QA问答:为什么我们西方人没有更多的孩子?我们需要继续我们的文化
2023-12-27 xky 3629
正文翻译

Why aren't we western people having any more children? We need to continue our culture.

为什么我们西方人没有更多的孩子?我们需要继续我们的文化。

评论翻译
Claire J. Vannette
I assume you're asking why the birth rate in Western countries has declined, and is lower than the birth rate in other countries. It's pretty simple: When women get education and access to contraception, and when infant mortality declines, people choose to have fewer children. This pattern holds up in non-Western countries, too. Turns out most women don't actually like spending half their life pregnant.

我想你是想问:为什么西方国家的出生率下降了,而且低于其他国家的出生比率。
很简单:当女性接受教育和学会避孕,婴儿死亡率下降时,人们会选择少生孩子。
这种模式在非西方国家也适用。事实证明,大多数女性实际上并不喜欢花半辈子的时间处于怀孕中。

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As for whether we need to continue our culture, I leave that for others to debate. I will say this: If you want people in your country to have more children, you need to look at the current incentives and disincentives, and make some changes. How much is a higher birth rate worth to you? Is it worth universal government-subsidized childcare? Is it worth mandated parental leave? Is it worth encouraging men to deemphasize career advancement in favor of spending more time with their kids? Is it worth better schools? Is it worth no-tuition college? These policies might make people more willing to have larger families — but they ain't free.

至于我们是否需要继续我们的文化,我留给其他人讨论。
我要说的是:如果你想让你的国家的人们有更多的孩子,你需要考虑目前的激励和抑制因素,并做出一些改变。
高出生率对你来说值多少钱?
它值得政府普遍补贴儿童保育吗?值得强制休育儿假吗?是否值得鼓励男性不再强调职业发展,而是花更多时间陪伴孩子?值得建立更好的学校吗?值得对大学教育进行免费吗?
这些政策可能会让人们更愿意拥有更大的家庭,但它们并不是免费的。

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Matthew
I would also like to add that in advanced Capitalist cultures it is not feasible for most to have large families unless you are wealthy. Having large families is more practical in primitive agricultural societies where having children also gives you more free labor, but when you must use modern currency to buy resources, it’s a huge burden for women and society when someone has more than a few children.

我还想补充一点,在先进的资本主义文化中,除非你很富有,否则大多数人都不可能拥有大家庭。
在原始农业社会,拥有大家庭更为实际,在那里,生孩子会给你带来更多的免费劳动力,但当你必须使用现代货币购买资源时,当一个人有几个以上的孩子时,这对妇女和社会来说就是一个巨大的负担。

John Tierney
Northern European countries like Norway and Sweden provide significant parental benefits. One consequence is a fertility rate near 1.9 children / woman.
In eastern and Southern European countries with little parental benefits like Italy and Greece the fertility rate is abt 1.4.
Guess which countries are going to see tax revenue and economic growth collapse over the next decade or so?

挪威和瑞典等北欧国家,提供了大量的育儿福利。一个后果就是生育率约为1.9。
在意大利和希腊等几乎没有为人父母福利的东欧和南欧国家,生育率约为1.4。
猜猜看,在未来十年左右,哪些国家的税收和经济增长将崩溃?

Brian Dague
I don’t have any kids. Why am I answering this question?
Because these are the barriers I perceive when people talk about having children.
The problem you’re going to have with this is that our culture is probably the biggest barrier to having more kids.
To have kids in a society like ours you need:
A high paying job - Because kids are expensive.
Spare time to dedicate to kids - You can’t just have kids then wander away. Even when they get older, they need emotional support as well as physical care.

我没有孩子。那么,我为什么要回答这个问题?
因为当人们谈论生孩子时,我会发现这些障碍。
你会遇到的问题是,我们的文化可能是生更多孩子的最大障碍。
要想在我们这样的社会里有孩子,你需要:
1、一份高薪工作——因为养孩子很贵。
2、腾出时间奉献给孩子们——你不能只是有了孩子就不管了。就算他们年纪大了,他们也需要情感上的支持和身体上的照顾。

To get the job, first you need to graduate from high school.
Now, the days of graduating and heading straight for a job at the town plant are gone for good. Thank the Manufacturing companies for moving to automation or sweatshop labor for that, and thank yourself every time you buy something made in a sweatshop.
So, you’re going to have to at least go to a trade school. Maybe get a two-year degree as a plumber or welder, then you find a job with your trade and work. Maybe you could raise a kid on the kind of pay that you get from one of those jobs, provided you get the right benefits. Otherwise you do have to spend a few years at a lower salary gaining experience needed to cost-justify giving you finances in order to afford children.

