I was just in Japan, and I saw no shortage of children and young people while I was there. In fact, I saw far more children than I ever do in cities here in the US.

The difference over there is that kids are born into families that are at least middle-class, while here in the US a huge number of children are born in poverty and raised by single parents. I don't think having a higher birthrate is going to turn out well in the long run when that's the case, compared to a country where children have a much better upbringing.

In Japan, they have to worry about the younger generations supporting the elderly.

In the US, we have to worry about the productive generations (the ones of working age) supporting both the elderly AND all the children and families in poverty and not having that bite us in the ass when those kids become adults (e.g., committing crimes, something that Japan doesn't have much trouble with).

" I was just in Japan, and I saw no shortage of children and young people while I was there. In fact, I saw far more children than I ever do in cities here in the US."

I would prefer to trust actual stats compared to your powers of observation. In this case 1.4 births per female in Japan vs 1.8 in the US. +0.7% annual population for the US vs -0.2% for Japan.

The point is that the Japanese system isn't inherently flawed its dealing with the consequences of there being fewer working age people supporting a greater number of older individuals. This has nothing to do with your opinion on the relative social mores of the 2 countries.

You "were just in Japan and saw X or Y" is a pretty poor argument vs actually knowing a thing or two about Japan by living here for a long time. Being a tourist somewhere does not make you knowledgeable in any way to comment about whole country trends.