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Because of the housing cost crisis, I'd guess the majority of people currently of child-bearing age will simply miss the chance to have children at all if they

Because of the housing cost crisis, I'd guess the majority of people currently of child-bearing age will simply miss the chance to have children at all if they put it off until they have a nice, stable home with decent healthcare and education. They will not get that until their 40s or later, if ever, by which point the wife will have reached the end of their viable child-bearing years, probably with some panic and grief if they waited. Did your wife and you discuss before marriage whether you would skip having kids entirely if you didn't achieve your financial ambitions in time, or were you able to assume you would?

lotsofpulp 5y ago
Yes, we made it clear to each other that we were both not interested in having kids if we could not provide them with the minimum quality of life/opportunities we wanted for the kids. I am also cognizant that maybe those discussions were all just talk, and biological urges from one or both of us would have won out if push came to shove and we were mid 30s and had not reached our minimum viability stage yet.
- watwut 5y ago
  I think that the point was, your rules are not good population level rules. Also, on population level and looking at history, a lot of marginalized subgroups would cease to exists entirely if they followed those rules. Including formerly marginalized subgroups that do better now.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I am certainly no authority on what rules other people should have. But I also think history would have been very different if women had had the financial independence they do now, plus access to the birth control methods available these days.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    But that's the point. Society has made raising kids extremely expensive. Society needs to fix itself if it wants to continue growing. And it's really not even that hard. We know what the issues are. It's entirely a political problem. (talking mostly about the Anglo world here).
  - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    Keeping the population levels up is so far down in my list of priorities that it will never come up. Is this really a concern of other people?
    - jlokier 5y ago
      I think you've misunderstood the comment you're replying to, as I don't believe that comment is talking about keeping up the population. I think they are talking about what kind of decision making about kids is rational for most people across the majority of the population, as well as what kind of decision making is useful for sustaining the cultures we have. It would be a pretty big deal if most people decided to apply the "wait until we have a nice, stable home with decent healthcare and education" rule for having kids. In much of the developed world, it would be tantamount to deciding that only well-off people shall have kids, and the effect of that on human culture would be profound.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
This exact question is why I am not a married man today. I promised myself that I wouldn't have children if I couldn't give them all the opportunities my parents gave me, she wanted to "just have faith" that we would be a happy family.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

Yes, we made it clear to each other that we were both not interested in having kids if we could not provide them with the minimum quality of life/opportunities we wanted for the kids. I am also cognizant that maybe those discussions were all just talk, and biological urges from one or both of us would have won out if push came to shove and we were mid 30s and had not reached our minimum viability stage yet.

watwut 5y ago
I think that the point was, your rules are not good population level rules. Also, on population level and looking at history, a lot of marginalized subgroups would cease to exists entirely if they followed those rules. Including formerly marginalized subgroups that do better now.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I am certainly no authority on what rules other people should have. But I also think history would have been very different if women had had the financial independence they do now, plus access to the birth control methods available these days.
- xxpor 5y ago
  But that's the point. Society has made raising kids extremely expensive. Society needs to fix itself if it wants to continue growing. And it's really not even that hard. We know what the issues are. It's entirely a political problem. (talking mostly about the Anglo world here).
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  Keeping the population levels up is so far down in my list of priorities that it will never come up. Is this really a concern of other people?
  - jlokier 5y ago
    I think you've misunderstood the comment you're replying to, as I don't believe that comment is talking about keeping up the population. I think they are talking about what kind of decision making about kids is rational for most people across the majority of the population, as well as what kind of decision making is useful for sustaining the cultures we have. It would be a pretty big deal if most people decided to apply the "wait until we have a nice, stable home with decent healthcare and education" rule for having kids. In much of the developed world, it would be tantamount to deciding that only well-off people shall have kids, and the effect of that on human culture would be profound.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago

This exact question is why I am not a married man today. I promised myself that I wouldn't have children if I couldn't give them all the opportunities my parents gave me, she wanted to "just have faith" that we would be a happy family.