A child-less world : The future?

Jokes and memes aside : India's population grew tremendously between the 1930's and 1970's when those governing woke up suddenly to the fact it was growing at an alarming rate without concurrent resource growth and began devising policy to control it. Tubectomies, Vasectomies were touted. Sterilization targets were given to states by the centre. International aid was sought and supplied. "We two ours two" became a policy in India towards reducing the fertility rate towards replacement levels of population growth , which we are almost at now - that is- 2.1 fertility rate from more than 5 in the 1950's. China went a step further and mandated a strict "We two ours one" policy in 1980 which was only withdrawn in 2016- because the demography was getting screwed, and even then, the policy withdrawal came after many, many internal calls from population scientists for ending the policy over the course of several years.  

Now to the other side of the coin - Who wants to have kids these days? Either people across the world are getting super smart and learning from the experiences of others or people are automatically becoming less enthused by the idea of becoming parents and not having much between the sheets action. In fact, discounting a few northern states, fertility rate is actually below replacement level in most of India. And so our population may stabilise in the 1950's and then begin to decline is what Indian population experts are saying. 

My current interest is in what happens when people refuse to have kids? This phenomenon is already happening to some extent. For various reasons : I don't think I'll be a good parent. I am too focussed on my career to take care of a kid. I don't really like kids. I'm not good at marriage and I don't want to be single parent. And so, me, coming from a small metro city in a still developing country, know personally, people who say the above things. So, this is a real thing. At some point more people will say the above things and less people will be willing to have children than the ones who don't want kids. 

Countries and politics can induce people into having kids by giving freebies (Child allowance), more time off work for parenting, etc - like several European countries do. But still, people are just not willing to have children or most have one child and so politicians are encouraging skilled immigrants. As people see that having no kids or fewer kids is rewarding, more and more will opt for that lifestyle. Then what? What will happen to a small country when there are hardly any people now and will have none in the future. This is not likely to happen in my lifetime. But this is a scenario that may play out in the next few centuries. (Provided we are not hit by a massive meteor, huge tsunami doesn't drown half the world, etc etc. 

If everyone has just one kid or less, then what happens? The world population goes into a gradual decline like China's policy affected their demographic spread. More people would be older and less would be of working age. Then eventually as population dwindled further and further, cities and towns would get abandoned as governments would work to concentrate the resources better to provide for those cities that were still occupied. Like there are more unmarried men available compared to unmarried women in China and India, there might be sex ratio issues in the reverse. 

So clearly this one kid per every two people is not really a good idea. This replacement ratio seems to work better. But it would mean that population would remain the same as it is currently : Every two people have 2.1 kids  (That 0.1 is to account for those who die off before reaching reproduction age) . And the population that is currently on earth is 8billion odd. (Happy world population day btw). That does not seem like the right number. There is rampant poverty in a lot of places. There is malnutrition. Lack of access to healthcare. So that is not the right amount to people this earth can support. Then what is?

Nope, there is no magic number. But whatever it is that scientists and experts postulate is far lesser than 8 billion for sure. Some say 5 Billion. Some say 2 Billion. Some propose a range : Between 500 Million - 5 Billion. And so we are back to Thanos :-) Clearly this earth is overpopulated. So this population reduction policy that India is following "We two ours two", while not ideal, is the best we have got. So I say we stick to it. The problem comes when every country is trying their own population control or are implementing a population growth policy at very different times. 

By the way - Nigeria's the new China and India. Their population is set to grow very fast in the next few decades. So clearly my dire predictions of abandoned cities will not come to pass soon. We and China can always invite people from countries which have too many people to come and populate our dying cities and towns in a couple of 100 years, eh? 

How to be successful at marriage :-)

 Now that I have been married for almost 10 years, and my spouse and I have not murdered each other (yet :-) I feel experienced enough to turn into the agony aunt that we all love to hate. You know, the one who gives unsolicited advice whenever you meet ? (Oh Jeez, Can I not enjoy my coffee in peace before it cools down ?) The one you nod at with the same expression on your face for 10 minutes and hope she goes away? Yup, that's me now.

