More Northern Delusions: As Live Births Decline, Hedonism, Narcicissm, and Wokism Bear Fruit

Hear that ripping sound? It's the tearing up of the social contract, brought to you courtesy of 'progressive' policies

There’s an old saying: ‘They sow the wind, And reap the whirlwind.’ (Hosea 8, 7, KJV)

We’re almost at the point in time when the whirlwind will rip through what remains of Western Civilisation. Today’s dark musings are brought to you courtesy of two pieces that appeared on Norwegian state broadcaster NRK.

Birth rates plummet: ‘Women have no obligation to have children to keep society going’, NRK, 27 Oct 2018

Norwegian women have never been less fertile, giving birth to only 1.62 children per woman. ‘We have no obligation to have children to save society’, says childless volunteer Tanja Pedersen.

In just over 20 years, the number of births in Northern Norway has fallen by 35%, and the worst is in Finnmark and Nordland.

Obstetricians and Politicians describe the figures as alarming

‘If the trend continues, it will be dramatic for society, municipalities, and businesses in Northern Norway. We want vibrant villages and towns’, said gynaecologist Margit Steinholt.

County councillor Tomas Norvoll calls the population decline and the flight of women from the region the biggest challenge in the North. The statements have prompted several people to react. Among them is researcher and sociologist Helga Eggebø at Nordland Research:

Women have the right to decide over their own lives and bodies. Deciding whether we want to have children, and how many children we want to have, is a fundamental right that Norway is working to promote internationally through the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

It is still the case that 90% of Norwegian women have children. This means that 10% do not have children.

Choosing Sterilisation

One of them is Tanja Renate Aakerøy Pedersen from Sandnessjøen (27), who is voluntarily childless. In Norway, women cannot undergo sterilisation until they are 25 years old. After waiting several years, she had the procedure last year:

‘Being voluntarily childless is a right you have. You don’t have an obligation to have children to keep society going’, says the 27-year-old.

Since she was a child, she has known that she never wanted children. She decided early on to undergo sterilisation to avoid the fear of getting pregnant. That choice has provoked strong and negative reactions from many.

For example, one Socialist Party politician said that, it is your duty to give birth’. She has also noted that (former conservative) Prime Minister Erna Solberg has called for Norwegian women to have more children.

Undue pressure

‘I feel that she is putting extra pressure on Norwegian women and making them feel a bit guilty.’ Tanja has chosen to be open about her childlessness and has thus come into contact with others who have made the same choice.

Many do not dare to come forward and tell for fear of condemnation from others.

The 27-year-old can understand why women in Northern Norway are reluctant to give birth. In Sandnessjøen, where Tanja Pedersen lives, there are not many prospects and job opportunities for young women.

NRK has previously reported that the hospital, the district court, nurse training, and the traffic station [DMV] have all been proposed or approved for closure and relocation to the neighbouring town.

She herself is a trained photojournalist and has worked as a photographer in the Armed Forces for two years. After two years back in her home town, she is now moving south again:

I note that the politicians are worried. But when everything is being closed down, it’s perhaps not so strange that young people are moving away.

Enough Norwegians in the world

Norwegian women have never been less fertile, giving birth to only 1.62 children per woman. But is it really a problem that there are not so many more Norwegians in the world?

After all, we are part of a small proportion of the world’s population that uses most of the earth’s resources today.

Tanja does not rule out the possibility that one day she will still have a child. But it won’t be her own biological children:

I love children, and I'm open to changing my mind in ten years' time. But then it will be adoption.

[Women] must be allowed to do what they want

Researcher and sociologist Helga Eggebø says that if Norwegian women want fewer children, it is an unconditional good:

Those born and raised in Nordland are of course entitled to get an education, move wherever they want and have as many children as they want.

She sees several tendencies in society towards what she calls a pro-birth policy.

This is a clear break with the Norwegian model, which has focused on gender equality, welfare, and the ability to combine care and work with family life. Norway has never promoted multiple births, as there are several historical examples from different regimes around the world.

According to research |that remains, par for the course, uncited], there are several factors that influence people's decisions to have children.

A good and stable relationship is important. So is financial security. More than half of the respondents to surveys emphasise that a steady partner, completed education, a permanent job and their own home must be in place before they think about having children.

Productive Norwegians

[Former] Prime Minister Erna Solberg has stressed that we need more taxpayers in the future. Yet, from 2030 onwards, public expenditure are projected to increase faster than income. The tax base will shrink, and expenditure on pensions and health and care services will increase. We are getting older and living longer. [Thank Heaven for Covid-induced excess mortality among seniors, I suppose]

Oil revenues will not compensate for this.

Eggebø says that the calculation that says we need 2.1 children per woman to reproduce the population is not necessarily correct:

In Norway we have a highly educated population. Highly educated people are more productive than a less educated population. You simply need fewer people to maintain the same production and welfare.

---

That was quite a read, eh? Remember that the piece is from Oct. 2019, i.e., just as Covid was a concern for Western intelligence services. Oddly enough, before we continue, why is it that ‘climate change’ is increasing young people’s anxiety to such a degree that they stop to reproduce to ‘save the planet’? For whom?

Fast forward to earlier this week, which is a piece that appeared a few days ago.

---

Sandra felt she had to work more because she doesn’t have children, NRK, 12 Feb. 2023

Sandra Cailyn Skjeldal was fed up with her free time being valued less than the free time of colleagues with children. The frustration she shared got a lot of response.

