can see it by different countries going up. If you're looking at the countries that had lower kids those are now all of them had less kids than they had anticipated. But some had like Way less than they had anticipated. The ones with the most less were Italy at the very top, then Germany, Greece, Spain, Austria the Slovenia.

What you'll notice here is a lot of Catholic and Eastern European ones. That historically well, one, they don't use IBF as much. So of course they're going to be well below when you

Simone Collins: take any Catholic country that. As people marrying later and later, they'll have high expectations and then they'll refuse to use help and then

Malcolm Collins: and then they end up with these invisible fertility rates.

Yeah, you'll actually see here. That their fertility rate was 20 percent lower than they had [00:06:00] anticipated. Oh, man. Oh now if you're looking at the countries where it was not so bad, you're looking at countries like Bulgaria, Lithuania, the United States, the Czech Republic, France, Latvia, Norway. Estonia, Hungary, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom.

So again, it's, it's, this is one of those clear Protestant Catholic splits here. And I think that people do not understand how much these traditions are leading to their own extinction. And it's part of why I put so little thought into like where they're going to be in the future, because right now I just don't see any way that they end up relevant players.

With the fertility rates being what they are and the, and the challenges being what they are, you know, people will be like, well, in my community, it works out. And it's like, well as I often point out, I'm like, well, do you have a lot of deconverts? And they're like, well, you know, with the kids and it's like, yeah, well, that's like saying here's the battlefield.

And I'm like, wow, it looks like a lot of people died and they're like, oh, we don't count the dead, obviously. It's like, no, that's what failing look. That's [00:07:00] what losing someone looks like. You know? So I think that's, that's a really important thing to look at here. Now, if we're gonna read into what's going on in this graph, we've got grouping women into three groups by education attainment.

We see that on average women in categories in almost all countries wish for two plus children enough to keep the population from collapsing. However, the more educated women, those with more money. More stable marriages, larger houses, obtain relatively fewer than desired. So the more educated women, you see even more of a gap here than just having low kids, is that they have less kids than they anticipated.

Again, because you need fertility technology if you're waiting that long. They did also generally desire fewer, but this is not the main driver of the dysgenic pattern, so them desiring fewer is less important to their low fertility rate than just them having less than they anticipated, but rather their inability to get what they want we can.

Also redo this using actual intelligence data, USA [00:08:00] 10 item vocabulary test. And this comes from a series of reviews of studies done by Emil Kierkegaard. He's been on fire recently with some really interesting posts. Now, if we're talking about this old woman problem that I mentioned, there was a post on Reddit that I thought was really interesting in regards to this.

Simone Collins: I would, I would point out, though,

the argument that Emile Kierkegaard makes is that, look, women do want kids. The problem is that they're just not having as many kids as they want. And I think the counter argument that you're trying to make here is, whoa, you're looking at really old numbers. You're looking at numbers from long ago of when women wanted kids, and now Far fewer women want kids and those who even still want them are having them way later So everything's just so much worse than you would think And this current meme that has been circling around some pronatalist discourse of like Oh, just give the women what they want like make it easy for them to have babies.

Yeah I

Malcolm Collins: understand why it's an appealing narrative, right? It's not an accurate [00:09:00] narrative.

Simone Collins: Not accurate as of now. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: not accurate as of now. And I think that a bigger problem is just Being unrealistic about when fertility windows are so, this post on the our natalism subreddit says 60 of millennial women are already nearly infertile and 80 of childless women regret not having kids Is this why more women are crying on tiktok than ever before?

Millennial women are those born between 1980 and 1994 and 35 is an established cutoff for fertility. Now, he's wrong about this. This is the cutoff for geriatric fertility when you start having very likely problems. Yeah, it's

Simone Collins: not like you can suddenly stop. You won't have kids after that point. I mean, women have natural pregnancies well into their 40s.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but we, we started having problems then, I, I say in terms of the genetic material. If we hadn't pre banked, we would have major problems if we tried after 35. Yeah. So, because we, we checked the genetic quality of the embryos we produced after 35, and they're just garbage compared to the other ones.

