Text丨Look at the present
Editor丨Look at the present
In 2022, China's annual birth population will be 9.56 million, lower than the annual death population of 10.41 million, with a natural population growth rate of -0.60‰, and the national population will be 141175 0000, a decrease of 850,000 from the previous year. 2023 is coming to an end, and according to forecasts, the number of newborns in 2023 will fall below the 8 million mark.
Correspondingly, in 2022, the number of elderly people aged 60 and above in China will be 280.04 million, accounting for 19.8% of the total population, and the number of elderly people aged 65 and above will be 209.78 million, accounting for 14.9% of the total population.
Low birth rate and high aging rate, is an important symbol of an aging society, the original we are proud of the demographic dividend, has long ceased to exist, in this regard, many experts suggest to encourage the birth of three children, four children, but now young people with practical actions to reply: can't afford to give birth!
"In the past, every family could support seven or eight children, so why can't you only give birth to one or two?"
I believe that many young people who have been born are no strangers to this sentence, compared to the elders who can have so many children, now people only have one or two is really not much, and so many children can be supported, which makes many people curious, how do the elders raise children?
A netizen said this: Where were the children raised at that time, they were obviously left after death.
One stone stirred up a thousand waves, and more netizens stood up to share their stories, which opened the eyes of many young people who didn't know the situation.
How do the elders raise their children?
Thanks to the previous idea that unfilial piety is the big one (note, the queen here does not include girls, only boys are counted as queens), in the past, every family must have children when they marry a wife, and they have to give birth to as many as they can, after all, there are many children and many blessings, and the family can also have more labor, and the practice in some places is that 5 boys and 2 girls are the best ratio to have children.
Not to mention that it is illegal to check the gender of the baby in advance, and there is no current medical condition to know whether it is a boy or a girl, generally only when it is born, it is possible to know that several babies are girls in a row, and it is also possible that several babies are boys, at this time, in order to maintain the ratio of men and women, and in order to "not waste rations", the family that gave birth to a girl will choose to kill or throw the girl away, and there are special places to abandon babies in some places.
Generally speaking, boys rarely encounter such treatment, even if they are poor, they will leave boys to pass on their ancestry, in these families that still retain traditional ideas, girls are born to be raised by others, and sooner or later they will marry out, not to mention their parents, so girls are the ones who are given up, and boys are the ones worth cultivating.
As for how to raise seven or eight children, this is a knowledge, in modern times there are special nurses, in the past the elders were not worried, because the first child will take on the responsibilities of half of the parents, when the parents go out to work, the eldest is responsible for taking care of the younger siblings below, helping to change diapers, washing clothes, doing housework, feeding chickens and ducks...... This is also the source of the phrase "the children of the poor are in charge of the house early".
The elders feed the children, saying that it is raising, in fact, the focus is on living, although there was a real lack of medical treatment before, but the main thing is that the parents' attitude towards feeding their children is surprisingly consistent, the child's illness depends on their own immune system to fight, the child is not afraid to cry or put it aside, the main one is tired of crying and not crying, if the child dies in an accident, the parents will not be so sad, because there is more than one child.
Some netizens also reported that in the past, there were too many children at home to raise them, so they simply sent a few out and picked them up when the children grew up, which was particularly trouble-free.
Regarding education, the elders at that time did not have high expectations for their children, generally parents required their children to be literate, so that it was convenient to work, if the child did not want to study, he would go home to help share the housework, or go out to work, there were very few who could really be admitted to junior high school or college, of course, such children were more productive after they came out.
If it is a girl, the parents in remote places do not want them to read too much, and the definition of girls in society at that time is still to marry early and have children, which is regarded as the final end of a woman, once she reaches a certain age, the girl's parents will also think about marrying her off, and when she is old, she will become an old girl if she does not marry, and the people in the village will also talk nonsense.
Why are modern people reluctant to have so many children?
In addition to the increase in the cost of raising children, the most fundamental reason is that young people have received more education, and their focus on raising children has also shifted from living to raising.
Before the child is born, as a responsible parent, they will choose to adjust their physical condition in order to give birth to a healthier child, after the pregnancy is confirmed, the expectant mother will go to the hospital to do a series of examinations, according to the doctor's advice to adjust the living status, throughout the pregnancy, is the time to gradually add baby products.
Your child's formula, bottles, diapers, clothes, strollers, ....... These things need to be prepared carefully, and consumables cost a lot, according to netizens sharing, the cost of milk powder alone ranges from 1,000 yuan a month to 4,000 yuan.
Now raising children, in addition to novice parents, parents on both sides will also help, at most a baby can dock 6 adults, the baby is the baby of 3 families, especially the elders of the next generation, it is blindly pampered.
When the child grows up, in the face of this increasingly volatile society, the general parents will also enroll their children in interest classes outside of class, and there will be many ways out in the future, interest classes according to different types, prices are also different, take the piano as an example, in addition to the fixed expenses of each class teacher teaching, but also the price of buying a piano, the registration fee for taking the exam, the cost of tuning, the cost of traveling to the interest class, etc., the guaranteed price starts at 50,000.
In this way, until the child reaches adulthood, if it is a boy, according to the current housing prices, he will not be able to buy a house, and his parents need to prepare a wedding house and bride price for him, and the requirements of each place are different; if it is a girl, even if he does not need to prepare a house, he will prepare some money for dowry.
According to the 2022 China Fertility Cost Report, if the post-10 generation is raised to the age of 18, the average cost is expected to be 485,000 yuan.
Therefore, young people say that they can't afford to have children now, and children are not objects, they need to continue to grow, and even use most of their lives, if they use these time and energy for themselves, it is much more cost-effective than raising children.
In the context of young people's reluctance to have children, are there any families that still maintain the fertility Xi of their elders?
Of course, in 2021, a couple in Jiangxi died unexpectedly while taking a bath, what attracted people's attention was that they still had 8 children, and in this society they dare to have 8 children, either rich or too poor, this couple belongs to the latter, they gave birth to 8 children because they wanted to have a boy, until they died, the youngest child was only 9 months.
After the death of the couple, their 8 children had to be handed over to the child's uncle and aunt, who also had 2 children, and had to raise 10 children at the same time, and the burden on their bodies can be imagined, but fortunately, the local government helped to apply for subsidies for several children, and they will receive 1,200 yuan every month until they reach adulthood.
In the past, it was the norm for every family to raise seven or eight children, and now it is also the norm to raise one or two children, some people feel that although the previous life is not rich but happier, some people say that the current children are too squeamish and difficult to raise.
How many children do you think is appropriate for an average family?