OMG, how did you manage to so completely misunderstand my words ?
Where did I say it's wrong for women to want to have careers and enjoy life and not be baby making machines, and that that's against god and nature ? I said women USED TO be regarded as baby making machines, both by men and largely by themselves. Which has now changed (fortunately). Those are simple facts which I was stating, not making a judgement on. And I don't give a damn what's against god or nature ! I don't believe in the first and the second is meant to be surpassed in some things (wearing clothes or being monogamous is not natural for humans !).
And I never said you or anyone else were self centered and egotistical for not wanting to have children !
I said it's a common fact stated by many psychologists and thinkers around the world that modern people (OF BOTH GENDERS !) are becoming more and more centered on their own happiness and pleasure, not just in regards to making babies but in regard to everything.
Read up on the differences between the "survival culture" (in which most people lived until the 20th century) and the "pleasure culture"... Basically in the first people just try to survive and grow enough food or work enough to survive, they're content and happy as long as they have food to eat and rags to wear, even if they work all day long and suffer constantly. Now in the pleasure culture of modern people things are much different, having their basic needs taken care of easily (in developed countries) people expect MUCH more and need much more to be happy and content. For example trips to foreign lands, prestigious careers, perfect relationships with perfect mates and so on...
This one brilliant and famous psychologist I was reading recently says modern people find it so hard to be happy in relationships because they expect too much, they expect perfect partners and the insanely passionate love from romantic novels, and that is just an illusion which doesn't really exist, so they keep on searching and searching.
And that kind of high expectations and high desires (which are an unavoidable effect of a high standard of living) affect (among many other factors of course) people's (both male and female) decisions to have children or not (since that obviously requires lots of sacrifice).
Now you said people are having less children because of nature ?
Nature determines how much rain falls and therefore how much the corn grow, but babies don't grow on rain.
Nature determines how much silt a river deposits on it's shores which being natural fertilizer determines how much the rice grows, but babies don't grow on fertilizer.
It only takes one thing to make a baby in the modern world - for two people to decide they want to have one (as long as they're healthy that is).
So if less and less people are deciding to do so then they're obviously a cultural / sociological / psychological change at hand, whatever it may be. The only physical factor which may be at work (and even that is not natural but human - made) is the measured and proven decrease in average male potency (believed to be caused by polution by artificial fertilizers), that is the average human male has less and less sperms and they're of poorer quality.
Please don't try to paint me as some kind of woman-hating neanderthal who believes men should have careers and woman have babies, because that couldn't be further from the truth.
I believe fathers should devote just as much time to raising children as their mothers, and that both genders should give their children priority over their careers IF they choose to have children, and if not that's their private choice and their right too.
But if too few people in a generation decide to have children than maybe the planners of future development should maybe take that into account and try to incourage people to do so. My country currently has a negative population growth so the government is trying to incourage people to have children with various economic and social measures. Japan also has a problem with a too old population and weak birthrate. But anyway I've gotten off course.
So lets put things right clearly once more - I AM NOT A MISOGYNIST, I am a feminist ! I believe in the equal rights and responsibilites of men and women in all things, except maybe child custody trials (I believe that in such cases where all other factors are equal women should have the advantage for the good of the child because of the primordial biological link a mother and child share), including equal pay and equal career opportunities.
Do I believe people today (of both genders and including MYSELF) are spoiled and self-centered compared to our forefathers ? Hell yeah ! I expect a lot more out of life then just surviving on a little food and wearing rags while living in a wooden hut.
Well anyway, rant over. Now you can throw the stones.
P.S.
Getting involved in these political / sociological debates just gets me wasting a lot of time on typing away for no use every time... Shouldn't have started in the first place but I couldn't resist after that idiocy that writer wrote about "surviving" the population bomb...