So for the vast majority of millennial women, the ship has already sailed. I'm wondering if this is the [00:10:00] first sign of the great tipping point where reality starts to settle in for women. There will eventually be a tipping point where the majority of women from a generation can no longer have babies.

Since men's fertility is unaffected by this, men just date down. Perhaps this is why the most educated demographic of women, older white women, are also the demographic who consumes the most antidepressants. Let's consider the facts. A childless post 30 woman about 70 years to live out a life of diminishing the looks and dopamine hookups from hedonism.

Very true. You will not get the same dopamine hookups as you get older. If you do not have kids, you, you are designed to have kids in transition to the next phase. It's very much like swearing off sex at puberty or something. It's just not the way your body is designed to work. And it's not that you can't live that way, or it's a.

Invalid choice, but you will never experience the the fullness that other people do And you may not be able to realize that this is going to hit you. Because society doesn't talk [00:11:00] about it because it's offensive. All right, it makes people sad and you know People who mention it like if we mention it people will be like, oh, that's such an offensive thing You know, it did shot child marrying the choice And I go, well, I mean, genetically, it's not every one of your ancestors had children, you know, that's, that's why you exist.

It's something motivated them to do that. You don't think that there's going to be some level of fulfillment in those older, you know, less verbal years that is going to come from child rearing next. Post hookup 20s. A portion of their friend circle will not be able to do girls night out anymore.

Essentially, your female friends prioritize their children over you. The guys that are left are either losers, norwards, not theirs, or serial players. The A players got married early or continued being Hugh Hefner with younger women. The B players were probably selected as the stable providers. No man in his forties has any reason to compromise his bachelor lifestyle with commitment to [00:12:00] an infertile post peak looks woman.

That's absolutely true. The the the level of market strengths that these women have really cannot be understated. I mean, what do you do especially if you're low skill or something like that? You're basically become if you plan on making money off of dating guys, which a lot of people basically do.

A lot of women basically do. They're like, oh yeah, that's how I make my, my core income. The, the, you, and I've seen this, I've seen this in my older friends. They basically have to become sex workers. I mean, they don't call it that, right? But you know, they sleep with guys who are sleeping with other people whenever they feel like it.

And there's really nothing they can do about it because they have no power. They have no good income stream They have no, you know and this especially happens to divorced women who don't understand that like well I had kids and it's yeah, and then you left the guy who cared about you and the kids So now you're a sex worker like if you are a home raiser and you are a postmenopausal and you are out there.

Trying to secure a guy you can but it is hard Especially if you don't have an income. [00:13:00]

Simone Collins: I think that there are pockets of men who are post divorce, post widow, who are kind people who really do just want a monogamous partner. Not necessarily because they're low value, but honestly for many people, just like, either they're more traditional or they're not keen to spend all that energy.

And I think that it's possible for people to find someone, but it is a lot harder and people are not, I think the more important problem here is people are not realistic about their fertility windows. Both women and men. And that is one thing about that reddit post you read that gets my goat that whoever wrote it was clearly not aware of the fact that male fertility does diminish and dramatically.

Yeah, the, the genetic quality of. Babies conceived with older sperm is lower and like whenever we hit dinner parties, the first thing I'm always [00:14:00] doing with like young men who show up and I'm like, have you frozen your sperm, have you frozen your sperm? And they walk away, I'm sure thinking I'm the creepiest woman in the entire world, but it's kind of their

Malcolm Collins: fault.

I particularly love that stuff. They're like, oh, this woman gets it.

Simone Collins: But it is, it's their fault if they have children with worse health outcomes because they. Waited and they failed to do the easiest thing they could possibly do. I mean, for women, it's pretty expensive and difficult to freeze eggs and the outcome is a lot worse.

You can freeze, you know, 40 eggs and maybe that would only, you know, produce a small number of embryos. But for men, it's just so much easier. So. Yeah, it does. The bigger issue here is people not being aware of their fertility window and not really

Malcolm Collins: recommend freezing sperm. Just find a partner. Like, really, really, you need a partner quite early if you want to have a large

Simone Collins: and like who wants to raise kids when they're super old.

