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No one wants to have kids anymore

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Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#271

Post by coffeebeqn »

dustedcodes wrote: post #219
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…

> The low-sleep phase is temporary. It’s such a short duration relative to the rest of your life as a parent that it really doesn’t matter much in the long run. Yeah.. I am a new dad to a 21 week old baby girl (our first) and I would say that the sleep deprivation stopped after about 8 weeks. The last few weeks have been absolutely amazing. I play with my daughter every day, I cuddle her, her giggles warm my heart an…

Sorry to say but 8 weeks is way too early to celebrate. They tend to reset their sleep as they gain major milestones and sometimes can completely flip their sleeping habits once they have one of their huge eureka moments about the world.. or just start teething

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#272

Post by leesalminen »

overthemoon wrote: post #203
lotsofpulp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chasing your toddler for an hour is fun. Chasing your toddler day after day, hour after hour because you have no one else to help you might not be so fun. There is distinct difference in the fun of raising children in a village where there are tons of other kids with low risk of cars so they can play outside freely, and raising children 24/7 because they cannot be left without supervision and there are few other kids…

The bit of advice I got from another parent before I had kids was golden: parents need time off the clock. Sometimes you need to hear your kid screeching about something and know it's someone else's problem. We don't have family around, so we give each other breaks on the weekend, usually one day where my spouse and I give each other half-day breaks. Idk what it's going to be like when he's older, but for now it work…

Same here. My wife likes to sleep in, I like to wake up early.

Our typical Saturday involves me and my son spending 7A-nap time together outside the house while my wife sleeps in, lounges around and does her hobbies.

When we get home, she’s totally refreshed.

Another thing we do sometimes is drop him at daycare and we take an afternoon off to do something together.

Works great for us. We don’t have any family within 3000 miles of us, so solutions were needed.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#273

Post by mftrhu »

the_only_law wrote: post #169
mftrhu wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Patronising is thinking you know you don’t want kids without having them. You don’t. You have no idea what it’s like. ... what?

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 imagination and figure out whether the person they are - whose values and goals they hopefully know - could possibly enjoy whatever is being discussed.

I still have no idea how someone saying "I won't pursue that because that's not what I want for myself" could possibly be "patronizing", even assuming it could be false.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#274

Post by inetknght »

nicodjimenez wrote: post #90
inetknght wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only solution is to ban condoms. Will solve so many problems. It might solve the "problem" that the article discusses. But it will create many many more worse problems.

Worse problems than a dying population? I don’t think so. If the population keeps getting older and smaller by definition it is dying. And not dying is the first imperative of life.

> Worse problems than a dying population? I don’t think so.

What worth is it to have a population who don't feel they're valued?

Forcing others to have children just because you're concerned about population ignores the truly human element. You should instead focus on wanting to help people be happy and feel secure in their economy and self such that they want to have children. Abolishing contraceptives is not the right way to do that. It is utterly disrespectful to the people.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#275

Post by D13Fd »

jasonlotito wrote: post #139
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…

This is like one of those “things parents think about having children that are wrong” articles. It makes a lot of assumptions about all parents having the same experience. It’s not. A lot of this assumes kids without any health issues. “The low-sleep phase is temporary.” Nope. “Same goes for changing diapers” Nope. There are lots of good things when it comes to children, and I love mine, but if you aren’t mentally pr…

> “The low-sleep phase is temporary.” Nope. “Same goes for changing diapers” Nope.

Huh? Does your child have an issue where they never grow out of diapers?

For the vast majority of people, the diaper phase is temporary.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#277

Post by coffeebeqn »

ajuc wrote: post #92
somehnacct3757 wrote: post #33

Kid-having emerges. This (western biased) article is blaming the victim. An entire generation bled dry by student loans for useless degrees, unable to buy homes that their elders view as retirement funds. A thousand and one more entertaining things to do online which don't risk creating 18-year bundles of debt. And absolutely no idea how to break the cycle for your offspring. Pick one thing to fix and spend your life…

USA is just 300 millions people. "West" depending on your definitions is about 1.5 billion people. Most of the west has cheap/free university education and good welfare. They still have problems with demography, because it's not economy that discourages people from having kids. Universally - the wealthier the society becomes - the less kids it has.

China is a great example too. After they lifted the one child policy there was no change at all. Having lots of kids was a net positive for the family’s finances in an agricultural society but in a modern service oriented society it’s a huge resource drain. Even in countries with free childcare and other policies, you’ll still have to somehow afford a 3-4 bedroom near a big city where your well paying job is and so on.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#278

Post by achenet »

kypro wrote: post #211

It's funny because in my family everyone has kids. The reason being it's the only way to move out of your parents home because we don't have rich parents and no one's buying a home and affording a kid with a working class job. > Babies are a huge opportunity cost. Financially speaking, they are like winning the lottery but backwards. I can only assume OP is talking about people who work here? Here in the UK if you do…

have you considered moving to another country? If the issue is bad housing market and government policies, you'll be happy to hear that there are probably better options elsewhere. The benefits that pay for that free housing comes from your taxes, if the system seems unfair, there is no reason for you to participate, emigrate to Canada/Australia, or even somewhere more exotic if you're feeling brave.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#279

Post by RHSeeger »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #68
toomuchtodo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs $310k to pay for a kid from 0-18 per Brookings. The math is straightforward to work backwards to the income you need to afford that along with your basic needs and retirement savings, and most people don’t have the means. Median US lifetime earnings are $1.7 million. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3608647-new-estimate-proj...

Not to mention that this represents a very median case, whereas a lot of parents want to pay for higher status schools and real estate to get access to higher status education, it's a never-ending keeping-up-with-the-joneses pi*-ing contest. To raise kids around my peers, a child could easily cost $500k+.

The counter to that is that there's a lot of room _under_ that median case, too. Not everyone needs to be at or above the average. Not everyone _can_ be at or above the average.

Re: No one wants to have kids anymore

#280

Post by dagw »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #271
dustedcodes wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The low-sleep phase is temporary. It’s such a short duration relative to the rest of your life as a parent that it really doesn’t matter much in the long run. Yeah.. I am a new dad to a 21 week old baby girl (our first) and I would say that the sleep deprivation stopped after about 8 weeks. The last few weeks have been absolutely amazing. I play with my daughter every day, I cuddle her, her giggles warm my heart an…

Sorry to say but 8 weeks is way too early to celebrate. They tend to reset their sleep as they gain major milestones and sometimes can completely flip their sleeping habits once they have one of their huge eureka moments about the world.. or just start teething

My daughter slept fine for like 5 years straight, and then started waking up around 2-3 am almost every single night for the next 18 month. That was fun.
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