THE TRUTH ABOUT PARENTING IN A CHILDLESS WORLD - A CALL FOR MULTI-FAMILY HOMESTEADING
Growing up in the 90s I clearly remember a time that for today seems mystical and far-fetched, a time when most sensible parents and society as a whole prioritized the well-being of the young, their children. This was the last decade of an attitude that was uncontroversial, taken as a fact, as a self-evident truth for the benefit of all. Think of Titanic’s ‘children and women first’ to make it to the row boats, La Vita Bella’s gorgeous example of self sacrifice of a parent to shield his son’s innocence from the ugliness of war. Those days are gone and in their stead we now have childlessness, the glorification of decadent comfort and many generations steeped in postmodern solipsism. However, there are some places where the old rules still apply, where communities do still come together and celebrate youth for what it is, sacred.
My family has roots in the Guatemalan department (state like division) of Quiché. Population 1,119,425. El Quiché is located in the Mayan highlands, the land is pretty barren compared to the rest of the country, it is chilly and coniferous, with rolling rocky hills and thick pine forests extending northwards. Its TFR (Total Fertility Rate or Tasa de Fecundidad) is the highest of the country at 3.1. This figure has been dwindling decade after decade as has the rest of the world, but in Guatemala El Quiché bucks the global trend of demographic collapse. How and why?
If you do not know much about the topic of global demographic collapse I do not blame you. Most of the world believes we are indeed experiencing vast overpopulation and even unending population boom. These 1970s propagandistic assumptions could not be farther from the truth. This fact does not make headlines and there are very few studying or speaking about it partly because of lack of funding and social stigma. You would be well served to know it is the most crucial crisis for humanity in our lifetime, and its implications are wide and nefarious, almost infinite and seemingly unavoidable.
It is important to acknowledge the impact of this underreported decline -
In 2021, about 110 out of 204 countries & territories had a TFR below the replacement level of ~2.1 children per woman.
As of 2025, Georgia is the only European country with a total fertility rate (TFR) at or above the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman.
South Korea’s TFR of 0.75 is far below that. If every woman has, on average, 0.75 children, then each generation is roughly 35% the size of the previous one.
In 2024, Japan experienced its most significant population decline since records began in 1968, with a net loss of approximately 900,000 people.
One of the countries with the highest median age in the world, estimated at 49.9 years is Japan. Also Italy with 48.4 and Hong Kong at 47.2
Only four countries in Latin America have a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) above the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman: Haiti, Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala.
Guatemala's fertility rate has decreased by over 60% since 1950, aligning with global patterns of demographic transition.
There are many hypotheses as to why this phenomenon only grows uninterrupted and the answer might very well encompass all variables. Yet El Quiche might shed some light as to how they have managed to not slip into negative numbers just yet.
In the villages and hamlets of the high altitude mountains of El Quiche, the family unit and its dynamics seem to belong to a 1800s anthropology book, they have for the most part remained frozen in time. The father and mother acquire a lot of land, not too big and not too small. They have on average more children and in any other part of the world. Both extended paternal and maternal families pitch in with food, work, education, child-caring, health, travel, religious duties, etc. Children grow up and get married, spouses move into the family home. Multiple couples of siblings share the family home and the offspring grow up together. An 10 year-old cousin will play with, help, and feed a 6 year old boy. The boy will look after the 4 year-old sibling. The 4 year old sibling will help out with chores around the house. The result: a tightly knit family unit of very high trust that cooperates in the child rearing from ages 0 to 20. This formula is not secret or unique to this department. It is the exact way that our species has survived, replenished and prospered for millennia and even hundreds of thousands of years. The only difference is El Quiché has not forgotten yet this crucial type of technology. Not a scientific advance that few outside of an elite group of specialized engineers in a far off country with ample funding have researched for many years. Instead this is human ancestral technology, is usually not typified instead only a formula or societal algorithm passed on from generation to generation through practices, culture and coexistence. This is the technology of the past that guarantees the future. And it only takes one generation to skip to be forgotten forever. The Maya in Guatemala have so far managed to retain these practices in one way or another for over 4,000 years. That has made their civilization not only sustainable but impervious to modernity and its intrinsic demise.
And yet, not everyone lives in the rural heartland of El Quiché. Most everyone reading this are completely alien to communities such as the ones describes above, most of us are the product of developed nations, modern schooling systems, western megalopolis, globalized cultures. And now we are parents. And the truth is hard to bear.
If you want to be with your children as much as possible.
If you have had to hand your baby to strangers at one month old.
If you pace a tiny apartment at night with no yard to walk.
If you do not trust that any institution will be able to prepare your children with the proper skills and high values you know they need.
If your parents are absent.
If you cannot afford early childcare.
If you have no siblings, no cousins, no help.
If you cannot afford nannies.
If you work all day and still struggle to pay bills.
If you dream of a second child but cannot imagine affording one.
Then you know how hard parenting is in 2025. And you are not alone.
No parent should have to forsake having more kids because of the inability of modernity to provide a self-sustaining future to new parents and growing families. The trade offs are too many. And this tragedy is being replicated in such numbers that the global TFR is not in decline but actual free-fall. This same tragedy is depriving entire nations of a future of children, joy, new life and transcendence.
My very own social circle is filled with many such cases. Homes that are too small and too expensive. Grandparents that are estranged and not present. Few siblings not interested in being part of the family life of new parents. And to this we cannot, unfortunately, look at the K’ichés for guidance. Their successful family model is too foreign for most of us. Instead, we must somehow, test and try, until we succeed to forge something new to guarantee growing families and their fulfillment in the near future. We risk declining to such a state where we will never recover, and with this comes demographic collapse.
The model of multi-family homesteading is also not new. It succeeded throughout human history until only very recently. That past is also now lost to us for the most part. And still, outside of the major population hubs, outside of the congested and unaffordable big city traps there is a growing number of families driven out by all the aforementioned factors adventuring into mountains, farmland and new spaces that hold promise for more land and more freedom.
There is no exact science as to how much land is enough land, just as long as you can strive to be as self sustainable as possible. Every family is different and every country is unique. In Guatemala, specifically in our tiny valley of Antigua is more than plenty too feed multiple families. Off grid is now a viable option and the relative proximity to neighbours, other parents with young children who share common values can provide a way to offload the crushing weight of isolated parenting in a way that not only relieves but allows for growth.
The growing of different crops leads to exchange. The space of land allows for family expansion. The proximity to high trust neighbors allows for communal activities. The relative isolation of the plots of land requires effective collaboration. The constant need for infrastructure improvements leads way to pooling resources.
This model is not perfect and we are relearning what so many knew for multiple generations as a way of life that came as first nature. Our role is to rediscover and rapidly adapt for the sake of our children to a world cursed by constant hyper-novelty (term coined by the evolutionary biologists and excellent parents Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein). We are relearning what our ancestors knew by instinct. But the choice is clear. Hyper-novelty will devour families, if we do not.
The experiment is already underway, the final result is unknown. But we do know and are painstakingly aware of the modern alternative. And that scenario is for those who wish to have a family, whose growth is only dictated by love and dedication, quite frankly unbearable. The choice is ours: collapse or homestead.