You can't chase after [00:15:00] them as easily or

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I think that's actually one of the best options for these sort of post wall women out there who are no longer fertile because remember like that's what creates attractiveness That's why women all of a sudden start looking so like unattractive after like 45 to most men I mean men, you know this you know this when you look you're like, oh, this is like a different category of thing.

This is not something I'm lusting after unless they like taxidermied themselves. But because what you're looking at is, is this, is this breedable? Is this, is this submissive and breedable? Is the question that goes through. Unless you're destiny and then you're like, is this dominant and breedable?

Sorry, gotta, episode did well. Is this, is this yeah, okay. So next here, I want to go over a graph that I'm gonna put on the screen. It says the gap between ideal and realized fertility among women with different cognitive levels. And you see it goes from you know, you know, A couple standard deviations at one end, a couple standard deviations at the other end, and what you see is the gap is huge, especially once you get over the sort [00:16:00] of 50 percent mark and really big at the highest level of intelligence, which means if you are intelligent, you should be able to clean up within the next generation.

Simone Collins: Well, if you combine that intelligence with a can do attitude and a lot of initiative, which. Doesn't necessarily correlate. There are so many incredibly smart people. We know who aren't getting it done So

Malcolm Collins: so true quick because in the discord somebody was asking this and I actually thought this was an interesting question to you know Focus on just a little bit.

Okay, we're saying they'd always wondered what IQ you and I were So I can provide them a bit of color on that so Simone just like you look for example when we did her autism test No prep, no extra work, no extra time, no extra anything. She just goes out, does the test, ends up in the top 0. 5 percent of the verbal section.

It was the non verbal section, I think she was top 90%. For me, I've never done one, but I [00:17:00] relate to intelligence tests in a pretty unique way. Which is to say that and intelligence environments in a pretty unique way, which is I get a lot better over time. And I know you're not supposed to with IQ.

It's just, I'm very good with persistence and learning patterns. So you know, in high school, for example, I started my high school in the bottom half of my class. Like a lot of people don't know that. Like, yeah, I graduated near like the top. Tippy top. But I started in the bottom half and, and, and this in, in, in Stanford business school.

Yeah. I graduated near the tippy top of the class, but I started so bad. They were thinking about kicking me out when I did my GMAT, which is a testing to get into Stanford business school. I went to the GMAT testing service thing that you can do where you can like practice for it. It was like a group of people.

Yeah. People like actually left, like actually left in the room when I said, I plan to go to Stanford business school. For people who don't know, that's like the top business school by a dramatic margin. And they were like, like much harder than Harvard, for example. And they were like, Oh my God, like, what do you mean?

Like [00:18:00] you are, I mean, I remember I was like 35 percent on tests and stuff like that in the class. I was by far the bottom. I hadn't, I hadn't done the full reading beforehand. I hadn't, you know and so. Then year after year, because I started this at a young age, I started this midway through college, and that was the other thing, all the other people were older, but I was like, okay, I'll think ahead, I'll plan ahead, that's just always the way I've done things, and I'll just practice this test every single summer for years.

So And then I ended up being in the top 0. 5 percent as well. Eventually eventually that was in verbal and I think in Math, I might have been in the top 98 percent If I remember correctly, but it's been a while. But what I would say is I don't think that i'm like naturally whatever whatever my genetic coding is around iq.

It is not the generic brilliance coding Any thoughts before I go further?

Simone Collins: Just to reiterate that those who are rather smart, it does look like from the data. That they do the worst on sort of performing with their [00:19:00] fragility and tension. So

Malcolm Collins: yeah, very very bad Which you know, it might actually be that this whatever weird like grit type intelligence I have which is just forward thinking Not leaving things to later and like a ton of aggressive action It might be the very thing that is causing me to do well on some tests and get into advanced like academic environments or that start the pronatalist movement or you know As a kevin dolan says like my weird superpowers i'll have like this crazy idea like oh i'm gonna start a religion And i'll just f*****g do it.

