Small People, Big Problems: The Baby Rate Crisis
The birth rate in the UK is going down, like it is everywhere else. The annual and well-respected analysis by the ONSsays so. But the buggy-free world of quiet flights and quieter trains isn’t the paradise you might think. South Korea has spooned billions of dollars(like an aeroplane! Whee!) into the jaws of its parental programmes and policies to try and make babies a national epidemic in the right way.
A shortage of babies is like a shortage of oil, gold or KFC chicken. Pandemonium descends.
And why do I care?
I’ve written another article, Brooding on Broodiness, which is my two cents on poultry terminology as it applies to people like me. Possibly as a result of this I’ve wanted to nurture the topic of babies to exhaustion, love it to death, etc.
If people aren’t getting broody by themselves, how could an institution make up for it?
The only problem is that quite a few of the birth rate policies aren’t very funny. It would be nice to discuss increasing the birth rate without imagining an Atwoodian regime.
This time, in the name of the nation, I’ve reinterpreted some government strategies for increasing birth rate to present some legitimate and well thought out alternatives.
So, what’s the solution to producing more milky little leeches then?
All the standard ways to increase birth rate are pretty obvious.
Pay people for children (tax breaks), look after people making the babies, look after babies and teach them lots of things so they will make more babies. Taking care of people’s lives, both pre and post baby, seems to help.
Countries have tried it all. Birth packages, tweaking the rights for parental leave after birth, tax breaks. But, looking at that graph, the strategy needs a bit of a boost.
And so here I introduce:
The Governmental Department for Babymaking
Without considerable changes in social policy The Governmental Department for Babymaking can’t yet say “Damn. It appears that women have coped with the mildly grotty side effects of birth control for far too long. Excelled at it, even. Looks like we’re going to have to make them worse. What about guaranteeing giant swollen hands. Or confessional Tourette’s. Or the introduction of a dye that eventually turns them blue.”
And hey, if it’s not propaganda, it’s advertising.
The trick could lie in giving people a better deal. Then again, nature tried buy one get one free for babies. That doesn’t seem to have convinced anyone.
1. Birth Packages
Pressies and incentives make people in wealthy countries have children sooner, but not in countries with lower GDP.
But what if they did birth packages including two pairs of those nice Bose noise cancelling headphones. One set for on-duty parent and one for baby. Neither must hear the other crying then, all good, worldwide.
2. Integration of Children into the Workplace
This mission to increase the birth rate is worth pursuing. Think of the benefits. Introducing babies into the workplace could do wonders for gender equality. It would be a brilliant irony to redress history with small people that show an active preference for people with boobs.
Then, the economy is set to grow. Pocket money babysitting is the future. Children look after children. With more children, more children can babysit children. More children, equals more workers, equals more money. The Financial Union of Babysitters needs only wait.
Alternatively, with the increasing dependence on technological competence in the workplace, it is likely that the average 5-year-old is going to be of more use to a business than most people with an MBA. Make children profitable again.
3. Temporal-Political Campaigning
It’s likely that you were born in September.
I know this because of cake rotas.
If you grew up in the UK you may well have lived through an annual fattening ritual in which you eat other people’s birthday cake six times a day through September before the cake drought of the ‘aww - a summer baby then’ months.
I guess it’s a way to fight back against the unfortunate oh-my-god-congratulations-can-I-feel-your-tummy comments after the festive season. It’s the birth of a self-perpetuating cycle.
Indeed, more babies are conceived in the weeks and days running up to Christmas. But, the Governmental Department for Babymaking has already got this one in the bag. The exhausting extension of the festive season, which now starts on the first of September, isn’t just the work of a mince-pie marketing genius. It is in fact an attempt to extend the babymaking season as well. Nice try, government.
4. Technological Breakthroughs
Gov.UK could create a website which exclusively sells items for nine pounds. Items for which you could only foreseeably ever need one. Like an odd sock pairing website which makes the exact other sock that you are missing. Offer free delivery (no returns) on orders above 10 pounds. The only other item you can get is a one-pound baby.
Staying internet side, we could do worse than removing all photos of babies and all content from people about their children on social media, so that people are not reminded on a daily basis about how annoying they will become.
5. (Emotional) Labour Subsidy
They used to say that you can’t choose your family. Well now you can! Mix and match children with parents to find nice balanced personalities, leaving your own baggage for someone else’s child to deal with!
This policy comes with the added benefit of creating a system of interchangeable siblings. Anyone who has grown up with siblings is more than 4000% likely to refuse to put their children through the same thing. (Not an ONS statistic).
Although, this could be tackled more humanely by offering cheap GPS tracking systems to implant into all clothing, toys, and important objects. Gone are the days of ‘have you taken my top?’, ‘where did my chocolate go?’. Harmonious.
6. Effect Cultural Change
Change the word ‘productivity’ in every alluringly self-helpy podcast, book, FT article to ‘reproductivity’. This has the fortunate side effect of getting people off the side hustle and into bed for longer.
i. A New Dogma
If all this fails, we could consider rebranding children. Think of the overhauls Sketchers or Burberry made for their limping public image.
We can look at the data. 657,076 babies were born in England and Wales in 2018. When you think that 600,000 pets were acquired in UK in the same year, it seems that all the evidence points to making children more like dogs.
The savings made in the educational department would be fantastic. Schools became like dog training facilities. Potty training the responsibility of the state. Curriculum cuts won’t affect sitting, sniffing and squirrels. Dogs seem to like breeding too, so long term, its infallible.
ii. Plant the Seeds of Hope
The second option is making children more like plants.
The obsession all we millennials have with plants is clearly a hangover from the inclusivity posited as a vehicle for positive change when we were kids. I’m thinking of the school plays with Trees 1 to 16, Bush 6 and Hedge Dancer 23.
In this vision of the future, school plays will only contain succulents. ‘Respire – stage right’. ‘Somehow wither – cue song ‘I swear I watered you’. I’ll get working on the script.
7. Summary
Here we have it. A Modest Proposalfor modern times. Better than intrauterine interference. If I were Obama, I’d drop the mic, but I’m not, so I’ll fold it neatly, put it in an envelope and post it to whatever government has set up camp by the time it arrives.
By Anna Thomas
Novice Londoner, Novice Employee, Novice Writer, Happy to be here.