‘Previously, I’ve taken it for granted that “I don't have children, I don’t have to go home to anyone, of course I can work an extra hour today”,’ Skjeldal says:

It hasn't occurred to me until now that this has been going on for many years.

Sandra (30) has felt an expectation that she should take on, for example, inconvenient shifts because she has chosen not to have children yet.

I’ve experienced it several times. Both when it comes to holidays and vacations, but also in everyday life. For example, colleagues having to leave work because they have to pick up their children from kindergarten, or because the children have fallen ill. [As a parent in that situation, f*** off]

She stresses that she fully understands that parents have to leave if these things happen.

But it’s more difficult for those of us without children, because we have nothing to defend ourselves with. [no-one is attacking you]

Positive response

A LinkedIn post shared by Skjeldal has received over a thousand reactions and nearly a hundred comments. Many of the comments are expressions of gratitude. [here’s the posting in my translation]

I’m over 30 and I don't have children. Because I haven’t made it a priority. Yet.

Although life with small children requires a lot of time, a lot of duties and a big dose of love, that doesn’t mean that without children I would put more time into work to compensate for my colleagues’ absence.

The love and relaxation others get stimulated in family life, I find elsewhere, in my own way.

I love my selfish free time and for that very reason I don’t have children yet. It may be a conscious choice, but also involuntary for others.

I also need to nurture my life and my free time with my interests.

So even though I don’t have children of my own to blame: I don't want to work overtime because colleagues have to go home to pick up the children from kindergarten or take them to training.

I also want to have a holiday during the public holidays when all my friends are on holiday.

I also want to work some day shifts so that I can have time off in the evening.

Organisational psychologist Gunhild Bjaalid believes the response is a sign that many people have experienced the same expectations in the workplace:

As an employee, there are expectations of you, depending on what is in your job description, what kind of profession you have and what you are employed to do.

She says that there are broad and formal guidelines for what is expected of you as an employee: ‘What many people who do not have children have probably experienced is meeting informal expectations and attitudes in working life. This informal pressure can come from both peers and managers.’

Such attitudes may, for example, be that ‘if you don't have children, you don’t need time off on 17 May’ [Norway’s national holiday akin to 4 July in the US]. Or ‘can you finish this, I have to go and pick up the children from kindergarten now’.

If some employees feel that they receive such comments, it often affects the working environment.

Room for discrimination

Legally speaking, everyone in the workplace has the same rights, regardless of their life situation. However, there are exceptions that may discriminate against those who do not have children.

If there is something specific, temporary or exceptional, the employer can impose overtime on employees. However, employees may be exempted if they have health or important social reasons for doing so.

Young children can be a weighty social reason if you have dependent children. ‘In the legislation, a manager can actually impose more on someone who is not in that situation than on someone who has children’, says Bjaalid. ‘So there is a basis for some discrimination in the legislation, and it can be discriminatory for those who have children.’

She stresses that being required to work overtime is not something that should or can happen every day.

Encouraging people to speak out

Women today are waiting longer to have their first child than in the past. According to Statistics Norway, the average age at first birth was 30.1 years in 2021. 20 years earlier, the average age was 27.3 years.

At the same time, more people never have children, whether voluntarily or not. 14% of women and 26% of men born in 1975 were childless by the age of 45.

Bjaalid encourages those who feel the same pressure as Skjeldal to speak out:

If it happens over a long period of time and doesn’t get better, it won’t get better if you don’t speak up. Even if you don't have small children, you may have obligations, appointments or want a work-life balance.

At the same time, Bjaalid stresses that she believes that most parents with young children feel uncomfortable when they have to leave a little earlier or stay home with a sick child.

We are all to some extent trapped in our own perspectives, and prefer to see the challenges in our own lives best, but I don't believe that parents of young children are ignorant and don't see this problem.

Need to talk

‘Now I'm in a working environment where I work more individually and am closed on weekends and holidays, so this is the first time I’ve experienced being seen on an equal footing with my other colleagues, regardless of my life situation’, Skjeldal says.

She has never spoken out about the problem before, but she will do so now if she feels such pressure again: ‘People have different needs and interests, and that is part of the reason for the choices I have made and why I don't have children today.’

I would like to help out if needed at work, but it’s more about it being considered a matter of course and that it happens more than once.

---

Bottom Lines

This is a long post already, hence I’ll delimit myself to a few key observations.

The "‘Nordic’ model will crash and burn within the next decade. Sure, fossil energy revenues will help Norway to cushion these blows, but ‘hard choices’ will have to be made.

Complaining and whining about ‘spare time’ or ‘selfish partying’ will not do anything about this. I doubt that Ms. Skjeldal has thought long or deeply about what she’s saying, in particular to those of us who have children.

The social contract that held together Europe’s national states is all but torn: injection mandates, Covid passports, and the looming introduction of social credit scores will drastically change our way of live, perhaps even beyond recognition.

Why, pray tell, should we ‘save the climate’ if there’s no more children to hand the earth to?

Every day I read more or less breathless articles who decry the shortfall of ‘skilled workers’. How shall we ever hope to confront this with ever-fewer children? Already, Western nations have imported staggering amounts of immigrants who don’t hold citizenship. At some point ‘democracy’ will become meaningless. If, after three years of Corona madness, it hasn’t already become so.

Finally, as to the narcissism and wokism so prominently on display, well, I wish these people well. Those who continue the human story will shape the future; those who ‘opt-out’ won’t. It might make for a few decades of weirdness, but in the end, nature will sort this out: those who reproduce will continue their lineage, those who won’t, don’t.