You know, i'll start that pronatalist movement like Let's do it but the point being is is is that It might actually be that whatever is correlating with what people think of as intelligence in me is what correlated to my ridiculous fertility rate

Simone Collins: Yeah, and I would imagine that the reason why intelligence tends to correlate with lower fertility is, is people who aren't quite intelligent are incentivized to lean into the systems that utilize intelligence, which are like high paying jobs that demand all your time and high [00:20:00] educational degrees and all these things encourage you to delay certain things.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, and this is the other advantage of me is I am pathologically lazy. Like, it's interesting. I'm like pathologically hardworking when I believe like I have a reason to do something, but like for jobs and stuff, I just can't. You know me, Simone. I am. I'm very good at outsourcing. Let's say,

Simone Collins: yeah,

Malcolm Collins: she'll get me something and then I'll go to Upwork and I'll be like, is there a way to do this here?

Is there a way to do this with AI? Is there a way to do this? Yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna put up another graph here, which I thought was interesting. This one says, if you had to do it over again, how many children would you have? Or would you not have any at all? So this is really interesting. Among those with Children, only 7 percent said they wish they had had no Children.

A very low, only 7 percent of people with kids wish they had had no kids of those who had no kids. 56 percent wish they had kids.

Simone Collins: Right, so you're way more likely to [00:21:00] end up regretting your decision if you choose to not have kids than if you choose to have kids.

Malcolm Collins: Way more likely, way more likely 7 percent to 56 percent and if you're like, Oh, I can satiate this with one kid think again, nobody wants one kid. You might actually be surprised about this amount.

People with no kids, only 3 percent said they wish they had one kid. And I

Simone Collins: imagine also like if, if we were to dig deeper and ask that 7 percent that regrets their Choice of kid. Why they regret that choice. It probably had to do with poor partner choice. Or not being in a good relationship to begin with.

I mean, more and more kids are sort of born even before there's a really solid relationship in place at this point. So yeah, that 7 percent has more to say about the partner than it has to say about actual parenthood. And one thing that you and I didn't realize until we had our kids was just the How much our kids are just [00:22:00] combined versions of us.

So if you find out that you don't really like your partner, you're really, like, even if they die, or you kill them, but you have kids with them, you're stuck with your partner forever.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: and that's that. I imagine that that's the vast majority of what's going on in that 7 percent which is one of those things.

It's really easy to control for. I doubt that this 7 percent that lastingly doesn't like their kids isn't it. The kind that was like, oh, I thought I'd had kids and then it just happened and I just wasn't,

Malcolm Collins: well, you know, we had another episode a long time ago where we sort of investigated the phenomenon of parents who regretted having children and we're bragging about it to progressive news media.

This was like a thing a couple of years ago. All these articles were running on like, oh, the parents who regret it, the silent horror, the, you know and if you, if you read those, I think what you actually see more than people not liking their partner was, [00:23:00] was my read was people not liking themselves.

And they, they saw in their kids the things they hated about themselves. Oh, that, yeah. And a lot of people hate themselves, Simone, so, you know. It's actually a little surprising that only 7 percent are like yeah, I would have had no kids. Well, I think

Simone Collins: that the redeeming thing, as much as I hate myself is I see so much of you in our kids, so it makes it okay.

Malcolm Collins: Come on, you, you must like, you, you really like our kids that are like you. You're taking them, leave them now, you, you used to like them. No, I love, I

Simone Collins: love them very much. Is it true? The, the things about me that I see in them are often the things that drive me the most nuts, because they drive me the most nuts about myself.

Come on.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, but there are things I like about you or tolerate, you know, because you're so sweet and I love the other people really like these kids the one the one who you're thinking of at the hospital today at the hospital the Clinic today [00:24:00] the clinic workers were like he has the best smile I've ever seen And they just love trying to talk to him because he was doing his little doot doot doot dance He's got a doot

But I, I also found it.

So if you look at the among those who had kids or I said among those, that's only 3 percent wanted one kid. Only 6 percent wanted one kid, which I also thought was pretty interesting. And, and you see, you know like 4 to 6 kids. Let's see the math here really quickly. So. You've got,

yeah of people who have had kids, 24 percent wish they had had four or more. Of people who haven't had kids 10 percent wish they had had four or more.

Simone Collins: Do you think a lot of this is men? Cause a constant thing that we come across, like even at the Pronatalist Conference, is men who'd be like, oh yeah, I wish I had more kids, but it's not up to just me.

