People these days often say that they want few children or even no children. The reasons - or more accurately justifications and rationalizations - are many, but the most popular one is overpopulation.
Unfortunately, they have a serious lack of knowledge and/or understanding about evolution and how it works.
Every man has a fatherhood instinct, and every woman has a motherhood instinct. But the thing about the motherhood and fatherhood instincts is that they are not "all or nothing". Instead there is a continuum going from no motherhood instinct to strong motherhood instinct, and all women fall somewhere along this continuum. It is the same with the fatherhood instinct - there is a continuum going from no fatherhood instinct to strong fatherhood instinct, and all men fall somewhere along this continuum.
The motherhood and fatherhood instincts are controlled by genes, so they fall under "nature". They are not to be confused with "parenting skills" which fall under "nurture". It is the same instinct that causes the feeling of the "biological clock" in older women approaching the end of their reproductive career. They are physiological needs.
It is the people who have a weaker motherhood or fatherhood instinct who are more likely to have fewer children. And those who have stronger instincts will have more children. So if this state of affairs continues, the genes responsible for weaker instincts will slowly be bred out of the human gene pool, and the genes responsible for stronger instincts will slowly predominate.
In fact, the pill and safe contraception are accelerating this process. In the past, people often had children against their will. Women had no choice but to reproduce, because they gave sex in exchange for security, and sex meant babies. Men also had no choice because sex is a physiological need for them. But now, contraception allows men to take care of this physiological need without the usual consequences. And women can give sex in exchange for security (or they don't need security from a man because they are economically independent) without the usual consequences. But no contraception can dampen or eliminate the motherhood and fatherhood instincts. A woman will feel the biological clock ticking when she hits her mid to late 30s, regardless of which form of contraception she's using. And the stronger these instincts become, the less effective contraception will be. Consider that many single teenage mothers choose to have babies regardless of the availability of contraception, and regardless of the risks. That is the motherhood instinct in action.
So future generations of people will have stronger parenting instincts, which will drive them to have more children. What delicious irony!
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