As a very new mother, I was prepared for breastfeeding to be a nightmare. For sleep to be non-existent. For a love unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. But no one braced me for comedy.

Earlier this year, pop star Chappell Roan came under fire when she said the quiet bit out loud: she doesn’t know anyone with children who is happy, and those who have children “are in hell”. Are we surprised that Western civilisation is suffering from cataclysmic population shrinkage if that’s what pop stars are telling young fans? Who wants to willingly enter into 18 years of “hell”?

You have to laugh: Charlotte Mortlock with her baby.

It’s now likely we will see the global population starting to decline by the 2050s, just a few decades away. In Australia, this trend began in 2014, and we are now at a near-record low of 1.5 babies per woman, the lowest in almost two decades. In England and Wales, births have declined to a record low, and Japan, one of the worst-affected countries, is experiencing a net loss of 100 people each hour.

Some will argue this will be good for the environment, but it will be catastrophic for economies, the vulnerable and the ageing with a smaller workforce burdened with covering........

© The Sydney Morning Herald