And then they like look over at their wife. [00:25:00] Who's maybe glaring at them. Do you think this is mostly men?

Malcolm Collins: Who want to have this many kids?

Simone Collins: Is that what's going on?

Malcolm Collins: You know I don't think it's men. I think it's mostly women, to be honest.

Simone Collins: Who want to have more?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, when I hear regret over the number of kids Well, I guess I see it about equally in both.

A lot of women like screw over men, like in my family and then say, Oh, you know, I told you I was going to have X many kids, but I had Y many kids and that's too much work. You know? And I see this over and over again. I think that this is, you know, everyone, we see it a lot

Simone Collins: with everyone. Well, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I'd say within our culture, within techno puritanism, I'd say it's one of the worst sins you can commit because you, you stole somebody's life.

Oh, you

Simone Collins: promise a certain number of children and then renege.

Malcolm Collins: And then renege and renegotiate once you're in a position of power. And I think what should happen if people attempt to do this is, is their partner should just, yeah, you'll have to pay child support or whatever, but no, I [00:26:00] think it, it needs to be harsh and it needs to be severe.

People need to learn how extreme it is, what they're doing. You're, you're,

Simone Collins: you're trying to create a chilling effect, but I think the data on crime and punishment. More or less indicates that chilling effects don't work that well.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, okay, here's a better solution. Yeah. If somebody decides, voluntarily, but they're capable of continuing to have kids to stop, within techno puritanism, you're allowed a second life.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That makes sense. I, that, the, the, well, if you don't want to have kids, then I will find someone who will, it seems to me like a more reasoned.

Malcolm Collins: Same with, same with husbands. Like we're going to stop at X many kids. It's like, well, then I guess I need a second husband.

Simone Collins: That makes more sense to me. That sounds like a more practical approach.

Malcolm Collins: Because people need to, yeah, there needs to be like consequences for this. And I think that's a fair consequence. You know, they're like, well, I need more help. Okay, well, you need more help. Apparently you can't handle this on your own. People used to do this all the time, you know, whether it's.

because their wives died young or, you know, et cetera. So I don't have as much problem [00:27:00] about that, especially given that the, the, the person did the worst type of lie possible. The, the cucking somebody lie.

And it's not

Simone Collins: quite cucking. It's like leading along, but again, that's not the primary

Malcolm Collins: form of cutting. I mean, you're lowering their genetic success. through your misrepresentation.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it's, I mean, regardless, it's bad.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Next, next graph here. Okay. So in this graph younger parents are more likely to wish they've had more children overall.

If you could turn back time, would you percent 1017 British parents? Okay. So for younger parents have the same number of kids. The number was 46% have more children. The number was 32%, half fewer children. The number was only 6% and no children. The number was 2%. So of British young people who had kids the ones who would prefer no kids, 2% in this younger 24, 5 to 49.

And that's a pretty, you [00:28:00] know, that's like most middle-aged people these days. Right. You know, so again, , but we're, we're

Simone Collins: still talking about a group that's already kind of grown up looking in hindsight. And what we're most concerned about now is. younger generations that haven't even haven't yet embarked on their fertility journey yet because this is where there's an intervention

Malcolm Collins: years old.

What are you talking

Simone Collins: about? 29 years old,

Malcolm Collins: 49 years old.

Simone Collins: And these people are old. They're not young people. Yeah, they're not people who

Malcolm Collins: haven't engaged yet. They have experienced their full fertility window.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I'm saying that doesn't really matter so much. Like there are

Malcolm Collins: older people, for example, I don't understand what you mean by it doesn't matter.

If you look at older people, the numbers are quite different. So if you look at 50 to 64 year old parents, you're looking at 56%. So more say that they're happy with the number of kids they had 29 percent want more. But in terms of no children at all, it gets up to 5 percent and 2 percent would have had fewer children.

If you get to 65 [00:29:00] plus 61%, so the most who are satisfied with the number of kids they've had. 25 percent would have had more. 3 percent would have had fewer. And 6 percent would have had none at all, so the highest number. So like, the none at all goes up over time. I can, I, I know exactly why that's happening.

