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

Wow, just WOW. The Dystopia has gone too far away in 2024... Stop the train please, i'm jumping out of it.

I have two kids. It's tough. But this kind of "opinion" column on a large network is just despicable.

Kids is the hardest thing to come to life, I call it "life on hard mode". And I've moved across the world. But the gains are immense.

You can bend yourself backward your entire career trying to achieve something that is taken away in a whiff. Your children is a richer investment. When you leave this earth, you're leaving something tangible.

Living a full life is about experiencing life fully. Raising children is a huge part of this. Going to a restaurant twice a week with your partner, when you're 40+ and no kids, will get very repetitive and boring.

People on HN are typically pretty well off. Low social economic couples tend to have 3, 4, 5+ kids. Certain countries with extremely low standards of living have many kids as well.

Look at yourself and be clear about this: we're thinning.

Society needs fixing, not having less kids. Smart people need to have kids too.

If being "smart" is not having kids, we've failed at the game of life!

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.

I was agreeing with you until you wrote:

> we're decreasing, the typical white middle-class couple is facing extinction. [...] I don't mean this with a grain of racism

Please don't do this. "We" on HN and in the west and in world in general is incredibly diverse. Your comment disrespects this human diversity. Please take some time to think about that.