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The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

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Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#151

Post by AnimalMuppet »

wkat4242 wrote: post #126
lm28469 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're up to date with current population trends, it's about to peak in the next decades

But that's good! Let it peak, drop a bit, and stabilise around 2 billion or so. That would be perfect for long-term sustainability. We've seen the same here in Europe. My parents' generation usually had large families, my generation had mostly 1-2 kids, and these days many families have no kids. Of course poorer countries and countries that are still very religious are a bit behind but they will catch up too. Humanit…

Honest questions: Can we maintain our current tech level with 2 billion people?

And if we can't, is that fair to future generations? Aren't we condemning them to a more miserable life? (On the other hand, if 8 billion people leads to destroying the environment, that also leaves them more miserable...)

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#152

Post by supersrdjan »

wkat4242 wrote: post #118
supersrdjan wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I overstated the implication. More people deciding not to have children does not lead to extinction. It's just that when people say things like "not having kids is good for environment" it comes off as a moral prescription that ought to apply to everyone, and hence those who violate it are the bad guys (selfishly acting to harm the environment). And yet if sustainability -- rather than self-extinction -- is th…

I didn't mean any moral objection, just to explain why I feel extra good about my decision not to have any kids. In fact I really hate moral judgments of people's personal lives, like is being done to the LGBT community in the US at the moment.

I see. Well then, my initial gut reaction was unwarranted, thanks for making me realize it.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#153

Post by hotpotamus »

rolisz wrote: post #7
wkat4242 wrote: post #3

I can imagine. For me it's the reason also to not want kids. I want to enjoy my life. But it's good for environmental reasons to not have kids anyway.

I enjoy life a lot more with kids. As Paul Graham put it in one of his essays, kids are joy on tap.

This is why it's strange to me that having children is portrayed as some selfless act; many say they are creating them for their personal fulfillment.

Nevertheless, I'm sure if I had PG's wealth, I could have kids and have a lot better work life balance with them. But I do not.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#154

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

bluescrn wrote: post #45
Affric wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is what any of us make it. The antinatalist position is fundamentally fatalistic. It’s a total negation of the one redeeming feature of the universe: anything could happen. I respect not having kids. The idea that you’re inherently better off not having kids is nonsense.

> The idea that you’re inherently better off not having kids is nonsense. We're in a world where we constantly told that we have to give up meat/dairy, powered transport, heating/cooling, and a whole lot more to avert climate catastrophe. I'm surprised there's so few mentions of the incredible destructiveness of having kids (e.g. vs. owning an ICE car or taking a few flights per year)

No no, having kids does not add to your environmental impact.

If it did, then I personally have no environmental impact; it's already all on my parents ;)

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#155

Post by drewcoo »

ghusto wrote: post #147
XorNot wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird how a whole bunch of parents jump into threads like these to tell us all about how totally awesome having kids is. I love my son, but it's also easily one of the hardest things I've ever done and will continue to be so for the next 18+ years. I wouldn't recommend having children to anyone: it's a singularity, and there's also no undoing it. You need to be very sure it's what you want. It will be expensive,…

Agreed, but with a different conclusion to you. Since you have children, I think you'd agree with me that it's changed you in a way that you can't explain to someone who doesn't have any? Wouldn't you rather everyone underwent that change?

I could just as easily say that choosing not to have children has changed me in a way that I can't explain to people who never experienced that.

The broadest group of my cohort decided to have children. It was the easiest path to begin - most folks are straight and have sex drives and that will often result in babies. Those few of us seniors who decided not to have had a weird expectations foisted on us from some and strange condemnation from others - social pressures I could claim parents will never understand.

So please stop this one-side-or-the-other nonsense. And the "mystical experience of being 'me'." We all make choices. We're all similar. We are each unique.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#156

Post by hotpotamus »

xyzzy4747 wrote: post #108
supersrdjan wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the rest of this thread, it seems that the anti-anti-natalists (to which I gravitate more closely) are misrepresenting the anti-natalists' view and that they don't actually expect everyone to be anti-natalist?