Simone Collins: What, just a different type of institution of marriage when these people were getting married?

Malcolm Collins: No, it's that they've had the time to see who their kids grew up to be, and a number of them are just like those little that seems reasonable to me 6 percent of 5 percent of parents are just like, after their kids become adults, like,

Simone Collins: you know what world would have been better off without you. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: that's a, you know, maybe their fault in terms of you know, like their own genes, their partner or their child rearing abilities. Maybe, maybe they tried a gentle parent, right? And they end up with these psychos.

Simone Collins: You never know.

Malcolm Collins: All right. One in 12 parents regret having children in this graph here.

To what extent, if at all, do you regret having children? This is the same study a great extent, only 1%. A moderate extent, 2%, [00:30:00] a small extent, 5%. Well, I mean, they really twisted that to make it sound worse than it is only 1 percent of great extent and only a 2 percent of moderate extent and then 5 percent is you know, this is actually interesting.

If you look by the like age breakdown 25 to 34 year olds great extent 3%. So very low moderate extent, 4%, medium and a small extent, 6%, which is like, I can understand, especially while the kids are still young, but here's the number that gets interesting to me the 35 to 44 year olds, 0% set a great extent 2 percent set a moderate extent, so very low numbers, and then a small extent and actually pretty high number 9%.

Which yeah, I can get that like ups and downs, right? You know, I've seen national impotence family vacations Then the 45 to 54 year old range you get one percent a great extent two percent a moderate extent and six percent the Small extent which okay. Yeah, that makes sense And then again you get for the 55 plus zero percent a great extent one percent a moderate extent and then a small extent four percent.

So what what you see is [00:31:00] just That it is astronomically rare To regret having kids a great extent if this is something you're thinking about again,

Simone Collins: there is something Yeah

Only that I'd love to include in this conversation a discussion of what you I would recommend in light of this additional context, just that like young people are heading into such a terrible gap.

Malcolm Collins: I think what we need is a holiday called Old Maid's Day, where people get like foam bats. And you know, if you have kids, you get to wear a certain color, like in St.

Patrick's Day. And any woman who's not wearing it as an old maid gets, gets hit in the head with a bat. Like a wiffle bat or something to give a good like donk. So everybody knows that they're donking up society for everyone else. Same with guys. We're going to do this for guys too. So anyone, you know or people who aren't with their, their spouses, you know, cause you gotta, you gotta, you can't just have kids with somebody and then disappear.

Simone Collins: I don't know about national days of [00:32:00] hate. I think that carrots are way more powerful than sticks. And I think that this is an evidence supported. Stance on my part. I think I think I think

Malcolm Collins: Witches are dangerous Okay And these women are basically witches and we should test them in the water to see if they weigh more than a duck

Simone Collins: I think that a holiday celebrating young couples or getting married or something like that would be, would be, I mean, we've

Malcolm Collins: got Valentine's Day.

What's wrong with that?

Simone Collins: Because Valentine's Day right now is more something celebrated by, I would argue, not married people, not committed together people than it is not like it. Valentine's Day is a day for hedonists and dilettantes, not for people who are frugal, not for people who are. Whatever, right?

Because like the only people who are dumb enough to celebrate holidays like Valentine's Day are the people who are dumb enough to like [00:33:00] spend a premium to take someone out to dinner that night, you know, or like buy stuff that isn't even that person's favorite stuff on a day when isn't necessarily the day when they need it.

I don't know, I just think it's, it's a hedonist holiday that is more of a misdirection and that also frames relationships around love and especially erotic romantic love instead of family. And when you and I first talked about shifting families to be more along the lines of our values, we suggested turning the month of February into a month about Understanding the meaning and importance of different relationships, colleagues, family, friends.

And only there being this tiny, tiny segment for romantic love because it is one, very fleeting and two, not a good thing to build your life around.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, we had done it around like our family as well for like celebrate [00:34:00] Valentine's Day with the kids about like family and why it's important.

And I think that's a good way to do it.

Simone Collins: And I also think like in terms of punishing people, you need to punish people before it's too late. Like the idea of punishing people who are already Like chronic bachelors or quote unquote old maids, you're missing it. You want to punish someone the first time they appear to be dilettantishly dating.

