> older generation got married at 19 and had stable families
Have you looked at divorce rates lately? Rates of child abuse, addiction, suicide? Seems to me that many of those families are not so stable or - even more importantly - functional. Also, if you look at how many of those formerly young parents in my generation and before have conducted themselves since their nests emptied, the picture's even grimmer. I suspect that they - and the rest of us - would be better off if they'd had children to help guide them into modernity in their later working years. Winding down any connection to the younger generation - and through them to changes in technology or society - at barely 40 doesn't seem to lead to a healthy 60, 70, or 80. The appeal to tradition fails.
Have you looked at divorce rates lately? Rates of child abuse, addiction, suicide? Seems to me that many of those families are not so stable or - even more importantly - functional. Also, if you look at how many of those formerly young parents in my generation and before have conducted themselves since their nests emptied, the picture's even grimmer. I suspect that they - and the rest of us - would be better off if they'd had children to help guide them into modernity in their later working years. Winding down any connection to the younger generation - and through them to changes in technology or society - at barely 40 doesn't seem to lead to a healthy 60, 70, or 80. The appeal to tradition fails.