There's never been a better time to be single.

Denature said:

I agree with you up to the point where you propose your tax changes and government funded XYZ.

As you've stated yourself, it would only encourage already traditional people to simply be traditional. Plus, I'd like the government involved in my life as little as possible.

People don't care about society (for better or worse). Sure, telling them the importance of marriage and waiting till marriage for sex, are good, but they don't provide enough answers on an individual level. You can't tell a young person to get married because it's the "right" thing to do. You have to explain WHY marriage is superior and how it benefits them personally.

Marriage is the best model for children to be raised under and is the #1 predictor of happiness for women in general. Very little moms would say that their quality of life decreased when they had kids. If they said their lives actually got worse, then what kind of mother is that?

Anyways, the problem stems further than this. I agree that the morality of modern peoples is not the same as it once was and it's because we are less religious than we once were.

You either worship god, people, or the state and we've seen a consistence move away from god to worshiping people and the state. We need LESS government involvement, LESS bad role models (celebrities) and MORE people that can actually be looked up to (Mothers & Fathers).

Previous generations (obviously) have done a horrible job of instilling their kids with the proper values. If we want to bring our civilization out of the hole it's digging itself into, we need a generation of strong-willed parents to raise a smarter, tougher, and moral generation.

But we don't have to wait for the next generation of kids to save us, we start now. We started years ago. People are waking up to the stupidity, hopefully in the right ways.

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Mr. Anderson said:

Saw the article linked below earlier today. It's incredibly disturbing. What will be left of our society if these trends continue? What can the Government do to help encourage people to keep getting married?

There's never been a better time to be single - CNN

I think the big key is that we need a significant revision of the tax code. Right now being single and not having kids is far better financially speaking than being married with kids. Taxes on single individuals need to be significantly raised and taxes on married couple with kids significantly lowered. Add to that things like guaranteed maternity leave, government funded preschools and daycare and I think we would see a big step in the right direction. However all any of that does is encourage people who already WANT to get married and have kids; the real issue is that people no longer want these things. The bigger question is how we change their perceptions. I'm not sure I really have an answer. The issues is due to the pervasive erosion of modern morals and not something you can fix easily. It can take decades to change perceptions like this. Perhaps better education on the negative effects to society of staying single would help.

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Denature said:

I agree with you up to the point where you propose your tax changes and government funded XYZ.

As you've stated yourself, it would only encourage already traditional people to simply be traditional. Plus, I'd like the government involved in my life as little as possible.

People don't care about society (for better or worse). Sure, telling them the importance of marriage and waiting till marriage for sex, are good, but they don't provide enough answers on an individual level. You can't tell a young person to get married because it's the "right" thing to do. You have to explain WHY marriage is superior and how it benefits them personally.

Marriage is the best model for children to be raised under and is the #1 predictor of happiness for women in general. Very little moms would say that their quality of life decreased when they had kids. If they said their lives actually got worse, then what kind of mother is that?

Anyways, the problem stems further than this. I agree that the morality of modern peoples is not the same as it once was and it's because we are less religious than we once were.

You either worship god, people, or the state and we've seen a consistence move away from god to worshiping people and the state. We need LESS government involvement, LESS bad role models (celebrities) and MORE people that can actually be looked up to (Mothers & Fathers).

Previous generations (obviously) have done a horrible job of instilling their kids with the proper values. If we want to bring our civilization out of the hole it's digging itself into, we need a generation of strong-willed parents to raise a smarter, tougher, and moral generation.

But we don't have to wait for the next generation of kids to save us, we start now. We started years ago. People are waking up to the stupidity, hopefully in the right ways.

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Red Panda said:

We don't actually know what's the best model because we can only compare the recent past and present. But for millennia, families were not nuclear. Our psychosocial evolution was not based on nuclear family units.

"What kind of mother is that" is shame tactics. Not everyone wants to have children or even innately suitable for it, socially pressuring people into having children (or doing anything) is a recipe for unhappiness. Previous generations wanted their children to have choice, to have what they couldn't. Take a look here, for example 100 Women 2016: Parents who regret having children - BBC News

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Daisy of Destruction said:

Raising taxes to encourage marriage and child-rearing?


Fuck that nonsense.

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Hurricane Matthew said:

The lower rates of marriage and fertility in many modern countries is a lot more complicated than taxes, though. As someone who really wouldn't mind getting married ((I've dated but haven't found anyone yet who I'd want to marry)), I have to say that a lot of the reasons people in my age group aren't getting married are largely societal problems that perhaps government can't really do anything about whether it wants to or not. I will use my male friends and my female friends as an example...

-Female friends: A crazy high number of them have a very poor impression of men and completely distrust men. Some of them have had bad boyfriends or fathers who have ruined the male image of men to them so they decided to either stop dating or only date other women. One friend who dated men more than anyone else I know told me she gave up dating because she was tired of how men aren't interested in love, so she's just going to move to a new place that will allow her to have a dog since dogs are more reliable for that. Another has a distaste for men because she has seen so many more men cheat on their partners than she has women cheat on their partners. Other female friends have anti-male feminism type perspectives. As much as I'd like to improve the male image to my female friends, it's hard to battle their own personal experiences.