The first time they're not dating for marriage.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I think that's a good point. When I think also it was influencers to really shame the influencers who are sleeping around and don't have a large family.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like, Oh, like, I mean, it should be something that people feel self conscious about if it turns out or looks like they're dating for anything aside from.

Marriage prompt marriage.

Malcolm Collins: I agree. I agree. But again, this is why I like the cuck framing I think calling them cucks is the way to do this for men at least for women and I think you know Old maid is the tradition but up to [00:35:00] you.

Simone Collins: So I I don't know. I I also disagree When I think back to how I grew up and I think a lot of women are like this, you, you kind of want to check the boxes and marriage was just never one of the boxes.

Malcolm Collins: Well, that's what I'm saying. You make it a box by applying shaming and status. No,

Simone Collins: by applying status. Yeah. Shaming. Not really. It's not like I traveled. Because I felt I would be shamed if I didn't.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but you didn't say things that are like anti DEI because you were afraid of being shamed. You didn't question the, you know, trans narrative because you were afraid of being shamed.

Simone Collins: I wasn't afraid of being shamed for that, actually. Ugh. At all. I just I didn't know I was allowed to hold certain opinions. I don't think you understand what, like, membership in the cult feels like. You could never, ever possibly be a member of a cult. So.

Poor Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: One of the main problems is the conflict in time. Use was careerism. Women spend more time on education than men. This [00:36:00] is probably an effect of higher conscientiousness and desire to follow the path that society tells them to follow.

Get a degree, become self sufficient. In your career, then maybe you'll find a husband at the age of 30. This default life playbook needs to be geared more towards marriage and motherhood. Shorter education, less worry about being self sustainable. Among married couples, there is no recent fertility decline. And this is really interesting if you look at this chart right here.

So what it shows is the fertility rate change of different groups. And this first red dotted line here is Chained marital status tfr. The that was in 2001 then this one going down this like solid red line here. This is changed Chain 2008 chain marital status tfr.

And then the solid black line here is 2008 raw tfr and then 2001 raw tfr is the black dotted line so I think it's wrong to say that there's been no change in in marital tfr, but it certainly hasn't been as bad As it has been for other communities [00:37:00] So that's it. What are your thoughts Simone?

Simone Collins: My thoughts are we need to change the framing around what people need to start their lives. And a lot of things. I mean, it's clear, for example, that Younger generations are not going to grow up with the resources and expectations and wealth of boomers. And yet I think kind of like with tradwives in the 1950s with family values or like family composition and what traditional families look like.

Many of us, even very recently born people who are way younger than us, have anchored to this level of wealth, like home alone wealth. And kind of expected that like, ah, yes, I

Malcolm Collins: will be ready. I could not agree more. I look at the types of toys that people are buying now, because I can like look at stores and stuff like that.

And there are all these like single use toys, like, and this is like at Walmart. This isn't like at like fancy areas, right? Like, why is that the case? It's because people have. normalized to a level of luxury that is [00:38:00] beyond what anyone expected when I was growing up and the people who are like, Oh, it's not, no, it's so much worse now, et cetera.

And it's like, well then why, why are you getting all these one use toys? Okay. Why is that the fad right now at the toy stores?

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, well that's, that's not exactly what I'm talking about. A lot of the reason why people are getting disposable everything is that People have found that they can still technically get a lot of the appearance of what older generations lived with furniture, toys, clothing, but the stuff that they're buying is no longer durable or lasting.

Like I was just watching a YouTube video. That was going over how furniture has changed over the past 20 years and how durability has changed, material composition has changed, you can but not everyone has the time or car for pickup or luxury, you know, or even like skill to upgrade the furniture that they get, that, you know, has damaged and often needs a little bit

Malcolm Collins: [00:39:00] back here.

You know, you look at like the chair I'm sitting in right, right. Oh, sure. You're sitting in new. Both of these are new chairs, right? They were not particularly expensive. I think the couple hundred dollar range. And they are still holding up after like half a decade. Like I don't, yeah, they're great.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Not, not everything's bad. What, what, what I'm trying to say is, is what you're looking at is, is people are buying disposal stuff because they want to have the same, like numerical number of things they want to, they want to have the trappings of what maybe their parents generation had or their grandparents.

