Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

No one wants to have kids anymore

torturechambersmalltalk.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 457 posts

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#231

Post by achenet »

automatic6131 wrote: post #101
MarkusWandel wrote: post #76

A (relatively weak) inherited instinctual desire to procreate aside, people have kids because it improves their personal outcome. Without modern machinery, the work input of kids will improve the family farm's productivity by more than they consume. With high infant mortality, more kids improves the chances that enough will survive to adulthood. Without modern social safety nets, elders would simply starve or die of…

>The planet's population is getting uncomfortably high, so the birthrate drops. Great. If the birthrate drops, neither you nor I nor the kids alive today will get a "retirement". It'll become a quaint little thing we once could afford. Not so bad if all your work is tapping into a laptop. It's bloody murder for anyone that has to stand and lift and DO for a living.

this is probably my inner uptopian leftist speaking but - robots. And the fact that a large amount of the work doesn't actually need to get done.

So long we keep enough skilled tradesmen and farmers, which is not that many with increases in automation, we'll still have enough food, shelter and clothing. Being able to spread that work out amongst more people because bullshit jobs aren't a thing anymore will also probably help, as will changes in lifestyle that enable people to stay healthy longer.

We really don't need a new H&M collection every two weeks, or a new sport jersey every two seconds, or to keep making more and more cars/washing machines/TVs... most manufactured goods (including clothing) can last a while, especially in a world where planned obselence is no longer the norm. If population stabilizes, need for construction drops as well. Food/agriculture is already very automated, I'm sure we can continue to find 3% of the population to keep us fed.

I believe most of the work currently done on earth contributes very little to human happiness, and I hope/want to believe that as our ability to do work diminishes with an aging population, the useless stuff will be the first to go.

silly example, but with GPT-3/ChatGPT, we can now fire all the influencers and have them go toil as construction workers :P

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#232

Post by dougmwne »

thweoruio34234 wrote: post #64
gaterin wrote: post #22

Does the change over from home manufactured children to imported mirror the offshoring of North American industry? This could be an inevitable outcome of optimizing for labor costs.

You kid but in reality our children are nothing more than mere genetic copies. Memetically they are assets of the state and the media, academic and pop-culture class. No one really cares about the genetic part (it's generic) today; furthermore, there's no culture or tradition to pass on, so you're essentially paying a great amount to run the debt-economy. I'm sure people have caught onto this, esp. with the breakdown…

I think this is a strange perspective, but it also kind of hits it perfectly.

Western society has been breaking down the autonomy and independence of the family. More and more policies are aimed at treating parents as temporary caregivers of a state asset. Public education is probably the biggest one of all time, but there are a lot of little policies as well. If you let little Timmy roam free the state could very well decide to swoop in and assign new caregivers. Genetics are de-emphasized in this whole system to be made irrelevant.

People are fighting back against this state interference with things like “free range parenting” and homeschooling.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#233

Post by tokai »

vincnetas wrote: post #95
ehutch79 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Did you hear from marathon runners how difficult it was? Same here, it's difficult but it brings experiences you could not have otherwise, and on pragmatic side passes on your genes ;)

Why yes marathon runners love to tell you how hard it was.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#234

Post by achenet »

speeder wrote: post #99

I recently decided to have kids. Got my wife pregnant, concluded I needed a raise, so I started to work really hard, go above and beyond, 5 months in a row of crunching overtime, got promised a raise during this. Then just as my kid is about to be born, I get fired. Still happy my wife is pregnant, but now I know why so many people give advice of the sort "do just the minimum necessary and never treat the company as…

you're never going to get rich working for someone else, start a business if you want to increase your income. The whole point of the day job is just to pay the bills while you build your business which will make you rich.

Sorry you had to learn that lesson the hard way, hope your financial situation improves soon. :)

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#235

Post by jackmott42 »

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.

Complete disagreement. Toddlers were completely uninteresting to me, nothing but hassle and pain and sorrow. Around 6 years old they get much more interesting and less awful to deal with.

