For the past several thousand years, children were primarily generated for economic reasons. Sure, there were some ancillary incentives, but by and large, the farms that survived and thrived in the dominant agricultural societies of the time were the ones that could generate significant numbers of healthy and productive offspring. More hands to sow, reap, milk, heard, take care of elders - and beyond the exercise required, there was zero startup capital. The potential of these fleshy investments would only multiply by the time we had coal mines, spinning gennys, cotton gins, and the other mechanical wunderkind of the industrial revolution.
The progressive movement that flourished around the turn of the 20th century brought with it a significant amount of social progress and reform - including efforts to reduce and or eliminate the presence of child labor on farms and factories. And these efforts, by and large, were successful, and the centuries-old labor model of biological outsourcing once enjoyed by today's modern economies would soon begin to collapse. So besides the fun involved in the production process, why did we continue to have children?
I am not going to chastise the most recent generations of women who endured childbirth and raising children in order for us to be here. As a species, our aspiration for a sense of identity dates back to the oldest caveman drawings. Our instincts to survive and needs to 'fit in' and meet the expectations of others are, even at a fundamental level, darwinistic and essential to our survival. Our ability to express our identity has always been limited by our technology and our resources.
With respect to the average American income, you can probably be spared the details of how the cost of an education or a suburban lifestyle has skyrocketed within the past 40 years. The one that really intrigues me is the cost of raising a child - which exceeded 250 thousand dollars in 2014. Somehow, the 'economic asset' of merely 100 years ago has become one of the most expensive things that anyone could hope to acquire in this modern world. As the average young person has become so saddled with college debt, the dream of a house has become that much more distant, and the hope of responsibly raising a child that might achieve a higher standard of living is, quite simply, out of reach for many young people as they move in and out of their biological primes.
Scantily clad teens and twenty-somethings are not doing themselves or anyone around them any favors by smiling in the bathroom mirror with a cell phone. But previous generations should consider the possibility that their decades-long endorsement of an expensive college education or a polished suburban lifestyle as the primary path to happiness may no longer be relevant. Society as a whole may have to live with the repercussions of a trapped generation searching for its identity- enabled by all of the technology in the world, but equipped with the least amount of resources.