要得到“成为父母”这份工作,首先你需要高中毕业。
现在,毕业后直接去镇上工厂工作的日子已经一去不复返了。感谢制造公司,他们转向了自动化或血汗工厂。还有感谢你自己,你购买血汗工厂制造的东西。
所以,你至少得去一所中等职业学校。也许你可以获得两年的水管工或焊工学位,然后找到一份与你的行业和工作相关的工作。如果你能得到适当的福利,也许你可以用你从这些工作中得到的工资来抚养孩子。否则,你必须花几年的时间以较低的薪水获得所需的经验,以保证将来你有足够的经济能力来负担得起孩子。

If you choose to go to college, then you’re looking at four more years of school while you either work a part time job, or live off of your parents, plus all of the studying the professors you have to do to pass your classes means you have neither the time nor the money to support a child.
After college, generally people want to get their career going, and let’s go ahead and face it, there’s employers that tend to prey on young employees who work tirelessly to prove themselves, don’t have any sort of familial obligations, and have a lack of experience to justify their low pay.
Working long hours for low pay and likely few benefits is not an ideal condition for raising children.

如果你选择上大学,那么你就要再上四年学,而你要么做兼职,要么靠父母生活,再加上为了通过教授们的课程而必须进行的所有学习,意味着你既没有时间也没有钱养活孩子。
大学毕业后,人们通常都想继续自己的职业生涯,让我们直面现实吧,有些雇主往往会抓住那些不知疲倦地工作以证明自己的年轻员工,他们没有任何家庭义务,也缺乏经验,这让给予他们低工资变得合理。
长时间工作,工资低,福利可能很少,这不是养育孩子的理想条件。

As long as our culture dictates that you must train for a job on your own dime and live in poverty during the most fertile period of your life, and then decides whether or not you’re worth allowing to have kids based on what occupation you choose, most people just won’t make the cut. Throw in the fact that it only makes this decision after the period in your life to have kids has passed, and you have people that just don’t want them anymore.
This might be hard to swallow, but your teens and early twenties are the best time biologically to have healthy kids. It’s possible to have them during other stages of life, but I’ve heard plenty of thirty and forty year olds gripe about how they had so much more energy when they were in their twenties, and energy is probably something you want when dealing with kids.

只要我们的文化规定,你必须自费训练才能找到工作,在你生命中最佳的繁殖时期生活在贫困中,然后根据你选择的职业来决定你是否值得生孩子,大多数人都不会成功。再加上这样一个事实,在最佳生育时期过去后,你再来做决定要不要孩子,你会发现,有很多人都不想要孩子了。
这可能很难接受,但从生理上讲,你的十几岁和二十出头是生健康孩子的最佳时机。在人生的其他阶段也有可能拥有他们,但我听说很多三四十岁的人抱怨,他们在20多岁的时候有这么多的精力,现在却没有了,而与孩子打交道,精力可能正是你需要的。

Education and entry-level work pretty much take up most of your life until you earn a senior position that “lets” you start a family maybe. Even then, there’s always the chance someone younger and hungrier than you makes you redundant or some senior executive needs a new yacht for his dog and you’re “downsized”. Why take the risk?
You say we need to continue our culture, but as long as our culture picks and chooses who has kids based what the parents do for a living, it’s going to destroy itself.

教育和初级工作,几乎占据了你一生中的大部分时间,直到你获得一个可以“让”你组建家庭的高级职位。即便如此,总有比你更年轻、更饥饿的人,让你可能被解雇。或者某位高管需要一艘新游艇来养他的狗,然后,你就被“裁员”了。
所以,为什么要冒险?
你说我们需要继续我们的文化,但只要我们的文化仍然根据父母的谋生方式,来决定谁应该有孩子,它就会自我毁灭。

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Péter Tamas
I am 40 and about half of my friends my age have no kids and even from the other half many have only one child.
When I ask them why one major reason is financials and that they can’t afford to have kids or can afford to have only one.
In most of the Western world having kids is an economic decision as well and most people want to make sure once they bring a child to this world, he or she will have a good life.
The other reason is some people choose a childless lifestyle that lets them live an independent life where they can travel or do “fun” stuff.

