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No one wants to have kids anymore

torturechambersmalltalk.substack.com

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Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#291

Post by DonHopkins »

rapsey wrote: post #228
DonHopkins wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I as a parent would call it empty and sad. That's pretty judgemental of you. If your own children decide not to reproduce themselves, will you judge their own lives as empty and sad too, consider your own children hollow failures for not giving you grandchildren, and express your disappointment to them that they have failed to live up to your own expectations as a parent? Or will you love and support them for making…

Funny how you can freely call parents shells of their former selves or slaves to their children or whatever you find online. But soon as you express your opinion on people who chose not to have children you are suddenly a judgemental asshole.

Oh, I doubt it was sudden.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#292

Post by wil421 »

skinnymuch wrote: post #185
wil421 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only care about yourself go for it. I guess it’s somewhat sobering realizing you’re gonna be alone and your genetic material will be a dead end. I have 3 kids 3 and under and probably got 4 hours of sleep last night. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. My kids are not treated like a drain on my potential investments. Sure I can’t do my hobbies all the time but I can take my kids fishing and kayaking. The trips ar…

> If you only care about yourself go for it. I guess it’s somewhat sobering realizing you’re gonna be alone and your genetic material will be a dead end. I don’t think your post makes you look like you’re the one who cares about others unlike who you’re responding to.

Not really OP doesn’t want to give up any of his investments or real estate because kids would be a drain on their finances and time.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#293

Post by the_only_law »

mftrhu wrote: post #273
the_only_law wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s “make up random definitions for words I don’t know” day apparently.

I'm just confused. I mean, I suppose one could argue that - "you cannot whether you will like something unless and until you try it" - if one was in the mood for a stupid argument : people can and do have opinions on, say, not losing their limbs without having someone chop them off. They can listen to third parties which had the same experience, have experiences which are similar but less intense, or just use their i…

More than likely they associated themselves with and then took offense of the “patronizing” group mentioned by the first comment and needed to reach for a contrived “gotcha” to insult them back.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#294

Post by sanderjd »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #166
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, it states the per child cost for a family with 2 children: > A recent estimate conducted by the Brookings Institution projected the cost of raising a child for a middle-income, two-parent married family with two kids to be north of $310,000. >The estimate assumes the youngest child would be born in 2015 and covers raising the child through the age of 17. It does not include the cost of sending the child to colleg…

This seems implausibly high excluding college and daycare costs, and maybe implausibly low including them.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#295

Post by pxue »

cykros wrote: post #225
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Surely you have a cut off on the lower bound below which you don't offer this advice. 21? 18? 16? 13? Yes, it's possible to put it off long enough thinking you'll find that perfect time, and either it getting to be too late, or perhaps running into the reality that with age comes higher likelihood of birth defects, in many cases. But the flat advice to just do it seems like it's missing a bit of at least a basic foun…

On your last paragraph that's how human raised kids for the first 10k+ years. In small groups of multigenerational settings.

Only in the last 100 (maybe even less, say 60) or so years we've started to say fk that, when I retire I want to be on a beach and not taking care of my grandkids.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#296

Post by RHSeeger »

rapsey wrote: post #228
DonHopkins wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I as a parent would call it empty and sad. That's pretty judgemental of you. If your own children decide not to reproduce themselves, will you judge their own lives as empty and sad too, consider your own children hollow failures for not giving you grandchildren, and express your disappointment to them that they have failed to live up to your own expectations as a parent? Or will you love and support them for making…

Funny how you can freely call parents shells of their former selves or slaves to their children or whatever you find online. But soon as you express your opinion on people who chose not to have children you are suddenly a judgemental asshole.

They said that many of their coworkers that had children seem like shells of their former selves. Not all of them, and not by definition.

You are saying that anyone that doesn't have children automatically empty and sad.

- One of the statements is "in the people I've seen do x, an outcome of y seems common".

- The other is "in any person that does x, y is true"

Those are not the same thing.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#297

Post by badwolf »

jackmott42 wrote: post #229
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…

In my experience real parents all lie about what having kids is like. You can see they are clearly worn out and depressed and in a fog but if you ask "OH KIDS ARE GREAT! REGRET NOTHING!" Later I had kids and that did not change my opinion!

It often sounds kind of stockholm syndrom-ey

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#298

Post by martindbp »

trey-jones wrote: post #247

What a confusing read. I largely can't discern the sarcasm from impassioned outrage. Nor am I certain that "any decrease in population is catastrophic" is the message that I was meant to receive, but that is what I got out of it. I've heard this argument before and I have never been able to piece together the logic. My best guess is that it's mainly a difference in perspective, and somebody's catastrophic is to me si…

> Just because Earth's population flatlines at 10m, doesn't mean humanity is heading straight for extinction

By the time the population flatlines (at 10B) it will be with a pretty old population already. Many countries have a birth rate And the problem is, none of the mechanisms that are causing birthrates to plummet are showing any signs of slowing down or reversing. The countries with higher birthrates right now are just further back on the curve, they'll be where we are soon enough. It might be that the reasons for decreasing birthrates are things we're not willing to give up, like improved quality of life of singles, increased education and equality between the sexes. We'll see if natural selection will act quickly enough to produce people with a stronger instinct for having kids, but then the question is why hasn't this already happened, as birth rates have been declining for the past century while living standards have increased immensely. As the number of people choosing to have zero kids rather than just fewer increase, perhaps this will put the pressure on in a way it hasn't yet.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#299

Post by RHSeeger »

achenet wrote: post #234
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. :)

> The whole point of the day job is just to pay the bills while you build your business which will make you rich.

Not for me it's not. I have a day job because it's a relatively low risk, stable way to acquire the money I need. I don't need to be rich. I need a way to pay the bills and buy the things I want to enjoy my life.

And yes, I know that every job has risks, and the only way you can't be fired is if you own the company. But, while the upsides of your own company are bigger, so too are the downsides. When I start a new job, my savings stay where they are. If I start a new company, odds are I'm investing/risking my savings. I'm not interested in doing that while I have a family I'm responsible for.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#300

Post by unsupp0rted »

rendall wrote: post #212
unsupp0rted wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Oh and that I'll have a partner who will stay healthy (and loyal)... The LVB (lowest viable bar) is "will I be able to have a civil conversation with this person about our child whenever needed, for at least 20 years?" People get so bitterly disappointed when "unconditional love" doesn't happen, they can't even meet the LVB. Keep LVB front and center when evaluating a potential mate. If the answer is "yes, no matte…

> If the answer is "yes, no matter what happens, we can always be civil about the children

I agree with you, although that's necessary but not sufficient.

Having children isn't so wonderful that I'd put up for decades with a miserable relationship with my partner in the endeavor.

With children in the mix, especially unhealthy children who require special support, you can't just say "looks like we've grown apart and can't communicate well anymore about even the basics, so cya".

It's a lifelong commitment to a cofounder, no matter what.

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