Live data from Hacker News

No one wants to have kids anymore

torturechambersmalltalk.substack.com

171–180 of 457 posts

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#171
I feel sorry for the author, I couldn't finish reading what he wrote because it was far too cringy.

Overpopulation is not an issue. The real issue is logistics. If someone says they won't have children because they "wouldn't want to miss sleeping" or "clean up after a baby", they clearly are using an excuse. For whatever reason, they deem themselves unfit to be parents. Let them be. People on the fence don't stay there very long, and people rarely switch sides. Better one pair of good parents than five negligent pairs.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#172

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…

As I am getting older, I see young couples told to wait till they are settled and are in a better situation to have their token child. If you want children , do not wait. It will never be 'better situation'. There will be always some reason, mostly financial not to have them.

[deleted]

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#173
post #109
post #87

Elizabeth Warren's book The Two-Income Trap argued that dual income couples priced out single income families from the best locations. It makes sense that DINKs and childless single people are simply reacting to the same economic incentives and now pricing out dual income families. I think high-rents is a major driver of this decision. The USDA puts the cost of your first kid at $14.4k annually edited . That is prima…

In what universe is a child only 14.4K? Is this the price of a diapers alone? Preschool? Food? This number seems laughably low.

Annually, sorry if that was confusing. $250k over their lifetime.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#174

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…

Real parents consistently make it clear how terrible having kids is. The childless among us hear every complaint and lament about how terrible it is. Why would we do that to ourselves?

My wife had a friend who would watch us deal with our then toddler son and claim that we were the best birth control she could wish for :-)

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chasing twin toddlers in a circle for an hour!

Which raises question, who's chasing whom?

It's a Mexican standoff.

Then the older ones get envious and hop in. It is an entire football team chasing each other.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is extremely location-dependent. In countries where you have universal healthcare, free education and childcare benefits, the financial impact of having a child can be very low.

Those countries just offload the cost of the child onto other people. The cost is not low.

The cost to a society of not having children is also quite high, so pick your poison.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#178
post #62

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…

> If you’re focused on these experiences as the defining characteristics of being a parent, you’ll completely miss the big picture. Right. Because that’s the easy part, when they’re babies. At first I didn’t believe my friend’s dad when he told me it actually gets more difficult when they get older.

It really does get harder. Babies are not really that hard. They're a lot of work, but each individual thing you have to do is easy. Annoying or gross, sure, sometimes. But changing a diaper takes about a minute. Night time can be tough at first but if you do a good job with sleep training it gets better pretty quickly. My wife breastfed, so most mid-sleep wakeups just become "go grab the baby and hook him onto Mom, make sure everyone has what they need, and go lay back down."

My sons are 8 and 6 now and that's much more difficult on some ways. They're 'people' enough that you can reason with them sometimes, but also sometimes they get trapped in completely ridiculous loops of illogic and emotion and you just have to ride it out while trying to remain calm. There's all kinds of dramas, illnesses, places to go, one thing after another.

Mostly though, being a dad is great, and I recommend it. I meet lots of folks my age who seem kinda directionless, like they can't figure out what's missing, and I think for many of them, family is that missing piece.

I've also met many DINKs who seem like they're having the time of their lives, so YMMV. I don't want to tell anyone how to live their life.

But there does seem to me to be a cultural knee-jerk ruling out of family among my generation that puzzles and saddens me. Everyone seems to think there are a million qualifications they have to meet before becoming a parent. "We need to have a house, and 100k in savings, etc etc etc." And yes, it's good to be prepared. But also, as long as you're a semi functional human, you'll make it work.

If you think you want to have children, you should!

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#179

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…

As I am getting older, I see young couples told to wait till they are settled and are in a better situation to have their token child. If you want children , do not wait. It will never be 'better situation'. There will be always some reason, mostly financial not to have them.

A guy I worked with told me this advice and I wish I listened. We still had a kid early relatively to my other friends, I was 29 and wife was 27. It's better to be chasing around young kids when your 24 vs 34 I'll tell you that. But of course you're only as old as you feel.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#180
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.

Indeed. It is clearly natural selection at work.
Post reply on HN