-Male friends: They most definitely like women, but they also idealize women way, way, way too much and are very focused on appearances. Most have never dated before since they are mainly gamers and otaku... so they don't really meet many women in general and spend a bit too much money on their hobbies for my taste ((I will never date a gamer or otaku... these habits are so lol)). I think overall they are more friendly than my female friends ((female friends get angry more often and make more dramaz out of weird stuff than my male friends)) and aren't the type who would ever cheat on a girlfriend or abuse a woman like what my female friends complain about, but my male friends are a bit... shallow, and can be a little more boring to be around. I think a lot of them have more fragile egos than what they'd like to let on and dealing with the hostile social environment that my female friends put up would just be too much for them to handle, in all honesty. A few say that they'd like a girlfriend but they don't do anything more than say that in passing.

I think the biggest problem in the end is that there isn't much communication between the sexes these days or something. Other than a pair of lesbians, all my friends and social acquaintances are single. The females are too negative about males while the males are too escapist and I don't think either group wants to change much. Something would have to motivate that change to happen and I don't know what that would be. Saying it's "for the good of society" won't work since both male and female Millennials show anger at the current state of government/society and have a great distaste for it so they aren't going to care about society as a whole. There are a lot of factors creating this problem and it's going to be difficult to address them all...

It'll take more than tax incentives and education, I guarantee that. No matter what, marriage is about two individuals who have to see eye-to-eye and it's hard to find people you can have that sort of relationship with.

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General Lee Awesome said:

Bolded.. government does not interfere with your life in this instance. it is called an incentive.. you can take or it leave it. No one will force it upon you if you don't wish to take it lmao.


Marriage is important but it is not the only source of happiness for women and men. We have reached a stage where we can choose.

Money is a big issue when it comes to marriage.. so having enough money is very very critical.

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Red Panda said:

We don't actually know what's the best model because we can only compare the recent past and present. But for millennia, families were not nuclear. Our psychosocial evolution was not based on nuclear family units.

"What kind of mother is that" is shame tactics. Not everyone wants to have children or even innately suitable for it, socially pressuring people into having children (or doing anything) is a recipe for unhappiness. Previous generations wanted their children to have choice, to have what they couldn't. Take a look here, for example 100 Women 2016: Parents who regret having children - BBC News

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Mr. Anderson said:

People who get married and have kids provide a huge benefit to society, it's only right that they be fairly compensated for it. Or if you want to think about it the more traditional way, single people (and married without kids) on average are leeching off of society and this externality needs to be accounted for with additional taxes just like we have taxes on all sorts of other things that harm society like cigarettes and pollution.

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Denature said:

Women who regret having children aren't good mothers.

Yeah, you're totally right, we should go back to the times when men just raped women whenever they wanted and women just stayed and gathered berries. I mean it's what we we were meant to do due to evolution.

I'm not pressuring people to have children. But what we are doing in society now is just the opposite. We are convincing people NOT to have kids.

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Daisy of Destruction said:

Marriage just seems like an outdated tradition given how far we've come in western society. Women can work and provide for themselves without having to rely on a man. There's a real sense of pride in financial independence women embraced in the last couple of decades and for good reason.

Marriage, for a good part of history, was about money and security. Women had little to no means or freedom to provide for themselves. They had to find or be matched with a man if they wanted to survive. But this isn't the case anymore. Women can own property, go to school, have a career, own a business, invest, etc. Why get hitched if you can make a good living by yourself?

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Daisy of Destruction said:

Ah right, sex and romance. Let me ask this question: what does marriage add to a relationship that already has those thing besides the chance of a messy divorce?

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Denature said:

As much as I agree with the sentiment, I don't think it's the government's job to tell us what we should/shouldn't do. That should be the people's job. I'd much rather have a cultural revolution than a government funded campaign to change people's mind due to money incentives.

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Veggie said:

You can provide an incentive for some without punishing others.

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Veggie said:

If the ultimate objective in your mind is marrying off society, I only see this backfiring anyway. If someone is leery of marriage and children due to financial concerns, adding difficulty to their financial situation isn't going to help anything if they'd prefer to have their ducks in a row first. Your solutions surrounding daycare, maternity leave, etc - these rewards require children to begin with. Children who come at a significant expense aside from these things, not just in dollars but in time and energy. Lessening a bit of that burden isn't going to be more appealing than the option of sidestepping it altogether for some.

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Mr. Anderson said:

Yes, if you see children as a huge, terrible burden then you likely will never have them no matter what the Government says and that's a GOOD thing. But you should still have to pay for them because you're choosing not to have kids means another couple now has to have 4 kids to make up for it and you should be forced to pay for those kids whether you have them or not. The thing is for people these days the idea that they owe something to society is entirely alien. All people in the modern world are capable of thinking about our themselves. When you tell them that they have a DUTY to the future of humanity to raise children they are shocked. They always thought that they were all that mattered and that the whole world should work to make them happy, not that they should ever have to work to make others happy. It's pathetic.

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Daisy of Destruction said:

You know there are other ways to give back to society without devoting your life to raising kids right? I guess childless teachers, firefighters, scientists are the selfish scumbags for not doing their DUTY.

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