我40岁了,与我同龄的朋友,有大约一半是没有孩子的,甚至另一半的朋友也只有一个孩子。
当我问他们为什么?一个主要原因就是经济问题,他们生不起孩子或只能生一个孩子。
在大多数西方世界,生孩子是一个经济决定,大多数人希望确保一旦他们把孩子带到这个世界上,他或她就会过上美好的生活。
另一个原因是,有些人选择了没有孩子的生活方式,让他们过上独立的不受影响的生活,在那里他们可以旅行或做“有趣”的事情。

Suzette Alispach
I don't really understand “western culture”. In the US we are such a mix of people that culture is often intermingled. In my family, for example, our traditional Christmas eve dinner is enchiladas. However, we are not if Latino heritage. Another dish my family makes is Navajo fry bread. My mother learned to make it from an elderly Navajo woman in the 60s. And yet, all of us have studied Buddhism. Buddhism is just normal and nothing special.
So what is meant by “western culture”? How are you defining “culture”? It can't be religion because nearly every religion exists in the “west”. It can't be music because much of what is consumed in Europe and the US and any place else considered “Western” comes from other places. Korea, Jamaica, Africa, the middle East.
Many of our clothes use patterns derived from the textures if Japan or India.
What is “Western culture”?

我不太了解“西方文化”。在美国,我们是如此混杂的人群,以至于文化经常混杂在一起。
例如,在我家,我们传统的圣诞夜晚餐是墨西哥卷饼。然而,我们不是拉丁裔。我家做的另一道菜是纳瓦霍炸面包。我母亲在60年代从一位年长的纳瓦霍妇女那里学会了制作它。然而,我们所有人都学习过佛教。佛教是正常的,没有什么特别的。
那么“西方文化”是什么意思呢?你是如何定义“文化”的?
它不可能是宗教,因为几乎所有的宗教都存在于“西方”。它不可能是音乐,因为在欧洲和美国以及其他任何被视为“西方”的地方,充斥着的大部分东西都来自其他地方。韩国、牙买加、非洲、中东。
我们的许多衣服都使用源自日本或印度纹理的图案。
什么是“西方文化”?

Yvette Renshy
Culture isn’t genetic it is social therefore the premise of your question is wrong to begin with.

文化不是基因决定的,他是社会决定的,因此你的问题的前提一开始就错了。

Brian Donovan
We have an overpopulation problem. Don't most religions tell you to be a good steward of the earth?
The last thing in the world humans need is a religious/cultural/race baby making contest.

我们有人口过剩的问题。大多数宗教都在告诉你要做地球的好管家,难道不是吗?
世界上的人类,最不需要的就是一场宗教/文化/种族的婴儿制作比赛。

Evelyn Jane Saungikar
Western culture has been exported to all corners of the earth. People everywhere aspire to practice western culture. My own dad, for example, when he was a 12 year old Indian boy with no shoes, living on chapati and lentils, wanted to grow up to be Cary Grant.
And he pretty much did.
He married an English girl, moved to Canada, bought a house, a sports car and a Rolex watch. He whistled Rod Stewart songs while he shaved.

西方文化已经输出到世界的各个角落。世界各地的人们都渴望实践西方文化。
例如,我的父亲,当他还是一个12岁的印度男孩,没有鞋子,靠印度卷饼和扁豆为生时,他想长大成为 Cary Grant 。
他差不多做到了。
他娶了一个英国女孩,搬到加拿大,买了房子、有了跑车和劳力士手表。他一边刮胡子一边吹 Rod Stewart 的歌。

EMU
There’s more to life than kids. Also, plenty of other people, in different cultures have kids, so humanity isn’t exactly in danger.
Do we? A very small amount of people uses up a very large amount of resources on this planet. Our lifestyle isn’t sustainable even now, when it’s about 15% of this planet’s population. We’d be dead in 50 years if all eight billion tried to live like we do. Maybe it would be not such a bad idea to kill off a culture that dirties and kills the whole planet for the sake of the top 15%.

