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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

#171

Post by spacemadness »

XorNot wrote: post #44
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.

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,…

It’s totally awesome and/or I am the gatekeeper for what’s actually hard enough to warrant not having children. Meanwhile ignoring the article and the numbers showing a different reality than their own. This is what every one of these topics end up being on this site.

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

#172

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

moaf wrote: post #144
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #28

You could also just work less, or let yourself spend less time and energy on your kids. I get that most people recoil in horror at the latter one. I think they're silly. The fact of the matter is the world is a safer and more prosperous place than ever before. You should be able to invest less into your children than your parents did before you and still have them lead happy lives. If you have a child, and your own l…

> You could also just work less, or let yourself spend less time and energy on your kids. When nearing end of life, many people, especially fathers, say they wish they'd dedicated more time to their children rather than work. While meaningful work can provide purpose, it doesn't compare to the happiness derived from building meaningful relationships with loved ones. Children offer a rare opportunity to enjoy one of t…

There are actually people who think to themselves, "Oh, no. Distant future me might feel bad, because future me brought beings into existence that were so delightful, that DFM felt spending those extra hours chasing dollars instead of spending those extra hours playing with them was a bad move in retrospect. Maybe I should rethink my plans to have them in the first place." As stupid at it sounds when you put it into those terms, stripped of the fancy talk about "human connection" and whatever. As if no connection at all is preferable to a slightly dissatisfactory one.

I don't give a shit what some old man version of me might end up regretting on this front. My kids deserve to be born because life for them is probably going to be great and filled with joy and adventure, with or without me.

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

#173

Post by hotpotamus »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #28

You could also just work less, or let yourself spend less time and energy on your kids. I get that most people recoil in horror at the latter one. I think they're silly. The fact of the matter is the world is a safer and more prosperous place than ever before. You should be able to invest less into your children than your parents did before you and still have them lead happy lives. If you have a child, and your own l…

Perhaps more people are living in piles of misery - it seems that anxiety and depression levels only increase. I see many people try to write this off as some artifact of data/survey or other, and yet, fertility also seems to trend inexorably down. Maybe your beautiful experience of life is more the exception than the rule; certainly that is not how I would describe my life experience.

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

#174

Post by wegfawefgawefg »

holoduke wrote: post #167
wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I assume you don't live in one of the tech/finance hubs anywhere in the world. Because really, 10k a month is nothing really special. no fancy car, no fancy house. Just a lot of fixed costs. And for your information. Our daycare is only 2.5 days a week. I take care of my kids 1.5 weekdays and my wife 1 day. Can you imagine daycare a full 5 days a week? that's 2 times more expensive.

I did live in the bay area for a few years. It is expensive but 10k is too much. The generous explanation is you got rich and just gradually went out of touch.

Now I grew up not that long ago. I am still in my twenties and I did grow up in a major city. But I might be able to provide some perspective.

I grew up without a computer except for old donated beaters. Free. For fun we ran around outside, and hit ant piles with sticks. We ate beans and hotdogs, and old clothes from yard sales. There were injuries. Scrapes and bruises.

There was not a single moment me or my siblings were concerned about wealth or costs or feeling poor. We just had an amazing time playing. Balls, sticks, junk, broken bikes, old hammers, string, nails, grocery bags, old books, half used art supplies. Children do not care about quality. They dont care about nice clothes. They dont care about formal education. They just crave stimulation.

Quality stimulation does not come from money. I dont even know that it can be bought.

When I look back and think about what I would change, I wouldnt add daycare. I wouldnt add nice food or clothes or technology, or tennis teams or memberships. I wish I could have seen my dad everyday. I wish my step dad became better friends with me and showed me coding years before he got cancer and died.

Money is just not what kids need.

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

#175

Post by mcphage »

menschmanfred wrote: post #92
psacawa wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a remarkable inversion. The primary reason people forego children in the west is because it throws a wrench in their comfortable lifestyle. They prefer to live unto themselves, instead of unto children, i.e. selfishly. I believe the environmental/climactic concerns raised by antinatalists are just a feeble deflection. They are primarily interested in personal comfort.

You could have asked my why I think it is selfish. I believe creating new life is playing 'god'. It's easier to never exist than life life. This has nothing to do what you thought

> I believe creating new life is playing 'god'.

That's an unusual definition of "playing god", since it includes something that pretty much every life form back to the earliest single-cellular bacteria does.

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

#176

Post by prmoustache »

lm28469 wrote: post #166
wkat4242 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> That would be perfect for long-term sustainability. I guess if you don't care about your country or continent legacy that could work yes

My country and continent's legacies are the exploitation and misery of people from other continents so I am fine with that.

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

#177

Post by effingwewt »

anotherhue wrote: post #139
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…

Nanny here in NY is $30/h. If you work full time (and commute) you'll need about 10 hours a day. 30x10x5x4 is 6000, then add food (formula is insanely expensive), diapers, clothes, basic medical and you're easily up to 7k/m before they've taken their first steps.

Nanny!=daycare.

There are many families in the US, in NY, that make less than 10k/year.

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

#178

Post by anotherhue »

effingwewt wrote: post #177
anotherhue wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nanny here in NY is $30/h. If you work full time (and commute) you'll need about 10 hours a day. 30x10x5x4 is 6000, then add food (formula is insanely expensive), diapers, clothes, basic medical and you're easily up to 7k/m before they've taken their first steps.

Nanny!=daycare. There are many families in the US, in NY, that make less than 10k/year.

I don't quite know what point you're making.

There is some state coverage but the income limits are low (50-70 for 1-2 kids)

https://ocfs.ny.gov/programs/childcare/ccap/help.php#CCAP-in...

Daycare outside of that is incredibly pricey, and if you're as 'blessed' as we were with a multiples pregnancy then the nanny quickly becomes cheaper.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/nyregion/child-care-nyc.h...

Which is to say, if you make less than 67 you get sizeable benefit, but if you earn more you are likely net negative (but child positive) until you pass about 100k. That's a scary gap.

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

#179

Post by thefz »

remoquete wrote: post #11

I've three kids. It's wonderful, it's exhausting, and it's often terrifying. Being a parent is a painful experience, but so is living life. Would my life be easier and less painful without them? Yes. Would my life be better without them? No, just different. I respect antinatalists, but I chose differently. I chose to bring laughter and joy to this absurd, meaningless Universe we habit, even if for a brief lapse. Is i…

> I respect antinatalists, but I chose differently. I chose to bring laughter and joy to this absurd, meaningless Universe we habit, even if for a brief lapse.

That's a false dichotomy, people without kids can bring joy and laughter to "this absurd, meaningless Universe we habit". You don't have to justify yourself for what you have chosen.

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

#180

Post by kristianp »

It's an interesting demographic problem: how do you encourage people to have enough children that the working-age population doesn't decline so quickly that we can't support our retired people and also have a wider effect on the economy? In the long run it's something that we'll have to deal with. China is starting to experience it.

I think that the populations of developed countries will start to decline, and a gradual decline is acceptable. We can't rely on immigration forever, presumably less rich countries will start to have less children too as they modernize.

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