6 ms·

It's not fair to blame people for "choosing" to have children because, in the aggregate, the majority of people need to have children in order for society to su

It's not fair to blame people for "choosing" to have children because, in the aggregate, the majority of people need to have children in order for society to survive. So it's not really a choice if a majority of people have to do it or everything goes to shit; it's more like volunteering to take on a necessary burden (that admittedly has its rewards too). A better outcome here would've been if she hadn't needed to give up her job to have kids, like if there had been universal childcare and her work was more accommodating of mothers. > $22000/yr is a lot for someone only making $75000. If you think $53k is rough for one person to survive on, wait till you see how hard it is for two people to survive on $22k!

bradlys 6y ago
> It's not fair to blame people for "choosing" to have children because, in the aggregate, the majority of people need to have children in order for society to survive. So it's not really a choice if a majority of people have to do it or everything goes to shit. You don't need childcare for /20/ years. If you're a stay at home parent for 20 years, that is most definitely a choice. > If you think $53k is rough for one person to survive on, wait till you see how hard it is for two people to survive on $22k! I don't know why you think two people are surviving on $22k? It's one person and they can still get a job and keep the income. The $75k becomes $54,000 after tax. Which then becomes $32,000. So, bye bye 40% of your net income. In many cases - having a spouse living with you doesn't require spending 40% of your net income every month.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  You don't need childcare for /20/ years. That very much depends on circumstances. If you have two children born one right after another, probably not. If, however, your spacing is more spread, say, you have two children first, and then another child 8 years later, you'll easily need childcare for 15 consecutive years. My youngest sister is 11 years younger than me, and I'm not even the oldest of my siblings.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    > That very much depends on circumstances. If you have two children born one right after another, probably not. If, however, your spacing is more spread, say, you have two children first, and then another child 8 years later, you'll easily need childcare for 15 consecutive years. My youngest sister is 11 years younger than me, and I'm not even the oldest of my siblings. Are you going to argue that in a society that has relatively wide spread access to contraception that when you have children 11 years apart - it's not a choice? Come on. It's a choice to have kids 10 years apart, it's a choice as to how many, and how far apart you have children (assuming no biological limitations). Thus, you don't need childcare for 20 years if you have your 2-3 kids over a span of 4-5 years.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  You're completely ignoring that it's just as equally the man's choice to bring the children into the world, and therefore he needs to support them. It's exactly the same situation as if the dad were the stay-at-home parent raising the kids who was then divorced by the wife; both parents must support the children, regardless of the ongoing status of their marriage and regardless of their gender. Also, I don't think you can blame income tax on the woman. The guy's salary is gonna get taxed regardless. So we need to either use pre-tax or post-tax salaries throughout all figures, not mix them and then blame the entire net difference, including tax, on the child support.
  - epicureanideal 6y ago
    I think he was trying to do exactly what you're saying, normalize to net income. When we say "22k of 75k" it sounds like 1/3, but the 22k is net and the 75k is pre-tax. Once we normalize the 75k, we realize that 22k is almost half the person's net income.
- satyrnein 6y ago
  I think they two people were referring to the mother and child. Some of these examples are a little confusing without the details of how much is child support vs spousal maintenance, who has custody and is providing the care, etc. I was shocked to learn that spousal maintenance was a thing with no kids in the picture. However, when there are kids involved, I feel like child support is probably not enough!
shock 6y ago
> It's not fair to blame people for "choosing" to have children because, in the aggregate, the majority of people need to have children in order for society to survive. I don't think the quotes around 'choosing' are valid. Having children is a choice, especially in today's age when contraceptive measures abound, and trying to paint it like it's not really a choice is disingenuous. Next, we're gonna have people argue that getting a loan to buy a house is not in fact a personal choice, because, in the aggregate, the majority of people need to have a place to live in in order for society to survive.
- rayiner 6y ago
  At an individual level, it's a choice. At the societal level, it's not. You need 2.1 kids per person for society to continue existing. That's true more or less however you slice it--even if you take lots of immigrants, those immigrants are going to have to have kids (or you're externalizing the cost of child raising onto other societies). This is a hard scientific limit that you're not going to get around. From the perspective of analyzing society, therefore, treating having children as a choice is unworkable. If your societal design doesn't accommodate 2.1 kids per person, its useless. It's like designing an electric car that can't be recharged. Nobody cares what other characteristics it has.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    I just want to say, thanks for your posts in here. You're making excellent points. I don't even need to respond to this guy's comment personally because you've handled it so well here.
  - shock 6y ago
    > You need 2.1 kids per person for society to continue existing. I don't understand this statement. Is it 2.1 kids per person or per family/couple? Has society collapsed in countries where the average is below the 2.1 figure you are quoting? If you are talking about the extinction of the human race and not societal collapse, then I don't buy for a second the argument that someone choosing whether to have children or not is making the choice based on the "human race extinction" factor. When making choices, most humans could care less for their 2-days-in-the-future-self, nevermind caring for the human race.

