No one wants to have kids anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#111

Post by WaitWaitWha » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #48

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #36

> But deep down I get it. Babies are a huge opportunity cost. Financially speaking, they are like winning the lottery but backwards. You can't even think of having one without cancelling your subscription to a good night's sleep. And if you take into account inflation, economic recession, and the rest of the news cycle's highlight reel, even a one-child family can seem to have one too many mouths to fish Lego pieces…

It costs $310k to pay for a kid from 0-18 per Brookings. The math is straightforward to work backwards to the income you need to afford that along with your basic needs and retirement savings, and most people don’t have the means. Median US lifetime earnings are $1.7 million. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3608647-new-estimate-proj...

The article states two (2) children costs $310,000. Comes out to be $8,611/year or $718/month per child. A tiny sample size, but I have several children and none of them cost me $23.58/day for 18 years.

Do you have a link to the actual study or the breakdown what went into this?

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#112

Post by egberts1 » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

Until government recognize the needs for their own educated kids, they may get short end of the stick by importing large number of uneducated immigrants as a short-term measure.

Yeah, another contentious issue.

It is not like United States having done immigrating foreign scientists and tradesmen during and after WWI, WWII, Korean, Iran, or Vietnam Wars thereby actually benefited from them, economically and culturally.

Government are typically desperate for more taxpayers due to extended shrinkages (puns intended).

It is a battle for being able to cherry-pick from the pool of global immigrants (which US usually does well through its 38 different types of visa).

Like military recruiting , government will often get hamfisted by attaching strange and unreasonable stipulations based on their own morality (and not on its nation's needs).

Again, government should be making it easier to have its own kids, but they have not as of lately.

It is as if most government have done the math and have deemed raising kids as a loss-leader over recent immigration. My point is the longer-term cost sink is tremendously worse by a magnitude if they choose poorly.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#113

Post by okokwhatever » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

For me being dad has been the best experience in my life. Being dad is a lonely road this days with so many messages talking about no kids couples but for me is ok, let people decide freely. In the worst case scenario this solo couples simply will disappear in a few decades and my kids will have to adapt to a different world. Change is the only thing they will inherit and it's ok.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#114

Post by PanosJee » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

js8 wrote: post #38

I have decided not to have kids, at least partly because I believe Earth is already overpopulated for the living standard that humans deserve. Occasionally, someone asks the idiotic question, what if everybody made the same decision? Well, if they truly did, I would have made a different choice. All these projections about (white) replacement are fundamentally flawed because they assume that the reasons for the decis…

You are just a narcissist.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#115

Post by nicodjimenez » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #52

nicodjimenez wrote: post #29

The only solution is to ban condoms. Will solve so many problems. Btw this article neglects to mention a very important feedback loop: less babies equals less economic growth, which equals less babies because it’s too expensive, which in turn leads to less economic growth and so on. Collapsing birth rates are a serious problem! You won’t notice until the country becomes a depopulated wasteland and then it will be too…

Considering that’s never actually happened it seems you have an unreasonable level of certainty about the outcomes. People who don’t have kids don’t pass down their culture, which seems like an obvious feedback loop to keep things going. On top of this population declines have generally resulted in increased individual prosperity for hopefully obvious reasons.

And you are wrong about individual prosperity being a result of fewer people. Extremely wrong in fact. In a village of 100 people everyone is poor. Part of the reason US is becoming less prosperous in the last 50 years is because of this collapsing birth rate.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#116

Post by 0xbadc0de5 » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 1:48 PM UTC

My personal experience - and I've heard many others repeat the same sentiment:

When you're single, your happiness levels typically range on a scale from 0 to 10.

Once you get married, that range expands to run from -100 to +100.

Then when you have kids, all the limits are removed.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#117

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 1:48 PM UTC

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #68

toomuchtodo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs $310k to pay for a kid from 0-18 per Brookings. The math is straightforward to work backwards to the income you need to afford that along with your basic needs and retirement savings, and most people don’t have the means. Median US lifetime earnings are $1.7 million. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3608647-new-estimate-proj...

Not to mention that this represents a very median case, whereas a lot of parents want to pay for higher status schools and real estate to get access to higher status education, it's a never-ending keeping-up-with-the-joneses pi*-ing contest. To raise kids around my peers, a child could easily cost $500k+.

Pregnancy and birth ($3k to $10k) + daycare ($18k to $30k per year) + sickness needing doctor ($300 per visit). I probably got to $130k+ per kid before hitting kindergarten, for 2 kids with no chronic healthcare needs.

And I needed a flexible job that allows you to work from home or be off as necessary to take care of sick kids.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#118

Post by snapcaster » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 1:48 PM UTC

icare_1er wrote: post #72

js8 wrote: post #38

I have decided not to have kids, at least partly because I believe Earth is already overpopulated for the living standard that humans deserve. Occasionally, someone asks the idiotic question, what if everybody made the same decision? Well, if they truly did, I would have made a different choice. All these projections about (white) replacement are fundamentally flawed because they assume that the reasons for the decis…

Quoted post unavailable.

It is sort of funny how any anti-natalist political position will get outbred out of existence haha. Reminds me of the Shakers who kind of died off because their belief system prevented procreation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakers

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#119

Post by notch656a » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 1:48 PM UTC

throwayyy479087 wrote: post #60

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #43

A word of advice to anyone on the fence about having kids: There’s nothing wrong with choosing not to have kids, but do yourself and consult with actual parents for what it’s really like to have kids. Articles like this one, which are written by someone who apparently has chosen not to have children, are almost universally terrible at representing the true experience of being a parent. Yes, being a parent involves a…

Having a kid is the most fun I’ve ever had. Used to go to raves, done bunch of crazy sexual stuff, as well as most drugs under the sun. There’s nothing close to chasing a toddler in a circle for an hour.

Is this satire? I have a child and the monotonous boredom of dealing with a toddler forces me to suppress the distant memories of freedom to go to raves, fight in foreign militia, get lost in stormy mountains, hitchhike across the plains...

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#120

Post by rapsey » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 1:48 PM UTC

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #36

> But deep down I get it. Babies are a huge opportunity cost. Financially speaking, they are like winning the lottery but backwards. You can't even think of having one without cancelling your subscription to a good night's sleep. And if you take into account inflation, economic recession, and the rest of the news cycle's highlight reel, even a one-child family can seem to have one too many mouths to fish Lego pieces…

> Every time I visit family for the holidays, I see this in real-time and it reaffirms my decision to not have children. I have an incredibly comfortable lifestyle saving for retirement, traveling and buying real estate. The moment I become responsible for another human, that all goes away.

It is unfortunate that unless you have children you can never know what it is like to have children. You see the external things, the effort and the cost. For most (i.e. non egocentric/narcissist personalities) having children is the most profound and meaningful experience of their lives. A normal parent loves their children more than they ever thought it possible to love someone.

You call your life comfortable. I as a parent would call it empty and sad. What you think of people as shells of themselves, I see as people focusing on what truly matters and brings happiness instead of momentary joy.