Well, the people who don't have kids won't pass their values on to their kids.

Much of the value system of the liberal west and the westernized world (i.e. what we call the modern world these days) is, if not explicitly anti-natalist, implicitly anti-natal. That is it values other things, like personal achievement and self-actualization over having children and all that entails (e.g. self sacrifice). This is the value system I grew up in, and I see the result. My dad had 35 first cousins, and the seven total cousins (including my siblings and me), have produced only seven offspring.

I really think we're in an interesting situation with current falling fertility worldwide and the prospect of declining world population. In a world with a shrinking, graying population, tight-knit subcultures with pro-natal value systems will be in a very strong position. They will grow rapidly as a share of population.

Furthermore, they will be youthful and vibrant when the rest of the world is old and getting older, which should afford better protection against youth attrition than they have today. In 2124, a young person leaving their, Mormon, or Traditionalist Catholic, or Ultra-orthodox Jewish community for the secular world may feel less like a small town kid moving to the city and more like a kid leaving the city to live in a an economically depressed small town.

In democratic societies these communities will also have growing political power. We see this today in Israel, where secular women's total fertility rate is 1.9, while Haredi (ultra-orthodox) women's TFR is around 6. The Haredim was a microscopic minority at the founding of Israel and now they are a voting bloc big enough to topple governments.

You touched on the "value system" in the west.

My original comment in that thread highlighted this.

> People keep pointing to how "expensive" it is to have kids, however I see rich, well off people having fewer and fewer kids. I really think deep down the reasons are social and societal. The decline of the family system, religion, and traditional values have all led to this.

Look around. People just don't want kids (no matter the money). They don't like to admit this but they find it burdensome. They want "freedom". At least this is my observation.

I find this to be more common in America than in other western countries.

As one American friend put it: "Americans love their granite counter tops more than they love their children".

It's partially because you just can't let kids "be", nowadays they always have to be taught, mentored, entertained and generally watched at all times. Parents are driving themselves crazy spending all their time tend to and planning for the future success of their children but that leaves little time for themselves. I'm pretty it hasn't always been like that - or maybe it's just the Bay Area.

Although I appreciate the author's sentiment, and would probably appreciate the encouragement on those bases if I was in a more stable circumstance or considering having a kid at all, it's hard to escape the sense that in many cases we're not being passed a torch—from broader society or our own relatives—but rather a flickering ember that we're to attempt to re-ignite at 11pm while camping in the Pacific Northwest. If you're feeling squeezed, it's hard to rationalize squeezing one out. If you didn't grow up with a stable family life and don't see a reliable income on the horizon, I don't know how adding a child would compute. But... that's not everyone, not by a mile, and maybe people who are on the fence could use the reflections of a new parent like this.