bradlys 6y ago

> It's not fair to blame people for "choosing" to have children because, in the aggregate, the majority of people need to have children in order for society to survive. So it's not really a choice if a majority of people have to do it or everything goes to shit. You don't need childcare for /20/ years. If you're a stay at home parent for 20 years, that is most definitely a choice. > If you think $53k is rough for one person to survive on, wait till you see how hard it is for two people to survive on $22k! I don't know why you think two people are surviving on $22k? It's one person and they can still get a job and keep the income. The $75k becomes $54,000 after tax. Which then becomes $32,000. So, bye bye 40% of your net income. In many cases - having a spouse living with you doesn't require spending 40% of your net income every month.

xyzzyz 6y ago
You don't need childcare for /20/ years. That very much depends on circumstances. If you have two children born one right after another, probably not. If, however, your spacing is more spread, say, you have two children first, and then another child 8 years later, you'll easily need childcare for 15 consecutive years. My youngest sister is 11 years younger than me, and I'm not even the oldest of my siblings.
- bradlys 6y ago
  > That very much depends on circumstances. If you have two children born one right after another, probably not. If, however, your spacing is more spread, say, you have two children first, and then another child 8 years later, you'll easily need childcare for 15 consecutive years. My youngest sister is 11 years younger than me, and I'm not even the oldest of my siblings. Are you going to argue that in a society that has relatively wide spread access to contraception that when you have children 11 years apart - it's not a choice? Come on. It's a choice to have kids 10 years apart, it's a choice as to how many, and how far apart you have children (assuming no biological limitations). Thus, you don't need childcare for 20 years if you have your 2-3 kids over a span of 4-5 years.
CydeWeys 6y ago
You're completely ignoring that it's just as equally the man's choice to bring the children into the world, and therefore he needs to support them. It's exactly the same situation as if the dad were the stay-at-home parent raising the kids who was then divorced by the wife; both parents must support the children, regardless of the ongoing status of their marriage and regardless of their gender. Also, I don't think you can blame income tax on the woman. The guy's salary is gonna get taxed regardless. So we need to either use pre-tax or post-tax salaries throughout all figures, not mix them and then blame the entire net difference, including tax, on the child support.
- epicureanideal 6y ago
  I think he was trying to do exactly what you're saying, normalize to net income. When we say "22k of 75k" it sounds like 1/3, but the 22k is net and the 75k is pre-tax. Once we normalize the 75k, we realize that 22k is almost half the person's net income.
satyrnein 6y ago
I think they two people were referring to the mother and child. Some of these examples are a little confusing without the details of how much is child support vs spousal maintenance, who has custody and is providing the care, etc. I was shocked to learn that spousal maintenance was a thing with no kids in the picture. However, when there are kids involved, I feel like child support is probably not enough!

shock 6y ago

> It's not fair to blame people for "choosing" to have children because, in the aggregate, the majority of people need to have children in order for society to survive. I don't think the quotes around 'choosing' are valid. Having children is a choice, especially in today's age when contraceptive measures abound, and trying to paint it like it's not really a choice is disingenuous. Next, we're gonna have people argue that getting a loan to buy a house is not in fact a personal choice, because, in the aggregate, the majority of people need to have a place to live in in order for society to survive.

rayiner 6y ago
At an individual level, it's a choice. At the societal level, it's not. You need 2.1 kids per person for society to continue existing. That's true more or less however you slice it--even if you take lots of immigrants, those immigrants are going to have to have kids (or you're externalizing the cost of child raising onto other societies). This is a hard scientific limit that you're not going to get around. From the perspective of analyzing society, therefore, treating having children as a choice is unworkable. If your societal design doesn't accommodate 2.1 kids per person, its useless. It's like designing an electric car that can't be recharged. Nobody cares what other characteristics it has.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  I just want to say, thanks for your posts in here. You're making excellent points. I don't even need to respond to this guy's comment personally because you've handled it so well here.
- shock 6y ago
  > You need 2.1 kids per person for society to continue existing. I don't understand this statement. Is it 2.1 kids per person or per family/couple? Has society collapsed in countries where the average is below the 2.1 figure you are quoting? If you are talking about the extinction of the human race and not societal collapse, then I don't buy for a second the argument that someone choosing whether to have children or not is making the choice based on the "human race extinction" factor. When making choices, most humans could care less for their 2-days-in-the-future-self, nevermind caring for the human race.