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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

#51

Post by dtech »

roenxi wrote: post #16

Well, lets look at the data over at OurWorldIndata: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tab... Looks like the last time there was a big change was 1960, I assume that was the development of good birth control techniques. I'd theorise that families never really wanted children, and once given the means to make effective choices we discover that humans don't think it is that rational to have kids.…

The downward trend is generally attributed in a large part due to children changing from being an economic boon - free labor on farms - to an economic burder like they are today with childcare etc.

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

#53

Post by saagarjha »

Uinchuling wrote: post #39
saagarjha wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't how discourse works and you know it. It is eminently acceptable to censure people who put forward racist and eugenicist views even if done so politely.

[flagged]

Yeah, now you're both racist and impolite.

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

#54

Post by lm28469 »

holoduke wrote: post #8

I have 4 kids. Running my own business helps because of the flexibility. But the costs of living is something i did not expected to be so high. 3k per month for daycare/afterschool. Memberships, food, clothing, electronics etc. expensive housing, insurances. We easily spend 8,10k per month without saving anything. Nevertheless I love to have kids. Best investment ever.

We traded one parent working and multi generational housing for this (which had other issues of course). Instead of having someone staying at home and raising their kid(s) now you have to work to pay someone else to raise your kid(s), and very often that entire new pay check gets siphoned. If your couple is composed of two min wage worker you can't eve match the previous system in any way (quality of life, education, stimulation, &c.).

Couple that with the fact that most people leave their hometown to work in big cities and you got the perfect mix of time/money and social network issues

That's my mom's job, she takes care of kids, parents drop them as 6am and picks them up at 7pm+. I've talked to these kids, they're miserable, they spend twice as much time with my parents than with theirs, and theirs are so exhausted after work they don't even take care of them once they pick them up (micro waved food and netflix on the daily)

(I'm not saying that applies to you, your comment just made me think about that)

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

#56

Post by bilegeek »

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…

>let yourself spend less time and energy on your kids

>The fact of the matter is the world is a safer

>and more prosperous place than ever before.

Sadly, it's often not even a matter of safety from "danger", but safety from the law. Getting CPS called on you[1][2], or getting arrested[3][4] as a parent is not good, even if you are fortunate enough to win.

Then there's the whole angle of disappearing third places, lack of places that can be reasonably visited without driving privileges, nobody's outside because of all of the above so there's nobody to "hang out" or "play" with, desire to funnel kids/teens into more "productive" activities like academics and sports (depending on affluence and interest, this isn't AS bad as the above points), places outright banning[5] young people, etc etc.

[1]https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/09/05/mom...

[2]https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-ran...

[3]https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arreste...

[4]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-mom-accused-of-leaving-ki...

[5]https://www.businessinsider.com/teen-bans-curfews-malls-them...

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

#57

Post by wkat4242 »

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.

I wouldn't feel like that for sure. I just need my own space. I'm not very mature as a person either (despite being close to 50)

But I'm glad we don't have this kind of social pressure to have kids anymore. Like there was in the 50s and some countries still do.

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

#58

Post by [deleted] »

lm28469 wrote: post #32
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 think you get it backward, lot of people would like to have kids, the problem isn't life with kids, it's life with modern jobs and everything that come with them

[deleted]

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

#59

Post by askonomm »

I don't have nor want/have any desire for kids, yet all the people with kids keep telling me I should, and not having them is selfish (...how? Isn't it the other way around?), and multitude of other reasons why I should definitely have them and that if I don't then I'm somehow a horrible person.

What I don't get is why people keep forcing their lifestyle onto those with a different lifestyle? Do they see me having all this free time and get jealous and want me to spend the best years of my life also stressing out and raising kids or why is that?

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

#60

Post by neoberg »

menschmanfred wrote: post #34
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 a selfish thing to do. Nonetheless nothing I condemn. At the end of the day it's harder not to have kids and stop this cycle than not, thanks to evolution.

Not having kids is selfish. Most of the worlds social systems depend on new generations of workers. I'm not only talking about paying taxes and contributions etc. But if not enough people have kids, there won't be enough doctors, engineers or cleaners when the same people get older.
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