Hi Alan,

With respect, you and I have Neanderthal genes (I'm assuming you have European ancestry), but Aboriginal people here don't, unless they have European ancestry too: they may have Denisovian genes, from the groups who went north into and through central Asia sixty or more thousand years ago, then a part of which moved (probably through population pressure) down through what is now China to SE Asia, joined up their with their distant cousins coming across Asia through India, and on to Australia. Neanderthals were more or less strictly European/Mediterranean.

Your suggestion about DNA is interesting: bona fide Indigenous people would have either a maternal DNA, a paternal DNA,or both - or at least RNA (given my very limited understanding of DNA). People with no Indigenous ancestry wouldn't. Even so, I'm inclined to believe that any welfare support (if that's what this is about) should be provided on the basis of need.

Cheers (before my bastard computer plays up again: am I on the NBN ? I must be, because the service seems so lousy, this post has taken me half an hour, dropping in and out, etc.).

Joe

It was a coordinated scare campaign about the population and sustainability of Australia and conducted by academics, government (politicians to be more correct) and the media, that put pressure on the Australian population to achieve Zero Population Growth (ZPG).

At the same time, there was always the angst from the feds and 'experts' in the media about 'that' post-WW2 'hump' in population. It was to be used time and time again to excuse lack of, and poor planning, by the federal governments. It was a 'hump' that kept on giving.

Strangely enough at the same time the feds were maintaining and ramping up migrant intake to ever new records.

The always compliant Australian population obliged and ZPG was quickly realised. Federal governments moved to up the migrant intake.

It was always 'migrants good' - the sacred cow - but Australian children, most likely a bad idea.

Has anything changed? Probably not.

You have to feel for young Australian singles and couples though. They are demanded to put many years into education and even pay for short courses to 'qualify' for casual work while they study and accrue large 'loans'.

Government has over years found many new things to pay for and has slyly pushed 'user pays' to make the public pay twice for what was previously provided for from taxes. As well, all tiers of government have been very clever again to diversify taxes, fees and charges to make more money, while selling off and getting 'private' sector to do their dirty work of putting up prices.

It is shattering to see so many young people planning and working for the families they are being obliged to keep putting off, until one day they find that female fertility isn't as easy at older ages as the talking heads on TV and in feminist blogs pretended. Other options get ruled out too.

I am old enough to have heard many stories of emptiness, disbelief, shame and cruel final resignation (a dog). It is not simple. But it sure isn't going to receive any grants form Canberra for independent research.

leoj

I agree to a large extent with your saying, having children hasn't been encouraged
in Western society, but in fact discouraged in many ways especially financially.

German Greer observed the difference in attitude in Western societies to more tribal societies in their attitude to children. She made the statement, that "the western world hates children." I can understand what she is referring to, in the sense that mothers face a lot of hostility when they take their children out in public. It's only in the last decade, that baby's feeding rooms and changing rooms have been improved in shopping centres. They were only toilet areas when I was a mother stuck way down the back of a long dingy corridor without even a chair to sit on for breastfeeding.

Today they have improved but still not what a society who really valued babies and mothers would provide. Especially big supermarkets like Woolworths and Coles who after all, depend on mothers spending in their stores.They should at least provide decent feeding rooms, like they value mothers as customers. A mothers room should be up in the main shop area, with a pleasant room with suitable armchairs for breastfeeding, and TV running programmes for toddlers while mum feeds the baby, toys and books too, like doctor surgeries.

Today in this affluent society all they can offer mothers is a sterile room with blank white sterile walls.not much bigger than a prison cell. Although they are still a lot better than just the public toilet Mothers had back in the 70's.

This signifies a society that really wants to cast mothers and babies out the back somewhere.

My daughter who has four children but also a full time, very highly paid job, has mentioned how she notices a difference in the way she is treated when out shopping by shop staff, when it is a weekend and she has her shorts on and 4 kids with her.
They treat her with a certain amount of disrespect as in contrast to when she comes in done up in work clothes without the children.

CHERFUL,

I agree with you.

Why don't more people put forward their needs and design ideas to local councillors and to management of shopping centres?

'Australian women, like women everywhere, have an inherited maternal instinct to want to have a baby resulting from evolutionary selection over millions of years. What has gone wrong?'

Nothing went 'wrong', because the basic 'evolutionary' premise of this statement is wrong. If the natural instinct for women is to have babies, then why did they opt out of their 'natural instinct' in droves as soon as socio-political forces gave them the opportunity to do so?

If the natural instinct for women is to have babies, why did the powers that be/were so ruthlessly prevent women's access to birth control over the centuries? Why all the ruthless continuing campaigns against abortion? Why were women denied access to any path to financial independence?

If women's 'natural instinct' is to have babies, then all this authoritarian obsession to control women's reproductive capacity and financial independence would be meaningless.

Killarney,

I have never had cause to disagree with women, people, who choose not to have children. It always seemed that they made the right choice where they (and children) were concerned. Never had the slightest interest in them either. Too much information, always.

However I am interested where economic conditions and government policies, eg infrastructure costs for a 'Big Australia' may be unfairly placing too much tax load on young employed and job seeking. It would be concerning for example if young couples, women, are being forced to delay, unreasonably, the children, family, they do want because of casualisation of the workforce, for instance.

One wonders too about possible unexpected spikes in pregnancy terminations affecting sectors of women (I am excluding men for obvious reasons). But only because the numbers might demonstrate unfair impact of poor government policy and planning. It isn't an argument for restrictions.

While some might exist, everything is possible, I have never encountered a man who wanted to control women's reproductive capacity and financial independence. Although Australia may be importing some as migrants. I have known many men who welcomed a partner's employment and business enterprise. It keeps brains alive and extra money is always welcome around the home.

What is having a much higher impact on people's choices and especially women is government shedding its responsibilities for the aged.