Now, the title of this piece could easily be " How to be successful at anything" but then it would become like a Dale Carnegie Book. 

1. Remember only the good things in your marriage and keep at it . Really - that's about it. First and last piece of advice. 

For those who need elaboration - here goes : Every aspect of our lives come with the good and the bad experiences and hence memories. Our jobs. Our studies. Our families. Our spouses. The only way to be successful at anything is keeping at it. And to consciously remember only the good things and not linger on the bad ones. Because when we keep bringing up and remembering the bad aspects of anything, we turn bitter, we lose the enthusiasm for the good parts, we get depressed and slowly turn towards ending the aspect- maybe job or the marriage or the course you are are studying. Then what? Finding the perfect job and perfect spouse can be a never ending search and is that really an effective use of our time instead of investing in the bird in our hand ? So, remember only the good parts, and live through the bad parts and immediately forget them. And be kind - to yourself and others. For, surely you aren't perfect at everything- and I'm sure you're a pain in some parts of your life and people have to put up with you just as they have to put up with me. 

But this is an ongoing process. This need to make yourself forget the bad experiences that come with married life. In the olden days, middle class women had a very different attitude to marriage- they were made dependant on the institution - Coz -not able to generate money for food is a big dinger. (Because mostly they were not employable because they were not educated.  Not to mention, that most middle class life across the world had women as only home makers because society was more unforgiving in those days for those who went against norms.)

 These days we have freedom  of choice about our education and career and it hardly inures us to hardships - because we don't face big hardships in our early years and marriage forces us- women and men equally but in different ways- into making space for someone else's wants and needs and the hardest aspect is to make space for the wants and needs of our spouses's families - in India at least where women are trained and groomed to leave their parents and go and live elsewhere with their husband's families, make career choices within constraints imposed by others - even if they don't want to.  When we begin to do things in our lives that we don't really want to  - in the interests of having a traditional family and raising children - it really jars with our individual needs, doesn't it?

 This unpleasantness is a part of grown up life and it chafes us - some more than others. So, the people and women in particular that succeed in a marriage are the ones who can look at the larger picture and put up with the small nuisances with good cheer. (Disclaimer - I'm not talking about putting up with wife beaters. I'm merely talking about putting up with your run of the mill, middle-class Indian Kumar and his family in the interest of the larger picture. Indian Kumar may not be so bad, he can even be Prince Charming on occasion:-)

Now for those who scoff and say I don't need to have a traditional family, or I don't need to have kids or I don't need a spouse's support even if I do want to raise kids, well kudos to you.  (Some recent studies show that the happiest people on the planet are women who are unmarried and have no kids - by choice. Here's a link if you want to know more : https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/25/women-happier-without-children-or-a-spouse-happiness-expert ) If you are one of the above, then this particular blog article is clearly not meant for you. This is meant for the countless women and men who struggle daily with the idea of - Why should I put up with this shit? Because in India - while the rate is still low compared to global divorce rates (1.1% is India's divorce rate) the rate has actually doubled between 2000-2020 - here is a link about that if you want to know more -  https://www.livemint.com/news/india/non-marriage-very-rare-in-india-but-divorces-doubled-in-past-two-decades-report-1561486297890.html) and this question looms large : Why should I put up with all these choices that I haven't really made for myself?

Because the larger picture maybe worth it. And it's for you to decide if you want to make your marriage succeed , or if it is too horrible to live in and it's better to cut your losses and run now. Because the line each of us draws in the sand is different. I can put up with this much and no further. So, find your line. Sometimes you may be willing to re-draw it (if you have a supportive spouse) and sometimes not. And I will leave you again with what I started with: 

Remember only the good parts and try to live through and then forget the bad parts. Else every marriage we attempt will end in failure. 

