Be afraid, be very afraid

I still have lingering fears over what a society where children are a luxury would be like even if I already answered that. For those used to a more liberated lifestyle, this would reverse whatever efforts women gained through feminism in one way or another. So it’ll play out like Handmaid’s Tale complete with stricter gender roles.

Not that women will wear colours assigned to their jobs but it’ll function similarly. Those who are fertile and willing to raise children would be needed to birth heirs even if it gets risky moreso with multiple heirs in line. Since children are so valued that a stillborn baby is about as unfortunate as a sterile woman.

It’s already the case in other countries but would intensify for years to come, especially for the upper class to end up functioning similarly to a proper aristocracy complete with lower class people working for them in their communities.

The pale family

The pale family, picked on for

Their appearances with hate

Mail, insulted and hurt by

Those but never failing to

Care for their cats and dogs.

Plea for peace

I pray to God to bring peace

And harmony to Cameroon

A new leader in place of

Paul Biya, towards progress

Unity will not be regressed

Dialogue for peace and

Stability, in God we pray

For this day and amen.

Hundred Dogs

Philippine woman with a

Hundred dogs in her care

Bearing all of them today

Faring better everyday.

Social Experiments

Like I said earlier, the idea of children being too expensive to raise is already leading to an interesting social experiment where people raise pets in lieu of children. The next step however would reverse feminism especially when children become a luxury. By then, the upper classes are more likely to start and raise families and even practise stricter gender norms.

Not only that, they’ll employ servants be it human or robots so in a sense that aristocracy’s back. When combined with that the upper classes generally have a higher fertility rate than the poorer ones, we’d see families grooming their children to be heirs to their fortunes. If they ever own pets, it’s mostly practical.

When combined with a declining middle class, feudalism and fiefdoms will return as they’ve not been practised for years until now. Even France could return to that stage whilst its ex-colonies like Cameroon and Cote D’Ivoire are achieving social mobility similar to Renaissance Italy and Revolutionary France.

Colony and Coloniser in the 2030s

I feel like wanting to compare and contrast Italy and Ethiopia or rather what they’ll turn out to be in the future. Italy did colonise Ethiopia before, maybe not successfully but it did make its mark. Ethiopia’s actually not only recovering but also grow economically and may even become one of the world’s biggest economies, if not a world power. There’s even growing internet access over there in tandem with a rising middle class.

Italy’s in the developed world and has a shrinking middle class. Should this trend continue, it’ll not only contribute to a growing oligarchy but could have accidentally reversed certain achievements that it took to cultivate a middle class many times before. When it was a collection of city states, trading and banking cultivated and sustained a growing middle class.

Not that their positions would be reversed especially when Italy receives immigrants but when it does en masse they’ll continue to exert their influence until the government gets and needs it to offset the declining native population. Something that former colonies like Ethiopia will eventually supply.

I am afraid

I am afraid that the middle class in (some) developed countries will eventually self-destruct. While immigrant intermarriages could help mitigate the effects, it gets complicated not only by class and ethnicity but also the number of people willing to start families with children. Children are inevitably the next generation of adults.

Without a substantial number of children, some countries might (and will) not have enough of them growing into adulthood to supply for the next generation’s jobs. Should childbirths decline any further, there might not be enough people to be hired for dog breeding. Immigrants could help but that still depends on each one if we take them as individuals into account.

Like I said, if there’s a shrinking number of breeders people would have to contend with skyrocketing stray dog populations instead. While this is complicated in practise, it’s going to turn out that way for whatever reason and circumstance.

Nostalgia in the 2030s

Given the rise in childless families by choice (though this still varies between demographics), we could see a growing yearning for the childful families for years to come. That and when pets like cats and dogs were in their rightful place. Even today, there are still some households and neighbourhoods where cats and dogs serve a practical purpose.

From what I remember reading up on places like Cameroon and Uganda where even though there’s a growing rise in sentimental pet ownership, there’s still a substantial number of owners keeping them for practical purposes. The cats are for vermin control, dogs for guarding and hunting. The same can be said of rural places in the West.

The nostalgia’s already happening, it just has yet to hit a big peak and when it happens, it’s going to make a splash in an increasingly childless world.

 

The Mixed Race Future

I said before that family-minded immigrants could marry into upper-class and even aristocrats in the future, it’s already happening to an extent. Maybe not into the upper class en masse but it’s already happening. With growing numbers of immigrants come interracial marriages and logically mixed race children. It’s already that well-documented.

Substantial swathes of British celebrities are mixed race themselves. These include Craig David, Jamie Woon, Thandie Newton and Sir Ben Kingsley. This can also be applied to countries like Italy which has seen a surge in Muslim immigrants which rose to above 1 million. While this depends on the number of immigrants, it could still alter the host countries’ cultures if they’re that substantial.

It’s already happening to a great degree in Britain and France (to my knowledge) which will surely increase for other countries in the future.

Disturbing futures

There’s a growing number of childless pet owners in the developed world but if there’s a declining number of children over there, logically there’d be less people who’d grow into adulthood as animal breeders. Stray animal populations will explode big time if or when there’s not enough children to supplant that generation’s breeders.

The futures posed in ‘Life after Man’ is damning considering the effects of human depopulation on animals. In that film, dogs are left to fend off for themselves and with each successive generation they become less domesticated. That’s well documented in Russia, especially since Russia itself also has a declining population and a large stray dog population.

If there aren’t enough children being born, there won’t be enough of them growing into adulthood to replace prior breeders and we’d see a stray dog population explode exponentially in Europe despite such efforts.