Yeah. But they, they cannot afford to get like the quote, unquote, real thing. What I'm arguing for is something very different. What I'm arguing for is we need to drop the expectations of building a life that we have seen in movies and on TV and instead be like, all right, what do I value and then what do I technically really need to start that?

And Walter, maybe be better off if I start that and that doesn't take us away from tradition per se. It used to be tradition that maybe out of high school, you'd get married and [00:40:00] then start to build your life with your partner and you would grow up together. Like, you'd really raise each other. So I think that that's more what needs to be reworked out, not just from the perspective of relationships and having kids, but also from the perspective of how people spend their money and how people spend their time.

Maybe going on a vacation multiple times a year. Is, is not feasible. Maybe, I mean, the, the number of people who literally go into debt just to go on vacation is insane.

Malcolm Collins: Vacation. To go into debt.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Vacations used to be seen as, as something that, like, nobody but the ultra rich would do. And that changed with the train system.

Where they developed a one day a week where you could travel for, I think it was a penny. And then people begin to normalize to the idea of vacations and vacation destinations. This is in the, I can't remember when but the point being, it's, it's not like part of the human condition that you need to do that.

Like, this is something you've chosen to burden yourself with.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And, and the, also the level of luxury that people now have weddings [00:41:00] with and travel with is. Super crazy. Even when you consider what, for example, the British Royal family experienced with many of their like services or amenities or vacations in the past.

And you can even kind of see this with the crown, like the places where they were going on vacation. Like Balmoral is not that nice. Yeah, it's like, okay this is alright, but it's, it doesn't look like the bougie vacation resorts of today. Everything else has become hyper luxurious.

Malcolm Collins: Balmoral, which was their core vacation destination in Scotland, their core one period, is about, maybe about twice the size of our house and about as nice.

Simone Collins: It's, it's significantly bigger. I mean, you only toured a very small part of it, but it's, it's not like, yeah, I mean, we, we, yeah, basically we need to reset on, on expectations and on understandings of [00:42:00] what we should be focusing on with our resources and stuff. And I think that's more. Where we should be going now, and I think the bigger issue to your point and what you're trying to add to the discourse with this episode is, hold on guys, this isn't just, oh, women actually do really largely want kids, they're just starting their marriages way too late and having fewer of them, that's an issue, but a bigger issue is a lot of kids just don't, a lot of women just don't want kids at all, and I don't think that that's because they actually don't want kids, I think that that's because kids have been removed from the evoked set.

And it's important to bring them back in a sustainable way, but going back to tradition is not the way. And I would say, like, going to try to make, to, to, to shove in kids to the present understanding of what they're fully desirable is also not going to work. So, a new path has to be forged.

Malcolm Collins: I just found the numbers shocking, which to me indicates that the fertility crash may be way worse than anyone had [00:43:00] anticipated, given it was 5 percent anticipated having no kids in the past, and now we're looking at, like, 50 percent anticipated having no kids.

Who knows what these numbers are going to look like in a few years. But I think you know, Buck a lot. All right. Love you, Simone.

I'm not going to be having dinner tonight. I might just come down to

Simone Collins: sleep.

Malcolm Collins: I might do that. Yeah. Cause I got to head out for the sex o'clock doctor's appointment.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like I'm, I'm kind of worried about your health and I'm like, if your body's telling you to sleep right now, you should probably listen to it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I don't know why it's telling me to sleep all the time.

Simone Collins: Something's very wrong. And you need to make sure that you get it sorted, but also getting it sorted tonight might involve Going to another clinic or whatever and then you're going to get really tired. So sleep right now All

Malcolm Collins: right. Thank you.

Simone.

Simone Collins: All right. I love you. Welcome.

Look at that. Every time it seems like maybe we stopped talking and officially recording, then she gets quiet. Okay. Okay.

Speaker: I [00:44:00] want to go that way. Okay, I'm going to push him now. Ready? Yeah. One, two, three. Push! Whoa! Ready? I'm going to push you now. One, two, three. Push!

Speaker 3: Go! Hahaha.