Perhaps but even then they’re not exactly being role models or exemplary people.

Wouldn't it be good that they're not planning on having children to whom they'd model that behavior to?

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#157

Post by Balgair »

wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #123
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are people with kids living in the jungle on tubers and pigs. Famously easy to switch to this when you live in an HMO in Statesville, State USA or a housing development in Suburbiton, Townshire UK.

They said they spend 10k a month for their kids. I lived in the bay area before. My rent was like 2.5k. 10k outflow a month is fucking insane. Its absolutely indefensibly out of touch spoiled beyond imagination. You could hire a chef and a maid to cook your kids organic bullshit every day, fly around the entire world once a month and still come under 10k. Whatever they are doing to spend that much needs to be reconsi…

Honestly, 10k/mo for four kids is on the cheaper side for the Bay.

Just in daycare alone, they should be at ~8k/mo for four (~$500/wk/kid, daycares can't do bulk discounts). I have friends in TN that are at ~1k/wk. per kid with a ~2.5 year waiting lists. Daycare isn't well tied local cost of living in the US.

Also, rent for one person isn't rent for a family of six, it should be a bit higher for the extra space. And $2.5k per month is, nationally speaking, really high for one person! Wow. I had no idea it was that bad in the Bay these days.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#158

Post by lamontcg »

furyg3 wrote: post #82

View from a US-expat in the Netherlands: It doesn't have to be as bad as it is. Subsidize daycare, fund schools (from pre-school to university) and focus on learning at-school and not at-home, and pass laws forcing employers to allow parents to reduce their working hours, should they wish to. You can rebuild your cities to be bike able, change gender norms, or change work culture, but honestly the most change will co…

Universal health care, daycare and public college, along with jettisoning all this RTO bullshit into the sun would do a lot to increase incentives for people to have families in this country (US). Given our start-your-worklife-massively-in-debt, 80-hour-workweek, slave-at-the-office-till-you-die mentality, don't be surprised if more and more people don't have kids.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#159

Post by wegfawefgawefg »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #141
wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said they spend 10k a month for their kids. I lived in the bay area before. My rent was like 2.5k. 10k outflow a month is fucking insane. Its absolutely indefensibly out of touch spoiled beyond imagination. You could hire a chef and a maid to cook your kids organic bullshit every day, fly around the entire world once a month and still come under 10k. Whatever they are doing to spend that much needs to be reconsi…

I am sure it's quite a high figure (I don't know how high; I suspect not as outrageously high as it might seem). But your reply was not any more of a practical solution. I was trying to centre it on a more realistic observation that money outgoings are connected to much less easily fixable lifestyle circumstances.

its absolutely fixable. the issue is ideology and habit, expectation. rigid. difficult to change.

look how much disagreement im getting for even suggesting someone should be spending less than 10k a month on 4 kids. These are resistant responses from people who dont even exhibit the behaviour.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#160

Post by wegfawefgawefg »

Balgair wrote: post #157
wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said they spend 10k a month for their kids. I lived in the bay area before. My rent was like 2.5k. 10k outflow a month is fucking insane. Its absolutely indefensibly out of touch spoiled beyond imagination. You could hire a chef and a maid to cook your kids organic bullshit every day, fly around the entire world once a month and still come under 10k. Whatever they are doing to spend that much needs to be reconsi…

Honestly, 10k/mo for four kids is on the cheaper side for the Bay. Just in daycare alone, they should be at ~8k/mo for four (~$500/wk/kid, daycares can't do bulk discounts). I have friends in TN that are at ~1k/wk. per kid with a ~2.5 year waiting lists. Daycare isn't well tied local cost of living in the US. Also, rent for one person isn't rent for a family of six, it should be a bit higher for the extra space. And…

10k is not on the cheap side.

lentils and potatos, my friend. lentils and potatos.

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