1、除了孩子,生活中还有更多的东西。此外,在不同文化中,其他人许多都有了孩子,所以人类并没有灭绝的危险。
2、我们?一小部分人消耗了这个星球上大量的资源。即使是现在,我们的人口约占地球人口的15%的时候,我们的生活方式也是不可持续的。为了前15%的人口,扼杀一种会污染并杀死整个地球的文化,也许并不是一个坏主意。

Joan Philips
Western culture is based in Europe. Europe is overcrowded and Europeans have spread out over the globe. Maybe our (White) numbers are declining slightly, but there’s still a huge number of us on the earth. The real menace to Western culture is not low birthrates of Whites but high birthrates of others. The solution is to promote family planning among ALL people. Then we won’t need to exploit other countries for their resources and they will be able to support themselves and not immigrate to Western countries.
Stop the “baby race” of trying to have the most babies in order to not be outnumbered, because that results in ruin for all of us.

西方文化植根于欧洲。欧洲人满为患,欧洲人遍布全球。也许我们(白人)的数量略有下降,但地球上仍然有大量的人。对西方文化的真正威胁不是白人的低出生率,而是其他人的高出生率。解决办法是在所有人中促进计划生育。那么我们就不需要为了资源去剥削其他国家了,他们也将能够养活自己,而不是移民到西方国家。
停止这种为了不被超过而试图生育最多婴儿的“婴儿竞赛”,因为这会导致我们所有人的毁灭。

Jim Grossmann
Within my own lifetime, the population of the USA has doubled. So has the population of the Earth.
As far as I can tell, it defies common sense to imagine that US culture will grind to a halt due to under-population.

在我有生之年,美国的人口翻了一番。地球上的人口也是如此。
据我所知,想象美国文化会因人口不足而陷入停顿是违反常识的。

Mike Neville
You shouldn’t have children to “continue a culture, or at least I hope that isn’t the reson people have children. I wouldn’t know, never had any myself.
I’m curious though. Why should our culture be continued?

你不应该为了“延续一种文化”而生孩子,或者至少我希望这不是人们生孩子的原因。我不知道,我自己从来没有生过孩子。
不过我很好奇。为什么我们的文化要延续下去?

Sarah Li
Really?
I have a daughter, who is 16 and has TWO daughters of her own with her partner, who is nearly 18 years old himself.
I am 36 years old as of date with a new romantic partner and hoping to get pregnant again.
Planning on popping a few more babies out!

真的吗?
我有一个女儿,她16岁的时候和她的伴侣有了两个女儿,现在她18岁了。
到目前为止,我已经36岁了,有了一个新的浪漫伴侣,希望能再次怀孕。
计划多生几个孩子!

Renita McAfee
In the US, people can barely afford studio apartments. Imagine needing a 2 or 3 bedroom home, especially with rising rental and purchase prices and the public's insistence that Medicaid and food stamps be stopped. Who the heck is going to have 3 kids and not be able to have housing, food, or medical care for their kids. If people stopped having so many kids, maybe housing prices will fall so people already living here can afford to live inside.

在美国,人们几乎买不起一室公寓。
想象一下,需要一套2或3居室的房子,尤其是在租金和购买价格不断上涨,公众坚持停止医疗补助和食品券的情况下。谁会想要三个孩子。你无法为孩子提供住房、食物或医疗服务。如果人们不再生那么多孩子,也许房价就会下跌,然后还活着的人就可以负担得起住房开支了。

Cameron Morse
People haven’t stopped having kids, it’s just that more people are choosing not to do so or deciding to wait until they’re ready for them. Back in the day there was a huge stigma against unmarried and childless people (especially women), but nowadays we’ve come to accept that not everybody thinks of those two things as the most important things in their lives, as they did back when child death rates were ridiculously high. Quite frankly, a lot of the people that would be considered at the point that they should start raising families don’t have very reliable or well-paying sources of income relative to their cost of living, so it would probably be for the best that they wait until life gives them a break to have kids.

人们并没有停止生孩子,只是越来越多的人选择不生孩子,或者决定等到他们准备好了再生。
在过去,人们给未婚和无子女的人(尤其是女性)打上巨大的羞耻烙印。但现在我们已经接受了这样一个事实,即并不是每个人都认为这两件事是他们生活中最重要的事情,他们现在并不需要做在儿童死亡率高得离谱时所做的事情。
坦率地说,很多人应该好好考虑,在他们刚刚开始养家的时候,相对于他们的生活成本来说,他们并没有非常可靠或收入丰厚的收入来源,所以他们最好等到生活给了他们喘息的机会的时候再生孩子。

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