Joy in the day-to-day

 As one grows older, one begins to get wisdom - or so they claim. I am just left with more unanswered questions and fewer definite answers. I write less, I exercise less, I play less, I eat less, I spend less on myself. The only thing that being an older adult and all that it entails have left me is more work. As a kid I thought that the adults have everything. But now I find that the opposite is true. Adults have a lot of work and responsibilities and very less enjoyment, true enjoyment, that we experienced as kids. I assume that once I become a true old lady - in my 60's maybe , If I live that long and retire from a full time job, I may have more time on my hands to do as I see fit, but I doubt it. By then, I would hopefully be a grandmother, and grandmothers have a lot of work too. But, I digress. 

Enjoyment in the small things: Are the longer lived years making us more jaded compared to kids where a lot of experiences are new? And with time, will we lose more of our joie de verve and be filled with ennui for life? Is this why some older people get religious- seeking God as a way to feel some joy? Also, Is this why  some older people get better at accepting the concept of death? Aaah, I'm so bored with this world, I might as well go?  

I am trying to understand joy and the pull this emotion has on us, to keep us tethered in this realm. I am trying to find a way to keep joy in my life and clearly failing miserably as a lot of things feel designed to pull me down. All I'm left with is weird pondering that goes nowhere. And then I get back to my chores. Aah, the humdrum of middle class life with middle class concerns, time tables to be followed, lunches to be packed and meetings that need attending and people who need to be called back. What would we do without you all?  

The compulsion of the first baby and the choice of the second

I am now mother to two children. As I see a lot of my peers going through a choice - of whether to have a child at all, or two, or in rare cases, three - all valid and right choices, I wonder about the factors that drive these choices.

Free availability of money is clearly a factor as is parental or in-law support for the raising of children , especially for working mothers. Not to mention, physical ability to have one of course - this is an issue as old as time - fertility. And mental fortitude to actually raise the child/children one has, instead of running off to Kasi or to a far off relative's house, to an isolated tropical island - which all mothers and fathers get tempted to at some point, depending on the weight of their purse.

In the way I see it, for most Indians of the child bearing age, the first child seems to be almost a compulsion - the biological imperative - to reproduce and propagate the species - though they don't think of their choice to have a child in those words, for sure. The intense need to experience motherhood (and Fatherhood too, though it is less articulated) feels very real , personal and an independant animal in itself, to be explained in such prosaic terms such as "propagate the species." The woman or man, doesn't ever think that that is indeed what she/he is doing- for the intense need to have a child is a very selfish , personal expression of themselves - such is the way the individual mind is designed to fool itself so that the species benefits. How devious is nature or God, huh? ( What ever designed life according to your belief system).

But, the interesting thing is the choice to have a second child. It is hard to predict which way a couple goes as far as having a second child is concerned. People who grew up happily with siblings most likely make the choice to have another child. People who grew up as single kids feel that they weren't denied anything special and make the choice to stop with one. Going through a few more years of sleepless nights is not something anyone decides about lightly, especially in this day of easy living. As a generation, most of us din't do hard labour as children or as teens outside or even in our own homes, and raising a small baby, especially the first couple of years, is indeed hard labour. And who wants to sign up for that unless absolutely necessary?

As we all look for reasons to make ourselves feel letter about the choices we make, this Covid-19 lockdown, has shown me something that I always felt to be true. Imagine keeping a single child occupied for 3-4 months inside the house! I see my friends, colleagues and neighbours with single kids. And I see those children growing more and more isolated in their homes. How much of the parent's time and effort goes into making sure the child stays engaged and not getting upto naughtiness or just getting stuck on the TV or Laptop or phone screens?

 But, we made the choice to have two. And now, they play with each other, talk to each other, engage each other in conversation. And my work in making sure the house is not a prison for them is cut in half. They have each other, as playmates. They have each other to learn from. They have each other to fight with and make up with. And hopefully they will grow up with each other and enrich each other's lives. And we, my husband and I, never need fear the lockdowns or the quarantines or even the bunkers, as far as the kids are concerned.