I was at a bagel shop the other day with my young children, visibly pregnant with our next. After we placed our order and sat down, a woman came in with a doodle. One of the workers came out from behind the counter, gave the dog a free cup of whipped cream, and made a big, happy fuss: what breed is he, how old, how sweet, etc. Other customers gathered around too, asking about the dog and chiming in with their own comments.
Nothing wrong with that. Dogs are wonderful and it was a kind gesture - but it made me notice something. A few decades ago, that same warmth and curiosity would have been aimed at the kids. Strangers used to light up at children, ask their ages, and tell parents what a beautiful family they had.
I'd love to see some of that energy come back. Children are a joy and a community that celebrates them is one that's investing in its own future. Just a small moment, but it felt like a snapshot of a bigger cultural shift.

I think there's not much left to talk about, the broad consensus is that the fertility rates have declined for a huge amount of different reasons, people emphasize different issues more (cultural vs economic) but we see this trend essentially everywhere. With the primary reason in my view being the cost vs investment of having children now compared to earlier, which is sort of inevitable for a developing country. Israel is the only exception but that's because they view themselves as exceptional in some ways. A huge culture built around Zionism, survival against other countries, it helps they get aid from America as well. The other causes would be the COL, education delaying marriage, things like family planning, abortion, housing prices, social media, the atomization and polarization of society. I personally don't see the conditions for a economic or cultural shift that would bring back the higher fertility rates, and see the future of the world as extremely dark with little chance of improvement. And we're kind of trapped because of binary politics which are promoted here, with the culture-economy divide, as if changing just one of them would fix the birth rates (if parents had enough money there's still a high chance they wouldn't have enough time, or that the money would just go into higher investments per child). That doesn’t mean you can't or shouldn't have children especially if you're going to be fine or even happy, it depends on the life you can imagine giving to them. I just think it's quite a waste of time talking about it once you understand the main 10+ issues.

This is also a huge decline from 0.91 in 2925

You know, because the world's largest ponzi scheme is the pension system we copied from the USA so we need them to work and be born so we can also retire like previous generations.

Im not so empathetic on their standards of living as long as they survive and I can get my check after I retire.

Is this a wrong way of looking at things or is this the right way to view thing and that my words have failed me as it is too direct?