My wife feels the same way.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#236

Post by steele »

It's not for everyone, and not everyone can (physically, financially, etc), and few that do will consistently feel 'successful' at parenting. No fidelity of a priori information will determine if it's for you. It's a leap. People shouldn't pressure others into or away from it. Governments worried about population growth should invest in social programs to aid early childcare and education; and generally improve social/medical safety nets for everyone. Under no circumstances disrupt the adoption apparatus, controls, standards therein - provide appropriate additional support around transracial adoption. The only certainty is that having a(nother) kid definitely won't repair a strained relationship.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#237

Post by rendall »

notch656a wrote: post #208
rendall wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No disagreement there, although I think perhaps society should stop treating children as crops to be harvested for the commons. A tragedy of the commons has been created as society claims social security tax from grown children to pay to the elderly, so the economic incentive is to be a free-rider and live off other people's children while having none of your own.

> so the economic incentive is to be a free-rider...

I'm reminded of societies in which families have more children than they want because there is no social safety net. Children are the safety net. Talk about harvesting human beings. Children suffer immense pressure and even abuse in such places.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#238

Post by shijie »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #156
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…

If someone could guarantee that I'll have healthy children, physically, mentally and emotionally, then sure I'll put up with reduced sleep and baby vomit. Oh and that I'll have a partner who will stay healthy (and loyal) for the 15 ~ 25 years it takes to turn a child into a self-sustaining responsible adult. But as it stands that's a game of Russian Roulette that I'm not willing to play.

As someone going through a horrible divorce, replete with custody fights and the whole nine yards, I’d still say that you’re thinking about this wrong.

I am the father of a three-year-old girl. I would go through my marriage a thousand times, complete with abuse and emotional trauma, if it meant I could get my daughter in the end.

I’ve found that happiness has never been found by endeavoring to avoid any and all potential suffering. I cannot control how my wife behaves. I can only control my reaction.

Find a partner that is emotionally resilient, calm under pressure, and has a desire to continually better themselves, then go for it. It may still end in divorce, but I promise you it will be worth it.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#239

Post by ytch »

speeder wrote: post #99

I recently decided to have kids. Got my wife pregnant, concluded I needed a raise, so I started to work really hard, go above and beyond, 5 months in a row of crunching overtime, got promised a raise during this. Then just as my kid is about to be born, I get fired. Still happy my wife is pregnant, but now I know why so many people give advice of the sort "do just the minimum necessary and never treat the company as…

Capitalist: "without enough babies, economy will collapsed"

Employer: "Employees spend too much time on raising child, my business will fail"

Didn't they see who cause the problem?

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#240

Post by bena »

pooper wrote: post #165
Nursie wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have friends who haven’t had a good night’s sleep in years because of one of their kids being unable to settle into normal patterns. I’m sure they’d still say it was worth it. Mind you they are getting divorced now so who knows. I think it’s fair to say YMMV on the sleep front.

I see it the same way as people who have iPhones or luxury German cars. People who have iPhones or luxury German cars are more likely than not to rate themselves as satisfied with their purchase. It is as simple as wanting to feel good and usually it feels good to believe I am correct. Therefore, I suspect this is correct for both breeders and the child free that we will try to justify our own decisions, not for anyo…

Having children is one of the big things that we cannot reasonably speculate our reaction to.

Life is so fundamentally different before and after you have children you must care for. There is no amount of theorizing or philosophizing that will prepare you for the reality of the thing. You absolutely cannot trust the opinion of anyone who does not have children. They simply do not have the necessary experience.

People with children however, have had life without children and life with children. So at least they have a basis of comparison. However, every experience is different. Being a single teen mom is a different situation than even being a teen mom with a supportive family. And different again than a "typical" mid-20s couple having a child.

And everyone reacts differently. I can only say how experiences affected me. Bob can only say how experiences affected him. So you really can't base your decision on other people's experiences either. Not because of "greater fools" but because of self-selection bias. Most people who you will talk to about being parents enjoy parenthood and love their children.

So while you don't know whether or not you'd be a good parent or if you'd like your children until you actually have children, it's still a decent reason to avoid having them. Not wanting to confront the question is a valid reason to avoid the question.

Post reply on HN